Process #2 of 5 for quick & easy focus & alignment Photo of a person sitting on a wood floor string a long thread of beads. From Natalia Blauth on Unsplash. You are aligned when you feel connected, serene, optimistic, excited, clear. In short, you’re aligned when you feel good. When you don’t feel good, you may want to reach for a tool that could make you feel better. This is how you mind your alignment. When you get up in the morning, you might reach for a tool that allows you to choose your own focus. How do you want to feel? These quick & easy processes I’m offering in a series of 5 come from Abraham-Hicks, where I’m getting most of my dynamic learning & input for feeling great about my evolving life these days! SEGMENT INTENDING This process has two steps, and the first is optional.
Multitasking version: If you can’t write your intentions down—maybe you’re driving or putting lunch together—speak your intentions out loud. Pen on paper is ideal, but segment intending is super helpful whether written or spoken. LET’S DEFINE SEGMENT Think of your day as a beaded necklace that you’re constructing or creating bead by bead as you move through the hours. Each bead represents the next activity. So a string of segments could look like this:
You can even treat sleep as a segment. Read the next paragraph if you could use a reminder about good ways to put yourself to bed. Segment-intend to declare how you want to drop in for sleep and how you’d like to feel waking up. Consider how this could change the tone of how you rest compared with what else you might carry into sleep. As you go to bed, do you evaluate yourself, your day, your success, your relationship? Or do you go over what’s not yet done and look anxiously ahead? How about clear, kind, restful intentions instead? Intend feeling satisfied, letting go, feeling held & supported (by the bed, by all of life, by what feels complete & lovely & good enough for this day)?  Photo of notebook, pen, and lit candle. From Mushaboom Studio on Unsplash. WHY INTEND FOR JUST ONE SEGMENT? This tool brings intentional living down to brass tacks (um, or necklace beads). All you’re doing is isolating one manageable next bit and defining how you want to feel in it. Then you can consciously aim for that. Intentions for just the next segment are powerful because they’re simple, their focus is narrow, they feel entirely doable. You’re gazing at and polishing the one next beautiful bead you’re about to string onto the necklace that is this wonderful day in progress. It’s unlikely you’ll want or need to set intentions for every single segment of a day. Use segment intending especially if you’re already noticing a wobble. Examples of wobbles you may feel acutely or get even a whiff of:
Note that you don’t have to feel even a little bit bad about what’s coming up to segment-intend. I zoom-met with a friend I adore the other day, and I used segment intending to imbibe up front how much I love being in their presence. That’s what I carried in with me, heart full and eyes already reflecting their brightness. Have you ever entered a meeting flustered or scattered or just barely catching up to yourself and this moment? I have. And when I segment-intend, I don’t do that. I come in clear, conscious, grounded. Ready or not, I am ready, and I’m willing. I’m present. Don’t you love getting more conscious in your dance with consciousness? More to the point—in this one next dance? Want to show up with sass, ease, attitude? You decide.  Photo of young person with dark skin, locs, and torn jeans dancing in the street pointing at the viewer. From Blake Cheek on Unsplash.
MAKE YOUR INTENTIONS ABOUT YOU AND, PRECISELY, HOW YOU WANT TO FEEL. It doesn’t really work to intend that things will happen a certain way, or that you’ll get a certain outcome. (Universe’s business.) It’s pointless to intend how others will show up, because you have no agency there. (Their business.) Just make intentions about how you want to feel. You can’t even control what you’ll do or how you’ll do it. So focus on calling in feeling states. Side note: when you’re minding your own alignment, you may find—may have already found!—that you call forth more of the good stuff that others have to bring. But just let that happen. Your work (your business) is to tend to your own clear focus and the feeling state that focus brings. You can leave the rest to life, to others, to Source, to Law of Attraction (to whatever you want to call it). EXAMPLES OF INTENTIONS FOR A SEGMENT Let’s say you’re about to write something up for work that you’ve been thinking about. So your list of intentions could look like this:
That’s it, folks. Then go on through the door into your next segment, and what’s there to meet you will be colored by all that you just set up, all that you’re consciously bringing with you. And as you string each segment of the day onto the whole, you end up with a thing of beauty and a sense of satisfaction. You can find process #1, Easy Existing Matches, right here. Process #3, on the Abraham-Hicks concept of zoom in, zoom out, is the next post on this blog. Reminder that no process you know about does any good unless you use it. I dare you to use one or more of these daily. (But really I want you to follow your curiosity about what’s possible to keep you aligned and feeling good as much as possible for your total well-being and fulfillment.) Love & blessings, Jaya
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a simple tool for quick course-correction  Photo of ballet dancers in arabesque on pointe from Daniel Neuhaus on Unsplash Want an even quicker read? Go through and just read the bold. That tells the whole story. Pivoting is both a simple concept and a simple tool. It’s not even a process. It’s a quick mental adjustment you make and keep making to go from the unwanted to the wanted. Use it while in motion or being still. Use it while working, walking, cooking--whenever you’re capable of having a thought and being aware of that thought. Use it while waking or dropping off to sleep. Anytime, just for a moment. Yep, this is also from Abraham-Hicks. Pivoting has 3 steps. 1) You notice something that’s not to your liking. 2) You consider what WANTED thing corresponds to this UNWANTED thing. 3) You shift your focus to the WANTED. Examples: 1) You notice you’ve been getting sloppy with punctuality again. 2) You make a mental note that you prefer being a little early to be ready on time. 3) You feel great about that decision (instead of bad about the lapse) and you head out (or to the computer) early for the next appointment. 1) You notice you’re having an irritation response. 2) You pivot toward soothing what bothers you and toward accepting what is, as it is, here and now. 3) Right now, you breathe, relax the muscles that tensed up, tell yourself it’s really okay. 1) You notice you’ve been doing too much and things feel glutted. 2) You pivot toward doing less, finding pauses, making spaces. 3) You tell the story of increasing spaciousness and do every little thing you see to promote that—tidy up this corner of the cabinet, say no just to something between you & you (that shopping trip can actually wait, and today I stay home); say no to an invitation even if it has appeal—because it’s more appealing to do less right now. Notice from the above examples that what brings the UNWANTED into focus, and thus the call to PIVOT, is simply that SOMETHING FEELS BAD. When you become quickly responsive to the signals that something feels bad (these signals come from your own system—body, heart, head), then you pause with what you’re noticing and … PIVOT. What’s so radical—or more to the point, HELPFUL--about this? I recently heard this gem (during an Abraham Now program): “You can’t get around how you feel when you’re amplifying how you feel with sentences.” Ever notice you put A LOT of language—even just words in thought, not necessarily spoken—to what you feel? Noticing you’re exhausted, you declare exhausted. You review what’s been exhausting in your life. You give lots of weight to what you can’t control that exhausts you (so now you’re a victim of and stuck in exhausting circumstances). You put much focus on how bad it feels in your body. In short, you tell the story of EXHAUSTED. So when you have this PIVOT concept in view, noticing exhaustion, you pivot. You tell the story of rest and rejuvenation instead. And then it’s not so hard to get around how you feel. Your (chosen) focus is now on rest and rejuvenation, you choose your inner and outer narratives accordingly, and you also make choices accordingly.  Photo of owl pivoting head & gaze from Getty Images on Unsplash. And that’s how you apply it as you go. So let’s go over those 3 ways to apply the pivot one more time: 1) You focus on whatever you’re pivoting toward (e.g., rest & rejuvenation). 2) You choose your inner and outer narratives accordingly. 3) You make ongoing choices to keep heading that way. As always, it helps to BRING IT TO NOW. Just right now, I can let go of something and go to bed earlier. Now, I can slow down a bit and do an easier version of the task. Right now, I can pause for 15 minutes and meditate or lie down and rest. You could make pivoting a way of life! You could swiftly learn to shift …
Have you ever had some of the most satisfying change come from some simply concept you simply applied? I invite you to try that out with PIVOTING. Love & blessings, Jaya ... and let go of the hard & pointless work of being the doer  Photo of a place setting on a table with yellow paper placemats from Getty Images on Unsplash Want a quicker read? You can simply learn or review the placemat process by starting below the first pic. Scroll down, baby … I was thinking about how hard it is for people to LET GO of trying to control all the parts and believing I’M THE ONE who makes it happen. Doership! We even stir up more confusion by accusing ourselves of being irresponsible or not properly showing up when we’re not doing our utmost (as we tense up & exhaust ourselves) to think of everything and manage all the parts. That’s a problem because
Those who use the G-word sometimes say, Let go and let God. Um, sure, that can be used to go complacent or excuse not stepping up. It can also be used to let go of what you can’t control, and let the greater intelligence do its thing. It will always include you in the doing (some of us think you are God and God is you), but won’t put you in charge of what you just don’t have the capacity to do, manage, or control (since you’re also in this limited ego-reality as an individual human being). When I first heard the term the organizing intelligence of the Universe, it just sang to me. I was already aware of the love force and fully down for that. I hadn’t thought about or even begun to take in (and that will be an ongoing process till I die) the unfathomable intricacies & crazy brilliance of what I now call the orchestration. So how do you come to know that, work with it better, FLOW with it, give yourself to that current? Play your part and put down what’s not yours? The PLACEMAT PROCESS from Abraham-Hicks is my favorite way to put stuff down and get crystal clear about what I’m doing and what I’m not doing. And bee-tee-dubs, it’s called that because Esther (yeah, the nice white lady from Texas who channels Abraham, which or who is actually a group of entities, I know, I know, but stay with me, please, because it’s brilliant)—Esther got this process while she was at a restaurant and used a paper placemat to try it out. For those who like Byron Katie’s 3 kinds of business, note that this allow you to clearly and on paper (where you won’t get sidetracked by all the slippery seaweed in the mind) write down in one area what belongs to the Universe and even to other people, and separately note what’s yours.  Photo from Jaya of an exercise layout in a landscape oriented sketchbook. A column on the left is about 1/3 of the page and titled "You," and annotated "Just what you know you'll do today. The right 2/3 of the page is titled "Universal Manager," and annotated with "Put it all down."
The act of writing it down is also a literal and symbolic putting it down. Placing it in those larger hands, or into that great holding net where everything’s being gorgeously woven together in a way that works for the good of all concerned. So in your area on the paper, you write down only what you’ll do today. Abraham says, Mean it. Whatever you put there, you know for sure you’ll get to it. Cool if you get this wrong, folks. Use it to take in how confused you still are about how much you’re supposed to and can get into a day. We’re actually not meant to CRAM OUR DAYS full with productive activity. Ay, that’s the great cultural lie of doership and what it means to be good little worker bees. (I imagine real bees are relaxed & having a good time as they bop around collecting pretty powdered nectar & turning it into exquisite golden honey.) But it’s not just that I’m NOT DOING the things I put down in the Universal Manager area. The organizing intelligence, or what A-H calls the Universal Manager, is all over it. Bringing things together with that uncanny right-place right-time precision, flowing things your way, getting people queued up to enter stage left or bump into you as you round the corner, in short—orchestrating. Or … lining up cooperative components that will support you to get to where you’re going. Do watch if you choose to experiment with this. Notice how things moved forward that you didn’t touch because you gave them, for real, to the UM who knows how to effortlessly make it all happen & come together gorgeously. So ANYTHING you’re thinking about, worried about, wishing you could get to, thinking you should already have gotten to (but truth is, you won’t get to it or can’t do anything about it today), PUT IT DOWN. You’ll know as you write (and after) you really are putting it and did put it down when you feel some RELIEF. When you relax. When you feel light instead of heavy. When you feel you’re doing enough, it’s good enough, all is well. (Notice the trust in this?) Put down all that you don’t need to carry today because it’s really not what’s up for YOU to manage, hold, do, or orchestrate. Examples:
When you can look at your little (way littler) list and feel good about THAT being the stuff of your activity today, you’re on the right track. Maybe you’ll even remember that the ACTUAL stuff of your day is not just what you check off the to-do list but …
Hey, I’ve heard Abraham gently & playfully scold people for acting like they’re delegating things to the Universal Manager, and then they have the right to be upset if something didn’t move something forward the way they’d hoped. You’re getting the benefits of the process when you feel RELIEF. Intend relief. Note relief means less resistance. It means you’re entering or you’re in the flow. It means you’ll give yourself a much easier time of it. There’s more going on too but … that’s enough, isn’t it? Love & blessings, Jaya ... and an example of using it on the lie of NOT ENOUGH TIME  Photo of multicolored marbles from Nick Fewings on Unsplash Want a quicker read? Scroll down for a numbered list of 12 ways to think about time that feel better. If there’s any detrimental belief that A LOT of people from all walks of life share, at least in American culture (and I daresay in plenty of other places around the globe), it’s that there’s not enough time. We have more to do that we have time to do it in. Does that even sound right? Is that even possible? It's certainly disempowering and engenders all manner of stress and feelings of inadequacy and dissatisfaction. When your thoughts and beliefs are making you feel bad (in other words--when you feel bad, and take note of what you're believing in that moment), Abraham-Hicks has a clarifying and focusing process to call forth and drop in with what you want to believe instead. They call the marble game. It’s really simple and it’s really worth trying. (I do it often, sometimes daily, usually to clarify my focus early in the day. Much as I approach the focus wheel and other amazing Abraham processes.) Think of marbles as a metaphor for your thoughts and beliefs. All the thoughts and beliefs you’ve ever had. Since you've got a lot of those (accrued & revisited over time, and constantly added to), the point is that it will always be a mixed bag. You'll always have some beliefs that serve you (because they're aligned with what you want) and some beliefs that do you no good at all. Those beliefs run counter to what you say you want, so they churn up resistance. Besides the fact that resistance feels bad, it also makes you NOT A MATCH to what you're dreaming up, asking for, working toward. So in the marble game, you determine--and establish--which beliefs you want ACTIVE in this situation. Which beliefs do you want to have in view? Which ones do you want to run the show? For example, you may have three time-related marbles in your bag that make you feel bad about yourself & your daily accomplishments:
You may have three other marbles that support you to feel good about yourself & your work:
Which marbles would you like to have active as you start your work day? Notice you’re likely to feel bad about yourself and ill-equipped for your day if you have the first set of marbles active. If you have all six marbles, or both sets, active, you’ll feel torn and you'll vacillate between the two mindsets. With the second set of marbles activated, you’ll feel more relaxed and at ease and ready for the day ahead. You'll be likely to build momentum in what you do and feel good whether you get as much done as you might have imagined or not. So anytime in life that you notice you’re leading with a bad set of marbles or you have a seriously active marble that neither matches where you want to stand nor promotes or enhances how you want to feel—like, There’s not enough time for all I need to get done--then play the marble game to consciously choose 12 marbles you want to activate and bring to the fore. I did that on that very topic one morning recently. (See my activated, chosen marbles #1-12 below the illustration.)  Here are the components of the process as I do it. It's a simplified version of what Abraham explains (with no component left out). 1. Briefly (BRIEFLY) write down what got you thrown off or where you notice your wobble is. Simply lay out the problem. (I woke up with a light sense of dread and pressure, already feeling like I don't have enough time for all the tasks I think I have to do or want to get done today.) 2. Write down the feeling state that goes with that for you. How do you feel with this story or set of thoughts active? (Discouraged, overwhelmed, lacking in confidence.) 3. In the margin, draw one marble and, next to it, write down a belief you have that would actually support you in this situation. I like to color in or make a design on the marble as I watch the thoughts form. (See below.) 4. Repeat that until you have 12 marbles and 12 statements of more positive, empowering, helpful beliefs you already have (or ones you don’t have to reach too far to get to), the ones you do want to have activated. (Examples for this are just below.) 5. When you've got your 12 shiny chosen marbles out that support you, write down how you feel now. (Confident, equipped, looking forward to my workday.) Since I actually played the marble game on this very topic, here are the 12 marbles (things I actually believe, or that aren’t too far out of reach, and that I want to have as my ACTIVE beliefs) that got me from "Not enough time for all tasks" to "Tasks & time coexist perfectly."
 Hand drawing in a sketchbook from Jaya showing marbles lined up along the left side of the page If you don't get through all 12 marbles because life intervenes, just get some chosen marbles in view! You'll head toward the way you want to feel and can keep cultivating that in other ways. If you're on a roll and you want to hang out with this game for more than twelve marbles, go go go, and enjoy how solidly established you get in the mindset and feeling state you're actually consciously choosing. I personally find this so empowering and satisfying.
I invite you to play with Abraham’s marble game to consciously activate the beliefs you want to live out of in general—and to very specifically carry into your day or the one situation coming up. Love & blessings, Jaya Photo on left courtesy of zwalshphotography. That picture depicts a sad white American 20-something smoking. The picture in the middle depicts a Black child aged 3-5 with sad face resting on arms. The picture on the right depicts an older Indian woman with a sad, pensive look. The written part of this post describes a meditation/visualization exercise and what it does. There's an audio at the bottom in which I walk you through this powerful process for meeting a situation that brings up strong emotion. A Formula for Meeting Feelings Well I’ve got a sentence for you to play with—a formula, actually, with an X to plug something into, but its purpose isn’t mathematical. It’s to support you to move through any strong feeling better, with greater awareness, in a way that’s kind to yourself. It has the lovely effect of both allowing you to come closer to a feeling, while simultaneously giving you distance and perspective—thus beginning to set you free, or to disconnect overt suffering from pain or discomfort. Unavoidable Pain/Optional Suffering There’s no way to avoid feeling bad sometimes. It seems to be a reality of a human life on planet Earth. We haven’t done something wrong or failed at being an evolving human being when we feel bad. Grief is real. Depression strikes. We have angry reactions (and they’re actually useful, sometimes, to show us that something’s off and must be dealt with) or feel building frustration (which is useful to call us to a reset if we catch it and respond!). There’s truly no problem with feeling bad. The problem is that we let it get to us, hijack the mind, and take us down the rabbit hole—or to places far uglier and less cozy than I imagine any rabbit hole to be. We quickly go from pain or discomfort to overt suffering--and that part is typically optional. Think-Feel Feedback Loop You’ve seen yourself put a story to what you’re feeling, right? You’ve caught yourself reviewing details of the story that seems to be the obvious cause of a bad feeling. Absorbed in the story, you intensify the feeling, and that stronger feeling asks for more story. Redundantly reviewing its details and your assessments of it (not fair, not okay, makes no sense), you get sucked in deeper; the feeling gets stronger still. Taking off on some defensive inner response (not what I meant, not my fault, not what I usually do) or some wretched interpretation (unseen, abandoned, betrayed), you may successfully get stuck in a bad feeling and perpetuate it for some time. Come Close to Feelings You May Want to Push Away Even if you try to shove it down, you can’t quite shake it off. It colors whatever you do—certainly your sense of well-being, possibly what others around you experience. The dark cloud you carry around may dim the whole room. Or are you someone who pretends it’s all good, unaware you’re radiating something false and impenetrable that frustrates and mystifies those around you? But you could come close to the feeling instead, even magnify it for a moment, and really let yourself feel it. (By feel it, I mean feel it, not think about it.) Hey, the feeling’s here anyway (it’s present), so you may as well give it your awareness (your presence). That’s where my formula comes in. Tell yourself, This is what X feels like. Ideally, sit down or lie down with it a moment, but you could do this while working on the computer, or performing any rote task. Here you are, living your human life. And here’s this normal (painful) feeling: X. If you can close your eyes, this can help you drop fully into the feeling, even for 30 seconds or a minute. I’m going to first walk you through coming close to the feeling, then have you notice you’re gaining distance in so doing. Plug In a Feeling Name or General Description of Situation for X Your first job is to fill in the X with your best label or name for the feeling at hand. This is what loneliness feels like. This is what techno-frustration feels like. This is what worry about someone you love feels like. This is what distress over planetary problems feels like. Whatever it is, name it, plug it in for X, and take it in. This Is What X Feels Like This. This is what it feels like. The phrase itself holds an invitation to feel it, so that's your second job. Not just feel it, but feel it precisely. You could
In short, come close enough that you truly let yourself feel what you’re feeling. In this way, you get present to the feeling. By not ignoring or minimizing it, you teach yourself that you’re fully equipped to feel this painful sensation: it’s not bigger than you; it won’t get the best of you. Into the Feeling, Out of Conceptualizing It! Perhaps most important, this gets you out of transferring a bodily sensation to the mind, making a concept out of it, bypassing the actual felt, sensory experience of what’s moving through you. This in itself is powerful. It also allows the feeling X, I believe, to better move through you and move on: you know, that pesky the-way-out-is-through thing. The Simple Power of Breathing a Feeling And while you’re giving X your awareness, you might consciously give it breath, though it’s likely that will happen anyway. The breath is soothing, calming, leveling to the nervous system. The breath is kind. You might think in terms of the breath wanting to support you and get you through whatever you’re moving through. The breath, too, is a felt, sensory experience that we seldom feel at all. When you sit with this formula, tune in to the breath (no manipulations needed, though you’re welcome to slow it down and deepen it if you like—it’ll go that direction anyway if you give it attention for a bit). Gaining Distance from the Feeling by Joining the Human Race As you repeat This is what X feels like, be aware that any number of human beings have felt this way over time. Right now, some are feeling it right along with you. Connect to them. Be one with them. You might even imagine specific faces. Take these from all the continents, from various races, ages, socio-economic levels, gender expressions. We are all one. You are not alone, and in holding awareness of others in the same boat, you cast your vote that they feel relief too, that they feel less alone too. As you simply keep holding what X feels like with the gaze of the compassionate, dispassionate witness, noticing that others feel it too, welcome yourself to the human race. Take the compassion you’re able (probably more easily) to extend to others, and bring it back to yourself. (Aw, sweetheart, Ow.) And know it's okay for you to feel this: it's something that human beings, in the course of a lifetime, over the course of eons, feel and have felt. Why shouldn’t you feel it too, just for now? There’s no problem. And you don’t have to suffer. You don’t have to add in and review and get preoccupied with the story of the hour that seems to have launched the feeling X. You can just feel this pain. You can let it move through you and move on. Below is an audio version of this exercise. I highly recommend that you do it when you're in the thick of a feeling, especially if you don't know what to do with it, can't get out of the related story, or need support coming back to yourself and walking yourself through it kindly. If you're not doing it for the first time, you can begin at the 2:45 mark, when we launch the actual process. Click on left arrow on audio bar below to hear the meditation/visualization. Love & blessings, Jaya p.s. Want a list of things NOT to get involved with when you feel bad? Here are my well-loved (helpful, practical) 11 Rules for When You’re Discouraged or Distressed. |
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