I’ve talked in that past about resiliency -
Communicate a resilient attitude
Adopt a strengths perspective
Surround yourself with environmental protective conditions
Give it time.

In this particular week, allow your focus to return to your own life, your own loves, and your own strengths. Definately send prayers and love to those suffering, and reduce as much as you can your own exposure to the horror of the event. To read further, and article from the Atlantic Wire, click here.

To your own health, in your own way, in your own time.

In working with the Sweet Spot material, after the background check to determine your strengths, your beliefs, and your life purpose, the next big step is to determine what goal you will work with as you move through the process.

When we allow the “How” to be part of the “What” discussion, we open ourselves to a compromise between what we really want, and what we understand how to create. What if Mother Teresa, as a child was asked  ”What do you want to be when you grow up?” She might have responded,  ”I want to be the pope”.

Let’s imagine that her mother, well schooled in the principles of the law of attraction. said, “Great, honey – what is the first step you’d like to take in that direction?” Little Teresa might have asked to attend a Catholic grade school, supported by nuns where she could share the vision of the life dedicated to the church. As she grew, with her eye on serving the Church as Pope, she joined an order that allowed her to serve globally and learn all that would be needed to become Pope. Along the way, she would have learned that the Pope job is reserved for men only, and, she could take on changing the gender attitudes, or she could chose to serve the Catholic Church in a way that pleased her and used her keen talents of working in the church structure and caring for children.

In a difference scenario, her mother might have said “Oh, I’m sorry, dear, you can’t ever be Pope, that’s only for men”. Then little Teresa might have decided to work in a day care, with little kids, since that seems like a compromise between serving God in a global way and being a woman in today’s world.

Yes, this is a highly unlikely scenario, but I ask you, what goals are setting for yourself, simply because you can see the “how” and you are allowing yourself to dumb-down your dreams to meet your current skills, resources, experience, or expectation? If you actually could do, be, or have anything your mind can imagine, what might that be.  Chapters on how will come much later.  If you try to mix how with what, the result usually is a stalemate, a stuck in what is, and all that is left is a disappointing compromise.  Dream Big, it’s your soul’s birthright.

(opening quote from Robert Fritz, The Path of Least Resistance).

There were thousands and thousands of little sperm racing to be The One many years ago (I’m not saying how many years, only my doctor knows for sure). When the strong fast swimmers got there, the egg looked at the thousand who made the journey and chose the perfect one, and I’m the result. So, in a way, I am THE ONE.

How do I live today, knowing that this is true for me? I don’t walk on water, the job of being Ghandi or Dr. ML King has been taken, so, when I walk out of my door in a few minutes, what does THE ONE named Sheryl do? What I can do is to be more authentically Sheryl in the next minute that I was in the last. I can remember that I am a light of a particular color and I can shine best by being me.

My new mantra that I offer to you today is this:

There is only one power,

one source,

one presence,

and that is God expressing itself today as

_____________(your name goes here).

Bright blessing to you and to your day. It takes ONE to know ONE. Let’s be ONE together today.

I used to have a loyal Beautiful Abyssinian cat that would follow me around.  I just adored him and loved hanging around outside with his company. One day, I was picking blackberries in the field next to our house, and he backed up and sprayed everything his little sprayer could reach. With that picture in my head, I decided to leave that low hanging fruit right where it grew, thank you very much.

It made me think about the recommendation that we hear so often to pick the low hanging fruit first. Yes, it is the easiest to get to, takes the least energy, but is that really the best use of time?

Had Bill Gates chosen to pick the low hanging fruit, he probably would still be picking easy fruit, and wondering where his Big Dream disappeared to. What are the visions that you have that require you to stretch? Maybe that would be more fun, taste sweeter, and support your business better that the easy target?

Yes, it may seem like the sweet spot is that low hanging treat, but consider the longer range sweetness of setting your intentions and goals high enough that they stretch you, help you grow, and draw out your greatness.

http://islam.about.com/od/ramadan/f/ramadanintro.htm

What caught my attention was a discussion on OPB about the increase of young Muslims being encouraged to memorize the Koran. Not only do they memorize the sacred text, they must recite it in perfect chant. It has me thinking about the enormous value of memorizing truths that one wants to live by.

It’s really another application of the Law of Attraction. You know “As a man thinketh, so is he” or from a more modern text, “Thoughts are things, chose the good ones.” This is one of the core concepts of the Law of Attraction. What you give more attention to, you get more of. What words are holy for you? What words do you want to be rattling around in there, guiding you toward their truth? In The Sweet Spot, there is a chapter about thoughts and how to find the thoughts that you want to use to replace those nasty, critters that derail your project.  It can be very helpful in finding thoughts that are important to you and that lead to success.  (Page 84)

• What if you were to choose what you would memorize this week?
• What if you could decide what thoughts were rattling around in that lovely head of yours?

Here’s the quote that I’ve decided to memorize this week, from Marrianne Williamson,

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkenss that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brillian, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened out shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make the manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us. It’s in everyone And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Thoughts are things, attracting like energy. Regardless of your own religious affiliation, how about joining the billions of Muslims this month in cleaning up our lives, our thoughts, and our feelings?  We can all engage the central principles of the Law of Attraction – thinking.

“The Spin Ninja code states that luck favors the prepared

My goal is to become a level 5 Spin Ninja”.

That has gotten me thinking about the link of the Law of Atrraction and the Law of Action. Really, when you think about it, “Spin” is just a way of thinking about a thing – your life, an event, a job, whatever. We think of “Spin”in terms of attempting to convince someone else about something. President Regan was said to be able to turn even failures into a victory with his suave spin savvy. Unfortunately, it is also said that President Carter wasn’t able to use spin to turn a victory into a victory.

How about you, are you able to find the victory in your own events, and to use spin (in your thinking) to support yourself to create positive outcomes from your daily events?

And what about the “luck-favors-the-prepared”?  How prepared are you to receive those things that you are trying to create?  If you’re looking to bring a spouse into your life, is there room in your garage and your bathroom for another person?  If you’re looking to grow your business, is your current calendar filled completely with no room for those new clients or customers, even if they came?  If not, consider some preparation might be in order, and that is using the Law of Action with your intention.

I’m aiming to be a Level Five Spin Ninja, how about you?

When I talk about being out of touch with dreams, I’m looking at the place in your life, often appearing at mid-life when your dreams of having a beautiful home, perfect children, loving and attentive spouse or of six figure income and international fame and instead you find yourself cleaning dirty toilets, drudging through boring projects at work, and dragging yourself to the movies because you just can’t think of anything else to do.

When one is also out of touch with operating from one’s strengths, the stress doubles or triples exponentially. When you find yourself working with people in, say a sales or customer service job, and your greatest strength is introspection and left-brain mathematical concepts, you may be working from weakness. On the other hand, if you’re highly social and love being with and interacting with people, and, you are in a cubicle all day updating spreadsheets or programming computers, you haven’t connected your purpose to your inherent strengths.

When one is off purpose with both dreams and strengths, stress burnout is inevitable. If stress is keeping you from your Big Dreams, here are a few tips for treating those symptoms and getting back on track:

1. Add something beautiful to your life on a daily basis, such as flowers or music.
2. Do some enjoyable activities whenever possible.
3. Walk, work, and eat at a relaxed pace.
4. Take a short break after meals to relax.
5. If possible, go outside at least once per day and notice the simple things such as the weather or scenery.
6. During the day, whenever you remember, notice any tension in your body (jaw, neck, shoulders). Breathe deeply and gently stretch and relax any tense areas.
7. If you notice your mind racing or worrying about the past or future, take a minute to breathe deeply. Gently focus on something in the moment such as the feel of your breathing, the visual scenery, the sound of birds.
8. Take breaks during the workday to relax.
   Wear comfortable and loose clothing when possible. Take off your shoes when you can.
9. Avoid holding in feelings day after day. Instead, find a safe place to feel, express, and embrace them.
10. ABOVE ALL, BE GENTLE AND PATIENT WITH YOURSELF. SOME PEOPLE FIND THEMSELVES FALLING BACK INTO EXCESSIVELY STRESSFUL HABITS FROM TIME TO TIME. THAT IS PERFECTLY NORMAL. SIMPLY NOTICE THAT CHANGE IN A NON-JUDGMENTAL WAY AND REFOCUS ON THE STRESS REDUCTION PRACTICES THAT WILL PROMOTE A HEALTHY WAY OF LIFE.

May this summer find you focused on those dreams, living from your strengths, and dancing.

Based on this Law of Attraction, I just set in motion a self fulfilling prophecy.

OH RATS!!

I’m also the strengths based coach, so taking energy to discover what is wrong with me, might not be the best use of my focus. Here are my notes-to-self that I thought you might appreciate, too:

1. What has actually improved over the last month that represents my real priority?
2. What strengths do I have that will support my intention to be heathly and smaller?
3. Assuming, I’ve been living On Purpose, what has the purpose of the past month been?
4. What is the intention for this month?
5. What is the one thing I desire independence from and what is the one dream I desire to celebrate at the end of July?

OK, world, here are my answers:

1. What has improved? I’ve added walking regularly to my habits and am beginning to feel more energy.
2. What are my strengths? My strength this month is my loyalty to the health of my puppy, who needs to walk every day.
3. My true purpose? My true purpose for this last month has been to adapt to Sammy, and to survive getting up a couple times in the night to let him visit his favorite puppy-pee places.
4. My intention for this month is to keep my focus on my business, to continue healthy walks, to find a way to be alpha dog while protecting the puppyhood of His Littleness.
5. I want independence from a preconceived idea of how my body wants to return to health and vitality and I want to celebrate comfortably zipping up my favorite shorts.

As we move into a new month, and the third quarter of the year, remember, there are no loopholes in the link between your intentions and your results. Thoughts and words are things – chose the good ones.

An important part of creating your dream life is the ability to dream that life.  So often yesterday’s definitions about who you are, what you can do, and how you act keep yanking you out of your dream.  If tomorrow were actually the first day of your life, and you’re starting with the advantage of you can already walk, talk your language, and you know some social mores like shaking hands, smiling when spoken to, remaining clothed in public – you can go forward into this brand new day anyway you like.

I’m suggesting that you exercise your inner-coach-muscle.  How about beginning with as blank a slate as you can and moving forward into your day with new Dreams.  If you catch yourself making the month’s plans by rote, just because it’s how you’ve always done it, see if that inner-coach-muscle might flex in a different way.

I’m doing a big break-out from the mold this week.  I’m taking a vacation by myself to a health spa, just because.  I’m sure that if I woke up some day in a hospital and couldn’t remember my name, as soon as I remembered how to travel, and discovered that I had enough money in my accounts to cover a few days at a spa – I would jump on the chance.  So I’m doing it – and I even remember my name and my husband and children’s names (although maybe for just a few days out there on the ranch I won’t even care what my name is).

As you continue to work with the Law of Attraction – take some moments to start with a clean slate and see what bubbles up.  Let us know what you discover.

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

This is especially appropriate during the first stage of using the Law of Attraction –  setting intention. So many times, our choice of a goal gets dumbed-down because we can’t figure out how it’s going to happen, or, as Dr. King said, we can’t see all the steps between here and there. Part of the art of setting intention is just setting it and having trust in your own inner courage and power to move in that direction, knowing that there is a way, and your feet will find it – maybe even in spite of your mind which is wildly trying to think up HOW.

Years ago I used to write down everything I wanted in my life as a New Year’s day activity. Since I was flying private airplanes at the time, one of those things was to have a home that backed onto a private airstrip so I could just pull my plane out of the hanger next to my house and take off. Of course I couldn’t see the end of that staircase, but it went on my list anyway. Same with the swimming pool I thought would be lovely in my backyard, and the business I wanted to start. None of those dreams came with a how, they were just MY DREAM. Truth be told, a year or two later, I wasn’t interested in the pool (too much to clean, and too risky for my children’s safety) or in the home on an airstrip (too noisy and isolated from the city) and I’ve run my business successfully now for 18 years even though I put that on my “Dream” list 30 years ago.

The second half of The Sweet Spot is all about actions and creating those stair steps, sometimes one at a time.  It is natural to become impatient and want to drive immediately into the HOW and into those action steps.  Taking time to focus fully on your intentions, on those subconscious messages about what you want, and to bring forward your strengths will allow you to move into action with ease and grace.  Before that groundwork is laid down, action comes from will power the “driving-and-striving” mode which is exhausting, frustrating, and unsustainable.

WHAT intentions would you set if you didn’t have to come up with the HOW first?