Tag Archives: law of attraction

Gratitude: Path to Greater Abundance

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Ernest Holmes, Founder of the Science of Mind philosophy, called gratitude “the motive power which attracts and magnifies the hidden potentialities of life.” In life, we often give thanks after receiving something good, but this principle that Holmes refers to suggests that gratitude actually helps create and attract the good we want in our lives. It therefore calls on us to give thanks first, before receiving the good.

While one may think “I’ll be grateful when I have more,” perhaps it is the opposite, that one will have more when one is more grateful for what is already had.

One minister of the Science of Mind teaching would remark, upon seeing someone taking very good care of a modest home, “that person will soon have a more elaborate home,” if they want it. When we give thanks for what we have we place ourselves in the consciousness of abundance.

Another New Thought teacher gave the counter example of someone who picks up a new suit from the dry cleaners and then, while looking at the sparkling suit, notices a little speck and gets upset about the speck. It is easy in life for our attention to go toward what is not working. Of course, with the law of attraction, if our attention is on our complaints, we expand our experience of things about which to complain.

Personally, in 1994 I was laid off from a company. On the day that we were told our department was being dissolved, those of us affected were brought into a room with a human resources staff member. She told us she knew how we felt and that we must be devastated. While perhaps I did feel a little rattled by the news, I found myself blurting out “no, I feel relieved.” After all, it had been a very dysfunctional company that many of us did not enjoy. I decided to be grateful for being set free.

As a result, I ended up taking the most amazing trip of my life just a few weeks later. The opportunity presented itself for me to travel to South Africa to witness the first fully democratic elections in the country with Nelson Mandela being elected President. After the election, there was a ceremony that literally allowed me to witness the birth of a new country. I stood there in awe as the old flag was lowered, and the flag of the new country was raised.

An Estonian proverb says “Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.” Gratitude is a now thing, rather than something we experience when something good happens. Gratitude is a state of being that not only allows us to fully experience and appreciate each moment, but it also expands our capacity to attract more good in our lives.

When we realize that, ultimately, all things work together for our good, and then we remember the creative power of gratitude, we can even give thanks when things don’t seem to be going well.

The invitation today is to realize and remember all for which we have to be grateful, to give thanks moment by moment, and to live in a state of gratitude. Oh, and watch how this enhances our lives!

Enjoy the journey.

How to Manifest Anything

Do the ideas around manifesting talked about in New Thought spiritual circles ever feel “woo woo” to you? They certainly did for me at one time. I remember meeting a woman named Lena when I first came into a New Thought community some 21 years ago. Lena spoke with absolute conviction about her prayers, so much so that at first I thought she was arrogant. “How could she be so sure?” I thought.

The beauty of affirmative prayer is that we learn the power of our words in prayer, and, even more so, the power of our words spoken with conviction and with a deep felt sense. We learn that there is a universal subjectivity that is always receiving our thought stream whether we are consciously praying or not. Who would have thought that Aunt Mabel was so right when she implored us to be mindful of what we say?

It turns out that our words are very powerful; creative, in fact. We are co-creators of our lives with universal spirit. How we look at life and talk about it, and what we believe about ourselves and life is utterly important in determining the overall content of our experiences in life. Those thoughts and beliefs that have strong feelings associated with them are the ones that have the most power to manifest in form in our lives as something that directly corresponds to the thoughts and beliefs.

The discovery that our thoughts, beliefs, and words have power is what led to the development of affirmative prayer. After all, if our words have power, then it behooves us to harness them for something good, rather than just allow our unconscious thought streams to create our experience.

Here’s how to consciously use your thoughts, words, and consciousness with affirmative prayer:

Step 1 (Recognition): Recognize that there is one power and intelligence that moves and creates everything. That one impulse is animated and expressed as love in action.

Step 2 (Unification): Know that you are one with the one power and intelligence. Allow yourself to feel the significance of the truth that infinite power and intelligence reside within you, that the love within you aligns you with divine creative intelligence.

Step 3 (Realization/Declaration): Speak your word affirmatively and in the present tense, accepting and claiming that which you want as an already accomplished fact in your life.

Step 4 (Thanksgiving): Give thanks for the one creative power that is operating in your life. Give thanks for your awareness. Give thanks for the manifestation of what you have declared in step 3.

Step 5 (Release): Release your words of prayer to the universal subjective creative medium that receives the words you have impressed upon it and makes them manifest.

The steps above are from the Science of Mind philosophy of Ernest Holmes and are the basic structure of Spiritual Mind Treatment, the type of affirmative prayer taught by Holmes.

Affirmative Prayer Example

I close by offering you a sample prayer that you can repeat to yourself. This is a prayer for prosperity. Speak it with feeling and conviction.

I recognize that there is only one power with no opposite. This one power moves with infinite intelligence. It is love in action. It is the creative intelligence that created the entire universe and all that is.

I am one with this infinite power, intelligence, and love. My very life and being is an expression of the one divine life that moves through and as all that is.

In the consciousness of oneness, I speak my word. I declare and know that there is no lack or scarcity in the infinite divine life, and that this is also my truth. I am one with the source of all abundance and prosperity and I now accept abundance in my finances and in all areas of my life. I am prospered in all that I do. Divine perfect action takes place through me and all around me. I am in the flow of life. I have money to meet my needs, to share, and to spare.

I am so grateful for this truth, for my awareness, and for all of the abundance I am experiencing in my life.

In gratitude, I release my words to the universal subjective medium of life, knowing it is done as I have declared. I let it be. All is well. And so it is. Amen.


Enjoy the journey.

What Is Your Vibration?

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by Gregory Toole

What is the vibration in which you are living right now? Knowing the creative universe that we live in and how it receives and responds to our vibration, the answer to this question is key.

Are you lamenting, regretting, or bemoaning what is on your plate today? Or are you excited, embracing, and welcoming of what this day brings? It makes a difference.

It is not to say that the only worthy emotions are the happy ones. Rather, it is simply important to recognize how we are holding the events and activities of our lives. To feel sadness, for example, is natural in many situations and can take us to depths of ourselves that other emotions cannot.

Often, however, it is our unconscious feelings that can work against us. Philosopher Ernest Homes wrote that “trained thought is far more powerful than untrained” thought. The more conscious we become, the more responsibility we have for consciously choosing our state of being. When we are highly conscious we are harnessing more of our innate power.

As conscious beings, the way we look at things and the energy we exert towards them matters even more. In my own case, I experienced a situation over and over again some years ago that made this really obvious to me. I found that whenever I had a meeting to attend, if I would begin to have any feelings of not really looking forward to attending the meeting, the meeting would get canceled. This happened enough times that I duly noted it and began to make sure that I am choosing my state of being around situations, events, people, and all things.

For example, I make sure that whenever I agree to a meeting, regardless of whether I’d rather be doing something other than being in a meeting, I consciously embrace it and welcome it. And of course, I am only choosing those meetings or activities that represent the highest good, so I am simply honoring my choices, even when in the moment I may have a moment of resistance.

With everything in life, we are either repelling or attracting things, people, and events. It is well and good to repel things by choice, but often what we repel is something we really want, but we have some fear or discomfort around it. So unconsciously we begin to align with a vibration that repels the very thing we want.

Here are three ways we can consciously choose how we hold the experiences of our lives:

  1. Ask yourself whether the person, event, or situation is one that you want to experience more or less.
  2. If you want to experience it more, be sure to consciously choose to welcome it, embrace it, and give thanks for it. You might affirm it out loud or write it in your journal: “I welcome this. I embrace this. I give thanks for this.”
  3. If it’s not something you want to experience more, give thanks for it, bless it, and release it. You might say it out loud or write it in your journal: “I give thanks for this. I bless this. I release this with love.”

The invitation this day is to consciously choose how we hold everything in our lives, remembering that how we hold it matters, determining whether we repel it or attract it. So choose wisely!

Enjoy the journey.

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