I’ve been floundering lately.  Lost in my own life, my past and in that voice in my head that says “you can’t, what makes you think you can?”  I have to admit, as much as Abraham says we have to love where we are in order for it to change, I find it very hard to love where I’ve been lately.  It’s a frustrating place, filled with self doubt and feelings of powerlessness. 

One thing I’ve learned these last couple of years is that in order to release weight, I have to stay in the vortex, I have to stay in the downstream flow, I have to consciously feel my connection.  It’s just the only way for me to shut off the noisy chatter that sends me to food for all the wrong reasons. 

When I am in the vortex and feeling connected and strong, I eat healthy, I eat to enjoy the food and to fuel my life.  If I’m not actively staying in the vortex, I slip into mindlessness.  Mindlessness inevitably leads to feelings of “I can have just a little of this and a little of that” which leads to feelings of guilt.  Guilt leads to feeling disconnected and alone, which leads directly into obsessive eating.  It’s such a short trip from feeling empowered and eating right to following that noise inside my head, which if I’m not connected, is always pushing me to eat, eat, eat. 

I’ve learned for me, it’s pretty much all or nothing, I’m either in the vortex, with a positive mindset and eating healthy, or I'm headed in the direction of being out of control.  That’s what I’ve been feeling lately, for quite a while, and I’m tired of it.

Thank Grace . . . today I woke up feeling stronger.  The sense of "I've had enough" mixed with the budding sense of strength and determination.  This happens to me occasionally, I’ll wake up feeling this way, but I've never known how to harness the determination and strength when it comes.  Those feelings tend to arrive feeling ephemeral, uncertain and undependable. 

But this time, I'm determined to find out how to encourage and nurture that part of me.  I want to nullify the noise that says "I can't".  But I know enough Abe to realize there is no way to nullify anything, we can only strengthen its opposite. 

“The trouble with that is when you decide that you're going to deactivate a thought, you don't deactivate it, you activate it. When you say "I'm not going to think about that", you're thinking about that which you're not going to think about.  Even when you say "I don't want to be sick, I'm going to think about wellness", when you approach the subject of your physical body when your dominant thought about it has been sickness, even though you try to do a Virtual Reality about wellness, you usually activate the thought of illness because that's the dominant thought relative to that subject. You see how it works?”  Excerpted from the Abraham-Hicks workshop in Indianapolis, IN, on Tuesday, May 28, 2002

I’m thinking maybe I’m not so unfocused and weak as I’ve been convinced I am, I mean these tentative feelings of strength and determination wouldn't come to me if I weren't capable of utilizing them, would they?  Aren’t they as much a part of me as any other feelings I have?  Aren’t they just as available to me as feelings of love or joy . . .  or even of pessimism?

Aren't I capable of focusing on them and therefore expanding them the same way I’ve focused on the doubt lately and expanded it?  As fleeting as they feel, aren't they here to assist me with change in my life.  And isn’t that fleeting feeling I relate to them simply a value I’ve given them and therefore can change.  I mean I never attach “fleeting” to feelings of love.  Feeling that I am a loving person is something I feel comfident about, something I feel I can depend upon.

Can’t I choose to see myself as a focused, determined and strong woman and therefore see those as dependable emotions in my life?

So today's thought is how do I encourage and nurture the feelings of determination and strength in myself?  How do I stay focused on them so they begin to grow and develop?  How do I become a determined woman of strength and focus, capable of creating any life she wants?

That may seem like a simple question, but I’ve never been good at conscious focusing before.  Not really.  Occasionally in my life I’ve seen something that I truly wanted and was able to appreciate it and let it go.  When I’ve done that I attracted magnificently.  I’ve also done a lifetime of unintentional creation.  Mindlessly focusing and attracting things . . .  much I wanted, and much I didn’t necessarily want.  I’ve also been a complete expert on focusing and therefore attracting something I never wanted, extra weight.  However purposely focusing on a feeling or range of feelings in order to expand them, that’s a new concept for me. 

Oh, I’m capable of finding the silver lining in most situations, and of momentarily changing negative thoughts to positive ones.  Many years of Abe have taught me that, and with it has come a certain amount of overall happiness.  But in order to change the entire momentum of my life, to turn my creating completely around and head it in an entirely new direction, well that’s going to take a lot more than turning blue thoughts into pink ones. 

I guess the concept is the exactly same thing though, changing my thoughts and therefore changing my focus.  But in order to sustain the new focus, I’ve got to pump some steroids into the process.  I’ve got to supersize the feelings I want to experience, turbo them up in order to make them stronger than the impulses of self doubt which at this time feel much more natural. 

Jack (my hypnotherapist) and I have been talking about changing my life.  And with him I realized I don’t know who I really am.  I don’t know the being of pure, positive energy who came into my life experience before all the “conditioning” and “teaching” took effect.  Who I was before I was taught “for my own good” to stuff the sound of my inner voice, to doubt my abilities, my power, myself.  My socializing was so complete that I lost touch with who she is almost completely. 

I’ve been thinking lately about who I might have been if I hadn’t accepted so wholeheartedly the self doubt I was taught.  What might I have accomplished?  How strong, determined and focused would I have been if I had never known self doubt?  How empowered would I have felt?  What might I have created in this life?

Surprisingly those thoughts don’t upset me, they inspire me.  Because I know as long as I’m breathing, it’s not too late to meet her, to unleash her, to become her.  I’m just not entirely sure how to do that.  But I think nurturing the little seed of determination I’m feeling this morning is key.  I think that somehow turbo charging the strength I feel this morning is key.  I think, as Abe says, it’s time to make a decision. 

“Make a decision about what you want, focus your attention there, and find the feeling-place of it -- and you are there instantly. There is no reason for you to suffer or struggle your way to or through anything.”  Excerpted from the Abraham-Hicks  book Ask and It Is Given, page 291

It’s time to decide which thoughts I’m going to put my energy into and which ones I’m going to let starve from inattention.  It’s time to use my thoughts to encourage feelings of strength, determination and success. 

“Thoughts that you set forth in combination with great emotion are the most powerful of your thoughts, whether they are positive thoughts (in the direction of what is wanted) coupled with positive emotion, or negative thoughts (in the direction of what is not wanted) coupled with negative emotion — the strong emotion that you feel as you are giving thought, indicates that you are bringing into physical realization, that which you are giving thought to, very quickly.”  Excerpted from the Abraham-Hicks  workshop , February 12, 1994

It’s time . . .

Much love,

Tigerlily