Just about everybody gets them... I had them just recently... Yup, I had a serious case of the "poor me's", those down-in-the-dumps, pitiful, worthless feelings of failure and scarcity. I mean, I threw a full-blown pity party. My web host went down, so no one could see my web pages. I couldn't get my email. I couldn't even get into the control panel to make sure I had a current list of subscribers for this newsletter... Then, just to make sure I was good and miserable, I threw in a few "what-ifs". What if the database is gone forever? What if I never build it back? What if my business fails and I have to go looking for a J.O.B.? What if I can't find one? What if we lose the house...? By the time those poor-me's and what-if's got going, in my mind we were living in a cardboard box and it was all my fault... Oh, how a good night's sleep can change things. I got up the next morning, and started on my normal routine. Part of that routine is spending at least 30 minutes reading something good. Something that will contribute to, and serve, my vision and my dreams. In this particular instance, the book was "Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting" by Lynn Grabhorn. The book talks about the Law of Attraction, that we get what we think and feel. And the Universe provided just the right cure. Grabhorn outlined an exercise designed to make you feel good about money, and having it. If you can get the feeling of having plenty of money, you open yourself to attracting that money, and the money flows in. I'm going to give you the original exercise, and a variation I discovered. Here's the original... Take a $100 bill (or the biggest bill you can afford-- don't skimp) and put it in your wallet. Now go shopping. If you can handle a full day, do it. Even a lunch hour at the mall will work. Just go someplace with lots of different stores. Now wander from store to store, picking out things you'd like to buy with your $100. Don't start making a list and figuring what you can get, just pick up individual items and tell yourself that you'd like that item and since you have the money in your pocket, you could buy it. Feel what it's like to see something you like and know that you can have it. If you're diligent, by the end of the day you may have picked up at least 1,000 things. In your mind, you could have spent around $100,000, and it feels good. You have to be pretty prosperous to spend that much on shopping and feel good about it, right? Hang on to the feeling, nurture it and bring it out as often as you can. What you are doing is sending these feel-good money vibrations into the Universe and opening yourself up to receiving money. Here's my variation... If you don't have $100, or getting the bill is inconvenient, write yourself a $100 check and put it in your wallet. Then go shopping. And if actually getting out to the stores is inconvenient, pick up a stack of catalogs or log onto the internet. I use catalogs because I still remember wearing out the "Wish Books" from Sears and Montgomery Wards at Christmas when I was a kid. I page through the catalogs slowly, looking at the items and mentally "buy" anything that strikes my fancy that I could order with my hundred bucks. I know this vibration stuff might sound kind of "airy-fairy", and I'm not an airy-fairy kind of guy. I'm an engineer by education and training. One thing you learn as an engineer is that you do what it takes to get the job done, and this gets the job done. Want an example? OK... This summer I wanted to take a long road trip, and cash is pretty tight. We're making some improvements on the house and paying cash for them. So where was the money going to come from? I didn't worry about that, just started planning the trip. What route would I take? How long would it take me? Where would I stop, and who would I see? How would it feel to do things exactly as I wanted to do them on the trip? Well, a couple of weeks into that routine, and the money fell out of the sky. I mean it came down in chunks... Earlier this spring, we attended to some family business out of town and didn't have room to haul everything back with us. So we stored the extra stuff with relatives and went back a month or so later to get it. While there, we got caught in a hail storm. Chunks of ice the size of golf balls were bouncing off our car. After the storm, we were left with a cracked windshield and several dings in the sheet metal. Long story short, the insurance company totalled out the car. We decided to keep it and take the settlement, which is paying for my road trip. A side benefit is that, because the car is totalled on the insurance company's books, we no longer pay for collision insurance, so our car insurance bill will go down for as long as we keep the car... So just remember-- When the going gets tough, tough... Go shopping! |
