"If you believe that you must work hard in order to deserve the money that comes to you, then money cannot come to you unless you do work hard. Financial success, or any other kind of success, does not require hard work. It does require alignment of thought. You simply cannot offer negative thought about things that you desire and then make up for it with action or hard work. When you learn to direct your own thoughts, you will discover the true leverage of Energy alignment."

--- Abraham

Excerpted from the book "Money and the Law of Attraction: Learning to Attract Health, Wealth and Happiness"

Our children are the seedlings of our life.  The question is - how do we encourage them to grow?  What do we expose them to without our awareness?  Is our influence confined to what we say to them or is it what we say around them, how we act around them, and the vibration of our own energy?

How many times have we, as parents, had discussions filled with conflict, fear, judgment, or criticism around infants and toddlers as if those tender young seedlings weren't even in the room?  Even if those small children cannot understand the meaning our words, they absorb the meaning of our feelings.  How many times have we told our children to do something that we ourselves do not do?  Remember the old cliche, "Do as I say, not as I do?"

Children understand double standards.  They often ignore our words.  They watch our actions and absorb our energy.

When small children are in the room while we verbally judge and criticize someone, our children learn judgment and criticism.  If we indulge in negativity, we teach our children about negativity.  If we are perfectionists and harshly criticize ourselves, our children absorb perfectionism.

When talk about our children in their presence, they absorb the labels, key phrases, and tags that we give them.  "He's such a good boy."  "He's a picky eater."  "He's doesn't try."  Without knowing it, we seed the soul of our children's minds and hearts with weeds.

How then can we better parents?

Awareness.  When we become aware of the weeds in our own minds and hearts and develop processes to outgrow them, our children absorb those processes too.  They watch us growing.  They feel us growing.

Photos from Flickr.com courtesy of Tico.

How do you know when you're in alignment?  If you're on the right path?  When you are, everything just seems to fall into place.  You're heart knows and the Universe smiles on you.

Lori Massey is a sign of my alignment.  A few weeks ago she was surfing the internet and found Cedar Hill Massage.  She was particularly interested in life coaching.  Yesterday I drove an hour and half to Jackson, Ohio to meet Lori at her store, The Tea Caddy of Jackson, 740-288-4832.  

The first thing you see at the front door of the Tea Caddy is MAGIC.  A small wren chose to build her nest in an artificial wreath and blessed the entrance with two baby birds. That's just the beginning of the magic of the Tea Caddy!  Go through the door and you enter a sacred space filled with Victorian teapots, tea cozies, and special teas.  The atmosphere inside is infused with Lori's welcoming and infectious energy.

Lori is doing some exciting things in Jackson.  Beginning July 25, 2009, from 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., she's introducing a LIVE morning talk show called "The Hub", Your Connection to Mind, Body & Spirit.  The Hub offers inspirational speakers, health & wellness advisors, and more.  You can call Lori at the Tea Caddy at 740-288-4832.

Lori is a connector.  She reaches out, finds out what people need, what their heart's desire is and connects them with ther people to help them on their way.  And, she's been joined by Carla Wamsley, of Sitting Pretty, an affiliate of Tope's Furniture Gallery of Gallipolis,Ohio.  Carla is a salesperson and has added that spark of fire to Lori's gift for connecting people.   Guess what I am?

I only meant to stay an hour at the Tea Caddy but ended up staying the whole afternoon.  We laughed, talked, and shared our ideas for following our dreams and how to help other people do the same.  We brainstormed about my giving a group coaching workshop at the Tea Caddy in September.  Lori introduced me to someone I may be able to help. 

Everything came together yesterday afternoon.  Perfect alignment.

According to the Law of Attraction, the vibrational energy of our core beliefs attracts all relationships and experiences to us.   That vibrational energy is transmitted to the world around us not only through the actions we take but also through our thoughts and feelings.  We literally create our lives through unseen means.  One might ask, if we get to create our lives in the way we want, why would we attract relationships that cause us pain?

We attract relationships that cause us pain because we need to affirm our core beliefs about ourselves and we attract the relationships we need to help us grow. Therefore, a victim must attract a persecutor.  A caretaker must have someone who needs care.  A perfectionist must attract someone who is critical and judgmental.  An insecure person must attract someone who can’t love her, and a person with low self-esteem must attract someone who tells her she’s not good enough.

Repeating patterns in relationships that cause painful emotions are signals to prompt us to look for changes that need to be made within.  Just when we thought we were done with an uncomfortable relationship pattern, it can repeat itself with another person to teach us another lesson and to allow us to heal at a deeper level.

Many times these relationship patterns repeat themselves because we have not completed the learning experience.  We leave the relationship before the lesson is learned.  Whatever we do not heal in one relationship, we carry on to the next one.  We leave with re-opened wounds, old scars, and all our defenses intact.  Those wounds, scars, and defenses are the emotional matrix within which all our relationships develop.  We carry this emotional matrix with us at an unconscious, core level wherever we go.

Awareness is the first key to change. How can we become aware of our emotional matrix? Can we change our core thoughts and feelings to create better relationships?

* * *

No one comes into our lives by accident.  Carolyn Myss, Sacred Contracts

Photo courtesy of Tanakawho from Flickr.com.

Holistic education is a philosophy of education based on the premise that each person finds identity, meaning, and purpose in life through connections to the community, to the natural world, and to spiritual values such as compassion and peace. Holistic education aims to call forth from people an intrinsic reverence for life and a passionate love of learning.  Wikipedia.

What if we take holistic education even further into allowing open curriculums in schools that allow each child to use and nurture their innate strengths?  Sir Kenneth Robinson, an expert on  creativity and innovation asks the questions, says schools kill creativity.  See www.Ted.com.  Rather than allowing children to find and use their gifts, we make them conform to an educational system that requires everyone to be the same, conforming, and excelling in standardized tests.

Recently a friend, who recently entered a Masters Degree program in holistic education, discussed her views with me.  her voice vibrated with passion as she discussed what she thought were opposing ideas:  the professor’s idea that change will be made through changing our internal intentions versus my friend’s premise that change will be made when the language is create a new paradigm.

After listening intently, it became clear that both ideas would work.  Embracing one without embracing the other would be like throwing the baby out with the bath water.  Change could perhaps be effected more efficiently by creating a new language that reflects a new intention.  Spiritually a core change must be reflected in the material world.  Language is part of the material world.  The conflict arose between my friend and the professor were but growing pains.

The growing pains of conflict are but the labor pains attendant to every birth.  The new thought leaders in education and even the educators of the old paradigm are but midwives birthing a new system of education.

* * *

Language is the means of getting an idea from my brain into yours without surgery.  ~Mark Amidon

One of my former clients is now engaged and planning her wedding for October.  Recently she told me that some of the best advice I gave her about wedding planning was "keep it simple."  She took that advice and apparently it's working.  Her energy is peaceful, relaxed and happy.

There have been a number of weddings and receptions at our private retreat in Ohio.  Some have been for family and others have been for friends.  There have been small weddings and large weddings, not to mention other weddings that we have been involved with in the past.  In all my experience with weddings, one important thing stands out:

The more time there is to plan, the larger and more stressful the wedding becomes.

Long engagements with no wedding date are not the same thing as long engagements that allow for 12 months to plan for the wedding.  For wedding planning purposes, the less time there is to plan the smoother things will go.  And less time usually means less money.

In 12 months' time, a wedding expands exponentially from a location, simple reception, flowers, music, dress, tux (or not) and a few guests into a monster that includes a four piece quartet, hand-made origami cranes for each of the 200 guests, flowers both in the chapel, for the bride, for the bride's mother, the groom's mother, grandmothers, and Aunt Harriet's second cousin, Sally!  In 6 months' time the guest list is shortened, invitations are simpler, favors are skipped, flowers are cut back and the whole planning process becomes much simpler.

The simplest plan of all is to use an all inclusive wedding service that does all the work for you or elope to Las Vegas.  Only invite the people who are important to you; the people who will share your life, not just your wedding day.

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." Cyril Northcote Parkinson

Have you ever tried to push an idea or action on someone and had them push back?  So you pushed harder.  She pushes back.  And the pushing continues until a full-blown conflict ensues?  The harder you push, the harder the push-back.

Have you ever felt pain or heartache because you saw someone drowning in the quicksand of one of life's problems, threw her a rope  and she threw it back in your face?  Confused and hurt, you became consumed with worry and anxiety by trying to help someone who doesn't want help.  Not only does she not want help, she doesn't see any danger.  At times like these, it's time stop pushing and start leading.

You cannot save someone who is drowning in quicksand by jumping in yourself.  That action just causes two people to drown.  You could stand on safe ground and throw a rope for the drowning person to grab and pull herself to safety.  But what if she doesn't know she's in danger?  The rope will be thrown back into your face, leaving you with feelings of pain and resentment.

In my experience, the best action to take is to stay on firm ground, standing in the light and wait for the other person to ask for help.  Trying to push solutions only makes YOU a part of the problem.  It may give you a temporary feeling of self-righteousness but it rarely helps the other person.

Stop pushing solutions and start leading by the clarity of your example.  Remaining strong and staying in the shining light of spiritual well-being, peace and authentic happiness is the most powerful action you can take.

* * *

Even in your rightness about a subject, when you try to push your rightness toward another who disagrees, no matter how right you are, it causes more pushing against. In other words, it isn't until you stop pushing that any real allowing of what you want can take place.

--- Abraham

This morning it was time to pay some bills - not a lot of bills, just a few.  The money is in the account but I still found myself dreading writing those checks.  I managed to procrastinate for awhile by checking my email, writing a letter and generally dancing around the whole bill paying thing.

Finally, I made myself do it.  The first check I wrote was to the dry cleaners.  After the envelope was sealed and addressed, I turned it over and wrote a big 'THANK YOU!' on the back of it.  It made me smile so I did it for every bill I paid.

For today, that simple act changed my whole attitude about paying bills!

* * *

"The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money."  ~Author Unknown