Many of you are in transition. You have completed an online class, taken several college courses towards a degree, finished college, begun work on a masters, worked in a job or a career for a number years, recently made the decision to leave your current workplace, or even decided that you may get back into the fray; nevertheless, you are experiencing a deep dissatisfaction with your life so far. You are searching deep within for the meaning of it. I mean, why am I actually spending my precious years engaged in THIS job, class, business, pursuit, etc., fill in the blank.
I have been where you are. I know the sinking feeling of not being where my soul, spirit, psyche, higher self desires to be. I have sat in front of a green screen, PC, laptop, tablet, phone as a cubicle dweller, desk jockey, manager, director, vice president, and in all of these positions felt deeply unfulfilled. Why is this???
I’ll tell you why. It’s because you are living according to someone else’s expectations, contributing to someone else’s vision, building someone else’s empire without any indication that any of these pursuits and activities align with your own precious destiny or purpose.
This is a painful place to be, when your very essence is languishing like a fish out of water, beached on the shores of someone else’s dream.
You may be asking, “Well, what do I do now???”
Let me tell you what I did.
Inspiration to Manifestation
Inspiration
I took time to figure out who I am and what I’m all about. This starts with being inspired to become who I was really meant to be all along. There have been hints throughout my life that have consistently provided clues; for example, if you asked someone who knows me very well, “What is he like as a person? What does he enjoy? What is he passionate about? What does he do better than anyone else?”, they would all more or less state that I excel at helping people understand themselves better in order to focus on true purpose. I help people feel good about who they are and the unique genius they bring to the world.
Vision
Imagine yourself in your highest state of joy, fulfillment, and significance. What do you see? What are you actually engaged in doing? Who is there? How would you describe your interactions with and relationship to these individuals? Which people do you see in your vision that are contributing the most to your feelings of joy and fulfillment? What did they actually do? What are the steps that were taken just prior to this joyful state that were the most crucial for accomplishing this state?
Where is your significant other, children, extended family, friends, inner circle? Are they near, far? How have their lives and activities factored into your reaching this state? To what extent have they contributed to your reaching this goal and experiencing this level of satisfaction?
Where do you live? To what destinations do you travel? To what locations and destinations does your main activity take you? What target market or demographic do you serve?
For my part, I see myself speaking to groups of people, many of whom are in transition. I read to them from this book and maybe others that I will have written. I participate in speaking engagements around the country; I’m at Barnes and Nobles locations all over the place signing books and holding brief talks. I’m speaking at colleges, corporations, foundations. I am given honorary doctorates for giving the baccalaureate address at prestigious universities. I see myself developing seminars for consultants, coaches, and other individuals that are seeking tools to emancipate themselves from their current states of normalcy and drudgery. I love what I do and my very outlook and aura reflect it.
As you begin to answer these questions for yourself, the vision should become clearer and provide you the motivation and higher level emotions necessary to revisit this picture of success and fulfillment frequently. Maybe once in the morning during meditation and then again at night before falling to sleep.
Alignment
Now that you have somewhat of a vision for your life, one that you will hone and perfect during the next couple of days and weeks, you now must begin the practical activity of aligning yourself with those things that will deliver you to your destination vision. There are a number of larger elements and factors in your life that you might categorize as helpful or conducive to the picture of life that you envision for yourself. These might be people that are at the forefront of the field you want to be in; reading the books of authors whose philosophies and solutions for life align with your vision. For e
You may have researched and found businesses, foundations, or higher learning institutions that subscribe to the ideals you find integral to the vision you have developed for your future lifestyle and fulfillment. There may be individuals that are distant acquaintances that you have decided are crucial to your success, so you must begin to develop personal or strategic business relationships with them now since you have learned that they are headed in the same general direction as you.
As well, there might be activities that you have not yet begun to engage in that would prove advantageous for your future; on the other hand, what about avoiding acquaintances, activities, and pastimes that might short-circuit your momentum towards your goals. Fill in the blanks with your own personal peccadilloes, peeves, and poison.
Mission
Once you have a vision and have begun the importance process of alignment, you are now in a great position to create a mission. I will offer one of many disclaimers at this juncture, there is no real prescription for reaching one’s destiny. Certainly, it is a winding road with highs and lows, ebb and flow, pit stops and speedways; but as you sojourn it is always helpful to have a map.
Your mission is a brief summary or recap what you’re doing and why. It helps you focus during those days when you feel mentally fuzzy and lacking the stamina to forge ahead. It is a set of statements that encapsulate your raison d’etre: use it as a daily affirmation especially when you feel that you are veering off course.
I don’t know about you, but I have definitely had days and nights when I have asked myself, “What am I doing? Wait, why am I doing this again?”, only to quickly recall the mission statement I painstakingly wrote for just this time and purpose.
Excerpt from Life Purpose Statement
“I want to bring people together, to show deep generosity and love, to encourage and affirm others so that they may fulfill their true potential, to clarify for others the steps to enlightenment, to help others see the vision for themselves to which they are temporarily blind, to persuade people that their situations are not hopeless and to help them find their own unique path to fulfillment; to coach others in the rules of engagement for interacting with difficult people, to remind others that everyone has unique needs and baggage which limit the flow of interpersonal exchanges and to provide others with ways to help bridge such divergences; to illuminate and map out the unchartered territory of how single parenthood impacts the behavior and life choices of children when they become adults; to fearlessly accept the mantle and authenticity of my unique purpose and move about the world as a beacon for those who cannot find their way; to shine bright enough to ignite the inner flame of purpose in others with whom I come in contact, and to share with the world the music within me that will bring it into longing and expectation for our God.”
Maybe yours is shorter or longer. You may even update it occasionally. I think mine is about due for an update. In any case, write one so that you can have your own personal self-correcting existential GPS system!
Declutter/Detox
One of the most challenging steps in the process from inspiration to manifestation is the act of removing clutter. This is challenging physically, emotionally, and mentally. We have heard of spring cleaning. Legend has it that once a year at the advent of spring, just when the chill of winter has subsided and the frost has lost it’s bite, we begin to put away the blankets, coats, sweaters, and thermal underclothing for safekeeping until next year. The very momentum of spring cleaning pours over into other areas of our life as continue to search for parallelism and congruence.
For starters, it would be practical to put away any winter rituals, habits, and activities that have no relevance in the warmer months. Think of things we do in the winter that no longer make sense to continue doing when the temperature warms. All the hot cocoa, warm milk, closed windows we swore by yesterday will no longer suit our lifestyle now that the robins have come. The guy who cut our cordwood is nice, but we won’t really miss him, will we?
Prudence leads us to continue our spring cleaning but more in the realm of this new season of our very lives, not just a time of the year. A season of life lasts more than months and years, oftentimes it spans decades. So this is how we best prepare ourselves for a future that is aligned with the vision of our very destiny and purpose.
Maybe it’s time to declutter our personal lives of people, places, and ideas that no longer align with the vision. How many acquaintances, friends, and extended family no longer qualify to accompany us on the journey to this special destination we have in mind? What about those with whom you have spent a lot of time hanging out, but they just don’t buy into your dreams and aspirations? They just can’t seem to get over some of the asinine things you have done in the past or the silly decisions you have made or the outright failure you have experienced. Many of your cherished confidantes just cannot imagine you as a successful entrepreneur living out your most important aspirations because they are still blinded by that person you were when you were in your 20s. So often the future we see for ourselves is not possible for us to experience if the negative sentiments and dubious perceptions of these old friends aren’t removed, gotten rid of, extracted, ejected, detoxed from our lives.
I am sure you can think of an assortment of people that have been close friends, fun colleagues, and pleasant business partners that no longer fit in the current contours of your lifestyle and goals. We all have examples of individuals who used to fit into our lives like hands in a glove, yet no longer play integral roles in our development, growth, or our life purpose. Below are 13 examples of characteristics and behaviors that I have found to be indicators of trouble. People and situations that can be characterized in the following ways must be carefully scrutinized and potentially placed at a distance or removed from our circles:
Red Flag 1: Apathy
Red Flag 2: The Blame Game
Red Flag 3: Envy
Red Flag 4: Unresolved Baggage
Red Flag 5: Complacency
Red Flag 6: Idolatry
Red Flag 7: Time Killers
Red Flag 8: Lack of Faith/Cynicism
Red Flag 9: Snap Judgments
Red Flag 10: Arrogance and Mistrust
Red Flag 11: Close-Mindedness/Lack of Vision
Red Flag 12: Lack of Kindness and Empathy
Red Flag 13: Lack of Self-Awareness/Mirror Effect
We will discuss these and more in detail later on in the book. But I thought it would be helpful to demonstrate the difficult challenge entailed in detoxing your circle. Only after you have begun this process will you begin to experience a kind of resonance that attracts those things that are elemental to the highest vision and expectation for your future.
Resonance
As you engage in the process of decluttering your life and detoxing your circle, you will begin to notice synchronicity. The very things that you have spent time meditating and focusing on will begin to show up little by little in your daily experience. When many of the blockages have been removed as a result of recategorizing, reorganizing, and in many cases, removing items and people from your daily life, you will notice that you will finally begin to resonate with the right things, people, places, and ideas. These are the things that you have already set your mind and heart to attract. They are pieces of the puzzle that frame your destiny if you continue along the path of fulfillment. Resonance happens automatically after we remove extraneous distractions from our lives that block and obstruct the flow of our true nature and character. In Joe Dispenza’s “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself”, he discusses what happens when we reach the state where we are fully engaged in the certainty of who we are and how we intend to live the vision we have imagined for our lives. At this juncture, the electromagnetic imprint of our thoughts and emotions attract those elements from the quantum into our personal reality — this 4-dimensional physical reality consisting of 3-D plus the dimension of time. As you move towards your destiny, it actually is moving towards you. This is a very fascinating phenomenon that physicists have confirmed is true! Are you excited yet?
Clarity
It is at this juncture that we finally begin to experience a level of clarity that is sustained, affording us the ability to hold the frame of our vision of the future and how we intend to interact with the world. Clarity is what allows us to know without second-guessing ourselves who we really are at our core and essence. It allows us to live out our mission without having to refer to what was written on a piece of paper or typed into a Word document last year. Because we have consistently lived in our truth, refusing to engage in past programs and constraints, we have entered into a state of sustained clarity that is marked by a congruence between our thoughts and emotions. We are not longer in conflict or at odd with who we are being. It is no longer doing, thinking, or feeling — it is simply the state of being. At this point we no longer spend as much time thinking one thing and feeling another. When are minds and hearts are in concert, we not only attract our desired future — but it is also attracting us. Clarity also makes it easier to perform frequent audits of our lives to ensure that we are not inadvertently taking on extraneous baggage, or behaviors and attitudes that do not serve us or match our vibrational frequency. In Nanice Ellis’ article, “How to Consciously Raise your Vibrational Frequency” (http://zazenlife.com/2015/06/23/how-to-consciously-raise-your-vibrational-frequency/), she reminds us that trying to teach, heal, or effect change from an unevolved or asleep state only reinforces the old paradigms that we are here to transform.” This is why detoxing your self first before trying to detox your circle is so paramount. The clarity of the mirror is your first pupil.
Activation
Once congruence between the emotions and thoughts is consistently achieved then our vision for our lives is activated. This means that after spending so much time meditating, focusing, and “imagineering” (a term coined by Walt Disney denoting a blend of imagining and engineering), we have now activated the vision such that it begins its transit from the quantum field into our personal reality. Once activation takes place, your new life or dream life is in the process of transferring from one dimension to another. The duration of this transition can be appropriately referred to as gestation.
Gestation
As with all seed, it requires nourishment, protection, good intentions, positive expectations, and a steady diet of love. That dream that you are incubating has a gestation period. It will require your undivided attention and sustained focus in order to move into our dimension. Some dreams have a relatively short gestation before they are finally experienced, others have a longer incubation period before they are manifested. Each dream or vision is contingent on the unique factors that conspire to will it into existence. It’s intriguing how human babies are carried in the womb for nine months, but elephant fetuses spend three 3 years in their mothers before they are born. This is a time that requires great patience and longsuffering. There will be many lessons and opportunities to lose heart. This is why it is important to have a strong group of allies, friends, or inner circle that understands your vision and will continue to support you and push you in the direction of your dreams. When you become disenchanted or lose focus or become distracted, they are there to remind you of your mission, your vision, your why, your desired results, and help bear the burden and weight of your work. There will be times when things become so uncomfortable and discouraging that you will want to give up. But you can’t. The dream must be born. Don’t give up, even when it hurts.
Travail
Have you ever notice how impossible and difficult things can get immediately before a breakthrough? It seems like you have reached the very end of your endurance and that you might be on the verge of abject failure and ruin — and suddenly your goal is finally achieved and your hard earned efforts are rewarded. I have found this process to be true across the board in the vast majority of situation where a challenging and nearly impossible expectation has been set. It is not until a mother has reached 9 months and is in the hospital giving birth that she finally experience the pain and travail of delivering that baby. She has already gone through so much difficulty and discomfort only to endure one last rite of passage – the excruciating pain of travail. This symbolic of the experience that we must all endure on our journey to purpose and destiny. It will not be just handed to us on a silver platter. Anything really worthwhile will cost us; but like any proud mother that survives the gauntlet of bearing a child, the bliss of birth is always worth the travail.
Manifestation
From inspiration to manifestation, we grow along with our dreams. We remember the crucial lesson that anything we can see in our minds, can eventually be held in our hands. In this book, I will go to great lengths to outline for you the most challenging and pivotal step in this process: detoxing your circle.
As you walk with me on this journey of discovery, my hope is that you take with you the tools that will empower you to move swiftly into resonance. This is where you will begin to notice the universe conspiring on your behalf in the form of synchronicity and serendipity.
A key tenet in reaching the level of self-awareness that empowers one to create worlds is understanding that there is really no yesterday or tomorrow. There is only NOW. There has never really been a yesterday or a tomorrow. The earth has always been spinning on its axis and revolving around the sun. Day and night are constructs that force us to divide our lives up into calendars. It has always been NOW for as long as there has been an earth. Let that sink in. That’s why you must see yourself living the life of your dreams NOW. Work through the steps described above NOW. Your past, present, and future will never be the same.
DETOX YOUR CIRCLE 