How To Have A Rich Life

How To Have A Rich Life (c)2015 Joan M. Newcomb

I'm in Madrid, visiting my son.  Spain is a great place to recover from jet lag. Their sense of time is totally different than the US.  Their workday starts at 9am, their lunch break is from 3-5pm, then everyone goes back to work until 7:30 or 8pm.  Dinner is at 9pm or later. They get 26 days of holiday/vacation per year.

Compare that to the US where the average workday is 8am-5pm, with a 30 minute lunch and two 15 minute breaks. And, if they're lucky, 14 days of holiday/vacation annually.

It is a more relaxed rhythm to the day, and to the flow of life in general.

It feels like the US is driven by consumption and production. What do you do? How much do you make? Where do you live? We are evaluated by these things.  Spain seems to focus more on quality of life, family and friends.

Madrid is a noisy city, which would normally drive me crazy. I'm highly sensitive to sound and empathic vibration.  There is no tension here, no anxiety. There is space to be.

It's fun to see the life my son is creating here.  I recognize my kids as capable beings who came into this life with their own inner wisdom, and life intentions. I manufactured their body, gave them their initial 'driving lessons', but their road trip through life is their own creation as Consciousness.

What do you value in life?  What are your choices?

What we spend our money on, and how we spend our time, reflects our values.

We may love our family, work very hard to support them, but not spend quality time with them.  Unless you count running them to soccer practice and violin lessons quality time.

What we *don't* spend money on, and what we neglect,  also reflects our values.

You can have a low salary and a rich life.  You can have effortless abundance.

If you are feeling dissatisfied or unhappy, perhaps your externals are in conflict with your internals.

You don't have to make sudden changes to get back into alignment with your Essential Self.  Small steps have profound results.

You may need to take some time to even know what you want!

This week, notice how you spend your time (and money).  Are your actions getting you what you really desire?

Our outer life reflects our inner life.  Any external disagreement or power struggle reflects that we are  out of alignment - or coming into alignment - with our Inner Being.  Sometimes, as we begin to be more true to our heart, relationships and circumstances that aren't aren't true start to chafe.

Spend more time with your Self and inner communication. That may be journaling for 5 minutes a day, taking a walk without your phone or earbuds, working in your garden or painting.

Take tiny steps this week and see that happens!

Confusing Personality for Consciousness

This week on our Radio Show Janet and I discussed a topic send in by a listener.  She wondered how much of life was consciously created, and how much was that 'sh*t happens'.   Two people she knew had died recently, one had committed suicide, the other overdosed.

The suicide had been an energy worker, and was discouraged that her techniques seemed to no longer be working.  She said her Higher Self had planned for her to 'leave early'.

The overdose may have been accidental, but an aunt had foreseen when she was a child that there was a 'dark cloud in her future'.

I've long said that nothing is pre-determined in that nothing is set in stone.  We create our future through our choses and actions.  We have free will to change lanes on the freeway of life.  If that's so, how could the aunt see a dark cloud ten or twenty years into a child's future?

It's like a long term weather forecast.  Meteorologists can see a weather pattern happening in Guam and know that there will probably be snow in Oregon six weeks later.  When looking at futures, you're looking at possibilities.  You may be seeing some influence by family patterns, just as a Meteorlogist knows weather currents and storm seasons.

And within that, an individual can make shifts, go into recovery, turn from 'bad' to 'good' simply by changing their beliefs about themselves.

However, there's still weather.  It still may rain or snow.  And within that weather, there are choices how to respond.

Now an energy worker can fall into the belief that they can (and must) control their reality.  That if something is happening that they don't like, there's something wrong.  That thought alone, that something is 'wrong', is personality based.  Consciousness in neutral, amused, and non-judgemental.  Nothing is every wrong.  All is very, very well.

That bodies get sick, and bodies age, is fascinating to Consciousness, which is eternal and ever joyous.
If you're viewing something with black-and-white, life-or-death thinking, it's your personality lens you're looking through.

Jerry Hicks, husband of Esther who channels "Abraham-Hicks", developed cancer and died.  Why did he do that, aren't they so enlightened that they'll live forever?  Well, yes, and he is living forever.  But it was time to trade in the old body.

The energy worker committed suicide, that was another way to go.  But she could have also stuck around to see what else would unfold.  Old techniques stop working when you're transforming into a new state, opening to new possibilities.

I used to say that we signed up for life lessons before we were born.  The more capable we are (I'd say) the harder lessons we'd take on.  We'd enroll in 8 honors classes, two afternoon clubs, varsity sports, and a weekend job and when we incarnated discover that it was college, not high school.  Or I'd use the example of actors in movies.  The more talented actor takes on the most dramatic and painful role.

Now I realize it's not so linear. We're simultaneously Consciousness and personality-form.  Embodiment, incarnation, is continuously happening.  We're bringing in Awareness, and releasing unconscious patterns.  We inhale a new experience with each breath.

Higher Self is not separate from Us, unless you're viewing it through your personalities eyes.  You Are Essence moving into form.

When you shift to that awareness, you make different choices, you relax into whatever is happening.  And if storm clouds are brewing, you put on your yellow slicker and rubber boots and jump up and down with excitement, waiting for it to come!

It Works When You Work It

There's a slogan in 12 step groups, 'It Works When You Work It'.  It means that if you do the recommended steps, you'll see results.

It's the same with energy work, and there's a few caveats.

You can't give something lip service, you have to actually take action.  You can't just visualize or make a collage, you have to physically do something to bring it your vision into form.

That doesn't mean hard work, or effort, however.  When you go into effort, you spiritually spin your wheels.  So sometimes it means stopping busywork.   It means taking authentic steps towards creating your reality.

An authentic step may look like meditation, or yoga.  Or reading a book.  Or taking a nap.

"It Works When You Work It" also means giving yourself time to practice what you're learning, time to go through the steps.  As Infinite Beings we love to jump to the end result, since as Spirit we're already there.

Whatever you are doing, requires a foundation.  Sometimes building that foundation looks like adopting a healthier lifestyle.

If you want to create wealth, you may need to start with balancing your checkbook.  It doesn't matter how great you look on the outside; you may need to start buying yourself new socks and underwear!

If you want to create a loving relationship, you may need to start with self care.  Loving yourself attracts someone who will love You, too!

Anything (on this planet) takes practice in order to become real.  Abraham-Hicks says it takes 17 seconds, but what they mean it, focusing on something for 17 seconds starts the attraction.  Focusing every day for 17 seconds begins to bring it from thought into physical.

However, the focusing has to be fun, it has to be positive, in has to be both grounded into reality and without effort.  If your focusing with clenched fists and furrowed brow, or if what you're fantasizing about doesn't really have You in it, you're just spinning your wheels.

Beware of Gremlin voices.  Those negating thoughts, 'oh this is a waste of time', 'I've tried it already and it hasn't worked', 'who am I to want this?', 'if I have what I want, no one will love me', etc. etc.   We all have Automatic Negative Thoughts.  Don't feed the ANTS.

Miracles happen when you let yourself consistently practice the techniques I've suggest in my weekly articles.  If you're reading this via my newsletter or somewhere else, find them on my blog at www.jmnewcomb.blogspot.com!