 Photo of a human being wearing bangle bracelets, a gold chain necklace, and a gold sparkly top. Their hands are held up to their face, thumb and forefingers making owl-like circles around their eyes. Are you focused on what you want? Or are you focused on what you don't want? It matters because, either way, you get what you focus on. Focus is what counts—not the yes, bring it on or the no, get it away directed to the object of your attention. Whatever has your attention, that's what you're calling forth. Find the comfort and bolstering in this: you have the power to choose your focus. You have power to notice where you're directing your focus, and power to redirect it. This requires that you monitor your own feeling states, as they'll alert you to where your focus is. It's this simple: you're not focused on what you want if you're scared, stressed, horrified, outraged, filled with hatred, obsessed with the details of the Things You Don't Want. So monitor your feeling states. Make it a project. Then you can, at any moment, one more time, catch yourself in an unwanted state; notice that your attention is on the Thing You Don't Want; and refocus on what you do want. How many of us approached the US presidential election with NOT-HIM as the focus? Did you catch wind of the millions of dollars of free advertising the media gave the orange oaf because, good story with double-plus bad villain? Did you, maybe daily, read (watch, review, discuss, laugh about, rail against) all kinds of details about the candidate you most didn't want? I did. Are you ready to quit it? I am. At the very least, I've declared one positive outcome of this election to be a deep learning about where I place my focus. I've been practicing this anyway, and I constantly urge clients to mind their focus! Current events drive the point home so fiercely, I'm no longer willing to dabble. I aim to master this thing. Are you with me? So I'm not listening to much news right now. I know I'm not alone in this: I keep encountering folks who have declared their own pause in hooking up to the toxic-T I.V., or who've weaned down to a very slow drip. I invite you not to join those making bleak predictions about what will happen next now that the Thing You Don't Want has been (sort of) voted in. Predictions of horrors to come only call them forth. What happens next could in fact be a mollified version of the worst possible. There will be mitigating forces, and you and I can be part of them—but not by fighting AGAINST anything; by putting the focus on what we want. What if we all made predictions of goodness—peace, love, tolerance, intelligence, competence, goodwill toward all—actually prevailing. Goodness could actually prevail. Focus on grace. There's always grace. There's evolution, to be sure, and backlash (which is all the T-bone represents) is a normal part of evolution, to be expected (but not focused on!). Let's not forget—and let's keep honoring how HUGE it was—that a Black man was voted in as US President to serve two terms in the Oval Office. We're evolving, and there's no turning back. Focus on that. I invite you not to cultivate fear. Remember, you're minding your feeling states. So soothe yourself when you catch yourself in fear, and actively refocus on thoughts, dialogue, and visions that bring you hope and courage. Keep voting for what you want by giving that your focus. (Once again, if you don't own Scooch! already, please pick up the free download of part 1 of my book. It's got all kinds of good stuff about nonresistance, getting out of overwhelm, getting comfortable with your discomfort, and, most relevant here—in chapter 3—how to mind the pain body and tend the mind.) I invite you to bring this FOCUS ON WHAT YOU WANT thing to all aspects of your own life, because your small, singular, personal life, in the midst of big political affairs, still matters. Further, how you show up for yourself will affect what you're able to bring to the political scene and how you can support other individuals and the greater good. So how many things in your personal world do you approach with a focus on what you don't want? I've read some fascinating dating profiles that begin with words about what someone just won't have (No crazies for me, because, gosh, I seem to attract nothing but that, ever!). People launch job searches with declarations of what isn't out there or who's more qualified or what they'll have to put up with if they want to get a foot in. Wrong focus. If the election fiasco doesn't make this FOCUS point with crystal clarity, what will it take? Intend it. Allow yourself to scooch toward getting it—practice it, play with it. Then you can both take greater charge of your own life, inviting and creating more of what you want for yourself, and you can be a force holding steady to a vision of peace and well-being for a nation and the world. (And hey, it won't be passive: a sharp focus also brings in the inspirations, collaborations—whatever's needed—to help you take the right steps to head that way!) Love & blessings galore, Jaya
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 Two hands are held together to form a heart shape. The hands are painted to look like a satellite view of the earth. If the antidote to fear is love
and this election era (which, looks like now, isn't endless after all!) played more on fear than any sane or semi-conscious being would ever care to align with then ... hold fiercely to love as you anticipate, vote, & wait. More than anything, align with love. Sidenote: For solid self-support, breathe consciously. Conscious breath is powerful to ground you and bring you back to your heart center. Conscious breath can walk you back to love. Hey, you're already breathing anyway. I'm not saying Just breathe. I'm inviting you to pause often, especially when you get a whiff of fear or feel pain or contraction in your gut or chest or wherever, and direct the breath toward those sensations. Breath is the only balm you can apply from within. So watch the breath go all the way out, watch the breath come all the way in. See if you can do that without running off somewhere mentally and, if not, go again. Let the breath bring you back to now, back to love, back home to yourself. Open, again, through the breath, to life, to love, to voting for an outcome that most clearly aligns with love. When I speak of voting for an outcome that aligns with love, I mean much more than what you do at the polls, though that, obviously, matters so much. You vote for an outcome when you fantasize about an outcome, so consciously visualize the victory you want. Don't picture worst-case scenario. Don't picture people at their worst. Don't imagine horrors and insanity-run-amok. Do imagine peace, joy, relief, expansion. Do what you know to do to feel those things in your body. Access memory to make this real. (Hint: what election results in the past brought you a sense of amazement, hope, we-finally-did-it? Feel that again.) Are you feeling separate and alone in this? Don't allow such a thing! Consciously align with all the good souls (and I'm not calling anyone else bad) who genuinely want love to prevail on our planet. This issue and this election and its results are all much bigger than you, and will impact our entire planet. So connect to what's bigger than you, and believe (or experiment with believing) that you can energetically tap in to an agenda of love that many beings are holding right now. Vote for love by aligning with all beings who vote for love. To support my own alignment, I composed an alignment prayer that follows a formula offered by a wise woman of a bygone age, Florence Scovel Shinn. (And let me here give a nod to Tosha Silver, whose excellent book Outrageous Openness made me aware of Florence's The Game of Life and How to Play It.) Here's the prayer: If it's aligned with divine order for hate to preside over the U.S., then I offer no resistance, and I pledge to keep showing up with an agenda of love. But if it's divinely ordered for love to prevail, if love is divinely ordered, then may the hatred, bigotry, fear, and misogyny in our cultural and global atmosphere dissolve and dissipate in the face of this greater force. I align with that force to vote for love and to call forth a majority for love. Should we be good spiritual beings and take a moment to consider the possibility of detachment from outcome? Look, fact is, you can't force a certain outcome anyway. When you speak of what must happen or what can't possibly happen or what would automatically mean total we're-f***ed-bedlam-and-annihilation if it happened—can't you just feel the resistance in that? Don't you feel yourself go right out of alignment, right into fear? So hold your vision (hold it firmly), and keep voting for love. Keep breathing. And ... let go of the actual election results. Try out any way you see to do that—which could be by using the alignment prayer in bold above. Remember to bring it to now: you won't detach in one fell swoop forevermore. Detach right now, for now, and go in again when it's called for again, maybe in the now two seconds from this one. I don't know about you, but I'm going to hold to love anyway, no matter what the outcome. My hold on love is imperfect but not flimsy. I know when I'm out of love and I aim to get back in as quick as I can. Part of how I do that is by minding my feeling states. So notice your own dread. Notice your tensing body parts alerting you that you're holding the outcome again with a white-knuckled grip. And from there, bring more consciousness to the breath, release your muscles, release the outcome to the powers that be, and declare again that love is the greatest power of all. That's another thing Florence Scovel Shinn seemed to point out tirelessly: that there is only one power, the power of love. She offers this affirmations-style (she loved affirmations), and you might benefit from some that she penned. (Do what you will with the G-word in her thoughts. If you read her work, you'll see there's no rigid religion-based way that she uses it.) Check out her affirmations for the divine plan, which could support you as you anticipate the election, vote, wait for results ... and keep aligning with love. I'm with you, and I'm drawing great solace from knowing you're with me. Love & blessings for the U.S., for planet Earth, and for all concerned, Jaya |
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