Prosperity Thoughts January 2009

Prosperity Thoughts Jan 2009

Today: I visualize for my highest good with an open heart and an open mind.

It is January, the time of year for optimism. As we look forward to the upcoming year we are hopeful that our dreams will manifest and that our goals will be met. And while it is true that hope and optimism are somewhat constructive in helping us manifest our good, they are no where near enough.

Our good arises out of our nature and out of our consciousness. Our nature is that we are a child of The Divine. Our nature is that we are generative, by which I mean that we co create our experience. Our nature is that we are Light and Love and energized intelligence. Our nature is that we are The Buddha. Our nature is that we are The Christ. Our consciousness is how we remember these things and how we live them day to day.

Hopeful thinking that things will get better is a mentalized thought, and that can be helpful. But what will make things get better is embodied consciousness that things are better and this, for me, if often very hard to accomplish.

Most teachers stress that you should visualize yourself as a success if you want your life to be a success. There are shortcomings to this approach. First, our personalized thinking often wants to define our good in terms of results that skip intermediate steps.

Here is an example. I want to be thinner and leaner. I can visualize my self as thinner and leaner all I want, but to shift my body shape I need to either eat less or exercise more. There is no other healthy way in order to actually be thinner and leaner. If I knew how to do this, I would have already accomplished my objective- the visualization would have nothing to do with it. Visualizing myself as thinner and leaner when my body has not actually changed will lead to cognitive dissonance. What might work better for me would be to visualize myself eating less and enjoying more exercise- which is the process needed to achieve my goal. But my mind does not necessarily thing in these terms, and so I visualize the result and not the intermediate steps needed to be successful.

Another problem with this technique of visualization is that our visualizations are not always congruent with the rest of our lives. A visualization that does not take into account the actual causation of the condition we seek to transform will fail to get results. Continuing with the example above- about wanting to be leaner and thinner-I have assumed that the key to my weight loss is eating less and exercising more. I visualize on these steps, but that ignores the reason I over eat in the first place. It overlooks the reason I do not get more rigorous physical exercise.

Perhaps I overeat to down regulate my anxiety. Then the key to success is not to focus on the eating or exercising, but rather to focus on the anxiety. But if I am unwilling to change my consciousness concerning the reasons for my anxiety, (which is always simply a spiritual question) then no amount of visualization concerning my eating or exercising will manifest my good.

This brings me to a third shortcoming with visualization. Many people unconsciously visualize in the negative. When I suggest you not think about a hot fudge Sunday, my guess is that an image of a hot fudge Sunday is exactly what goes through your mind. So to, thinking about not eating often is no different than thinking about eating. Thus, visualizing not being anxious does not reduce my anxiety. Instead, I need to paint a positive picture and so need to visualize being calm. As I visualize myself being calm, then when I am not calm, I can recall in the moment to be calm. Visualizing being calm will help me to remain calm. Being calm then I will feel a less urgent need to eat to sooth my feelings, which may over time lead to me being thinner and more lean.

I have a few additional thoughts about optimism and other forms of hopeful thinking. First, if we have only a vague idea of what our good looks like, then we often fail to notice it. The converse of this is that we often become attached to a certain version of our good. Sometimes we get attached to a strategy about how to manifest our good. In either case, visualizing our good or our strategy often leads to our getting stuck in our attachment to our visualization and not being open to our highest and best path.

At one point in my life, I thought I had a good job. I had visualized, and treasure mapped and prayed about manifesting a job some four years prior. I had specified all the key traits and qualities I wanted in a job; pay range, work hours, location, working conditions and so forth. The job manifested and for the first year or two I was happy. But by my fourth year, I did not truly know what my good looked like. Instead of looking at my good afresh, I looked at it from a progression of what had already been manifested. I was not aware that I had outgrown the job. Visualizing a job as my good prevented me from seeing my true good. Midway through that year I got fired and a few years later I could see how confined I was in that job. My good was in getting fired, but I sure failed to notice it at the time.

Here is another place where I have seen people go astray relying on visualization as a tool to bring them their good. If we unconsciously adopt someone else's idea of success, and visualize that agenda as our own, then visualization has not been helpful at bringing us our good. Even if outward success arises, since it is not our own heart's desire we are often left feeling unsatisfied. My father wanted a carpet salesman for a son. I became a carpet salesman, and through hard work and driven behavior, I was successful. No matter how much I visualized being a great carpet salesman, it would not change the fact that in my soul this was my dad’s desire and not my own. I recall so clearly even now, when I attended my high school reunion and felt the shame when I told my classmates that I sold carpet for a living. As long as I sold carpets, and no matter how successful I was selling carpets, I was discontented.

Here is how I think that visualization can be helpful- not as a tool to achieve specified results, but as a tool to up-level your consciousness which will then mandate your success.

Visualize your needs being met with ease and grace. See yourself as having all the help and support you need, right at your finger tips. Know you will have creative ideas and inspirations to help you along your way. Recall that you are flexible, supple and have an open mind linked to the Infinite.

Today I am visualizing myself calm in the face of uncertainty.