Your Mind is a Tool of Creation

I found it interesting to hear from my brother, returned from a proselytizing mission in Central America, to say that the Hispanic people there would be very apathetic in their response to getting religious. Time and time again, Their response would be "If The Lord wills it," appearing to be politely interested and yet totally noncommittal, and unwilling to truly try it out because they are sitting around waiting for God to strike them with lightning or make a big change FOR them, without them having to get outside their comfort zone or do anything of their own accord.

To is Americans, this sounds ridiculous. We generally agree that God is not going to force anyone. It's up to you to show Him your desires and intentions. It's up to you to WANT something in your life first.

So we think this is ridiculous but at the same time, how often do we do the exact same thing, when it comes to matters we believe our beyond our control, so we say "the Lord's will be done" and then proceed to do nothing about our problem. It has become a catch phrase to brush anything off, and not take things seriously. We may have beliefs deep inside us that The Lord must want us to be poor or sick, because maybe we have something we are supposed to learn from the trial.

But in so doing, we completely step out of the equation and it just becomes an excuse to be apathetic and to settle for a mundane, mediocre existence, because we are too often too scared to step outside our comfort zone, and look beyond the beliefs and ideas we've had our whole lives. But wait, isn't life about learning? Then shouldn't we be continually re-examining ourselves, and looking for ways to let go and grow beyond that person we used to be?

The truth is, yes we are supposed to learn something from our trials! We need to learn to let go of the past, let go of faulty cognitive patterns, let go of old stale emotions that aren't serving us, let go of this stubbornness and pride, and choose to receive the light and healing that was made possible by Jesus Christ. The reason we are here on earth is to exercise our agency. This life is all about CHOICE and those choices specifically belong to US. To a large degree, we have the power and authority to choose the life we want. We fought a war in heaven over this! The concept of somebody making your choices for you, of somebody else designing your life FOR YOU, is the very concept we fought and lost 1/3 of our spirit family over! This is a big big issue and as you can see, the battle is still being fought now, with Satan leading us to believe we have in choice when it comes to our health, our income, our relationships, etc. We are certainly not pawns, riding this life just for the ride, while God controls our fate. Too often we behave as though life is something happening TO US, and we forget that we have made choices that lead us to where we are.

Before we get too far into this, I want to say that I do believe there is a delicate balance between our "control" and God's, and I don't fully understand or claim to. I am seeking to learn more about this. Sometimes I write and discuss ideas as a way to explore them, and I continue to refine them. But usually I can find a way to make them both work together--for two seemingly contradictory ideas to both be true. For instance, What if God is the giver of all good gifts -- perhaps we are totally incapable of healing ourselves or giving ourselves gifts -- but it's still our choice and totally within our control whether we accept the light he has already extended, and continually extends to us. And although in English "choice" is a word that usually implies a quick and final decision, in this case it can be a learning process that takes years. The key is opening ourselves up to it, and then God can orchestrate the resources, information, and healers to come our way.

I totally believe you are experiencing what you are in life because, on some level, somewhere in time, you made that choice. If you are struggling with money there is probably a belief inside you that you are not worth more than what you currently bring in, or that you can't be responsible for more, or that you do not deserve a life of comfort. If you are struggling with health, there are certain belief patterns underlying every unique health issue--there have been volumes written about this concept. If you are holding onto a broken heart, for instance, that may very well lead to cardiovascular disease because the energy in your heart has been stifled. If you are holding into beliefs that you cannot control your life (say as a child your choices were always made for you, or you were abused and felt you had no power) then you may very well develop a physical disease of losing control over some part of your body.

It's very interesting to examine patterns in our life--situations that just keep repeating themselves. Look at anybody's life story and you won't see 100 different trials, but you will see only a few trials, recycled and resurfacing 100 different times. 

In my life, in many different areas, I experience success and bliss for a season and then I lose it. Then it happens again and again, somewhere else in my life. It's like I hit the ceiling of the highest amount of joy I believe I am allowed to have and then I self-sabotage. I just recognized this today and I need to clear this belief.

I want to give a couple examples of how we unconsciously create self-fulfilling prophecies. A year and a half ago I specifically remember, mentioning to a friend that "my life seems too easy...and it makes me uneasy. like something is waiting around the bend, and I'm about to have a big trial." There was a belief inside me that life cannot be easy. Life is meant to be hard. So if life is going well, something is wrong and will soon correct itself. Well guess what? Within a month of me saying that, I hit a huge problem in my life and proceeded to have the hardest year of my adult life. I am still clearing the causes and working my way back.

Also when I was running a lot, I kept feeling this guilt in the back of my mind. I was being selfish, I believed. Running was not serving any one but myself and my pride for glory and competition. Every time I left my family to enjoy a long run, I would have to push the guilt further back. Well I pushed it back far enough that it created subconscious patterns within me and got me injured, so I couldn't run anymore.

The same thing happened with my business. I had an incredible situation and was taking advantage of it fully. I was a successful business woman, easily pulling in twice my husband's salary. But I kept feeling guilty, and feeling that I was a bad girl for seeing loopholes and manipulating a system for my own benefit. I would remind myself that God gave me this opportunity and it wasn't shameful to be successful. But soon enough, the belief ingrained within caught up to me, and the rug was pulled out from underneath me. I rebuilt my business with a new product and the same thing happened again! To this day, a part of me knowingly believes that I should not be working; I am ignoring my kids; I am being greedy for money I don't need.

I am bearing my soul here but another belief I have is that I am unloveable and nobody cares about me. This is not a conscious belief, but I have come to be aware of it. I have grown to see how I create my own situations to validate that belief and create a reality out of it. I throw parties and invite my friends but I "forget" to remind them, or I send subliminal messages that the party won't be any fun....and time and time again, nobody shows up. And maybe I subconsciously form friendships that I know won't be reciprocal. I believe that most of the relationships we form are in order to validate a belief we have. There is a reason we are attracted to certain people. The hardest thing to do here is to actually break a cycle once we recognize it. My sister was single and hated it, for several years. She seemed to be stuck in a rut in her life. Until one visit when she looked totally different and told us all about her new gym habit. This really struck me-- and I knew she would find her husband soon. Why? Because she had broken through and created some positive momentum in her life, which I knew would create ripples and change her beliefs about herself and on to change her relationships.

Another example of creating our own reality: I can't help but wonder, when children are disrespectful and don't listen, do we have a belief that we are not respected? Do we "ask" them, with our energy, to ignore us? If we need drama and feelings of martyrdom, do we "ask" others to do hurtful things to us? You can't deny that there are patterns. Some people get respect and some don't. Some people are never wronged, and some are continually offended every day....almost as if they are silently asking other people to treat them poorly.

So the first step is acknowledgement! It's a journey of self discovery and indeed, this life is about making choices--it's about Choosing to CLAIM our own power, and exercising our choice. Yes life is a delicate balance between God's power and our own. We are Divine beings; we are literally His offspring; and we have the power to create. We have the power to create our reality. Our thoughts and emotions are very powerful tools of creation. I just love hearing success stories of people who have learned this. Terminally ill patients who DECIDED they were not going to die. And parents who Truly believe in their heart that their children are Divine and innocent, and then those children do indeed behave like angels.

When I was pregnant with Elisabeth, I decided I would not feel pain in labor. I filled my mind with positive information about how easy birth was meant to be. I visualized and journaled to release my old, negative beliefs and patterns. As labor began I told myself I would not utter a single moan or negative word. Sure enough, the contractions were effective, calm, and the labor was very quick. I smiled and giggled throughout, and kept repeating "this is so exciting! We are doing it, baby! Come on out!" Like we were teammates on a mission. The labor was only a few hours long, and she came out effortlessly with no pain. I delivered her myself and was the only one to touch her for her first four hours of life. That was pure bliss. To this day, if you ask me what was the happiest day of my life, that's what I will tell you.

When our beliefs are in place, our experiences which will validate those beliefs just happen. The opportunities just come on their own. The blessings flow. It happens to effortlessly. I can say this because in some areas of my life I have experienced it; and I observe those patterns in other people around me. If you have a problem that needs to be solved, you can work and work and work with all your grit and willpower. But that will produce little results--its like your truck is in the mud and Yes, your foot is on the gas, but the wheels are just spinning and spinning. Conversely, when your belief system changes and you release the faulty thinking that was causing the pattern in the first place, it will just flow and take care of itself. 

Maybe it's time we take the blame back, and decide for ourselves to experience love and joy, and choose to see the good all around us, and re-write our brains and belief systems with the TRUTH, that YOU ARE whole, YOU ARE worthy, YOU ARE successful, and you deserve and are worthy to receive all the goodness that life has to offer. Heavenly Father is the author of all goodness and I don't believe he is willingly holding it back from anybody. Yes he is all powerful, but he will not impose that power, or His will, on us--unless we choose it for ourselves.