How to Enjoy Mopping the Kitchen Floor and Change Your Day in the Process

  When was the last time you ate at a sumptuous buffet?  With the choice to fill your plate with whatever foods you want, did you head for the food that you don’t like and ladle it onto your plate?

Did the stewed okra catch your eye?  Fill your plate with lima beans?  Take two huge servings of brussel sprouts?

Of course not.  While you probably didn’t load your plate with nothing but bacon, pastries, and banana pudding, I’ll bet you focused on foods you enjoy.

Isn’t It Wonderful to Skip the Brussel Sprouts?

Isn’t that the appeal of a buffet, after all?  You have the freedom to choose – and skip over what you don’t enjoy in favor of what you like and want.

Aren’t we lucky then, that each day we’re alive is a buffet?  With each moment, we are offered the same freedom to choose.  To choose to tell ourselves stories about (assign meaning to) our life that feel bad and keep us separated from the experiences we desire.  Or to tell stories that feel good and align us with the experiences we want.

No, you don’t necessarily have choice over all your actual experiences; picking and choosing each experience you have is not what makes life a buffet, because most of us don’t have that much influence no matter how long we’ve practiced creating our own reality.  What makes life a buffet is the choice you have regarding the story you tell about (the meaning you assign to) each life experience.

You Don’t Have to Pretend to Like Anything to Take Advantage of Life’s Buffet

Does this mean that you should pretend to like things you don’t?  Perhaps you aren’t thrilled to be mopping the kitchen floor or you’re not excited to be staying late at the office to finish some paperwork – should you be acting like you’re loading your plate with tasty roast beef from the buffet line?

No.

But alternatively, do you have to say, “Mopping the floor sucks and I hate this!” or “I am so mad I’m here at the office late and this has ruined my evening!”?  Who made those rules?  And why do you often act as if you have to follow them?

Life is a buffet because you get to chose the stories you tell.  Why not say, “Although I’m not necessarily overjoyed to be mopping this floor, I am glad that my family and I will get to enjoy a clean kitchen” or “Maybe I’d rather be doing something other than this paperwork right now, but I am grateful I have this job and I feel good about doing it well.”

Given the abundant choices surrounding you today, try these kinds of stories and see what an amazing difference they make.  And stay tuned to this blog for more about how to tell new stories and create a more desirable reality…

How to Be the Most Genuine Fake Ever

  I know a retired professional wrestler.  He wrestled with Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant in the World Wrestling Federation during its heyday.

The first time we talked about his colorful past, can you guess what my main question for him was?  “Is professional wrestling fake?”

His answer?  “Yes and no.”

Professional Wrestling is Fake?  Perish the Thought!

Yes, it is fake because professional wrestlers meet before their matches to choreograph them and decide how the pre-determined winner will triumph.  And, yes, because professional wrestlers use stage-combat skills to create the illusion of physical blows and (most of the time) mute the actual combat.

But, no, because professional wrestlers do perform the physical stunts you see and they do fly around the ring and smack the mat (and, sometimes, the hard arena floor).

I recommend that you, as you practice what you’re learning about changing your beliefs to create a more pleasing physical reality, take a cue from professional wrestlers.

Professional Wrestlers Have Created a Blueprint We Can Follow

Focus on re-forming your beliefs by telling better stories about your life experiences that choreograph desired outcomes.

Yet also understand that life will be happening and presenting you with unpredictable and, from your perspective, sometimes difficult to understand circumstances.  Yet, although you’ll be “performing your physical stunts” and “hitting the mat for real” during your day, just as professional wrestlers do, you’ll already know that these intermediate experiences are simply part of the drama.  You already know the final outcome because, like a professional wrestler, you’ve already scripted it with your new stories.

Just like a professional wrestler, since you are influencing the ending with your new beliefs, you don’t have to sweat all the little twists and turns of the “match”.  And stay tuned to this blog to learn more about how to create a more pleasing reality…

Want to Elevate Your Mood With Music? Try This…

  Is your “light” on?  Are you awakened from a life of feeling like a victim to one where you are consciously influencing and creating your reality?  As is your birthright?

I write about new paradigms you can use to create your reality.  My first book is about creating your ideal body; my next one (due out later this year) will be applicable to almost any dream or goal you hold.

If you’re like me, and consciously influence and create your reality, you may find it helpful, as I do, to use tools to elevate your mind and inspire you. (Click that link to Tweet it) Music can be a powerful source of such motivation.  And here is one of my favorite songs to enhance your deliberate creation:

“Now It’s On” by Grandaddy

Bear in mind, I’m a rock music fan – particularly guitar-driven, indie rock and power pop.  Grandaddy, I’ve found, is a real mixed musical bag and “Now It’s On” is unique in their catalogue – it’s an uptempo power pop number that I believe you’ll love.

“Now It’s On” is first and foremost an upbeat song with peppy, driving rock structure.  Even without its lyrics, “Now It’s On” is a great “workout song” or mood and energy elevator.

But the lyrics of “Now It’s On” are what truly separates it from other songs I use to inspire my conscious creation.  It’s doesn’t take much insight to be inspired by these words, especially when sung as earnestly as they are here:

“I wouldn’t trade my place
I got no reason to be
Weathered and withering
Like in the season of the old me

Bust the lock off the front door
Once you’re outside you won’t want to hide anymore
Light the light on the front porch
Once it’s on you’ll never want to turn it off anymore

And now it’s on, now it’s on”

I catch myself soaring mentally, right along with Grandaddy, when I listen to “Now It’s On”.  See if you do the same.  And let me know which songs inspire you.

Is Pleasantville the Best Film Illustration of Deliberate Creation?

  Is Pleasantville, a 1998 film, one of the greatest movies illustrating our power to create our own reality? (Click that link to Tweet it)  I’ll make the case here.  But a word of warning: if you haven’t yet watched Pleasantville, this post is full of spoilers.

In Pleasantville Toby Maguire plays David, an intelligent adolescent introvert who is devoted to an old television comedy called Pleasantville, portraying a wholesome and idyllic 1950’s life of yesteryear ala Leave it to Beaver.  Reese Witherspoon portrays David’s sister, Jennifer, who is an extroverted and rather shallow teenager, consumed with boys, sex, and social popularity.

David and Jennifer Are Given an Unprecedented Opportunity to Change Their Reality

A mysterious television repairman (played by Don Knotts in a funny ode to the similarly wholesome Andy Griffith show) gives David a bizarre television remote that transports David and Jennifer into the old, black and white Pleasantville television show.  The characters of Pleasantville, however, don’t know they are in a television show and David and Jennifer realize they must pretend to be Bud and Mary, the television children of Pleasantville’s lead family who they have now replaced.

The plot is propelled forward by David and Jennifer’s grossly differing views regarding how to proceed.  David is enthralled to be Bud and insists that the two must stay in character and not disrupt the lives of the people of Pleasantville.  Jennifer, on the other hand, believes that the people of Pleasantville are staid and square and proceeds to educate the town’s teenagers about the pleasures of sex (which is an unknown concept to anyone in Pleasantville, even the adults).

Each time a Pleasantville teenager has sex, he or she changes to full color (while the rest of the town remains black and white).   Eventually, anyone who experiences a burst of emotion or passion becomes colorized and the town is thrown into full turmoil amid the uproar of these new “colored” people and the frightening fun and zest for life they are displaying.

Citizens of Pleasantville: Your Neural Pathways of Habitual Thought Are Not Carved in Stone

What moves Pleasantville to the upper echelon of films with messages about creating our own reality is the consistent message of how powerful our beliefs are (and how completely our reality changes when we  intentionally reform them).  Both David and Jennifer have very divergent beliefs about life and the film does a good job of showing that neither set of beliefs is the “correct” one, as they both prove valuable in the long run.

We know that our reality is derived from our expectations, which stem from our beliefs.  And our beliefs are nothing more than our neural pathways of habitual thought.  While our beliefs almost always feel correct and true for us, they are not universally, nor independently, correct and true.  They are true for us alone. (Click that link to Tweet it)

Because our beliefs are merely habitual thought, we are able to change them when we are either inspired or willing to do so.  (Click that link to Tweet it) Whether that inspiration or willingness is born of a desire to escape our current pain or a desire to finally achieve a long held goal, all we need do is adhere to a process of telling ourselves new, better stories about our desires to enter into the process of creating new neural pathways of thought.  And once in that process, we will begin to see a new universe created from the quantum field.

Both David and Jennifer Illustrate The Unlimited Creative Possibilities Each Moment Holds for Us to Create Anew

During their adventures in Pleasantville, David comes to value being open to life and the passion of emotional expression.  Alternatively, Jennifer comes to value introspection and intellectual curiosity.   Both of these characters see a different universe by telling themselves new stories about these new values which they had previous eschewed.  The beautiful and touching awakening they experience is mirrored by the citizens of Pleasantville, who also awaken to a wonderful new reality.

The process of awakening, of Pleasantville becoming “colored”, is an inspiring metaphor for all former sleepwalkers who now know that they have the God-given, inherent power to create their own reality.  Like David, Jennifer, and, eventually, the entire town of Pleasantville, you are also striving today to color your life by having experiences more closely aligned with your greatest desires.

Pleasantville Can Inspire Your Awakening Which Is, After All, a Daily Decision

At the end of the film, David has learned to feel and accept his passions and emotions and heads back to the real world ready to fully embrace the wonders of life.  Jennifer, on the other hand, has learned to be more introspective and appreciative of intelligence and subtlety, choosing to remain in Pleasantville for a while longer to finish her personal growth.

Pleasantville reminds us that we never need sleepwalk through life, accepting the collective reality of conventional wisdom.  Our life experiences are ours to create.   Like the citizens of Pleasantville, we understand that this awareness is often frightening and unsettling at first, but eventually provides us with the immense freedom and power we were born to wield.

And stay tuned to this blog for more techniques and tips to use new paradigms from quantum physics to create a life more aligned with your dreams…

Are You a Self-Help Junkie? (Part Two)

  Here is the second part of an interview I recently conducted with Laura Gevanter. With a degree in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst already under her belt, Laura attained her Life Coaching certification from the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching in New York City. (Her coaching practice is called Present Tense Coaching).  She is also the host of the Life in the Present Tense blog radio program.  I think you’ll find Laura’s take on the five reasons people get stuck with self-help interesting.

I had just asked Laura to explain the five reasons she’s identified that people get stuck using self-help.  Here are the other two reasons:

4) One size does not fit all.  How does this action feel to you? Does the thought of it make you excited or is it something you will dread? Another thing you see in many self help books is some sort of prescription for getting results. Keep a journal every night, visualize for 20 minutes each day, cut out all sugar, don’t eat after 7 pm, get 30 minutes of exercise everyday NO matter what. What is missing is that they usually don’t ask you how any of these things sound to you or what would feel better? Does it feel good to journal everyday? Does the thought of not eating after 7pm freak you out? If so, you are setting yourself up to fail which will put you right back where you started and why you got the book in the first place. You must only do things that feel/sound good to you. Or, if you do, do it, you will struggle with resistance because you are ignoring your intuition which is telling you “uh,uh…this is not the best way for us to do this. We need to enjoy the process because that is what life is really all about and why we are here to begin with”.

Here’s another reason why taking big steps might not work for a lot of people. Our brains are wired to initially resist any sort of change since it is part of the primitive survival mechanism. There is a part of the brain that sets off an alarm whenever you go veer off course from your usual routine. It’s like a thermostat that is regulated at a certain temperature. So, by taking small steps that are enjoyable, you are bypassing the part of the brain that is going to step in and tell you who’s boss and throw all your efforts out the window. Another thing about taking action that doesn’t feel good is that you are not in vibrational alignment with what it is you are trying to create, which will make it that much more difficult to attain if not impossible. You get aligned by doing what feels good. It’s really that simple.

And last but certainly not least….

5)Do you believe you can have/be/do this?  Now this is something that you will rarely see in any self-help book. The premise is usually if you want something you can have it. That’s not always the case. In reality you cannot exceed the level of your beliefs. Beliefs are just thoughts that you’ve had over and over again that you accept as truth and attract evidence of it.  So what happens is that you had an experience in childhood where you got embarrassed or failed at something and formed the belief you can’t do this or I am bad at that. Coupled with that, many people were told they weren’t good enough, don’t expect things to come easy, life is hard, etc.

So, we repeat these thoughts over and over again and they limit us in what we are actually able to achieve and succeed in. There is a ton of research out now about how our brains actually filter what information gets to the conscious part of our brains by what we focus on. So, if we have a belief that we are not good in social situations, our brain will actually go and find evidence of this (and let all that information get through and filter out all the times you were successful in social situations) therefore confirming your already faulty belief. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and most of us don’t even know this is happening.

You cannot exceed the level of your beliefs. You can look for evidence of this in your own life. Look at areas of your life that are working well and then take a look at your beliefs around this subject. Then look at areas that are not going so well. See the correlation here? What you can do is look at your beliefs around an area you want to change and see if they are still true for you. It is helpful to work with a coach on this, but you can also get really good results on your own by replacing those beliefs with new ones that serve you.

A great exercise to do is to take an outcome that you desire and ask yourself, “what would I have to believe in order for this to happen”. You’d be surprised what an eye-opening experience this is and how our beliefs can really keep us stuck. I really like the term belief modification rather than behavior modification which we so often hear. First you change your beliefs, then your behaviors will change. Not the other way around…

Greg: So now that you’ve identified these reasons which are very valid and help explain why many people may not get the results they desire, what’s next?

Laura: Well, I am in the process of writing a book, FOR self-help junkies about how to make any program work for them if they desire and I am also creating group coaching programs around this as well, as I feel people get much benefit from working together in groups in a supportive environment and I can also have a greater impact on more people than just working one-on-one which I also love. If anyone would like more information or to be added to my mailing list they can contact me at Laura@Presentensecoaching.com, or I’m also on FB and Twitter. And my radio show which airs on Wednesdays at 3pm EDT is www.blogtalkradio.com/Lauragev.

Are You a Self-Help Junkie? (Part One)

  Here is the first part of an interview I recently conducted with Laura Gevanter. With a degree in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst already under her belt, Laura attained her Life Coaching certification from the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching in New York City. (Her coaching practice is called Present Tense Coaching).  She is also the host of the Life in the Present Tense blog radio program.  I think you’ll find Laura’s take on the five reasons people get stuck with self-help interesting.

Greg: I guess the best place to start is: where did these 5 reasons come from? What was the motivation?

Laura: I stumbled upon the term self-help junkie and immediately identified with it. I knew exactly what it meant. It’s the feeling that this newest, latest and greatest book or self-help audio was going to be THE thing that was finally going to get me the results I wanted. You read book after book after book and nothing happened. But I’m reading all these books, why isn’t my life any different? The excitement you feel is fleeting, but the adrenaline rush is habit-forming. You hear about a new book, go on-line immediately to order it and watch the mail each day till it gets there. You then devour it in one night.

Yes, you say as you turn the pages, by the time I’m finished with this book, my life will turn out exactly how they say it will on the back cover. And then you’re done. If you are like most people (myself included) you skim over the exercises (I’ll come back to those later) and breeze over the “5-steps to take to get you “there”. Uh, maybe, but not today.  Know what I mean? Self-help does not work. I then gave this some thought and came up with an explanation that really resonated with me (and others I’ve discussed it with) that without using the basic principles of the law of attraction, you will most likely not get the results you are looking for. I’ve identified 5 reasons why self-help does not work and how to get any program to work for you by applying these principles.

Greg: That makes total sense and I’m sure many people can relate to what you’ve experienced. So, I guess the next obvious question is what are the 5 reasons you’ve identified?

Laura: Okay, here goes.

1.  Most self-help implies that there is something wrong with you that needs to be fixed. If you look through all the book titles, you will inevitably find some area that you are “lacking” in. The issue here is that there is a “right” way or “better” way for you to be and that is can be “fixed”. You are overweight, out of shape, can’t get out of your own way, procrastinate, chose the wrong people in relationships, etc. If we come from a place of self-love and compassion towards ourselves we can chose to decide to create certain changes in our lives based on the motivation that it feels better than what you are currently experiencing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you, you are perfect just the way you are, unless of course, you decided to take action to become a different and from your perspective, possibly a better version of you.  Which leads me perfectly to the next reason, which is…

2) You can’t get to where you want to be until you are okay with where you are. To some people, this sounds backwards and counter-intuitive. If I am okay with where I am then how will I get to be where I want to go?  But I am NOT okay with where I am which is why I’ve purchased this book in the first place. Let’s look at it from a different perspective.  You’ve heard the expression what you resist persists, right? Well that is exactly what is going on here. If you don’t make peace and accept where you are right now, with all of your circumstances, you will continue to create/attract more of the same. You can move, change jobs, find a new relationship and you will basically be bringing the same energy with you and virtually re-create what it is you are trying to move past.

So, what this really means is accept that this is where you are, in a temporary situation and use it as an opportunity to get really clear about what it is you DO want. For example: You are in a job that you hate. You dread going to work in the morning. It is natural to say “ I am not okay with where I am, there is nothing about this job I like”. Now let me make distinction here. Being okay with something is not the same thing as tolerating something or telling yourself you need to accept that this is the way life is. Far from it. You are using it as an opportunity to clean up your “low energy” thoughts about it in order to allow what you really want to come into you life. The fastest, easiest way to do this? Appreciation. It will send your vibration skyrocketing.

Find any way you can to appreciate something about where you are right now. You can start with your commute if you have one, your co-workers, the hours you work, the office space, the food they serve in the cafeteria….you get what I am talking about. Make a list of any and everything no matter how small about what you appreciate. Once you do that and are feeling a little better about where you are…now is the time to make a list of exactly what it is you DO want in as much detail as you can as if you were putting in a custom order, because that is really what you are doing.

3) You are starting from a place of looking at and focusing on what is are lacking in your life, not what you do have that is working.  I cannot stress enough how important this is. If we seek out help in the first place, we are coming from a place that something is lacking in our lives, not a very good feeling place. We see something that we want and for whatever reason, are having a hard time getting there. I suggest that people start from a place of what IS working in their lives, what they have that they are grateful for and see where they are already succeeding. You will start off in a higher energy/vibration than if you were to look at what you feel is missing. What happens to many people is they read all these books, listen to audios and they become experts. Experts on what they don’t have and they start to put their attention and focus there.

So, they start a program all excited and after a while are not getting the outcome they want and feel like they have failed so they are in the exact place where they started and now they have evidence to prove it. When you look at what is going well for you as your starting point you see what is possible and the energy that you are putting out is from a feel-good place. I do have abundance in my life. I am successful at some things. I can create what I want in my life, etc.

Stay tuned to the this blog for the rest of Laura’s five reasons and our interview…

Why Is He Miserable? Here is the Answer

  Do you know someone miserable?  I do.

He is occasionally short-tempered, often acts arrogantly, and sometimes speaks condescendingly.  He complains a lot; something is almost always wrong and it’s usually someone else’s fault.  By all appearances he is incredibly unhappy.

Can you imagine what it’s like to live inside his head?  What horrid and bad-feeling stories has he told himself for so long that they’ve become his beliefs?  He’s at the bottom of a deep well, buried in negative beliefs, and sees no way out.

In his mind, the only way he can escape his prison of unhappiness is for things outside of himself to conform to his plans.  “If only things would go the way I want them to, I would be okay” or “If only people would treat me the way I want them to, I would be happy”, he constantly thinks.  He is a victim in the truest sense of the word.

He doesn’t have a clue that his beliefs create his material reality – his life.  And he has no idea that he has created his beliefs through his habitual thoughts.  His overriding belief that he needs things outside himself to change (to be happy) is a result of a total lack of understanding about how each of us creates our world.

He could be free of his self-made prison today by taking responsibility for forming new beliefs.  He could form new beliefs by learning to tell himself better stories, which, over time, will form new neural pathways of habitual thought and, thus, create a new universe for him.  Instead he continues to plow the same old ground and, until he makes these changes, will always see the same repetitive, negative, displeasing, “out-of-order” universe.

Like the movie, Groundhog Day, this person is in a rut.  And the only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth of the hole.

Yes, I know this person very well.  Years ago, I used to see him in the mirror each morning.

Do you know this person too?  If you do, do yourself a favor and set yourself free.  The prison was self-created and has only been in your mind.  And if you do know this person, stay tuned to this blog for your parole papers!

Switchfoot: The Best Rock Band For Deliberate Creators?

  Is Switchfoot the best rock  group to inspire your deliberate creation?  If you haven’t listened to their music, give them a try and see if you agree that their songs set the mood for creating a more pleasing personal reality.

Switchfoot began as a Christian rock group in 1996 and, after releasing three CDs aimed at that audience, began to market themselves more broadly.  The members of Switchfoot voice disagreement about the label “Christian rock band”, however.  “For us, it’s a faith, not a genre,” frontman Jon Foreman says. “We’ve always been very open and honest about where the songs are coming from. For us, these songs are for everyone. Calling us ‘Christian rock’ tends to be a box that closes some people out and excludes them, and that’s not what we’re trying to do. Music has always opened my mind—and that’s what we want”.

Writer Andrew Beaujon, of Spin Magazine, says that “their lyrics often have two different meanings, one meaning for a Christian audience and one meaning for the rest of us. They try to relate to two different groups of people at once.”

 We Are Spiritual Beings Having a Physical Experience

One of Switchfoots recurring lyrical themes is that we are not material beings and that the material aspects of life are not what’s most important or most real.  In their song, “4:12” from the CD, “Oh! Gravity”, Foreman sings:

“You’re waiting tables and parking cars
You’ve been selling cell phones at the shopping mall
And you began to believe that all you are is material
It’s nonsensical”

Or, as sung, in their song, “Rise Above It”, from the CD, “Vice Verses”:

“I don’t care what they’re telling me
We could be what we want to be”

This theme is consistently found throughout their work; the Christian themes are easily identified in Switchfoot’s songs, yet the listener is also able to glean a definitive spiritual message from them as well – devoid of specific religious proselytizing.  The primacy of our non-physical energy is front and center on many of Switchfoot’s songs.

 Switchfoot Can Uplift Your Outlook and Inspire Your Creative Abilities

Additionally, Switchfoot tends to write very uplifting and optimistic songs.  Not just because they write about love, forgiveness, the choices we have with our perspectives, and the importance of our beliefs, but also because their take on subjects such as loss and pain are usually treated with a deliberate creator’s approach.

Switchfoot’s songs usually stress that, since we do not hold the perspective to define our life’s circumstances definitively, there is no need to despair or give up in the aftermath of seemingly bad events.  Their songs also encourage the listener to look for the inherent blessings in any situation, espousing the belief that if we look for ways to be grateful for our present circumstances, we will usually find things to be grateful for.

As Jon Foreman sings on “Always” from the CD, “Hello Hurricane”:

“Every breath is a second chance.”

Give Switchfoot a listen and see if you are inspired both by their upbeat musical arrangements and their  introspective lyrics.  And please share your picks for bands that can inspire deliberate creators.

Is Vanilla Sky the Best Movie About Deliberately Creating Your Own Reality?

  Is Vanilla Sky the best film illustrating the power you have to create your own reality?  Here’s a case for that claim.  A word of warning though: if you haven’t yet watched Vanilla Sky, this blog post is full of spoilers.

Vanilla Sky is a 2001 film starring Tom Cruise as an ultra-wealthy playboy named David Aames.  Aames is the head of a large publishing firm in New York City and the film chronicles, through a series of bizarre twists and unexplainable events, the unsettling destruction of his life of wealth and privilege.  Aames is disfigured in a gruesome automobile accident, has his publishing company taken from his control, loses the love of his life, and eventually commits a murder.

David Aames Heads a Multi-Million Dollar Publishing Company, But He Discovers His True Calling is “Architecture”

What puts Vanilla Sky near the top of movies about deliberate creation, however, is the appearance of a mysterious stranger (played by Noah Taylor) two-thirds into the film.  In the midst of Aames’ descent into complete ruin, this man tries to help Aames by talking to him in a bar one night, attempting to reveal the truth of deliberate creation – but only succeeds in frightening him.  Eventually, however, when he finally hits rock bottom near the end of Vanilla Sky (fueled by his state of complete and utter desperation), Aames consents to listen to this stranger.

The mysterious stranger explains that Aames is actually in the middle of a lucid dream and he has, in fact, had complete control over his life all along.  Aames discovers that he had actually chosen to be put into a cryonic sleep 150 years ago, until a cure could be discovered to keep him from dying from a drug overdose.  In his cryonic sleep, Aames has been the sole architect of his entire “dream” life – not only his experiences of incredible wealth, but also his horrific downfall.

Like Aames, All of Us Who Are Awake to Our Power of Creation Became So By Finally Listening to Our “Mysterious Stranger”

The stranger’s revelations to Aames are a picture perfect portrayal of what it was like for many of us when we finally became willing to learn and accept that we create our own reality.  The mysterious stranger who becomes Aames’ guide is an apt metaphor for any number of teachers who help awaken people from their sleepwalking life and realize their ultimate creative power and dominion over their personal experiences.

Whether Esther Hicks, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Doreen Banaszak, Marleen Keys, or Matthew O’Grady (some people who helped me awaken and continue to help me stay awake), like Aames, we usually only become open to such teachers when we have hit a “bottom”.  When there was nothing left to lose, except the pain of living our lives the way we always had.  And as you have undoubtedly done, once awakened, Aames embraces the freedom his new awareness about deliberate creation gives him to create better experiences from that point forward.

Perhaps, like Aames, you once ran away from the truth – clinging to your painful, yet familiar, paradigms and beliefs.  But when the pain of doing things the same old way outweighed your fear of doing things a new way, you opened your mind, listened, learned, and took flight.

Vanilla Sky Can Fill a Deliberate Creator with Immense Gratitude

It is interesting to watch Vanilla Sky a second time and empathize with Aames’ complete dismay as his life crumbles around him, and his feelings of being victimized, because it can remind us of what our life was like before we became awakened and began to create our reality intentionally.  I’ve watched the film numerous times and it not only motivates me to remain awakened, but even fills me with gratitude for the painful experiences I endured that finally made me willing to learn the secrets of deliberate creation I now practice and teach.

Being grateful for the pain I suffered, because it made me willing to change, is an amazingly positive perspective which further reinforces my positive neural pathways of habitual thought.

On an uplifting note, Vanilla Sky ends with Aames embracing freedom and choosing life in all its uncertainly and unpredictability rather than remaining a sleeper.  Although Vanilla Sky doesn’t portray the rest of his life, I like to think that the remainder of Aames days are spent like yours – as a deliberate creator of his life experiences who lives a life much more closely aligned with his desires.

Please let me know what you think.

Listen For Free This Sunday as Greg Discusses Reality and Your Power to Create It

  This Sunday, October 7th at 3 PM EST, authors Greg Kuhn will appear on the well-known radio Program, Litopia After Dark.

Kuhn will discuss the very nature of reality and how it is created.  Tune in to learn more about your power to deliberately create your life experiences so that they are more closely aligned with your desires.

About Litopia After Dark:

“This is the show that started it all!

Four years ago, we thought it would be fun to assemble an eclectic crowd of writers from all over the world to create a virtual literary salon.

Today, Litopia After Dark provides essential creative sustenance for tens of thousands of listeners across the globe.

No topic is off limits.

We can leap from the bookish to the bawdy in a single bound.  We frequently raise issues months before “old media” discovers them.   And our aim is to keep you informed, in the know… and in stitches.

And most of the time, our listeners say we succeed!”