Life is a Spontaneous Creation

Security. This one idea drives humankind to distraction. We spend countless hours in anxious turmoil pondering whether or not we will have a secure life…will I have enough money, food and a place to live? Will my children be safe in the streets and at school? All this fretting causes us to fight hard to gain a sense of security and then maintain it but there is an idea I’d like to put forth that many might not have considered: security comes from stability, stability leads to stagnation and stagnation is the opposite of living.

Everything changes. The universe is changing, nature is changing, your body is changing, and your thoughts are changing…all life centers on growth and change. Seedlings transform into flowers, caterpillars change into butterflies, and children grow into adults all as life unfolds. To seek stability is to seek lack of change. The more regimented our lives become, the less we grow. We all know people who become situated into a routine. They go to bed at the same time, get up at the same time, drive the same car following the same route, go to the same places, interact with the same people, eat the same food, watch the same TV programs, etc., etc. Over time, these people become “set in their ways” and trying to introduce them to a new idea is like trying to pull teeth. The worst part of it is that this is what so many people think they want for themselves. The average person sets forth on a path to this very destination and they do so because they live in fear of not knowing what’s around the next corner. Life has become so frightening to most of us that we actively avoid living and, instead, simply exist.

The truth is there is no such thing as security in the sense most people mean it. No matter how old you get, how long you’ve been with your company or how much money you have, it can all change tomorrow and, of course, it is this idea that has us fighting so hard to hold on to what we have. Life is a spontaneous creation, though, that is changing with every new decision. How can something so flexible, so plastic, ever be secure? Rather than exhaust ourselves trying to ensure that we have what we have forever, why not work on creating an inner knowledge that we can always create what we choose from each moment? In other words, we live in fear that we will lose what we have and never regain it instead of realizing that if we got it once, we can get it again. This is how millionaires can go broke in a bad business venture and gain it all back within a year. They realize that if they got there once, they can get there again any time they choose. This is known as prosperity consciousness and it is something all of us would gain greatly from developing because it doesn’t only apply to money, it applies to every achievement. As my sculpting teaching used to say, “Don’t worry about messing up something you’ve made. You’re the artist. If you created it once, you can always create it again”.

Developing prosperity consciousness means realizing that you are the one creating your life. Your choices lead you in certain directions and you can choose to regain anything you have lost or you can choose to have that loss be permanent. Just like the artist with his clay, you can form and re-form your life as you see fit. This doesn’t mean the desired results will come over night but if you don’t lose sight of your goal, you will most definitely achieve it.

Miracles Are The Natural Order Of Things

Do you remember being young and marveling at the fact that birds can fly or clouds hang suspended in mid air? You were appreciative of the lush greenness of the grass and the trees and the glow of fireflies on a summer’s night. Remember how, now matter how quickly you tried, you could never catch the light in the refrigerator go off or come on and how excited you were when you saw 6 inches of snow cover the ground? You watched in amazement as the scrapes on your knees healed themselves and, though you didn’t see it, you managed to grow another inch before school started. Life is and always has been full of miracles. 

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How To Pray Effectively

Why do so many people’s prayers go unanswered? It really does seem like prayers are answered in preferential order, since some come to pass and many others don’t. Is God really going by some criteria that we have to meet in order to have our prayers answered or could it be that we’re just going about praying the wrong way?

From my observation, most people pray by begging for what they want. “Oh please let this happen.” Or “I really need this, please bring it to me.” If it’s something really important, we often barter for the service. “If you heal me of my cancer, I promise to always be nice and loving toward everyone!” Sometimes this works but more often than not, it doesn’t. I think it’s because this form of prayer places us in a position of powerlessness. We’re asking for things we don’t think we can attain on our own and that makes us feel powerless and this feeling often brings about results that reflect it. “But I am powerless! I can’t cure myself of cancer. I need intervention!”

Who told you you can’t cure cancer? In medical terms, it’s called spontaneous remission. People are diagnosed with cancer and return weeks or months later for a follow up and there is no sign of it anymore. There are many documented cases of people with Multiple Personality Disorder who have been diagnosed with cancer as one personality but show absolutely no signs of it as another personality. This is proof that we are more powerful than we give ourselves credit for.

The world is also full of examples of people who have gotten things in very unexpected ways. People who needed money for an outstanding debt, rain to soothe a drought, spontaneous healing of a serious illness, etc. These are examples of the right thing being synchronistically drawn to you so you can achieve your goal. Another way to phrase it might be, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

So how do we pray in an effective manner? The first step is to decide what you want and why you want it. For example, let’s say you want to pray for money to pay a debt. Why do you want it? The obvious answer is, “To pay my debt” but the real answer is probably more like, “To be free of the stress and worry this debt brings me.” Next, stop giving your power away and assuming you’re not capable of attaining what you want. This means no more begging. No more “Please do this” and “Please bring me that”. Then declare what you want as though it has already happened. “I am now completely free of the stress and worry of this debt because it has been paid in full.” Noticed I didn’t ask for the money, I asked to be free of the stress and worry and that the debt was paid but I didn’t specify how. In other words, I didn’t say, “I now have the money to pay off this debt.” Finally, and this tends to be the hardest part for people, don’t spend time getting in your own way. Don’t tell yourself how unlikely it is the money will show up in time or at all, for that matter. Don’t place limitations on it by deciding it has to come from a certain place or in a certain way. For instance, if you needed $500, don’t assume you’ll get a check for $500 at once. You might get $50 here, $20 there, $100 over there or the money might not even come to you. I spent 3 days in the hospital a year and incurred a bill for $1,200 that I didn’t have. Instead of trying to generate the money, I simply decided it was paid…however that was going to happen. Ultimately, the hospital ended up paying the bill, which was something that had never even occurred to me as being an option.

This method of prayer does work but it takes some practice to get used to. For so many, the idea that we don't have to go petitioning the universe for what we want and that we might not be worthy of having it is a tough one to let go of. My suggestion is simply to try it. It certainly can’t hurt you and it might very well improve the effectiveness of your prayers.

Quality of Life versus Quantity of Life

The obituary tells of 2 men—one died at the age of 90 and the other at age 16. If you had to choose to be one of these men, which would you choose? Let’s delve a little deeper. Matthew, the 90 year old lived a hard life of manual labor. His body was gnarled and painful from the hard work he had done most of his life. He was always in pain and very sick and the amount of discomfort he was in made him very bitter. His attitude caused even his family members to dislike him and he died alone and with no friends. Anthony, the 16 year old, had what most would consider a happy life. He was well-liked and had many friends. He enjoyed plenty of hobbies and interests and was healthy and robust. He died instantly in a car accident. Now which would you choose?

We seem to think that the longer the life lived, the better it must be but this certainly isn’t always the case. Why do we as a society have such a hard time accepting the idea that what matters in life is how much you enjoy the time you have and not how long you’re here? When interviewed about what they regret most in life, the overwhelming majority of senior citizens say they regret not doing the things they always wanted to do, such as travel to a place they’ve always had an interest in, learn to play an instrument, spend more time with their loved ones, etc. You never hear, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” Advice like, “Live every moment like it was your last” seems to fall on deaf ears as we muddle through life putting off all the things we enjoy in favor of all the things we dislike.

Is it any wonder that so many people are unhappy? Most of our time is spent doing things that stress us out and so very little time is spent doing things that make us feel good. In fact, we even teach each other and ourselves that we should postpone the things we enjoy until all the things we don’t enjoy are finished, no matter how long that might take. We live for weekends, holidays and vacations. In January, we sit and dream of our 2 weeks off in July and convince ourselves that that tiny respite is somehow enough to make everything alright…until vacation is over and it’s time to go back to work.

I think the mentality goes something like, “But the longer you’re here, the more of a chance you have to change things for the better.” The problem, though, is if you keep doing things the way you’ve always done them you’re just going to succeed in dragging out the unhappiness. In other words, if you’re assuming that living a life filled with things you don’t like is somehow going to give you the opportunity to have a life filled with things you do like, you’re only going to succeed in living a longer life filled with things you don’t like.

To have a different life literally only takes a second. All it takes is to decide to do things differently and then do them and the next thing you know, life has turned around and you’re doing the things you enjoy. No, this doesn’t mean you’ll instantly be able to tour Europe or buy a mansion but it does mean you’ll be able to fill your life with more enjoyable things right now instead of waiting for when you retire. After all, what if you don’t see retirement? My grandfather used to talk about his plans for retirement and how great it would be. All the fishing he would do and the things he wanted to experience. He retired at age 65 and shortly thereafter died. He never had the chance to do any of the things he wanted to do. What is the point in putting these things off when you don’t know that you’ll even be here 5 minutes from now? We keep planning for the future when the only thing we ever have is the present so why aren’t we making it as pleasant as we can?

There seems to be this idea that it’s just not that simple. That somehow life won’t let us be happy that easily. The problem with that thinking is there are plenty of people who do live the type of life I’m talking about and they’re ordinary human beings like the rest of us. They simply made a choice to live a life full of as many enjoyable moments as they could and they act on that decision every chance they get.

I remember hearing a local news anchorwoman telling a story about her son. She said, “When he was very young, around 8 years old, my son said, ‘Mom, I’m only going to take jobs I like’ and I thought, ‘How naive; how child-like.’ Part of me wanted to tell him that it doesn’t work that way but he was so young, I didn’t want to disappoint him. Now he’s in his mid 20’s and very successful and you know what? He did exactly what he said he was going to do. He only ever took jobs he wanted and never the ones that just came along and offered good money. I see now how wise he was when he was only 8 and wish I had had that insight earlier in my life.”

A tedious, stressful life that lasts 100 years or a happy, joyful one that lasts 30. Which would you rather live?

How Multitasking Limits Your Success

It’s a multitasking world. Answer the phone, write an email, cook dinner, check on the kids, read the mail and get ready for that meeting tomorrow…all at the same time. We're told that multitasking is a good way to get ahead but is it really? The average adult attention span is about 20 minutes and Western culture has decided to try and cram as much into that time as possible through the introduction of multitasking. The issue, though, is that the human brain can only place its full attention on 1 thing at a time which means the more multitasking you do, the less effective you are at doing it.

From an energetic and Law of Attraction perspective, multitasking leads to more unwanted results than we would prefer. This attitude of switching our attention from one thing to another every few seconds, and the stress that comes from it, contributes to the mixed results we get in our lives. For instance, we attract some positive things that make us feel like we’re heading in the right direction and a few days later, it looks like we’re back where we started. An inability to stay focused on one idea (which multitasking reinforces) results in switching energies from one thing to the next. One minute you’re focused on an exciting idea in your life and the next you’re worried about gas prices or who will win the next election. To really attract what we want in life, we have to be single-minded and focused, which Westerners have not been trained to do.

Looking at the East, where meditation is still an important part of the culture, we see trained minds capable of holding a single idea for hours on end and we marvel. They have trained themselves to focus like a laser beam and the results are highly impressive. This is how the Yogis and Tibetan and Buddhist monks perform miracles that boggle the Western mind—slowing their heart rate and breathing until they appear to be dead or sitting half naked in the snow with wet towels wrapped around them and drying them only with their body heat, for example. Interestingly, these feats are not performed by the more Westernized people who have adopted our fast-paced way of life.

Do Olympic coaches promote multitasking in their athletes? No. They teach their athletes to focus solely on winning. “See yourself at the finish line. See the gold medal around your neck” a coach might say. Many studies have verified the effectiveness of this method and major companies have begun to employ it. If multitasking really is the way to get ahead, why aren't the most successful people using it? In truth, the highly successful people understand the importance of focusing on a single idea. Rather than multitasking, they take the time and focus to visualize the end result of their endeavor, just like the Olympic athletes do.

I highly recommend learning to use guided imagery as a means of focusing thought. This method has been in use for thousands of years and is just as effective today. Experts say we only use 10% of the mind’s ability and I have no doubt that a big part of the reason is we haven’t learned to really focus our attention. We are easily distracted (another trait multitasking reinforces) and rarely put our full attention on anything. Just think about how much more effective you could be in your life if you learned to focus your attention.

Learn more about guided imagery .

Blessings,

Jason Hundley

The Top 3 Stumbling Blocks to Psychic Development

Have you heard someone say, “Everyone has some degree of psychic ability”? Did you then think, “Ok, so where’s mine?” I think everyone has psychic ability that is either naturally prevalent or is latent but can be developed. However, those who wish to develop these skills often are met with a few stumbling blocks that normally stop them from reaching their goals. Let’s take a look at 3 main stumbling blocks to psychic development.

The first stumbling block is a misunderstanding of psychic ability. A lot of people expect what they see in the movies: bright, colorful, photographically clear images that present a story. I have found, though, that most clairvoyants don’t have that kind of crystal clear experience. For instance, when I see something, it’s usually a brief flash, occasionally in color, and it’s often symbolic and requires a little thought to find the meaning behind it. I have had many discussions with friends of mine who are psychic and they tell me they have the same type of experience I do.

It is also important to know that clairvoyance (seeing psychic images) is not the only ability a person can have. Some people hear (clairaudience) things such as the voices of spirit guides; others feel (clairsentience) energies or detect danger through “gut feelings”. Some even smell etheric scents. Whatever your psychic strength is, start by developing it first and then move to others later, if you want to. My psychic strength happens to be clairsentience.

The second stumbling block to psychic development is what I call “chasing the information”. This refers to the tendency to “go get” the information we want. Chasing the information places a big road block between what we’re trying to learn and ourselves. Instead, approach it from a relaxed and receptive state, allowing the information to come to you. Have you wondered why so many psychics have prophetic dreams? They are in a very deep state of relaxation and receptivity when they're asleep. If you know how to meditate, I would recommend slipping into a light meditative sate. If you don’t know how to meditate, don’t worry. Just be calm and relaxed and allow the information to enter your mind.

The third stumbling block to psychic development is trust. Many people expect the information to take one form and end up getting something different, causing them to dismiss what was received. The key to moving along the path of psychic development is to trust the impressions you get. For instance, I was working with my sister one time, trying to discover the cause of her headache. I received an image of her house and couldn’t make sense of why I would be shown that. I was sure my mind was simply conjuring up this picture and it had no relevance. But, trusting what I was receiving, I asked her if anything was going on at home that might be causing her stress and she confirmed that she was very worried about an upcoming party she had to get the house ready for. Had I simply assumed I was making up the picture of her house because it wasn’t what I was expected to be the answer, I might not have found the problem.

Psychic development can be a very fun and rewarding journey as long as you approach it from a relaxed and open state of mind. Try not to force anything and don't get discouraged when things don't turn out the way you hoped. In time, you will develop a greater trust in your abilities and see real improvement. I wish you the best of luck on your road to psychic development.

Blessings,

Jason Hundley

The Art of Effortless Doing

Western culture covets hard work and the harder it is the more we seem to appreciate it. If we find we aren’t achieving the results we want, we try harder and if that doesn’t work, we try even harder. It is almost as though we think if there isn’t struggle and sacrifice involved, the work isn’t worthwhile. However, the most fundamental functions of life are so effortless they don’t even require thought. Breathing, sleeping, eating, drinking, cell replication, heart rate, body temperature, oxygen exchange, and digestion are all things we literally can’t live without but when was the last time you struggled to do any of them?

The Chinese have a belief system called Taoism that holds a very different philosophy from the Western one. The Taoists follow a principle known as Wei Wu Wei or effortless doing. By observing nature, Taoist monks realized that it thrives without struggle. The trees, grass and flowers grow without strain, the rivers flow without trying, the sun rises and sets without effort, and the planets revolve without forcing themselves to. All of nature does without doing. It acts naturally, easily and always in the correct way. Put simply, nature does the natural thing.

It is when people push against nature that difficulties arise. A tree is a tree and a squirrel is a squirrel and as long as they each act the part, everything is in balance. However, if the tree tries to become a squirrel or the squirrel a tree, they will find their new identity rather hard to maintain. Likewise, if a natural artist spends his time in the role of an accountant, he will quickly find his job to be tedious and dull. He is acting against his nature as an artist. When he paints, sculpts or draws, however, his spirit is lifted and energized because he is flowing with his nature.

Effortless doing doesn’t mean doing nothing, however. To breathe, you must draw the breath. For blood to circulate, the heart must contract. For the artist to create a masterpiece, he must paint, draw or sculpt. However, all of these actions are so natural they occur automatically. Just try to keep an artist from creating! The art of effortless doing requires doing what is natural for you at all times. If you find yourself in a conflicting situation, you know you are not in your natural flow. Ask yourself, “What would I rather be doing instead of this?” to get an idea of the direction you should be moving in. Trust your nature and allow it to flow. As the Taoists say, “Do nothing and everything gets done”.

Blessings,

Jason Hundley

Dr. Wayne Dyer's book Living the Wisdom of the Tao is an excellent tool for understanding and integrating the wonderful philosophical gems of Taoism.