In-lightened Enterprises - Midlife Blog

I wanted to share this wonderful work from Dennis Merrit Jones — one of my favorite authors…: I couldn’t have said it better…

“Life is a blackboard upon which we consciously or unconsciously write those messages which govern us. We hold the chalk and the eraser in our hand but are ignorant of this fact. What we now experience we need not continue to experience but the hand which holds the erasure must do it’s neutralizing work.” ~ Dr. Ernest Holmes

As you enter into the New Year, I invite you to ask yourself this question: What’s new about me in 2009? If you are like many people you may look in the mirror and say there is nothing new that I can see; same old hair, same old teeth…same old body…same old aches and pains…same old relationships…same old job. Essentially, I see the same old me. I propose it doesn’t have to be that way because change is always constant–we just aren’t aware of it. Even down to the molecular level, change is continually happening. However, if the belief system that creates the template into which life’s energy flows is the “same old” mold as it was last year, life has no alternative but to give us a replay of last year. This is true at the level of the physical body as well as the body of our emotions and relationships. Life is energy seeking a place to happen. You are the conduit through which it happens. Energy is not choosing “how” it manifests in your life–you make that choice. My understanding of the aforementioned quote by Ernest Holmes is that we hold the power to change our future by understanding that while we can’t change the past, we can choose not to recreate it by dragging it into the future. Recently, I heard someone jokingly quip, “The future isn’t what it used to be.” The reality is the future will be exactly how it used to be until we learn to consciously pick up the eraser and the chalk.

We have the ability to inscribe something new on the “blackboard of life” in 2009. Metaphorically, we hold the chalk and the eraser because we have freewill and the ability to choose again. Sadly, however, most people are unaware of the amazing creative power they wield when they couple their intentional thoughts and deepest beliefs with a universal law that says, “It’s always done unto you as you believe.” This is why I don’t play the New Year resolution game because it’s dealing in willpower, which is working at the level of effect (from the outside-in) rather than cause (from the inside-out). Essentially, willpower won’t! It won’t sustain us for the long haul because it’s being held in place only by the conscious mind and that part of the mind tends to get distracted, bored, tired and restless, and then it’s off in some other direction which is generally counterproductive to our deepest desires. We have to go beyond the conscious mind and work at the level of our most deeply held beliefs about the way things “are” and the way they can be.

So, where do we start? How do we embrace what it means to be able to redesign 2009 by inscribing something new and improved on the blackboard of life”? We have to be willing to go where we have not gone before, to move beyond the old mindset. What better time that right now? While this exercise could be done on a computer, I recommend doing it with paper and pencil to provide a more visceral/tactile experience. Using a pencil with an eraser, draw a vertical line down the middle of a piece of paper. On the left side of the paper write down the experiences you have had in the past year that you would like not to recreate again in 2009. On the right side of the paper, adjacent to each of those statements, write down what you would like to see as your reality in the next twelve months. Each time you write down a new awareness in the right column, erase one in the left column you wish to release. With each erasure feel the “lightness of being” that comes with the knowing you don’t have to recreate the same experience next year. Spend as much time as possible lightly holding the new view of your life and try to embody the feelings you will have when you arrive at that vision. For now don’t concern yourself with how this will happen. Once you are clear on the what, the universe will guide you in the actions required to manifest the how. Realize that in this process you have just taken hold of the chalk and the eraser.

Happy New You!

To find the system that I used to create this mind movie:

go to: http://www.mindmovies.com/?&aff_id=17035&camp_id=553

The system is on a half-price sale right now - and is VERY WORTH IT…

Check it out… Your subconscious will thank you!
Dr. Toni

To view Dr. Toni’s personalized visualization movie:
goto YouTube and type in Dr. Toni’s Mind Movie or

click on or copy and paste the link below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gulkRm1RIpU

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gulkRm1RIpU]

Click on the download button below to watch my daily visualization movie.
I’ll post a message on how YOU can create your own shortly.
Thanks for watching — While you are at it, please give it a rating and post a comment
on YouTube…
Dr. Toni

Today I heard a lecture from someone who used to work with Tony Robbins. I want to share a process he shared with us. I think it fits in my latest midlife musings.

For anything to happen in life, for a true Midlife Reinvention,
you need to take it through several stages before setting goals:
Get Clear
Get Certain
Get Excited
Get Focused
Get Committed
Get Momentum
Get Smart

You can probably fill in the meaning of each of these. Let’s share our ideas on this. You know how I feel about getting clear! It’s what I focus on with all my coaching clients. It’s step one…and two and three..

Permit me to think out loud here because today I feel confused. EEKS - aren’t I the one who always talks about clarity? Well, I’m re-reading a book that I read many years ago called, Your Money or Your Life and it is helping me to highlight a major belief I have that ‘enough is enough’. For years now, I’ve been following the success gurus who talk about being a millionaire. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against money - far from it - but, I wonder if everyone is really called to have the same thing. I’m finding so many midlife women that I coach are simplifying their lives rather than attempting to accumulate more. I think it goes along with Carl Jung’s ideas about the growth of interiority during our midlife transitions.
I’m an advocate of using Allowing rather than Making things happen (Yes, I love the works of Abraham and Esther-Hicks!) - as well as the message in Wayne Dyer’s book on Inspiration. There truly is a difference between inspiration (allowing) and Motivation (making) things happen. Somewhere in between is a balance.

I’m also doing the program by Mark Joyner called Simpleology and he is Very clear on our need to set specific goals. I GET what he is saying and it makes sense. I clearly know that the Law of Attraction is not about visualizing without action and I know that what we focus on increases.

So, I continue to ponder - how much is enough? and when are goals important and when is it important to ALLOW the flow?

I’d love to hear your comments.

 The first step in experiencing or manifesting anything in our lives is to be clear on what it is we REALLY want. – The word REALLY is important here as you may or may not have yet discovered.

How do you get clear? And how Do you get to know what you REALLY Want?

Let’s start with some of the obstacles to knowing

1     I believe the number one obstacle is what I call the I don’t know syndrome – In all my years of counseling and helping people  and organizations get clear, the words I hear most often in answer to the question WHAT DO YOU WANT is I DON’T KNOW

Do you really not know? Or do you not want to know?

I’m going to invite you today to consider stopping saying I DON’T KNOW and helping to remind one another to do the same – are you game?
Why? because when we say I Don’t Know - the brain wants to cooperate

Suppose someone comes to your house for dinner and you don’t have salt on the table.  Get it in kitchen.  I can’t find it -  Brain doesn’t want to be wrong.

If you keep saying I don’t know – the divine intelligence in you will begin to agree.

Step one to knowing what you want – is to believe you do know because there is One Mind and you share that Mind and it knows all things - Stop saying I DON’T KNOW

Perhaps we don’t know what we want because we’ve never really thought about it – Most of us plan our vacations more than we do our lives.  Or we live with vague wants like ‘I want to be healthier,’ or ‘I want to win the lottery.’

Or maybe we ‘don’t know’ because if we did know, if we made a decision and followed it through and it was ‘wrong’ then what  – some people never make decisions because they are afraid to make a mistake and they don’t realize they can change their minds.

Or perhaps I don’t know means I don’t really believe in myself: ‘There’s no point wanting that. I’ll never get it.  I remember a time in my life when money was quite scarce – I gave up wanting…the very wanting that could have caused the universe to supply what I needed.

Or if we really go for what we want we might have to leave a lot of things behind and that’s scary – I know a lot of people don’t get into relationship that they say they want, because they don’t want to really give up the perks of being single.  Or people don’t get well, because they think that they won’t get sympathy or support.

And then there’s the person who says why bother knowing –because they have achieved things and then said– is that all there is.

Or we say I don’t know because we are so caught up in doing what other’s want that we’ve lost what we want. Notice if you are happy or sad depending upon another’s happiness or misery. Or when people ask what do you want for dinner or where do you want to go you say, It doesn’t matter… hmm…

Here’s a great book for anyone now saying “I Don’t Know”.

There are some great exercises for getting clear. 
While this is particularly suited for those looking to start a new career, it can be helpful to anyone who wants a new start. 
Buy it now by clicking on the picture of the book.  You’ll be glad you did.

Lately, I’ve been pondering the question how much of life is about being and how much about doing? Actually, I understand the Law of Attraction and know that Everything is consciousness. I also understand about inspired action. It’s no good to just go about doing. We are not meant to be human doings but human beings. I know this. And yet, some things don’t seem to be getting done that I want done - and I don’t seem to be inspired to do them,.

Yesterday, I heard Dr. Oz on Oprah saying - most people wait to be motivated to do something and the opposite is true, you have to do something to get motivated. This is an interesting statement. Don’t you think? What DO you think? I’d love to hear.

One of the main principles I teach is that what you focus on increases…and if you focus on what you are grateful for, you begin to see more. If you find yourself focusing on what there isn’t enough of - it - first of all feels awful - and secondly - produces MORE of the same… We don’t have enough money; there isn’t enough time; I don’t have enough self-esteem – I have discovered that one of the thing that stops me most is my belief in NOT ENOUGHNESS

Usually toward the end of the year, for example, I ask - what have I accomplished? Mostly - what HAVEN”T I done that I wanted to do or thought I SHOULD HAVE done? Do you see yourself here?

Sometimes we look forward and we make a list that says - This year I’m going to…. Which is usually another list of the things we are berating ourselves for - that we don’t have enough of or do enough of…

Lately, instead I am choosing to focus on ABUNDANCE - which basically is an attitude of Gratitude that says THERE IS ALWAYS ENOUGH…

Abundance is our divine birthright. It is a quality of God, and therefore, by analogy, one of the qualities we all inherit as ‘children of God.

This idea of focusing on qualities rather than on resolutions is very powerful… and something you’ll be hearing a lot more from me on. (It’s the topic of my new book and CD’s – coming soon!)

Qualities of God are not TO DO lists - They are WHO GOD IS - they are therefore more about BEING than they’ll ever be about DOING. And, we are made in the image and likeness of God - and like most of us have finally probably realized with our own parents or children - the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…and in this case, we inherit ALL of the Qualities of God - because we are individualized expressions of God… Does this make sense? This is an essential point in New Thought - WE ARE ALREADY
all these things - but we bury them over with layers of FEAR -

Whatever you think you could use more of - start giving more of it…. There’s a great song I want to play at our offering — SEND OUT MORE….

Physicists and people like Deepak Chopra have taught us that by focusing on a particle we actually bring that particle into existence. There is no need for effort - or strain - isn’t that good news. We simply need to put our
attention on what we want instead of what we don’t want. Whatever we focus on increases in our lives. Whatever we send out - that’s what we start to get…

If we focus on lack, for example, we tend to create more of it in our lives. Likewise, if we focus on abundance, we’ll create more of that as well.

Did you ever notice that those who talk about being ill a lot are usually ill? The Master teacher, Jesus said, as you believe, so shall it be done to you. We show outwardly what we truly believe in by the words we speak. We may say we believe in health, for example, but if our conversation is always on our illnesses, or our fear of illnesses, that’s what we bring about in our life.

If you focus always on what went wrong in the past, you are doomed to repeat the past. The course in Miracles says, That which we resist persists. The reason that it persists is that that is what we are giving our attention to.

So, I am inviting you to choose a quality of God and GIVE YOUR ATTENTION To it… EVERYDAY.