Become a love magnet
“The secret of attraction is to love yourself. Attractive people judge neither themselves nor others. They are open to gestures of love. They think about love, and express their love in every action. They know that love is not a mere sentiment, but the ultimate truth at the heart of the universe.”
~ Deepak Chopra
By now, most of you know about the movie, The Secret, which explains the Law of Attraction, and shows you how to begin using this tremendous power in your life. If
you’re excited about becoming a magnet for all that you truly desire — wealth, health, happiness, success, love — 2007 is a great year to put your intention to work with your attention.
If LOVE is what you’re seeking, I have a special opportunity just for you. I am hosting a coaching group designed to help you easily and joyfully attract your ideal mate into your life. This group, called AIM for Love (Attract your Ideal Mate), will show you how to use the Law of Attraction, visualization, and other potent tools to manifest your ideal love relationship. By joining this coaching group, you’ll be surrounding yourself with others on a similar path and you’ll benefit from the collective positive energy. You’ll have my professional coaching support each week and specific exercises designed to move you quickly into effective action.
Stop thinking about “if and when” you’ll have your dream relationship and start attracting the relationship of your dreams today!
Become a magnet for your true love!
Click here to learn more about AIM for Love. Just 8 spots are available. Bonus gifts are available if you register soon!
“We do not fall in love, we grow in love and love grows in us.”
~ Dr. Karl Menninger
Bring more peace & cheer to your holidays
“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The winter holidays offer us a time to celebrate, rejoice, and share love and good fortune. Yet for many people this time of year feels stressful, inauthentic, or devoid of deep meaning. This post contains ideas from my own experience about how to create joyous and memorable holidays. My wish is that in reading this, you’ll be inspired to make your holidays and holy days deeply meaningful.
Choose your rituals with care. I watched the news recently and listened to the stories of the post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping crunch that happened in our town. They showed pictures of streets snarled with traffic, parking lots packed with cars, and people lined up before dawn waiting to be let into stores to shop. I cringed, thinking, “Why would anyone do this?” I remembered, of course, that this day of shopping is, for many, a ritual. For me, I know that this is not a ritual I want to include in my holidays. Through past participation, I know that I don’t enjoy it, find it stressful, get annoyed with other people, and end up smothering my authentic holiday cheer with impatience, resentment, and weariness.
Ask for what you want. At some time in our lives, most of learned to stop asking for what we wanted. Whether we were told such behavior was greedy, selfish, or simply too bold doesn’t matter. What’s true is that most of us don’t read minds. So let your wishes be known—“It’s important to me that we share a holiday meal with my family.” Then do your best to stay flexible and not demand that others acquiesce. Speak up for yourself, so that at least other people will be able to take your needs and wants into consideration.
Invite others to contribute. I brought to my marriage a host of Christmas rituals and their accoutrements (everything from many Christmas music albums and plenty of decorations to ornaments enough for several trees.) When the “right time” came and I jumped into my inherited and cherished ritual of putting up the tree and decorating the house while singing to Barbara Streisand or my Star Wars Christmas album (still one of my favorites), I noticed that my husband Bruce wasn’t really joining in. For me, companionship and shared fun were what my ritual was all about and the reason I did the ritual in the first place. The problem: we were doing MY Christmas ritual, which had little meaning for him. So we talked about what was important to each of us and what we each wanted to experience for the holiday. We then modified the ritual to include some of his favorite holiday music, and he got to put some of the household decorations where he wanted them to go. So instead of Bruce trying to force himself into my ritual, we both contributed pieces to a new experience that reflected both of our wants and needs.
Have some normalcy. I think that one of the biggest challenges of the holiday season is that much of our regular routine is ignored until after the celebrations are over. Everyday activities and habits (e.g., exercise, food/diet choices, sleep patterns) help ground us and give us comfort in a world of unknowns. While there may be some habits you choose to set aside during the holidays, there are likely several others that would serve you to retain. When you keep some regularity and routine, the holiday whirlwind can blow through your life without toppling you over or knocking you off course.
Feed your soul by receiving & giving. I believe that our hearts know that our spirit is nourished by both receiving and giving, yet we often let our past experience and learned behaviors overrule our deeper wisdom. As one of my spiritual leaders has said, if you hold your breath and don’t give away the carbon dioxide, you have no room in your lungs for the gift of oxygen. Giving and receiving is about more than just gifts. It encompasses the sharing of time, attention, love, peace, gratitude and more. Allow yourself to experience both giving and receiving and be a miser with neither. Open your heart to the gifts (non-material and material) that others seek to share with you. Give willingly of yourself, symbolically and otherwise, to those with whom you choose.
“Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meaning can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
May each and every one of you thoroughly enjoy your holidays. Thank you for the gift of your presence here at the Lavender Log — I am grateful for your comments and your community. I look forward to continued connections in the year ahead!
With love and peace,
“Expect nothing; live frugally on surprise.”
~ Alice Walker
Would Whalerider be on your “top movies” list?
If you find that you rarely go to the mainstream theater because of the lack of uplifting choices or that you’re grossed out by the titles on the shelves at the movie rental store, I’ve got four words for you:
If you’ve not heard of the Circle, here are a few tidbits:
Each month you receive 4 features and shorts on DVD. The movies are personally selected by Stephen Simon, Producer of the films “Somewhere in Time” and “What Dreams May Come”, Producer/Director of “Indigo” and co-founder of The Circle and his team. These movies represent the best of spiritual cinema and art.
The movies are new films you’re unlikely to see anywhere else. These films inspire, heal and transform our lives. A few of my MANY favorites are:
- In God We Trust — A great, humorous, intriguing short about karma and how our trip to “heaven or hell” is determined.
- Emmanuel’s Gift — The powerful true story of a “disabled” man from Ghana whose courage and choices changed his people and his nation forever.
- The Hired Heart – A tender story of love, loss, and new beginnings that was both funny and moving.
The DVDs are yours to keep. You don’t have to return them. In fact, you’re encouraged to share them with friends and family, in order to broaden the worldwide Spiritual Cinema community.
The cost of the service is kept deliberately low, so the maximum number of people can participate.
There’s no risk - you may cancel your membership at any time. And remember, you never have to return any of your DVDs, even if you decide to cancel your membership.
So, if you want to enjoy hours of wonderful entertainment every month, make a statement about what kind of a world you want to live in, and make a real difference in how spiritually-empowering entertainment is distributed by demonstrating how big the worldwide spiritual cinema community really is, sign up for your no cost, no risk trial today.
There are many films as beautiful as Whale Rider and as thought-provoking as WHAT THE BLEEP made each year, and I’ve found them (for over two straight years) through my membership in The Spiritual Cinema Circle (All links are through my affiliate account. The homepage is spiritualcinemacircle.com.).
Treat yourself to a great gift and try the Circle for yourself!
Who is responsible for your life?
Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.
~ William Blake
What does “accountable” mean to you? I ask, because over the past two days I’ve encountered two examples of what I identify as misplaced responsibility.
In a new group I’m joining, people have been offering ideas about our purpose and structure. Here are a couple of quotes from the list of suggestions (emphasis mine):
- “At each meeting individuals could pledge to take specific actions, to be reported on at subsequent meetings. The group will hold individuals accountable.”
- “Group will hold everyone accountable for being on time.”
Then, on Enhance Life, a blog written by a recent visitor to the Lavender Log, I saw this post, “Who borrowed your time today?” The underlying premise, to identify where you unwisely use your time, I absolutely agree with. The way of stating it, however, seems to imply that someone else is responsible for how your time is used. Not true, I say.
So here are my thoughts on being accountable, which, by the way, is defined as, “liable to be called to account” or “being obliged to answer to an authority for your actions.”
- Accountability rests with YOU. Though you might be answering to someone, the accountability (synonym = responsibility) is yours.
- Being accountable means keeping your word and doing what you committed to do. Dropping the ball happens to everyone, yet doing so doesn’t absolve any of us of our accountability.
- Having someone, like a coach (that’s me) to check in with you and support you to keep your commitments is one of the best ways you can increase your effectiveness. If you have made commitments in the past, yet failed to keep them, you owe it to yourself to get support!
- Finally, the next time you notice yourself wanting someone to hold you accountable, take a look in the mirror and remind yourself that YOU are the only person who can be accountable for your life. It’s your life, take responsibility for making it the life you truly want!
Learning to assume total responsibility for your life is no small task. Keep reminding yourself that you are it. No one else is responsible for your happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction, competence, health, or life situation but you. No matter what life or leadership challenges you face, you are not a victim of your circumstances; you are responsible. As you advance, you will find that you feel happy for no particular reason - no external event has validated you - you are just feeling good about being you. As you increasingly assume responsibility for yourself, you are prepared to assume responsibility for leading others. All leadership begins with self-leadership and self-responsibility.
~ Kevin Cashman, in Leadership from Inside Out
Give yourself to love
I am blessed. In so many ways I have been touched by love and grace and sometimes I wonder how it’s all come about. Recently, after reading an email from a dear friend, I was reminded of how incredibly fortunate I am. In feeling grateful for my life, I was reminded of part of the reason I have all the blessings in my life that I do–I open myself fully to the world and the world, in the form of people, opportunities, and events responds.
Here’s one of the latest examples of how this Law of Attraction works for me. I had just bought tickets to visit my parents in Colorado when I called up my beloved friend and mentor, Lance Secretan (a gifted and special teacher of inspired leaders around the globe) who has a home in Copper Mountain Colorado where he and his wife love to ski. I asked if he would be open to skiing with me for a day while I was in town.
On the one hand, this might seem a common request, yet I got feedback from a relative that I would be imposing on Lance (an expert skier) by asking him to spend a day skiing with me (I hadn’t been on skis for 12 years). Now, Lance is not the sort of person to think in such a way and I know this well. However, it still would have 
been easy for me to talk myself out of asking to ski with him had I not been the kind of person I am–someone who uses her courage to ask for what she wants regardless of the consequences. So I asked . . . and trusted that whatever was meant to happen would. And what happened is that Lance and I spent the day shushing down the slopes, soaking in the sun, and savoring each other’s friendship. (Read his post about the day.) How awesome is that?!
This whole experience brings to my heart one of my favorite songs, Give Yourself to Love, by Kate Wolf. For me these words are reminders to be open fully to your life. To give your authentic self to those precious people who come across your path. To willingly take in the whole of life’s experiences–the “good” and the “bad.” Here’s a short clip of the song’s chorus. The full lyrics are below.
Give Yourself to Love, by Kate Wolf
Kind friends all gathered ’round, there’s something I would say:
That what brings us together here has blessed us all today.
Love has made a circle that holds us all inside;
Where strangers are as family, loneliness can’t hide.You must give yourself to love if love is what you’re after;
Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter,
And give yourself to love, give yourself to love.I’ve walked these mountains in the rain and learned to love the wind;
I’ve been up before the sunrise to watch the day begin.
I always knew I’d find you, though I never did know how;
Like sunshine on a cloudy day, you stand before me now.So give yourself to love if love is what you’re after;
Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter,
And give yourself to love, give yourself to love.Love is born in fire; it’s planted like a seed.
Love can’t give you everything, but it gives you what you need.
And love comes when you’re ready, love comes when you’re afraid;
It’ll be your greatest teacher, the best friend you have made.So give yourself to if love is what you’re after;
Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter,
And give yourself to love, give yourself to love.Give yourself to love, if love is what you’re after;
Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter,
And give yourself to love, give yourself to love.
So, I share all this as a way of reminding you to give yourself to love and open yourself up fully to life’s amazing possibilities. If what you desire is a blessed life, take the first step and be open to that very real opportunity. If you have similar stories of how you’ve been blessed, please share.
