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Why make a New Year’s resolution when you can make a One Decision?
If you want to lose weight, pay off your credit card, or get organized, you have a bigger decision to make.
Research shows that the average New Year’s Resolution fails within three weeks. That means that 21 days after the ball drops, the...
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Making New Friends
How do we make friends? More importantly if dropped into a new city or a new job or a new school, how do we go about making a new friends? Most of us don’t really think about it, but just sort of allow people to float in and out of our lives...
The Joan of Arc Complex
Sometimes I think that I have a mental health problem and that at any minute the pharmaceutical companies are going to develop a cute little green star-shaped pill to cure me of my ailment. I call it my Joan of Arc Complex. You see, I hear...
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A Daily Refreshment
Half an hour's meditation is essential except when you are very
busy. Then, a full hour is needed. --Francis de Sales
Meditation is one of those things in life that benefits you the
most when you want to do it the least. It is a practice...
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The Power of Intention
One of the most amazing scientific discoveries in recent years
is something that spiritually adept people have known for
thousands of years. Your experience of life responds to your
intention.
In the past, you may have heard the word "intention" used to
express a regret. If someone says, "My intention was to be at
work on time," we understand that he arrived late. It's almost
as if the word intention, in this context, brings about the
opposite of what we want.
One of Leo Tolstoy's characters, Ivan Ilych, was a sick man who
realized that being upset only made his symptoms worse. Tolstoy
says of Ivan that, "...he said that he needed peace, and he
watched for everything that might disturb it." Naturally, he got
what he watched for. This great literature shows us our human
tendency to focus our attention on what we don't want.
But if we want to have a wonderful experience of life, it's
crucial that we overcome this tendency. One of the revelations
of modern physics (not to mention ancient spirituality) is that
our observation shapes the very thing that we observe. When we
live from fear, then we let fear shape our lives by what it
observes. On the other hand, if we set a loving intention for
ourselves, then we make it our practice to watch for all that
loves.
When students of quantum mechanics and spiritual seekers speak
of intention, we mean something much more definite than "what we
think we want." In this realm, intention refers to a decision,
which the universe then carries out. Intention is so powerful
that we do not have to force anything. We're not trying to
"make" something happen. We set an intention and trust God or
the Universe to do its job.
One of the most touching examples of the power of intention
comes from a couple that served as foster parents. For a time,
they provided a home to a boy named Stephen, who was, by all
accounts, a
compulsive liar. There were lots of reasons, given
his background, for this trait to show up in Stephen's behavior,
mixed in with a child's wonderful imagination and desire to
please. Many people wasted time and energy trying to get Stephen
to admit when he wasn't telling the truth, and they
unconsciously enjoyed their martyrdom when he didn't.
Stephen's foster parents went a completely different route.
Their intention was not to play martyr, but to see Stephen
become honest, and so they treated him as if he was an honest
person. I want to make it clear that these people were not
deluded, and they were not naïve. They had a very good idea of
what was true and what was not true.
Stephen's foster parents responded warmly to the things they
knew were factually true. But their observations when Stephen
was lying were even more important. In response to Stephen's
fantastic stories, they found an essential truth to and
responded warmly to that. For instance, when he told an unlikely
story of saving someone's life on the playground, they stuck to
the truth by responding that, "You are such a brave young man."
Then they went on to list the many ways they had seen him be
brave, such as moving in with them and making friends at a new
school. In time, Stephen observed himself to be what his foster
parents intended him to be, and so had no need to make up
stories to prove it.
Such is the power of intention.
About the author:
Amy Biddle has been a lifetime student and teacher of spiritual
principles. Spiritual Healing Secrets is a fast-growing resource
for anyone who wants to improve her or himself, or simply to
learn practical spiritual principles. Let Amy help you improve
your life! Discover the secrets at
http://www.spiritual-healing-secrets.com
This article may be reproduced in its entirety as long as the
"About the Author" and links are included.
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