Recovering the Good
Building Awareness & Focus for Better Days
Hello Creatives!
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Cesar Milan (who is one I look to, to help recover my mind set for the good) recently said “Gratitude is a lifestyle.” I concur 100%. and was taught similarly about the holistic work I share. To be attuned to the Good available we need to cultivate an awareness of it — no matter what we see with our eyes.
At bedtime a few nights ago, my son and I were doing our “List 3 Good Things of the day” and he was particularly upset that the day had not ended well and was refusing to speak the good.
“The one bad thing, that was admittedly upsetting,” I pontificate, “does not erase the good of the day.”
He blinked in return.
The power of attention is the measure of your inner force.
Concentrated observation of one thing shuts out other things and causes them to disappear. - Neville Goddard
Sometimes at night, after ushering said six year old to sleep, I watch too many dog videos on instagram.
Is this a big deal? No.
Is this helping me build concentrated awareness? No.
🧲 In 2014 or 2015, I first tried this exercise, and I was shocked how much harder it was than I anticipated. S.H.O.C.K.E.D. And that was before Instagram. When you read it, try it. Try it at night, or try it now, to the detail that Neville Goddard mentions in The Power of Awareness.
“To aid in mastering the control of your attention, practice this exercise:
Night after night, just before you drift off to sleep, strive to hold your attention on the activities of the day in reverse order. Focus your attention on the last thing you did, that is, getting in to bed, and then move it backward in time over the events until you reach the first event of the day, getting out of bed. This is no easy exercise, but just as specific exercises greatly help in developing specific muscles, this will greatly help in developing the "muscle" of your attention.”
Insert, scads of data to prove what you and I already know in our bones: we’ve got too much information tugging at us all day long. We have been rolled into a world that there is always something to watch and very little worth seeing. When was the last time you started at a flower or concrete while you were waiting in line?
That was common.
Space was common.
Space is a commodity today. Which is why sitting and choosing to cultivate an inner realm, an inner world, a personal fortitude is so necessary.
You don’t have time?
That’s the one thing we can repossess. That and our focus.
I know, I know. The animal videos are a little bit of lovely dopamine, but they may be weakening our own ability to skry for the good in our day.
I don’t remember when I started saying a wake-up prayer, but I don’t get out of bed before saying thank you for enough years that I can't remember not. I do remember the first time I woke up with anxiousness, it was so foreign to me I couldn’t place it. It was around the same time I started reading The Power of Awareness, now that I think about it. I was living in a gorgeous little house, in the middle of amazing woods and I woke up deeply uncertain, not quite panicked but definitely worried. I aimed to harness my breathing and started looking for things to be grateful for and it went something like:
That I am alive.
That I am breathing.
That I am talking to myself and listening.
That God is listening, too.
I had the presence and the practice to come back to embodiment. I can remember that morning clearly. Maybe it was the beginning of the recovering as choice versus a lucky default.
If you are still here, reader. Let me tell you a secret about sitting and writing. I often sit down and as I write a clarity comes. I have a plan and pivot happens. A piece falls in, a wider perspective is offered in return for the effort. This is common for creatives who make space for themselves, who believe it is worthwhile to Sit & Write, to say what is on our heart — to listen.
It’s a both and. Of course we must do what me must do, but it’s no fun to do everything right, without enjoying it one iota. It reminds me of a quote for Alice Walker’s quintessential text, The Color Purple:
“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.”
Something begins to reorganize when we choose to make meaning out of our lives; when we purposefully slow down to the pace of the Good & notice the flowers of joy.
Your attention must be developed, controlled, and concentrated in order to change your concept of yourself successfully and thereby change your future.
Imagination is able to do anything, but only according to the internal direction of your attention.
If you persist night after night, sooner or later you will awaken in yourself a centre of power and become conscious of your greater self, the real you. - Neville Goddard
I used to teach on a metaphor that you may have to visit someone in the hospital, yet it is up to you to notice the flowers outside as my example. It was based on real life.
I had a beloved in the hospital for a long time, and there were rose bushes outside his hospital. I would let my eyes land on the rose, and sip her beauty for a breath before the whoosh of the automatic doors into the land of hopes and hospital beds.
Everything around us can, as my friend reminded me , and will, be used toward the Good. The awareness of this is a cultivated choice. Like, the meme about fitness: It’s heard now or hard later; choose your hard. I think difficulty happens, yet it is up to each of us to recover the available joy.
🐝 Try out Neville Goddard’s suggestion to recount your day.
🌺 Think on a difficulty you have, and recover the good. Look for it and don’t stop until you find it, or it finds you.
Thank you for this! I’m intrigued by the retrospective review of our day before going to sleep.