Attracting The Universe to Your Dreams

I have more dreams to try out on this law of attraction. Like distance learning at Meadville Lombard Theological school, they are all related to my spirituality. So here's my wish, my prayer, my next request of the universe.

I wish to open the Z Spiritual Sanctuary and Retreat with a library, bookstore, gift shop, conference room, and yoga/Tai Chi room. The focus will be all world religions so that all are welcome to find whatever they need to enlighten them on their individual spiritual path. Retreats will be held one weekend a month and will vary in Religious topic. I also would like to host different writer's retreats including one for kids (which my kids are already excited about.)

So after telling Rick last week that I plan on going back for my MA in Religion, the next day I told him that I also feel a calling to open a spiritual sanctuary/retreat. He asked, "Where will it be?"

I answered tentatively, "Well, that's the sort of crazy part."

And he responded enthusiastically, "So it's going to be in "your house" down the street? Because that was the first place I thought of when you said that."

Synchronicity.


I love that man o' mine :)


This is the place. I am going to buy this house one day (soon) and save it from falling apart. No one lives in it now. It was a rental property, but the man who purchased it in the mid 90's has not done a thing with it. No one has lived there in a decade.

Built in 1906 (likely from a Sears type house kit) it was once a proud and lively home. Now it stands alone and empty. For the past 3 years, it has soulfully called out to me every time I drive by.

I'll let you all know when it comes to pass. I need the universe to attract some funding to this dream. I am also focusing on attracting a decent sale offer from the current owner. Lastly, I am putting out an attraction for some generous volunteer help fixing it up (ie a design goddess friend of mine and the dream team of her choice :)

Z

Attracting An Impassioned Profession

A few months ago Rick and I started brainstorming about what we want to do about launching our lifecoaching business. We do this every couple months, get excited about it, then end the discussion with "someday when we are in a better financial place." Lately for some reason we have been discussing it more and more. Last month Rick said, "Let's plan on launching it in three years."

Then I saw the Oprah show with The Secret on it a few weeks ago. And though (as I said in my previous post) I had known about the philosophy and implemented it many times in my life......

I wasn't using it now!

I was so excited about the show I almost woke Rick up to watch it. However it was midnight and he was due to get up at 4 for work. So I waited to share it with him until the next evening. When he was done watching the show I told him that I had wanted to wake him up. He said, "You could have. This is what we've been talking about the past couple of years. Forget another three years. The time to start it is now."

So we started focusing on his current work hours improving so he can devote some more time to starting the business. When we did that two very interesting things happened in the same week. The first is that he got a call from a place that interviewed him in August. They are still considering him for a position that would have him going in a little later in the morning (he currently leaves at 5) and working less weekends. The second thing that happened was his new interim plant manager let him know they may restructure his job so that he would have less hours and more opportunities. So either way we will have what we need to go forward.
Hmm.....

Next it was my turn. I have often wanted to return to school for an MA in Religion. I feel this is crucial to my spiritual life coaching dream. Being a UU makes that difficult as virtually every college near me offers degrees focusing on Christianity only. There is an amazing UU Theological school in Chicago called Meadville Lombard.
For the past year I kept thinking...wishing... asking...

Why doesn't Meadville have a distance learning program? When will Meadville have a distance learning program?

But more importantly, recently I had started saying, "When Meadville starts their distance learning program I am going there."

That's the law.

Last week I received my Spring issue of UU world magazine. I saw some cool articles in it. Then I flipped it over and set it down on my desk.

A full page add on the back cover caught my eye...





















Ask and Ye shall receive.


Z

The Secret continued...Like Attracts Like

This is how the law of attraction has played an important part in my happiness. (For those of you just tuning in, you may want to go back and read the previous post.)

In 2004 I made up my mind to stop waiting for the person I would spend my life with. I surrendered the thought that I knew who that was or what kind of man it was. I asked for God to bring the person I was intended to be happy with into my life. I made a vow that even if I thought he wasn't the right person I would be open minded and allow it to happen. The next day I started my search.

And I found him.

Wiithin 3 weeks of looking.

I didn't recognize him at first because I was held up on all the usual things. He was an Army officer teaching ROTC and had graduated from West Point. I was a theatre major at Kent State University. He lived "don't ask don't tell" for 12 years of his life. Some of my best friends are gay. He was captain of his sprint football team and later coached it at West Point. I have not been involved in a sport since I was in sixth grade and my life is in the theatre. Surely we would have nothing in common.

Except...within a few weeks of dating I started to realize some things.

We love people the same way.
We love the blues, jazz and the big crooners.
We parent the same way.
We love to go on road trips to interesting places.
We strike up conversations with complete strangers...sometimes just in the line at the grocery store.

We come from large, very tight families and we talk to one or more of them several times a week.

We both tend to vote for our respective political parties unless we feel there is a better candidate. As a matter of fact we argue about politics less than I did with some of the most liberal men in my life.

We are both religiously open minded. Though he had never heard of it, he embraced my UUism in an amazing way. And his presence at my church has helped bridge the gap that has always existed between liberal religious and conservative political thinkers.

We also discovered rather quickly we have a dream in common. We both want to run our own coaching bussiness. His with leadership in youth and business. Mine with spirituality and relationships.

But was he who I had asked for? The question lurked in my mind along with a concerted effort to figure out the answer.

Then, when we were only dating a few weeks he asked what I wanted to do after I graduated from Kent. I answered by saying, "Well... I miss being a stay at home mom. I gave that up when I got divorced. But if I am still alone I will go on for an MA so I can teach in a state college. That will in turn allow my kids an education." I went on about a few more goals, but I always came back to missing my stay at home momness. Finally he said, "Would you rather stay at home with your kids while they're growing up?" I paused. I was weighing out whether or not my answer was "right." Would this hard working goal oriented guy want someone who wasn't concerned about making money?

But finally I shyly said, "Yes. I miss it terribly." And he replied, "I think that's an awesome quality. I mean, work if you wish but I would totally support staying at home with kids."

Wow. A man who would support me. No matter where life was calling me. And then I realized I had never really had that. Someone asking sincerely, "What do you want to do?"

So... I did in fact attract the man of my dreams into my life. I just had to go deeper inside myself to realize it, and let go of the "ideal" actor, musician, democrat guy I was holding onto. Those are great things to have in common. But they are also superficial in the grand scheme of things. It's far more important to find the person who loves you so much that they desire what you desire. They support you in your dreams. At least that is the man of my dreams.

The Secret

Do you know The Secret????


I do. I have been experiencing it and doing my best to live by it for about ten years. Half of my life I had no clue I was doing it. Sometimes my uncanny ability to know exactly what was going to happen to me next was slightly unnerving. At times I thought perhaps I had a little sixth sense thing going.

Once I started reading up on it I was surprised they even called it a secret. I mean, I figured it out with the help of many different popular speakers and authors so how secret could it be? Every time I studied any great philosophical thinker I noticed they all seemed to believe in it. From Socrates to DaVinci to Newton to Edison to Enstein to Carnegie...well you get the idea. ALL of the biggies. Quite an amazing group of people who agreed on one key theory- the law of attraction.

For those of you who have not heard of it, The Secret is a new book and DVD by a woman in Australia who was drawn to research the key common element of every great philosophical teacher in history. They all had in common one key idea, whether they related it to God or physics. She also has included many new age gurus in the book, who have been writing about the law of attraction for the past twenty years.

This is Conversations with God , When God Winks, and One Day My Soul Just Opened Up stuff. The main difference in The Secret book and DVD is now many of these or similar authors have all come together in one package. And it is picking up marketing momentum much faster than the other authors and teachers did by themselves.

Before I go further I will say that I believe there are a few faults with The Secret. For instance I do not believe people co-create every tragedy or trauma in their lives, though they could attract a downward spiral from that tragedy depending on how they handle it. If people did bring every experience into reality that they focused their attention on, then I know quite a few who's children would have been "lying in a gutter somewhere" a million times by now. I feel this attitude brings way too much grief and guilt to any parent who has lost a child.

Secondly, I don't believe that The Secret was all that secret. The author herself found out about it by reading a book published in 1910. And many great teachers like Socrates, Buddha, etc shared this philosophy in one form or another with all their students. Critics have complained that there are many statements in the book and DVD (which I haven't seen yet) that are not backed up with historical fact. Such as claiming that there was a group of rich and famous men who buried the secret to keep it to themselves and that "the church" found out about it and banned it at one point. I haven't done my research on that, but some of it does sound a little on the sensationalized side.

Lastly, the declaration that any philosophy is an "absolute truth" I cannot support. I believe there is only one absolute truth... that we will never be able on this earth to know an absolute truth.

All that being said there is a lot of good that can be accomplished by using the law of attractioin. Using positivity to affect one's life and one's ability to find happiness is an exceptionally empowering tool, as is taking responsiblity for your own happiness. So overall I do support The Secret's main messages. Your thoughts are the most powerful energy you possess in life and like attracts like. Therefore you better be thinking happy thoughts as much as possible!

I first saw The Secret and it's panel of teachers on Oprah along with millions of other people who all rushed out to buy it. It intriqued me. Imagine a book that summed the secret of happiness in about 180 pages of quotes, bullets, and outlines. It has mass appeal for several reasons. First of all the name. "If you want to get someone's attention...whisper." Such amazing wisdom from a 30 second commercial. (Although I did a search online and it must not have been a good commercial. Every site that quoted it couldn't name the product.) So the law of attraction applies to whispering secrets- hence the reason the name was chosen. We all like a secret and we all like to keep it to ourselves. The other highly intriquing aspect of the book is the cover. It looks right out of the Divinci Code. So we WANT to read what's inside. And lastly, unlike the other books I mentioned before it is a very quick read. Hopefully it will help those with less time and patience get in on the message and start attracting wonderful lives to themselves. But I wonder...

It seems that these things can't be taught to people who aren't in the right place to hear or learn. Some will get hung up on religious bias. One woman struggled on the Oprah show with it being "unchristian." Being a Unitarian Universalist I don't have that struggle, and I believe many other religions including Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and so on can incorporate co-creation without it challenging their faith or belief system. But I can also understand how someone telling you that you can have a say in co-creating your life with a divine being is contradictory to what many churches have preached. So that will make some people uncomfortable with something that challenges God having sole control of their destiny.

So what IS The Secret? For those of you who missed it on Oprah and don't want to shell out the 20 some bucks for the book or 30 some bucks for the DVD, in a nut shell The Secret is this:


The universe operates on the law of attraction. What you believe, think, live- you attract. Thoughts are actually units of energy and very powerful. If you feel you deserve to be happy and live it then you will be. If you don't... well you won't. If you are so tired of waiting for something good in life to happen that waiting for it is all you focus on...then you will attract more waiting. If you can identify what you are "waiting for" and instead focus on "having it" then you soon will.


And it works.

To be continued...

The PARTY!!!!!!

The cake-It was pretty, though I did wish they would have used darker icing for the writing!












She seems to like it...
















Until everyone started singing...
















Make it stop!!!!!


























Ok ENOUGH cake where's the D!@m presents!!! (ummm.... I mean darn.)













That's more like it!!!
Christmas all over again!!!!!














I like my new "MP3" player :)

















Back to the old favorites

























My cousin Olivia came all the way from CA to celebrate my birthday with me (I'm OLDER by three whole weeks!)

















Being older means you have to share things like your new MP3 player with your cousin...


















And your new keys...



















Wait a minute.... I'm not sharing him too!!!!!





















Well...ok since Olivia shared her mommy with me :)















But I'm not sharin' MY mamma!!!

Anna turns one...The INVITATION

Christmas

Every Christmas Eve since Tanner was born I write a letter to each child in their Christmas card sharing with them what I feel about where they are in life and how I feel about each of them. ( I do the same thing on their birthdays.) I also do it in Rick's card.

I always plan to do this early in the season, but always run out of time. So now I just accept that I will do it on Christmas Eve, at 1:30 in the morning, the very last thing after all the presents are wrapped and placed under the tree. I always light this angel carosel and it usually burns down into nothing while I am writing.

Then I collapse into bed! This year Rick snapped a pic of me so I could include it in the card.




















Anna and me Christmas Eve sharing cookies....





















Had the whole family over again. Taylor got stickers with her present... and shared with Lonnie

and Lydia...

And EVERYONE. I found stickers in my livingroom for DAYS!

















Lydia reinacting a magazine add with her presents- I think she looks like she's in NY city stepping out of a cab with her shopping bags!









In my haste to finish cookies for Christmas Eve, I tried to make the pb kisses cookies too big. The result was they spread out and connected leaving some interestingly shaped cookies for Rick.... I mean Santa!






















Christmas Day





The pre-kid peace of 2 am















Adri















Anna's first stocking
































Anna enjoying Christmas breakfast













Noah turns traditional Christmas breakfast of petite quiche, cinnamon bread, and lil' smokies into art expressing his mood for the day (well for every day for Noah ;)






My Picaso tribute describes my mood after weeks of scurrying around getting ready and then 3 hours of sleep Christmas Eve




























Noah and Tanner get their favorite team jerseys
































































All the kids after opening their loot on Christmas Day
















Christmas day at my brother's house....













































Jake and Great Grandma cuddle on Christmas










Rick and I with Natacha's parents (whom we visited on the NY trip)








One of the best pics ever taken of my mom and me












Our new "sisters" picture- to update a frame I got each of us for Christmas about 9 years ago










Family portrait


Dad, Mom, Neen, Me, and Jef









Rick and his girls (well... minus the one who is taking the picture!)



Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! We weren't done with our entertaining... most of us would meet yet again two days after Christmas with...


ANNA's FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY!


Stay tuned!