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Awakeness, Faith,
Integrity,
Commitment, and Connectedness
each include activities which express these greater actions.
We recommend you read through them all, look at what you might already be doing from each category (including activities not listed that would fit). Then choose the category with the least amount of current activity and commit to engaging in one of those activities this week. Awakeness increases our growing awareness of our potential. Faith keeps us connected to our higher power. Integrity keeps us true to ourselves. Connectedness shares our grace with others. Commitment keeps us moving forward. |
Call up your discontent. Only when we get uncomfortable enough with our life will we make the changes we have been avoiding. Often, to cope, we develop "rose colored lenses" to view a life we feel helpless to change. Taking off the lenses means taking inventory of yourself, your "issues" and how effectively you're living your life. It can sometimes bring a clarity that may be painful. Like looking into sunlight after lying in darkness. If you can't do this with out judging, evaluating and criticizing yourself, get some help with it. Remember the purpose of identifying your unfinished business is to take the first step to eliminating the barriers to a prosperous life.
Meditate. Most any one who meditates regularly can attest to the value of becoming still and centered. Meditation eliminates the "noise" that keeps us from hearing the "voice" that guides us.
Identify your beliefs. Identify what you believe about the world, yourself, others, relationships, love, faith, pleasure, pain, money, suffering, food, health etc. You may want to identify what Mom, Dad or other significant people believed about these things as a help to see what you learned (or rebelled against) in your beliefs. Our beliefs influence our values.
Identify your values. Make a list of your core characteristics or what is most important to you and keep refining it. Our values or what is most important to us is the core of who we really are. This exercise is amazingly powerful.
Identify your goals. Identify what you specifically want to accomplish with time lines and all the steps to each goal outlined. Make sure your goals are reflective of your values.
Clarify your vision of prosperity. You can't find it if you don't know what your looking for. Get perfectly clear about what exactly you want to manifest. Can you see it? Draw or locate a picture of it. Can you define in clear words what it will mean for you to be prosperous? Write it down in detail. If you don't get perfectly clear about it, you may create what you don't want or miss out on what you do want.
Affirm it is possible. Every thought is a prayer. Every prayer is answered. "Knowing" it is possible is many times more powerful than "hoping" it is possible.
Affirm it is not possible alone. Also known as "let go let God" or "go with the flow". When we quit trying to control the details of how our prosperity looks we open the door to receiving greater goodness than we can imagine alone.
Clear a space for prosperity to enter. Physically and emotionally. Clean out your garage and your closets. Give away or throw away unused items. Let go of old resentments. Forgive past hurts.
Practice gratitude. The affirmation of our gratitude reminds us of our blessings and opens our hearts to receive more good.
Tell the truth. Telling the truth about who we are and how we feel frees up energy to create the life we really want and deserve. When we pretend not to have hurt feelings, when we don't ask for what we really want or when we stay quiet instead of standing up for what we believe, we stifle a basic part of ourselves that becomes unavailable for action when we need it.
Feel your feelings. If you're not doing this already you may need some help with this one. Turning your hurt into anger or stuffing your anger until it turns into anxiety or depression are examples of what doesn't add to a prosperous life. Learning to name your feelings is an early step in developing healthy emotional responding.
Keep your commitments. Do what you say you'll do. Be on time. Pay your debts. Finish what you start.
Be who you say you are. Compare your beliefs and values. Identify any inconsistencies between them. Identify how your behavior either demonstrates your values or is inconsistent with your values. Correct any inconsistencies between your beliefs, your values and your behavior.
Take care of unfinished business. This makes the other activities in this category (and pretty much everything else) much, much easier to accomplish. Clean your house. Take control of your finances. End relationships that need ending. Mend relationships that need mending. Say you're sorry. Forgive those who have hurt you in the past.
Learn to communicate better. Communication is about hearing what others are really saying and saying what you really mean (in a way that others can understand). Make a conscious effort to listen to what your partner says before forming a reply. Make sure you understood what he or she said before replying. Clarify with a question like "Are you saying......?" before you reply. Start your reply with a statement about yourself. "I feel... I want..." rather than "You always...or you never...".
Experiment with trusting. Go slow, start small. Pick something easy with someone who seems like they could be trust worthy. Listen to your logical side, listen to what your gut tells you, use all your perceptions to guide you.
Give to charity. The concept of giving gifts and tithes applies not just to connecting to the recipient but connecting with our faith that God and/or the Universe is infinitely abundant. To give freely is an act of gratitude for what we have and a statement of faith about what we will have.
Volunteer your time. Get out of yourself.
Connect with your higher power. Give some thought each day to how you would like your relationship to God and the Universe to be. Once that is defined engage in some activity to make that relationship more possible. This might include reading, talking to God, meditating, joining others in religious services or classes, doing charity work, walking in the woods or the mountains.
Commit to your vision. Decide you are fully worthy of the prosperity you desire. Use Affirmation and prayer to help you do this. Write down your vision, values and goals then share them with someone to make it more "real".
Take a risk. Start small. If you've done some of your faith work this one won't be quite as difficult.
Claim your "stuff". Continue to be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses and about what still needs to be done.
Do the work. Hard work alone is unlikely to bring true prosperity but it is certainly part of the recipe.
Copyright ©2003 Laura D. Hudson. L.C.S.W. All rights reserved.