August 7, 2007

• Creating Reality

  As time keeps passing, I become increasingly convinced that we do create our realities. I’m sure there are those who’ll insist that “Creating Reality” is merely a New-Age mumbo-jumbo phrase for “setting goals and carrying them out.” I understand that, because I was raised in such an environment… and my early life “training” is in being an analytical thinker. There are also going to be those who dismiss the idea that our minds can affect existence as “pure rubbish.” It’s a matter of opinion, I suppose, although a growing body of science disagrees with you.

  For me, the crucial difference between conventional “Goal Setting” and “Creating Reality” is the scope within which each operates. All the goal setting I have been exposed to (and I’m well aware that there may be exceptions) has been limited to the “known and likely.” It takes what already exists, and creates a plan and a path to somewhere else that’s already “known.” It works like projections and budgets in business– things tend to be very concrete and “by the numbers.”

  Certainly, there are times when this is an appropriate approach. A goal might be stated something like “I will get a 10% raise within six months, or quit this job,” or “I will lose 30lbs by the end of the year.”

  I have been contemplating the process by which I ended up in this place, and I realize that it had little to do with the sort of process most people would employ. There was no real “plan.” I just “knew” that this area would be “home.” Based on some intuitive sensation, I visualized myself here… but without any particular sense of “how” I would get from point A to point B. In a sense, it was a large-scale replication of my experience with math in grade school. I “knew” the answers (correctly, I might add!), but was repeatedly chastized and downgraded because I couldn’t “show my work.” I just “saw” the answer.

  Let’s face it, I recently undid 20+ years of established life to move 2000+ miles to a place I knew nothing concrete about, beyond a sense of “needing to be here,” arriving with no place to live, no job and complete conviction that I “belonged” here.

  And I was right.

  That sort of process generally doesn’t fly– with Corporate America, or most people.

  I have been doing this sort of thing all my life, although not previously on such a large scale. I “know” when situations, people, places… anything else… are right, but I can’t explain how I know. Some would say “that’s just intuition,” but is it really? There have been times when I have needed “smaller” things, and they have just shown up. There was a ride I needed from the airport to a conference… I sat in my office, said to the space around me “I need to get from that airport to the retreat center,” and two hours later there was an email in my inbox from a fellow attendee, wondering if I’d like to share a car. And we’ve all experienced thinking really hard about how nice it would be to talk to an old friend… and 10 minutes later the phone rings.

  We call it “coincidence,” and dismiss it; forget about it.

  We also practice “affirmations” and “positive thinking,” and feel like it doesn’t work. Mostly, it doesn’t work because we know we are “acting,” so the intent is not sincere. You can’t create something you don’t believe in.

  I believe anyone out there can do it. And it’s not about “thinking outside the box,” that popular catchphrase… I think it’s about not having a box. Throw the frakking box away!

  What prompted these night ramblings is the idea that I have just finished putting some important pieces into the puzzle… and I was looking at where and how these pieces were placed. They sprung out of simply stating what I really wanted to do “I just want to write, play with my hobbies and walk on the beach. I also want to find a way to work with HSPs, and help them empower themselves.” I started saying that a couple of years ago.

  Those vague mublings revolved around wanting a stable financial life and a work situation on my terms; based on what fits me. It was never a question of looking at the jobs already out there and choosing one that fit me (or, Cod forbid, was merely “good enough”), it was about looking at what I really want to be doing, and creating an income stream that supports it. And it doesn’t matter whether someone else looks at me and says “that’s not a job, buddy!”

  And so, I find myself writing (and consulting), playing with a childhood hobby (stamp collecting), walking on the beach (and selling the things I find beachcombing, to artists), and recently taking on the job of helping coordinate the periodic HSP Gatherings, and giving a workshop or two while there. I didn’t even try to get here, it just happened.

  Which brings me back to the topic of “creating reality,” and the power of intention. Can our thoughts alter reality? The truth? Yes. Not just yes, but yes, with scientific proof. Dozens of double-blind controlled experiments have been conducted, showing that thought (“intent”) can affect machinery. Using Random Event Generators (equipment that randomly produces either event “A” or event “B”) with a test group and a control group, it is known that test subjects who are told to “focus” on one event only can significantly affect the outcome of a sequence of “random” events. The mathematical odds against the aggregate of these reproducible results actually being “random” is on the order 10 to the 72nd power (that’s 10 with 72 zeros after it) to 1 against.

  I recently started reading Lynne McTaggart’s The Intention Experiment,” which is precisely an exploration of the power of intent. McTaggart is not a scientist, or some New Age guru– she’s a journalist. The book isn’t trying to postulate some kind of metaphysics quackery– rather it takes on the role of being a “living book” and makes the readers part of the ongoing testing and experiments.

  If you have a healthy curiosity about “how and why things work,” I encourage you to check out the book, and also to visit the Intention Experiment Website. If you decide to join (and I hope you do), look me up– I have the same username everywhere I go.

   

  • 3:19 am
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