Warning: Long, giddily optimistic post...

The most ominous clouds have been hanging out, weighing down the sky for the last two days but not really raining. Pockets of blue sky show through like tantalizing advertisements for Spring but neither option is taking over, leaving me with a schizophrenic feeling of not really knowing what to expect of the weather. Have you ever considered how much the weather shapes your mood?

Above and beyond that, I've been trying to decide how to write about what I've been discovering, through reading and then practical experience, in relationship to what seems to be most universally called The Law of Attraction. That basic law is one so simple it's hard...you know what I mean? It says, in essence: Like attracts like. So that's really simple. It makes sense. Most of us, even those who would rather swallow nails than believe anything stemming from New Age philosophies, can probably look into our own lives and see that that is true. Wake up in a bad mood...funny how the whole day seems to go bad. But admitting that our lives have been shaped at our own hand, that the good and especially the bad have come to us because we have drawn it, and kept it in our lives, well that's harder for most people to swallow.

But try for a minute. Can you imagine that your thoughts and feelings have a certain vibrational frequency? If you could weigh or measure them, what if you could discover that a certain thought had one measurement, while another kind of thought had yet another (I actually think that someday science will in fact be able to do this!). Or, to give an easier example...when you want to listen to your radio station, let's say you want to hear Word by Word, that fabulous literary program... You know that you can tune in to 90.9 or 91.1 FM on a radio station in the general Santa Rosa vicinity to hear what KRCB's little radio tower is transmitting. The tower is transmitting a frequency and your antennae is receiving it, pretty basic science of electromagnetics and radio waves. Even though you may not exactly know HOW it works, you don't question THAT it does. You wouldn't be silly enough to tune your dial to 104.1 expecting to pick up Word by Word, then, right?

So, let's say you have a desire, which you experience in the form of a thought or a feeling. Let's say that desire is: you want to own a new car. Let's say this feels urgent too because your current car is falling apart, sucks down gas and makes you nervous that it will give out on you each time you drive it. Assuming your thought has a frequency just like your radio station does, let's jump back to this idea of like attracting like. The frequency of your desire: I want a new car! Which actually, in reality is, "I don't want this shitty car," is transmitted out to the universe, and what do you get in return? You get a flat tire. You break down. Why? Because the universe is not benevolent? No. Because your FOCUS is your invitation to the frequency. You are focusing on the LACK, on the NOT WANTING this shitty car. And let's face it, you don't know how you'll come up with the money for your new car, you know you'll have to fight your spouse over what kind, and really you don't deserve a better, more fuel-efficient car because you dont' work hard enough...and so on and so forth. I will guarantee you that if you keep noticing the lack, the lack is what you'll have. Conversely, when you focus on the having, on the abundance, what do you have? I challenge you to look into your own history and find five examples of each scenario. I'll bet you can think of a time when, against all odds you set out to do something or have something or meet someone, and you were just dedicated to that result coming true. You could taste it. And it did. And vice versa.

I know that by now, if you thought i was a rational person you have stopped believing this and maybe are even thinking about stopping by less often. Because there's something scary inside this information. Something a little off the wall, out of our minds. And it isn't being handed down by a religious figure or a guru either, which must make that even harder to hear.

But I have to tell you, I can demonstrate more ways that this has proven true for me than not, both bad and good. And, what's more, I realize that this is the "answer" so to speak, that I have been on the tail of for a long time. First I was introduced to Caroline Myss years ago, back in college, and her concept that we have an "energy anatomy" felt so exactly, perfectly right to me that i couldn't believe it. I wanted to know my own energy anatomy better. How perfect then that I met Carole through my major in college, and got involved in the wonderful workshops at Touchstone, where workshops are designed specifically to acquaint you with the map of your body on all its levels. I started to understand how my energy, my physical structure and my consciousness work in tandem (or don't). In other words, I got the answer to my request that I wanted to know my own energy anatomy better.

And now, the Law of Attraction has fallen into my life (actually, I've attracted it) and it makes the most sense of all. It is the template I can apply to my life and see exactly why things have happened as they have. And as such, I am so excited for this workshop that Becca and I are leading because I have the energy of enthusiasm and of practical experience to bring to it.

I don't want to covert anyone or proselytize or become a motivational speaker. I just want to share what I'm learning. In fact, here is a little snapshot of the last six months of my life SINCE working with the Law of Attraction:

Six months ago--October of 2004--I fantasized about working for myself, completely, from home more than ever. I couldn't stop thinking about it. But how? I was only freelance writing a tiny bit on the side, and we were not financially in the position to have only one income, and a sketchy one at that. Becca and I were meeting about once a week to go over our writing intentions, since we both hungered for a similar result: to write as much as possible, and be paid to do so. I had a job with wonderful people for a great cause that still, somehow, didn't fit me. I wasn't happy.

I decided, well, maybe I could work from home two days a week, sure, that will be good. As soon as I let that idea in, two job interviews came my way for writing related work through channels I had not pursued. They came to me. Neither job was right, but the fact that they could show up out of the blue like that struck me and made me curious. Made me want to dream bigger.

What if I allowed myself to really embrace the idea of working in my home, at my desk, only for myself? I talked the idea over with Erik and we thought about it. After having been concerned about the idea for years, he suddenly was enthusiastic and certain that this was the right move for me.

At the end of that month, I got an offer through someone I know for an editing gig to edit manuscripts on a fairly regular basis, as a freelancer. I'm not making this up! Out of the blue! I wasn't selling myself as an editor, thought I'd been doing more and more of it through word of mouth. I said yes, and within a month I realized that the amount of money I was making through editing, combined with freelance writing, would equal the same, if not more of an income, than I was making at my day job. So I gave two months notice.

Every time I felt the insecurity of doubt or fear about the future arise, I would write in my journal about how wonderful it would be to work for myself, what the upside was, and how it would allow me to really live the life I wanted. I fought fear at every turn, I refused to let it in for very long because I could feel it's life-sucking energy on my spirit and I knew I couldn't afford it.

By the time I left my job, I had put away so much money that I had been making freelancing ON THE SIDE while getting ready to leave, that I had an impressive cushion to pad even a couple of slow months of work. I kept looking at that number and saying to myself: where did this come from??

I've been working for myself for almost four months now and I haven't even had to go into that cushion. It keeps flowing, so long as I keep allowing.

And my mood is better, I have planted a garden, I now cook and nurture myself more, exercise regularly and write all the time.

So you tell me. Am I out of my mind?

JPR