Embrace Prosperity

Discovering What’s Right for You

Ideally, you should now be able to use your inner guidance system to help you find what satisfies you. However, that guidance system probably provides misinformation. It’s inaccurate because it’s like a compass next to a magnet. Family, cultural and advertising messages you’ve been exposed to are pulling it off course.

It’s hard to know what’s just right for you now. You did when you were small and complained bitterly when your environment was not just right for you, but since then you’ve been “civilized,” programmed according to the expectations of people and the world around you.

Instead of paying attention to your internal awareness of “just right,” you pay attention to what influential people in your life and the media have told or demonstrated to you about how much you should have.

Learn to Notice Your Own Behavior

When your energy is flowing freely you respond to your own biological and emotional signals in the moment. You feel hunger and fatigue as physical sensations. You get what you need, whether it is food, rest, contact with others or time alone to pursue your life’s work.

Generally, when those signals arise again, you repeat the process. You are also aware of the needs of others and learn to modify your own flow to not interfere with theirs. Sometimes you choose to interrupt your own flow temporally but get back to it as soon as you can.

Sometimes though, you do things just because you have gotten into the habit of doing them. They might have started in response to a natural energy flow—like stopping for a cup of coffee when you were tired. The first time, you enjoyed the coffee and felt re-energized and went on about your day.

The next day, instead of stopping because you were tired, you saw the coffee shop, remembered the pleasant visit the day before, and stopped again. Soon you, like Anita, were stopping there every day and it no longer had any connection to your own energy flow. You barely noticed the activity.

Anita was surprised when she realized how much time and money she was using for a daily coffee break that had no real value to her. She recognized that she was responding to advertising (outside energy) that promoted the idea that she deserved a small luxury that would make her feel happy.

Once she realized that she was doing what was being programmed instead of noticing what her own energy prompted her to do, she decided to take a break only when she noticed that she really wanted to. She started enjoying her occasional coffee shop visits again.

It is worth noticing how many things you do are a result of responding to energy that intrudes into your personal space. You may turn to an electronic screen because of a signal you allow without considering how it may affect you. You may automatically pour yourself a glass of wine as soon as you get home, whether or not you really want it.

Sometimes the free flow of your energy is interrupted when you encounter a trigger, something activates frozen energy left over from a difficult situation from your past. Perhaps you overhear an annoyed parent speaking harshly to a child and you feel uncomfortable.

You may react by doing something to avoid your discomfort like getting angry at your companion for some small transgression or smoking a cigarette. If you learn to notice this reaction and use your discomfort as signal, though, you might remember what triggered this reaction: the sound of your father yelling at you. Then you can use the Logosynthesis sentences to release the energy frozen in that experience and reclaim it for your use now.

Noticing the experiences where your flowing energy is not guiding your actions is an important step toward noticing what really does allow you to enjoy the experience of having enough of what you want when you want it.

Enough Chocolate

Laurie: I have been playing with this idea for many years. I still practice this daily—with chocolate. My goal here is to enjoy chocolate when I really want it instead of eating it automatically whenever I encounter it.

When I started this practice, I usually ate any chocolate offered to me immediately—and I struggled with a tendency to gain unwanted weight. Now, I keep a drawer in my kitchen filled with an assortment of my favorite types of chocolates. I find that I eat a small square or two almost every day. I savor it and feel content.

If I’m offered a variety of chocolate that is not among my favorites, I usually say, “no thanks” without any regret. I carry some of my favorites when I travel. I know I will always have more than enough.

The only time I have trouble maintaining my desired weight is when, for some reason, I stop attending to my own inner signals about food. When this happens, a frozen energy pattern is activated: I see the chocolate or other comfort food, grab it and eat it automatically. Once I recognize this pattern, I can start paying attention to my healthy signals again.

Enough Pleasure

Willem: On a recent trip to Copenhagen, I noticed a repetitive pattern that won’t surprise you. My wife and I like art and design, so we tend to visit museums and beautiful shops. Because I’ve been focusing on abundance for a while now, I noticed something interesting: Every time we entered a shop and I saw something beautiful, I immediately looked at the price, before even exploring the object.

That was a useful habit in the past because it helped me to avoid frustration: It didn’t make sense to look at things I couldn’t afford.

I started to practice looking at things without checking the price ticket first. That gave me an opportunity to look closer and to decide if this was really something I wanted to take with me. It usually wasn’t, but the price didn’t decide from the beginning anymore. Finally, I found a beautiful, horribly expensive shirt—for half the price.