Dustin's Musings

I have finally found a way to apply the spiritual laws I have been learning over the past years to my behavior in traffic. Like many people, I have been easily angered while driving. I have specific ideas about the way people ought to drive, and any deviation from my idea of what’s “right” is met with the harshest judgement. Pull out in front of me, requiring me to brake? How dare you! Drive slowly in the left lane on the freeway! “SLOW TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT,” ASSHOLE!

After learning about the Law of Attraction, I quickly realized that this behavior was counter-productive with respect to creating a joyous life for myself, but this was entirely mental, logical. I had to move this knowing into my heart or I would always mutter “dickhead” under my breath when another motorist tailgated me, or transgressed my rules in some other way.

What I finally realized is that I’m giving my power away when I do this. I could be having a wonderful day, when someone started to tailgate, and I would immediately get angry with them. I was giving this stranger the power to ruin my mood! Simply by following too closely, he had the power to make me feel anger and resentment. With this realization, I’m taking my power back.

Not only were these drivers taking my power, but they were also taking an inordinate amount of attention. That is, I was giving them an inordinate amount of attention. Your attention is extremely important, and we all have a limited capacity. Just think, you only live for so many moments. As you give your attention to something, you spend your thought and energy on it for that moment. That moment is now gone, and if you spent that moment giving your angry attention to the other driver, you are not happier for it. From a Law of Attraction perspective, your emotions are a wonderful guide to the kind of life you are creating in that moment. Simply: feel bad, create a bad life, feel good, create a good life. Feeling angry doesn’t feel good. Don’t waste any of your precious thoughts and energy on being angry for something so insignificant.

These days, I find it easy to ignore other drivers when they engage in behaviors I find annoying. I stay centered within my space in the car, and continue as I was before. I put my attention on the passenger or on a song I like playing on the radio. Or I put my attention on the act of driving. I don’t know about you, but I love driving my car around. This feels much, much better than getting angry with every tailgater. I keep my power and my attention, and I use it the way I want to.

When you go to the polls tomorrow, don’t vote for evil. Vote your conscience. Who do you really want in office?

I have struggled with this question this election cycle. I do not want to see Dan Coats back in office. So, should I vote for Brad Ellsworth? I strongly considered it. But in the end, I have decided to vote my conscience and vote for Rebecca Sink Burris. Her political ideas align much more closely with mine, and if I had my choice, she would be in office. Isn’t that what voting is?

Some people would say that she has “no chance.” While I doubt that she will win, it will be impossible for her to win if no one votes for her. Why doom her to failure before anyone has cast a vote?

I am puzzled by the way in which people vote “strategically.” Proclaiming to know that the candidate they favor has “no chance,” they essentially vote against the other candidate. In some races, this is your only choice — as only two names have made it on to the ballot — but in many races there are three or more contenders. If your ideas and politics are more in line with a third-party candidate, why don’t you vote for them?

Your candidate may not win this time, but the only way that they will ever gain legitimacy, the only way that people will stop saying that they have “no chance,” is if you vote for them. So let me ask you: If you count yourself among those who vote “strategically,” Why aren’t you standing up for what you believe in?

I know I am.

A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil. Vote your conscience.

Do you like to write? If so, you could make a little money writing for the web in your spare time. I recently discovered Constant Content, a website where freelance writers can hook up with people who need content for their websites. When I heard about it, I thought, “What the heck? I’ll try it.” So I wrote an article for the marketplace entitled, “Vacuum Sealing Your Food.” This was a Wednesday night, and I had sold it to someone by Sunday morning. (I only sold the right to use the article, so it is still available for sale. More on that later.) The point is, barriers to entry were extremely low. I signed up for an account and I was immediately ready to sell articles.

I will warn you: If you decide to write for Constant Content, proofread. Eleven times. They are extremely picky; they want only the highest quality content. When you submit an article for the marketplace, it has to be reviewed by an editor before being made available for sale. They expect perfect English, and this is a good thing. It gives the buyers in this marketplace confidence that they are getting only the highest quality products.

When you write for Constant Content, you own the rights to your articles until you make a sale. When you do sell your article, there are three levels of usage rights that can be sold. You can sell “Usage” rights, which allow a person to publish your article in one place, but others can also publish it (including yourself). “Unique” usage rights allow a person to publish your article in one place, and no one else can buy usage rights. “Full rights” gives someone the ability to use your article however they see fit, including deleting parts of the article, adding new parts, rewriting the article and claiming the article as their own. You can price each right separately. For example, my first article was priced as $10 for usage, $70 for unique rights, $70 for full rights.

There is also an affiliate program. The link I gave above is my affiliate link. As an affiliate, you get 5% of the sales from authors you’ve referred. (It comes out of Constant Content’s commission — not the author’s profits — so it’s win-win.) If you refer a lot of active authors, there is a potential to make a decent amount of money just from their writing!

I have a lot of article ideas that are inappropriate for my blog, so this makes a lot of sense for me to do. I love that I can sell these articles, written in my spare time. Everyone needs extra money, right? Come join me at Constant Content and write a few articles of your own!

Ask people what they want, and “more money” usually tops the list, or comes close. I find myself asking for more money on a regular basis too. But is money really what I want? I think that answer is “no.” I don’t want money. I want the things that money can buy. Things like swimming pools, sheds, houses, cars, vacations, dinners out, etc. There are other ways to get these things, aside from buying them with money. You can barter, receive a gift, win a contest, or any number of other avenues.

People often use the Law of Attraction to try to attract things like “financial abundance.” I think there are two things going on here. First, they want some of the things mentioned above (or other things that can be bought with money). Second, they want a sense of financial security. They want to know that their house won’t be foreclosed. I am no different; I want many of these things too. But in order to get there, I think we need to take a different approach when working with the Law of Attraction, aside from wishing for more “financial abundance.”

You are doing visualizations, right? If you aren’t, you should start today. Just spend about 15 minutes a day (or more if you have the time and inclination), and visualize your life with all of the things you’re asking for. Imagine driving that new car. Feel the sand beneath your toes on your beach vacation. Feel the warmth of the sun, and visualize your sun tan when you look in the mirror. You will get much faster results when you can really get your emotions into these visualizations. Just ask Jess, she manifested a pool for us.

Visualization helps you to really think about the reality of your desires manifesting. What are all of the consequences? Are you happy with them? For example, if you manifest that million dollars, people will treat you differently. Some friends and family may ask for money. Some people may avoid hanging around you because it reminds them of their own financial lack. Visualizing your desires can help you to identify any areas where you have resistance. You may change your goals, or you may release your resistance. Both are progress.

A lot of things excite me – like the beach vacation mentioned above – but can you reach the same level of excitement when you think about more money? I know that I can’t. I think I ask the universe for money, and it replies with, “for what?” I just can’t get my emotions involved in the same way. I do want the security of knowing that I have money in the bank, but it’s the feeling of security that I really want, not the money.

Rather than belabor the topic, I’ll keep this one short and leave you with this: When you ask for money, ask yourself: “What is it that I *really* want?” Once you decide, focus on that instead. And be open to other ways of receiving your desires. You don’t have to buy everything.

I once read that there are two general strategies for success in life. Control and Fear or Faith and Love. From my control-driven state of mind, it sounded absolutely ridiculous. Now that I live much more on the faith side, it makes a lot more sense. Trying to control everything in my life led to anxiety, a specific kind of fear. Now that I rely much more on faith, I can tell you that I am not nearly as fearful as I used to be.

This concept was beautifully illustrated to me not long after my first introduction. I went to an amusement park with my family, and I paired up with my dad for most rides. After a few roller coaster rides, he complained that his neck hurt. After that, I started watching him while he rode the rides. He was tense. He may not have been in the White Knuckle Club, but he was definitely not relaxed on the ride. I was. I was just letting go, and letting the ride throw me around a bit. My neck didn’t hurt in the least.

Have you ever seen an unhappy animal in the wild? I suppose you can’t exactly ask a tiger about his life satisfaction, but the wild animals I have seen seem to be generally content. Wild animals don’t have anything like anxiety. Fear, yes. Anxiety, no. Fear in animals (including humans) produces a flight-or-flight response when a threat is present. But as soon as that threat goes away, the fear is gone.

Our brains and bodies cannot tell the difference between a real and imagined threat. When you have anxiety, you are constantly imagining threats that do not exist in the present moment, in your Now. Because of this, your body builds up stress chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol, that cause all kinds of health problems. It isn’t that these hormones are bad per se, but chronically high levels of stress chemicals do cause serious problems. Has your doctor ever asked you about stress? It is widely recognized as a large risk factor in many diseases.

There are a great number of people taking anti-anxiety medication in the world. This medication gives people a reprieve from the symptoms of anxiety, but I believe the real cause is just wrong thinking. I was never on medication, but I think it is fair to say that I have been a very anxious person. Our minds are very creative, and it is easy to imagine a thousand ways in which things can go wrong. I did this incessantly. Ask anyone who ever talked to me about the state of the world financial system. I have, in the past, been a strong advocate for individuals owning physical gold.

What can an anxious person do? The answer is, simply: have faith in the universe and know that you deserve to live a happy and fulfilled life. Easier said than done, right? I suggest that you do as I did: Do a thirty day trial of giving up control. Just say to yourself that for the next thirty days, you will not allow yourself to worry about your problems. There will be plenty of time to worry when the thirty days are up, and nothing catastrophic will happen to you in just a month. You will have varying levels of success on keeping your mind off of your anxious thoughts, but holding this intention will make a big difference.

I know that you can’t simply shut your mind off when you start to worry. Instead, try to redirect your thoughts. Do you remember that above I mentioned the two opposing strategies? There is a reason we put the two strategies together with the feelings of love and fear. Trying to control things leads to feeling fear. Using faith in your life leads to feeling love. This also works in reverse. The more you fear the greater your desire to control. The more you love, the easier it is to have faith. So when you find yourself fearful and anxious, look for ways to express love.

You can express love in a variety of ways, but two very powerful ways to express love are through gratitude and appreciation. This is showing love for your life, and ultimately, yourself. Any time you are grateful or appreciative, you are expressing love, and love is a very powerful, creative emotion. From a Law of Attraction perspective, gratitude is an intensely powerful way to put your attention on something. In this way, you create more things to appreciate, in a virtuous cycle.

If you aren’t already, try choosing Faith and Love. I can tell you from personal experience that it is a much more enjoyable way to live. Express love to increase your faith. You can always worry about your anxieties tomorrow.

I’ll leave you with an affirmation I use a LOT. I learned it from Louise Hay, in her Affirmation Kit CD. Repeat this to yourself when you’re feeling anxious: “All is well. Everything is working out for my highest good. Out of this situation only good will come. I am safe.” As Louise says, “This simple affirmation will work miracles in your life.”