Improve Your Technique

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When I have time to fully devote myself to a spiritual path, I become financially destitute.  When I work, I become so exhausted and stressed that I don’t pursue a spiritual practice.  I become mentally and physically depleted and unhealthy. This seesawing back and forth seems endless.  I need to make money; yet, I haven’t been able to make it in a way that is nourishing and honoring to me and others.

This morning, during swim team, I did speed intervals.  After the first set of three timed swims, I was exhausted.  I came in even on the second swim; then lost two seconds on the third.  During the second set, I decided not to focus on speed, just technique.  I felt that I wasn’t going very fast.  I wasn’t using much effort.  Yet, I came in 2 seconds faster than my best time in the first set even though I thought I was swimming more slowly.

I told my coach, “This doesn’t make sense.  How can I go faster by swimming more slowly?”  He responded, “When your body is streamlined, you diminish your drag and go through the water more quickly with less effort.”  By the last swim of the third set, I beat my time by four seconds!  This was amazing because I wasn’t killing myself trying to go faster.

As with swimming, struggling to manifest income is creating a drag.  I must relax and focus on my technique.  I am practicing tapping into the Universal Consciousness that has abundance flowing to me without my having to struggle for it.  I don’t want to exhaust myself anymore.  When I tie into the Universal Consciousness, I receive communication according to my capacity and in a language that is understandable to me at that present time.

Improvement involves practice.  When I am learning a better technique, swimming is not as enjoyable.  It is tiring.  My muscles are weak in the new ways in which I want them to work.  My body and my brain want to return to the old ways.  It’s easier to do as I have always done.  Sometimes I don’t want to go to swim team and listen to my coaches encourage me to change.  Change is hard.

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What is Joy Worth?

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I am coming into a fuller understanding of being joy.  It’s like losing weight.  I have to decide that the unhealthy food I want to eat is not worth my health, my appearance, and my self-confidence.  Likewise, I have to decide that external circumstances are not worth the loss of my joy.  I truly enjoy feeling content, happy, and at peace; therefore, I want to get into the habit of choosing joy, happiness, and fulfillment.

I now ask myself about people and circumstances – is this worth my joy?  With regard to food, a friend of mine said she asked herself, “Is this worth gaining weight?” each time she chose not to eat something fattening.  She said that, with time and continuous practice, she didn’t even have to think about choosing.  She just didn’t eat certain items.  That’s where I want to be with my joy.

I think about the effects of oppression and discrimination and other forms of unfair treatment.  As a result of my personal experience, I became suspicious of statements and behavior.  My negative interpretations became protective devices.  Once one has been hurt many times, one tries to anticipate situations of pain based upon past hurtful behavior.  This then becomes cyclical.  If you anticipate pain, you usually incur it, if only because you tense up and don’t speak freely or positively.  Therefore, you potentially invite the hurt that you were trying not to incur.

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