It was 1988 when I met the great saint Ammachi. I was in my early 30s—so was she!—and I was higher than a kite, energetically, just from being in her expansive, Self-based presence.
Bliss!
It was also around that time that I was introduced to Mike Dooley and his set of tapes called Infinite Possibilities. Those tapes made me feel so stabilized in high knowings. The problem was that I couldn’t maintain that feeling, and I couldn’t maintain the bliss of being in Amma’s presence either. Back into sadness and depression I would go.
In the spiritual and personal growth arenas of the 1980s, I heard “I am that” and “be who you are” a lot as desirable ways of getting in touch with my “natural bliss.”
I didn’t know what that meant, so I started on a journey into questions and self-exploration.
If I had known then what I know now, my journey would have been shorter. But I suppose I would also not have as much ballast as I do from traveling through many different internal lands and external challenges.
I know now how to identify “who I am” and how to pull good and better and best into my life, and I think the mystery is a lot simpler than I thought it was when I was in my 30s.
1. Practicing Emotional Identity
I always wanted to be that really cool woman who knows who she is, who is in total control of herself, and who doesn’t follow the rules but still manages to be admired and liked by everyone.
Instead, I found myself the floundering one, burdened with anxiety and depression problems, and unsure of myself.
What I know now that I didn’t know then is that there’s no “getting home” to one’s Self, and there’s no clearing of “issues” or “problems” in order to be granted access to the true Self or even to release depression. No.
What I have to do is turn my “ship,” bit by bit by bit, into the practice of feeling the emotions that make me feel better. And I have to do it NOW. And NOW. And again NOW.
Not every second—just every day that I want to embed within my identity a little more, and a little more, and a little more, that emotional knowing of who I really am: my nature, my humor, my whimsy, my flow of me-ness.
Six-year-old kids have this: no self-consciousness, no judging themselves against the other kids. They just…are. And you can tell that they feel it, and the feeling is all they need to fuel their little lives of joy.
We older “kids” are no different.
2. Energy Builds on Itself
Something else I wish I had known is that when I work to shift my emotional set point, it’s a cumulative situation. In other words, I’m not starting over each time I do some more work; instead, I’m building on the transformation I have already made!
Now I use tools like Wisdom Writing and The 1% SolutionTM that I created which includes Rampage Writing (adapted to my own purposes from the Abraham Hicks work) and various Abraham exercises—and the progress I make each time is lasting.
The fact that energy BUILDS and doesn’t build-and-fade has been a life-changing revelation to me!
Wait a minute! You mean to say that when I spend some time in let-go, in the “vortex,” in my Visioning, in meditation, the shift from that positive energy is lasting? Do you mean that I am always building up, rather than starting over each time?
YESSSSS! Oh. Mah. Gawd! Do you know what a difference that makes to my faith in my efforts?
It makes every difference!
3. 17 Seconds
This one is straight out of Abraham Hicks’s teachings and goes hand-in-hand with energetic builds and the Law of Attraction.
According to Abraham, if you can maintain just 17 seconds of positive energy, that engages the Law of Attraction to give you more and more. For every 17 seconds more, you are madly multiplying the assistance of the matching energies you prefer and reducing the number of hours of physical effort you would have to put in to match that!
This is why Visioning is so powerful!
If you can have “pure, uncontradicted thought” about something positive, the results are so much more powerful than the physical—it’s mind-blowing.
According to Abraham:
- 17 seconds is worth 2,000 hours of work (about 1 year)
- 34 seconds is worth 20,000 hours of work (about 10 years)
- 51 seconds is worth 200,000 hours of work (about 100 years)
- 68 seconds is worth 2,000,000 hours of work (about 1,000 years)
Now, you can see this from two perspectives. One is “Ohmygod, I need 1,000 years worth of physical effort to even get close to what I want to see in my life?” Not a cheerful perspective, and therefore less helpful, really.
For my part, I see this from the perspective of knowing that the hours of work are not about gaining externals. It’s about experiences—shifts that are surprisingly private, small, humble. The work that takes that kind of time consists of making our way to the right perspectives. That’s what takes 2,000,000 hours/1,000 years worth of work!
That I can believe. We’ve been taken so far away from looking at ourselves in the enveloping silence of our own minds and hearts. Fortunately, it’s always there, waiting for us to recognize ourselves.
And all we need is 17 seconds and an understanding of the cumulative power of energy, the knowing that our energy rides out on our emotions which we can shift if they’re troubling, and a strong desire to take on our practiced behaviors and choose instead to ride the energy wave!
Wowowowow!
And then we begin to rendezvous with what we want in our lives because like attracts like energetically.
Those are some game-changing truths!
Gee… if I had only known, but I’m so glad I do now! Aren’t you?
