E-Squared: Nine Do-It-Yourself Energy Experiments That Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality (5 page)

We Observe Things into Form

“It takes zero faith. What it takes is imagination. … If it’s clear in your thought, it is even this moment barreling down on you like a Mack truck.”

—R
ICHARD
B
ACH, AUTHOR OF
I
LLUSIONS
AND OTHER METAPHYSICAL NOVELS

If you ask me, learning how to transform energy is so important it should be taught along with reading, writing, and arithmetic. And it all starts with intent, the force that lies behind everything. It’s the energy, the fuel, the electric charge that sets up a resonant field and sends out probability waves into the FP. Esther Hicks, who facilitates the Abraham-Hicks material, calls it “launching a rocket of desire.” Giving it attention adds mass.

The minute you make an intention, you create it. It’s instantaneous. It exists as an actual thing. You don’t see it yet because you’re still operating from linear time. You’re still sold on the old-school adage “creating things takes time.” So you keep working and waiting. You keep following the seven steps from the latest self-help book.

But here’s what physicists tell us. Things, in the quantum world, do not happen in steps. They happen immediately.

So the thing you intend, the minute you intend it, exists, but like Schrödinger’s cat, a famous thought experiment devised in 1935 by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger, you’re only aware of the reality you choose to observe. The physical manifestation remains enfolded outside your current consciousness.

Cutting-edge physicists tells us life is multidimensional. But most of us are stuck in our one-dimensional physical reality, restricted to what we experience with our five senses. What we experience with these alleged foolproof tools of observation are nothing but what we decide to look for. It’s not even a chicken-or-egg question. What we see, experience, and feel with our five senses always comes after the decision to see, experience, and feel it.

I liken consciousness to a giant skyscraper. I may be living on the second floor, but the “thing” I created with my thought is up on the 17th floor. Until I can get to the 17th floor, it appears it’s still missing, that I’m still waiting.

Another great analogy is a television set. If you have cable, more than 100 channels are yours for the clicking. TiVo aside, you can only watch one channel at a time. When you’re watching, say,
Modern Family,
you’re chuckling at the antics of Cam, Mitchell, Phil, and Gloria and you’re completely unaware of the other 99 (or more) channels. That’s why it’s really important to stay on the channel you want. Don’t give any airtime to the reality from which you’re trying to escape.
Tune in only to your intent.

Reasons We Dial into Programs We Don’t Like

“We live in a world that worships limitations.”

—T
AMA
K
IEVES, AUTHOR OF
T
HIS
T
IME
I D
ANCE
!

1. We’re not really here
—not in “this moment.” The now is the point of power. That’s why it’s so easy for a yogi, who consciously clears out mental static, to change his heart rate, pulse, and other body functions. If you’re not really here, your mind is not available to do what you’re asking it to do. It’s imperative to practice conscious, moment-by-moment awareness. Otherwise, you’re operating out of old encrusted beliefs, beliefs you downloaded before you were five years old. Do you really want a five-year-old running your life?

When I find my consciousness operating outside “the now,” which is unfortunately a great percentage of the time, I gently remind myself of this analogy: The UPS driver just delivered to my house every single thing I’ve ever wanted, but because I’ve left the building, I don’t even realize it. I’m out hunting for paltry substitutes. Everything is right there, once I bring my consciousness back to the timelessness of “now.”

2. We’ve named it difficult.
The power to create with our thoughts is a piece of cake. That’s not even up for debate. But we keep telling our friends and especially ourselves that it’s hard or that we’re still working on it. Just notice in the next couple of days how often you affirm that it’s “hard” or “challenging.” Pay attention to how often you say, “Things have always been like that,” or “It runs in my family.” We spend so much time talking about what doesn’t work that we miss the whole point: namely, that we have the power to create something that
does.

3. We stalk negativity.
What do we study? Disease, problems, disasters of the past. What do we prepare for? Emergencies. We love to sink our teeth into problems and ask, “What’s wrong?” It’s an old-school model that sorely needs transformation. Once we begin to look for what’s right, our lives begin spinning in unimaginably exciting new directions.

And here’s the truth. Every “wrong” thing, which in reality is nothing but a foolhardy judgment, has a flip side. Lack is the flip side of abundance. Sickness is the flip side of health. Both ideas exist at the same time. Both are true. By choosing to see one aspect, the other equally likely aspect is hidden.

Unfortunately, while living in the consciousness of space and time, you can only observe one side of the coin at a time. But it’s important to realize that the other side is just as real and that at any time, you can simply flip it over. Opposites (for example, abundance/lack) are both true. It’s a question of which reality you’d rather live from.

4. By George, we think we’ve got it.
Once you define something, you no longer question it. Once you know something, it becomes your reality. But knowing anything is exceedingly restrictive. In quantum speak, it collapses the wave, leaving no room for mystery, wonder, and new discoveries. Think about it. If one of your arms is filled with books and the other with a bag of groceries, it’s impossible to pick up anything else. You may have a lot of knowledge and a bunch of academic degrees, framed and hanging on the second floor of that skyscraper. But remember there are lots of other “floors” (that is, dimensions) and all that you “know” can block potentialities.

5. The mind is
so
powerful it can create something “outside” itself to be
more
powerful.
That’s why it’s essential when doing the experiments to suspend judgment long enough to believe they’ll work. If you’re convinced they’re a family-size bucket of bull, you’ll collect data to support that viewpoint.

6. We haven’t really practiced.
Using the FP to direct your life is not an intellectual exercise. It’s not a theory. It’s a practice. Like mastering scales. Or learning to play Ping-Pong. Tiger Woods may have only been 18 when he won the U.S. Amateur Championship, but he’d already racked up 16 years of practice. And he still devotes many hours a day to conditioning and practice. You cannot know wisdom. You can only be wisdom. And that’s where this book comes in.

Picking Another Channel

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.”

—M
ARCUS
G
ARVEY,
J
AMAICAN
P
OLITICAL
L
EADER
AND
M
ENTOR
TO
B
OB
M
ARLEY

The purpose of this book is to release you from the imprisonment of your illusions, to help you set aside the manufactured press release you believe to be reality. The good news is you don’t have to change a single one of your behaviors. All you have to do is change your mind.

In case you haven’t checked Amazon lately, there are literally thousands of books on how to change your body. At last count, “buns” alone merited 678 books and CDs. But as far as I can tell, there’s not a single book on how to shape your mind. Yet your mind, with all its preset, misconstrued neural pathways, is the root of all your problems. Remember that it is consciousness, as brave physicists such as Fred Wolf are starting to acknowledge, that creates physical reality. Even those buns that aren’t steel yet.

You can go back time and time again to the shoe store, but it will never sell milk. And all those desperate attempts to change your body, your relationship, your fill-in-the-blank are never going to work until you learn to change and shape your mind.

It’s pretty difficult to control your mind when you think you have to do it forever. But by setting up a defined time frame, as you will in the experiments in this book, your mind can be coaxed into giving it a whirl. It’s like a 12-step program. Trying to stay sober forever can’t work. One day at a time? Now, that’s something a mind can wrap itself around.

All but two of the experiments take 48 hours or less. That’s two short days out of a 70-plus-year life span. Even a flabby mind can commit to that. Why do I give you 48 hours? Call it the old deadline principle. When an editor gives a deadline, he or she knows to start checking for said manuscript around that time. Deadlines give us something to expect, something to look for. When you’re on an unfamiliar country road looking for the green mailbox where you’re supposed to turn left to your blind date’s house, it helps to know it’s 8.1 miles from the last turn. Otherwise, you start to wonder if you missed it and end up doubling back. A deadline simply jars you into paying attention.

Once, I asked for guidance on whether or not to begin freelance writing full-time. I was working 20 hours a week for a small company and writing on the side.

“I really like Resource and Development,” I said, referring to the place I was working, “but I have this dream, you see, of being a full-time freelancer. It’s not that I don’t like writing fund-raising letters; it’s just that I want to pursue my own story ideas, write about the things that burn in my heart. What do you think?”

Already, I was getting lots of assignments. Big national magazines were calling. I was making new contacts, receiving nibbles on a couple of column ideas. That would have been answer enough for some people.

But I’m dense. I wanted an unquestionable sign.

“Okay,” I went on, “I need a sign that cannot be written off as coincidence. Furthermore, I’m imposing a specific deadline. I need to know in the next 24 hours.”

The next day, I got fired.

Another time, when my freelancing was slow, I sent out résumés, something I’m prone to do whenever I feel panicky. Sure enough, I was offered a job within a few weeks. The offer—writing marketing materials for a local bus line (okay, I didn’t say I was offered an interesting job in two weeks)—was for more money than I’d ever made in my life. But how could I afford to give up all that time?

Was I really ready to forgo my freelancing career? Once again, I demanded a clear sign. I needed to know within 24 hours because that’s when I needed to give my employer-to-be a
yea
or a
nay
.

The very next morning,
Travel + Leisure
, the magazine I most wanted to write for, called to give me an assignment.

I hung up, shouted “Yes!” and did the goal-line hootchie-koo. But my guidance must have been in the mood to show off that day, because not 15 minutes later, another magazine I’d never even heard of, let alone sent a query to, called and wanted a story about Kansas City steaks. I had to call and tell my would-be boss, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

To be in the kingdom, as
A Course in Miracles
puts it, is to merely focus your full attention on it. You have to be willing to perceive nothing else.

Currently, our minds are devoted to things we do not want. Our positive intentions occupy but a tiny sliver of our minds. The rest is focused on the problems we hope the intentions will eliminate. The majority of our brainpower is devoted to the old beliefs of scarcity, problem relationships, and a God who shoots fire bolts from heaven.

The reason 99.9 percent of your mind is still devoted to things you don’t want is because that’s the world’s default setting, what it defines as normal. The world’s default setting sees news about floods and earthquakes, hears stories about your second cousin’s epilepsy, and says, “See, what did I tell you?” It’s next to impossible to override the world’s default setting even though you know—at least theoretically—that another way is possible.

Let’s take being broke, for example. Most of us can agree we don’t want to be broke. So what do we do? We devote our minds to avoiding it. We work long hours. We call our stockbrokers. We read books and articles about getting rich, fully ignoring the fact that by trying to “get” rich, we are devoting our minds to the idea that we’re not already rich. Consequently, we’ve decided in advance to be broke.

If we simply devote our minds to feeling rich, to being grateful for all the already-apparent riches in our lives—say, our families and our wonderful friends—being broke would disappear. We only experience it because we devote our thoughts to it. That’s how powerful our minds are.

My friend Carla is resolute in her belief that when you feel broke, you simply must go out shopping. Immediately. “Ya gotta kick that belief in the nuts,” is how I believe she words it. I tried this once on a press trip to Mackinac Island, Michigan. I was just launching my freelance career, still not sure how this “money thing” was going to pan out. I was staying at the luxurious Grand Hotel, keenly aware that the clothes I’d shoved into my suitcase at the last minute did not live up to Jane Seymour’s wardrobe in
Somewhere in Time
or even to the Grand’s present-day guests daintily munching their tea biscuits on the 660-foot porch. Clearly, I was underdressed. And the five-course, men-in-coats-and-ties dinner hadn’t even started.

I moseyed into the pricey gift shop, and my eyes were immediately drawn to a gorgeous teal silk dress. One surreptitious peek at the price tag was proof positive that that frock was way beyond my normal budget—four times, in fact, what I’d typically spend on a dress. That’s when I knew I had to have it. I had to “act the part” of the successful freelance writer I wanted to be. I bought that dress, knowing I was paving the way for financial success in my newly minted career.