Jan. 2008 Prosperity Thoughts

Affirmation for January 2008: I am a strong personal leader. I know I can succeeded at manifesting my good.


This time of year, between the hustle and commotion of the holidays and the resumption of our week to week routine tend for me to be a time of reflection. I tend to look at my life and determine what I want to manifest this next year. In some ways this is the same as "New Year's Resolutions" and in other ways it seems different to me. The difference might be that my resolve to change and grow comes from a loving place of positive manifestation rather than a critical place that demands I be different. In order to manifest my good, I need personal leadership, and so I thought I would write about this for our prosperity newsletter this month.

1) In order for us to unlock our potential good we first need to believe in ourself. Knowing that we are precious Children of the Divine, believing that we are one with the creative intelligence of the Universe, sensing and feeling the presence of a loving higher power in our lives that is supporting us to thrive are a few of the ways that help us believe in ourselves. For some of us, it is hard to convince our mind that we deserve good. One remedy is to find other like minded people that can see the good in us, a prayer partner, minister, support circle are all tried and true techniques that Unity offers.

2) We cannot unlock our potential good unless we expect to succeeded. As offspring of the most high, we are meant to thrive. That means we know we will meet some bumps along the way and in the end it will be good and so we tap into the knowledge that we will succeeded to help move us past the rough times. The thing about New Year's resolutions is that most of us have make them before and failed and so there is often this underlying belief that we are a failure. In our Honey in the Heart class, we establish a pattern of success, which tends to build more success as we come to really understand that we can succeed. Thriving means working through difficult times not quiting. I am looking just now at the apple trees in our yard- they are thriving right now. They have no leaves at all, but they are doing what they need to do in winter, and so they are thriving. In a few months they will look like they are thriving when the blossoms come out or when the leaves fill in, but right now, in the dead of winter, they are thriving too.

3) Visualize yourself as a success. If we have only a vague idea of what our good looks like, then we often fail to notice it. If we adopt someone else's idea of success then we typically are discontented even as outward success arises since it is not our heart's desire. Visualize your needs being met, see yourself as having all the help and support you need, know you will have creative ideas and inspirations to help you along your way and do not get hung up too much on how the end result is supposed to look... focus then on the needs being met and not your personal strategy of how these needs get met and affirm that you are successful each day.

4) Passionately pursue goals that are in alignment with your good. I once had a teacher suggest that if I wanted self esteem, I just needed to do esteeming things. The idea here is that if you have goals that are not in alignment with your good, you get distracted by other items and end up overwhelmed. Focus on those opportunities that further your deepest sense of self. If you have passion for each goal then you are unlikely to get burned out or bored along the way and your joy will attract more support for you when things are bumpy. Trust the process here, do that which you love doing and not what you think you should do. It works best for me to always point positive, so I do not encourage negative goals like loosing weight or stopping smoking. Find a positive way to define the same goal, for example, a desire to walk 5 miles or hike to a scenic viewpoint, which incidentally less weight or less smoking will help.

5) Be continuously grateful at each step along the way. Gratitude creates a flow of good unlike almost anything else. Be grateful for the so called set backs, they are showing you what you need to learn and helping you stay humble.

Looking forward to a great 2008!

John