“Here is my own plan for life, the Pathfinder’s plan: ‘I exist in perpetual creative response to whatever is present.’” - Martha Beck, Steering by Starlight

In her incredible new book, Steering by Starlight, Martha Beck writes about a mantra she made up…

“Just this.”

I’ve been saying “Just this” to myself for several weeks.

I say it when I wake up in the morning to my dog’s thumping tail. I say it when the sun starts rising. I say it while I’m slicing vegetables for the dinner salad. I say it when there’s a large choir of the “I’m not enough’s” or the “I messed up again’s” singing rounds in my head.

This weekend I said it to myself throughout the Successful and Outstanding Blogger conference. (I performed on Friday night and participated all day Saturday.)

I know. I know. Conferences are not for this woo-woo stuff. Conferences are where I should be handing out my business card (don’t have one), networking (not my favorite word) and taking notes (I prefer pen and Moleskine).

The only problem is this: when I get too much into that Conference mindset, I forget that other human beings are present. Conference Mindset makes me become more about getting things than about being at the conference. Conference Mindset makes some people “important” and some people “not so much.” (I’ve showcased at a few big music conferences, where most people look at your name tag before they decide whether or not to look at you. Watching someone who is “important” step onto an elevator of people who “aren’t” is priceless.)

Not everyone looks at it this way, I know. But most people would agree that it’s easy to go to a conference and lose the moment completely.

So, throughout this weekend, I put it to the test. I reminded myself to be at the conference with the other people by reminding myself:

“Just this.”

When I could do this, (and admittedly, sometimes I couldn’t) I felt like I experienced the conference. I experienced each person I met. I experienced the speakers. I really saw each person I talked with.

Now, let me be clear. I didn’t get weird or anything. I didn’t look at anyone and say, “I’m experiencing you now.” This would’ve caused mass chaos. “Help! There’s someone from Asheville over there! Grab your laptop and run away!”

You can keep your “Just this” in your own head. No one has to know you’re doing it.

Try it this week. Twitter it. It’s a great little mantra.

p.s. If you decide to get Steering by Starlight, I highly recommend that you click on the Audible.com link in the left sidebar and get the audio version. It’s worth it just to hear Martha Beck read about Cookie the beagle.

Someone I know is dealing with an abusive client. After a recent violent outburst, this person is panicked. She’s wondering how she could attract anyone so horrible into her business and what she can do to change this energy and create a more positive environment.

Now, I’m a big fan of clear communication, correcting mistakes, and apologizing in situations when you’ve messed up. That’s the first place to start.

And if you’re a reader of this blog, then you know I regularly refer to the Law of Attraction and similar approaches to daily life.

After that, three thoughts come to mind:

The first thought is about Wonder Woman.

It’s oh-so tempting to think that because you’re a “conscious” person, or because you understand Law of Attraction, that you now have to slog through every negative situation in your life in order to figure out how you “attracted it” and how you might “heal from it.”

I call this Superhero Thinking.

We’re certain that we could transform any situation if we could only use our powers of thought in the perfect and right ways.

Sometimes, however, this isn’t the best choice. Often, it makes us stay in bad relationships, draining friendships, and hurtful jobs to prove that we are able to leap tall negativity in a single bound.

It will benefit you, your dog, your children, your friends and the entire planet if you get over this as quickly as possible.

I spent two years talking with business coaches and reading management books trying to change myself so that I could deal with an abusive employee. At first, she was a star in my office. But as time wore on, she became angry and lashed out when she didn’t like the decisions I was making about my music career. It was painful. And I tried hard to make it work because, after all, I knew about these spiritual principles.

Finally, I did the wisest and most conscious thing I could do.

I fired her.

We may think we have super powers and that if we could just get healthy enough then we can transform a negative situation — but sometimes the best answer is to take off the orange cape and mask and simply let go.

The second thought is about fear.

Often, the real issue is not about what we’ve attracted. The real issue is why we won’t let it go. The real issue is that we’re scared. We think we need this client, this employee, this boyfriend, this job, this gig.

We think these external things are the source. The source of our money. The source of our joy. The source of our productivity. So, we become attached to them.

That’s when things get wonky.

We convince ourselves it’s about changing our thoughts and working with the negativity we’ve attracted. But really, it’s about addressing our fear of lack and our misguided attachment to something outside of us.

The third thought is about water-skiing.

When I started water-skiing, I’d get my balance and then immediately lurch forward, slamming face-first onto the lake. Then, in spite of all the water-skiing wisdom anyone had ever offered, I’d hold onto the handle for dear life as the boat dragged me several hundred feet across the lake on my stomach.

Now, the problem was not that I attracted bad experiences as I learned to water ski. The problem wasn’t that the boat was mean to me, or that the lake was evil, forcing me to swallow much of its contents.

The problem was that I wouldn’t let go of the handle.

It’s the same thing in life. Sometimes you have to stop asking how you could possibly attract this and recognize that you’re the one holding onto it.

Sue Ludwig is a poet. She was one of the wonderful women at the March Great Big Dreams retreat.

I perform a very casual intimate unplugged concert on the second night of the retreat, and then I open the “stage” for the women to read poems, share works of art, or perform songs. A few brave souls will step up each time. Sue read this poem of hers that night, and I asked her if I could reprint it on my blog.

Here’s to Spring and the wild celebration of new life out in the woods!

Sprout
by Sue Ludwig

I am in search of my life.
Not the one I was dealt,
but the one I want to have.

Not the one
repeatedly stomped into the ground
popping up
where I least expect it,

But the one where
I wake up each day
excited to be on a path
blooming with
maybe nothing I expected
but everything I wished for.

I have been tending to the hard work.
I have unearthed and tilled
and reseeded the dead areas.

I am beginning to see sprouts.
Little glowing green life
pushing against gravity,
weight of earth
to find light.

They are in search of their life.
They know more than I
how to shed the confines
of the seed,
thank it for its lesson,
and grow.

The laws of creativity apply to everything - not just to works of art.

The gift of practicing art is that it teaches the creator how to create, and how to be a creator. Over and over again, the artist learns the process of making things - including the obstacles that arise, the futility of forcing the flow, and the joy of allowing inspiration. This practice has been nothing less than revolutionary in my own life.

That’s because I grew up learning more about Getting than I did about Creating. And I’m not alone in that. Most of the life lessons we’ve all learned are about Getting.

We gotta get rich, get approved, get things from people, get a job, get a life, get laid, get publicity, get someone to do something, get approval, get high, get married, get a loan, get good grades, get a clue, get into college, get up, get down, get out.

Get it?

Getting is an epidemic. It makes us grab at life. It takes us out of the present moment. It makes us powerless. It forces us to manipulate our own spirits so that we can manipulate the situation. Getting requires that we use our precious creative power to get, rather than to use it for its primary purpose, which is to Create. When we misue this power, we become contorted. We block the flow. The focus is on “out there” rather than “in here.”

When we become Creators, we turn the whole thing around. Everything becomes an inside job. We experience true power. We create our lives.

One of the people in my six-week e-Seminar set her intention for wealth and money during the first week. She is now going through a huge awakening about her relationship to money and to her father. She realizes that her dad has been her source of money, and so she has spent most of her life looking to him, resenting him, and playing games with him to get her money. She never learned that there was any other way to do it.

As a beginning step, I asked her to imagine what it would feel like if she knew she could create her own money and generate prosperity for herself. I asked her what it would feel like to not need her dad’s money.

It was the first time she’d ever explored that possibility. She said it would be amazing and liberating. It would allow her to have a relationship with her dad on her own terms.

Stepping out of the mindset of Getting and into the mindset of Creating heals relationships. It will also heal your life. When you don’t need to Get things from other people (including your happiness), then you can allow them to be who they are and make their own choices. You can request things, of course. But the energy of this is very different from trying to Get something.

Think of one thing that you’ve been trying to get. What it would feel like to become a creator instead? How would your actions be different?

Let’s re-visit intention.

If anything in your life is not as you want it to be, simply begin with the intent to shift it. Intention is not about making fists and thinking hard. It’s not about setting goals. It goes deeper than that.

“Intention rules the earth,” says Oprah.

It’s true. Intention is the beginning point. During the first week of my Great Big Dreams e-Seminar - which was last week - we work deeply on intention.

“What do you want? Are you sure? What do you REALLY want?”

Many of the people I’ve worked with at my retreats or in the e-Seminars are completely flummoxed when they begin to ask themselves what they want. This is true for most of us. We’ve been believing our limiting thoughts for so long, that we’ve forgotten that we can ask for what we want and that we have the power to create or attract it. The idea of setting an intent is daunting, to say the least.

Naturally, at first, the e-Seminarians inadvertently try to play it safe, in their language and in their focus.

That’s where I come into the picture.

I ask them to clarify what they wrote. I examine their language and encourage them not to limit themselves. I challenge them to get over their fears of being bigger and bolder. In other words, I am a royal pain in the patookus.

So now, it’s your turn. Are you familiar with any of these techniques that wreck an otherwise powerful intention?

#1 - Using “So that.”

Almost everyone begins with this insidious little phrase. They write things like this:

“I intend to lose weight and get in shape SO THAT I can be energetic and happy in my daily life and make better choices for myself.”

Can you see why this language is limiting?

SO THAT says: “I can’t have THIS if I don’t have THAT.”

In the example above, you could simply intend to have perfect health and be energetic and conscious of your daily choices. That opens up more possibilities. As you expand into that intention, your high energy might lead you to play in a volleyball league where you meet people who like to hike together. Maybe you start hiking with them, and you meet another person who later invites you to his house to show you how to cook great greens. You ultimately lose weight while being happy and energetic. Losing weight didn’t have to come first. See?

The best way to avoid the “so that” trap is to be brave enough to ask, “What do I ultimately want here?” If you want two things, you can divide the intentions with AND or WHILE. “I intend to find a fantastic career path while I create massive wealth.” It’s a different energy than “so that.”

#2 - Implementing Bureaucrat Speak Calibrated to Leverage Total Mental Paralysis

I often work with people who have been in corporate or bureaucratic jobs for so long that they forget to use language that speaks to their souls, not to their bosses. Their intentions read like this:

“I intend to leverage an incremental degree of financial stability insomuch as I can facilitate a reasonable facsimile of value-added methodology.”

My first question is always the same: How do you feel when you read this?

Typically, the person will sigh and say, “Not very good.”

I remind them that an intention is supposed to excite us a lot, and scare us a little. Make the language playful and clear.

3 - “-ing” Overuse

Many first round intentions go like this:

I intend that I am becoming clear about my career path while my health is getting better and I am attracting a loving romantic partner.

It’s not that there’s anything WRONG with this, technically speaking. But there is hesitation in there. It’s more courageous to step up and say, “I intend to be clear about my career path as I live in perfect health.”

And remember this: the universe always says YES.

So, in this case, the universe says, “Yes indeed. You are becoming clear. Your health is getting better and you are, in fact, attracting a loving partner… she’ll be along any minute now!”

The same rule applies to intending in any future tense. “I intend that I will have…” “I intend that I’m going to…”

Why not intend it now in present tense?

4 - Intention Overload

Some people begin the e-Seminar and they see so much in their lives that they want to change that they send me an intention that looks like Claire’s:

“My intention is to get clear about the next steps I’m taking in my life in terms of health, lifestyle, my relationship and my work life.”

This is what I call Attention Splatter. It’s trying to get it all done at once. And it doesn’t work. Often, it’s the best way to sabotage any progress at all. That’s because your attention is powerful. If it gets splattered, it can be hard to get anything moving.

Intention Overload can also be a sign that you’re avoiding a deeper issue that you hope will go away if you focus on a whole bunch of other things.

As it turned out, this was Claire’s situation. She had been in an unhealthy relationship for several years. As we worked together, she realized that it was time to focus on it. She reworded her intention: “I intend to make a clear decision about my relationship.” And her journey began. She was able to get strong while doing the work of the seminar. Eventually, she ended the relationship. Many of her other intentions are just now beginning to manifest as a result of courageously facing this one area of her life.

Is there one thing you’ve been avoiding by trying to do a million other things?

5 - Trying to “figure out a way,” or “force myself.”

The beautiful thing about setting intention is that it’s a shout out to the universe and to your wisest deepest self. When you set an intention, you don’t have to know HOW.

So, if you intend “to force myself to get up and work out every morning,” then you’re stuck in the world of “I must make this happen.” Intention is gentler than that.

Yes, of course, you take action. But you don’t force anything or figure anything out. Sometimes this requires waiting a little while to clear out some of the clutter in your life, or even just allow for some rest while your mental chatter shuts up a bit. However, an intention is not about pushing yourself or figuring out how.

When I first got clear that I needed to heal bulimia, it was long before I knew about the concept of “setting intent.” However, I wrote in my journal that my first priority, above all else, was to heal and get healthy. I had NO idea how. I didn’t have to figure anything else. Within a year, I had met someone who had recovered from bulimia by using homeopathy. She pointed me in a direction that ultimately moved me into acupuncture. Of course, it wasn’t easy. But I healed bulimia, and I eventually healed any and all of the health effects from it. All the while I created a most amazing music career!

Trust me. You don’t need to figure out how and you don’t need to push yourself.

6 - Questioning your ego, your dark side, your shallow self, etc

“Isn’t this just my ego wanting this? How will I know if I’m honoring my most authentic and deepest self?”

If you can’t hear your deepest self yet, then it’s good to start somewhere. The perfect and right path will open before you. As you get clear, you’ll start to know when something is an ego desire or not.

But it’s good to begin somewhere.

Many people start with their ego driving their intention. It’s pointless to try and change that. You are where you are right now. Accept the things you want and make that your starting point.

Amy had written two novels and was well into her third when she began in my e-Seminar. She had been signed by a well-known literary agent. And she was miserable. Her intention was about her career, and about her writing. She was struggling with her inner perfectionist and all of the ego voices that drove her to succeed.

Her soul, however, was reaching for true happiness. As she moved through the weeks, she sounded lighter and happier, even though she still had bad days. Courageously, she made purposefully small goals for her writing. “20 minutes a week!” She also continued to allow herself to re-write her intention as her joy rose to the surface more often. Before our final phone call, she wrote me a beautiful email that said her intention was simply “Above all, joy.”

That will be her guiding light for her writing, her mothering, or whatever other direction she goes. Her ego is not driving her intention. And I have a feeling that eventually her writing will become something she wants to do rather than something she has to do.

7 - Removing, facing, obliterating, or defaming obstacles, weaknesses, issues, patterns, and inner resistance

We all have issues and obstacles and patterns that pop up to sabotage our progress or terrify us into inaction. This doesn’t mean you have to mention them in your intention. Don’t worry. No one will accuse you of being in denial.

Remember this: energy flows where attention goes. When you include your “issues” in your intention, then you are, in essence, saying, “Let’s give this energy. Let’s focus on this. Let’s really dredge it up.”

Focus instead on the things that you DO want. That way, the obstacles and issues will naturally come up for release in their perfect and right time. You won’t be giving them all your precious attention.