Sometimes adversity persists until you finally make peace with it. Finding a seed of equal or greater benefit it contains can help that happen. As you find the seed and nurture it, your energy shifts, and sometimes that’s when you’ll see the adversity itself finally begin to shift as well. Discover how life is like a series of cogs and gears, and what you can do to experience traction instead of friction.
Resources mentioned on the audio:
Related posts:
This is part TWO of two on the topic of disappointments, marriage, and miracles. Learn about what to do when your spouse is not on the same page with you about goals. Discover how rare faith principles can also be applied to concerns not related to money. If you have ever been hurt or disappointed and feel hesitant to dream again, listen to this episode.
Originally recorded in Mendon, Utah on Oct 11, 2018
Resources mentioned:
This is part ONE of two on the topic of disappointments, marriage, and miracles. Learn about God’s moment to moment sustenance, and how, if we’re not careful when we feel stressed, our “level of thinking” will remind us of all the OTHER things we should be stressed about as well. Learn a simple adjustment that helps you pray in a way that is in harmony with the laws, for better results. If you have ever been hurt or disappointed and feel hesitant to dream again, listen to this episode.
Originally recorded in Mendon, Utah on Oct 11, 2018
Resources mentioned on the audio:
Our way of thinking is like a path in the woods, which started with one thought in response to one stimulus, and which through repetition, became a superhighway of mental habits. If you’ve ever noticed that the same kinds of challenges keep showing up in your life, it’s time to consider new thought-responses to those challenges.
Rare Faith is a new way of thinking that can sometimes feel difficult. It’s blazing new thought-trails in your mind – traversing spaces that have never been traversed before. It’s overcoming years of thought-habits. It’s consciously choosing a new response to old familiar stimulus. In short, it’s work! It’s not easy! But if you forge ahead, pioneering new trails in your mind, trust the process, and think consciously along the lines of higher thinking (looking at setbacks as a blessings, anticipating good things coming, elevating your thoughts in gratitude no matter what, etc.), then soon enough you create new neural-pathways that lead you to a more abundant life. And not just in your perception of life, but in real life itself.
My dad sent me this poem, which illustrates the nature of MY thoughts pre-Rare Faith:
The Calf Path
Sam Walter Foss
One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made his trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then, two hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf if dead;
But still, he left behind his trail,
And hereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that past that way,
Then a wise bell-weather sheep,
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep;
And drew his flock behind him too,
As good bell-weathers always do.
From that day, o’er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made.
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath,
Because ’twas such a crooked path.
But still they followed; do not laugh,
The first migrations of that calf;
And through this winding wood way stalked,
Because he wobbled when he walked.
This forest path became a lane,
Which bent and turned and turned again.
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled beneath the burning sun,
And travelled some three miles in one.
Thus, a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years past on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street.
And this, before men were aware,
A crowded city’s thorough-fare.
Then the central street was this,
Of a renowned metropolis.
And men, two centuries and a half,
Have trod the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a hundred thousand route
Following that zig-zag calf about.
And O’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost a hundred years a day.
For thus, such reverence is lent
To well established precedent.
A moral lesson this might teach,
Were I ordained and called to preach.
For men are prone to go it blind,
O’re the calf paths of the mind.
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten path,
Out and in and forth and back.
But still their devious pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw that first primeval calf.
Ah! Many things this tale might teach,
But I am not ordained to preach.
So, as we recognize that many of our existing, natural thought-patterns may be crooked, yielding undesirable results, we can intentionally imagine better destinations, blaze straighter trails, and establish new habits that help us realize a life of greater joy and serenity.
Discover how to think when you don’t know what to think, by downloading the free book: Hidden Treasures: Heaven’s Astonishing Help with Your Money Matters
I’m pleased to present Stephanie Lee as a new Mindset Mastery Honors Graduate!
In the Mindset Mastery program, students are instructed on the laws and principles that activate unseen help. That unseen help orchestrates resources, connections, and/or impressions that nudge the students toward all they need to realize their goal. In Phase 1, they practice what they’ve learned on an inconsequential goal – something NOT connected to anything they’re intensely concerned about. This helps them experience success without undue stress, to build the mental muscle memory they need to apply what they learn to a goal of greater significance in Phase 2.
Stephanie was already a student of the self-paced Mindset Mastery program since 2016, but didn’t quite complete it. So when she had the opportunity to join the Guided version of the program, she jumped on it. And now, here we are just a few months later, congratulating her on becoming an Honors graduate!
Rainbow, Please?
Here is Stephanie’s Phase 1 (inconsequential) goal report in her own words:
8:39 am. Good morning from water-logged Oregon! As part of the Guided Mindset Mastery group, it was time to choose an inconsequential goal. (If you have a chance to sign up for a future session, I HIGHLY recommend it!!)
I decided to not overthink it, and just see what popped up in my head that fit this criteria:
So, the first thing that popped into my head was “a rainbow”. That sounded fun, so I did a little journaling around it because I have been consistent in my overthinking/doubting/overanalyzing in the past…:
I was having fun writing this list. …I was being aware of my propensity to doubt the way a thing shows up like I have in the past, because previously, I would only have one vision of how it COULD show up.
[But then I wondered…] Is my list of allowables increasing my chances of seeing a rainbow in a way that is in line with the principles, or is my list a sneaky way of putting demands on the laws that aren’t mine to put there? If I want to see a rainbow in real life, but I allow all the other versions to count, am I lacking faith?
…I decided to sit on the rainbow idea for a day or two, and if I didn’t feel more clarity around it, I was thinking I would change goals…
A few HOURS later…
UPDATE (already): I’m floored. 🌈
Today, at 1:32pm, I was out in the Applegate Valley here in flooding Southern Oregon with my husband. He had called me mid morning at work and asked if he could swing by and pick me up so that I could help him unload some logs he needed to deliver to a job. Here are some relevant fun facts:
So, considering my conundrum below, you can imagine how shocked and joyful I felt as we drove by it. I made my husband pull over across the street so I could get the whole fence in my picture.
🌈The laws are real and alive EVEN IN MY OVERTHINKING. Even sometimes very quickly! This is such a gift to me today and I am excited to keep playing with the laws.
Desperate for $6000 / Guilt and Shame
Stephanie’s Phase 2 goal was a much bigger endeavor, and pretty big and scary to her. Here’s what she did with what felt like an impossible financial situation:
Initially, the goal was to generate about $6000 to pay my cousin and his wife their share of profits from a rental we invested in together. I had received some incorrect information that stated my cousin could not legally receive a penny of profit until his IRA that financed the purchase of the home was paid back, and that it was only going to get paid back upon the sale of the house. So, I had believed that I wouldn’t have to give him their share until the house sold (in a year or two from now).
The past couple of years brought the darkest times of my life and the hardest financial struggles. I used my cousin’s profits to get us through some emergencies without asking him. I believed I would be able to replenish it easily. Things got harder, and I hadn’t been able to repay him yet.
I learned late last year that the monthly profits COULD go to him. I was so scared and angry at myself. I knew I had used the money for needful things but it wasn’t my money to use. I felt HUGE guilt and shame. I set the goal of generating that money by June 18th this year when my cousin and his wife were here on our land for our family reunion.
Not only did I NOT generate a single penny of that, but I also fell behind in other areas financially. I really had to rely on the lessons in the Mindset Mastery program to help me know how to navigate all that. At one point I had a phone call with Trevan, my Mindset Mastery Program Guide, where he helped me SO much. The time had come where there seemed to be NO WAY the money could be generated in time, but I knew that the months of effort had grown ME in big and important ways. I needed help recalibrating my approach with the goal and what to do if the goal didn’t happen in time. (It involved other people, so I didn’t feel like the pregnant woman analogy quite fit.)
Trevan helped me realize that the goal so far had been incredibly fear-driven and that it would not be accomplished with fear as the force behind it. At least not in a way that honored my journey up to that point, and the growth Heavenly Father wanted for me. Trevan helped me see that the REAL goal was ACTUALLY to maintain a loving and peaceful relationship with my cousin and his wife.
That became my new goal.
I wrote a new vision statement around it. I imagined having the conversation and telling my friend afterwards, “That was the most incredible thing! The conversation was SO easy, and the solution to the money issue worked out in such a surprising and beautiful way that I hadn’t even thought of before!”
Last week, that exact thing happened with my cousin. He and his family were here for our family reunion. The opportunity to talk privately was really challenging to create, with all that was going on. As tempting as it was to hope it just wouldn’t happen, I KNEW I needed this to be resolved. I prayed for a window of time to easily open.
On the last day, when everyone was packing up to leave, it was much more calm and relaxed than usual. My cousin came in my kitchen to chat about something totally unrelated while I washed dishes. My heart was pounding because I KNEW this was the opportunity… I was praying gratitude for the upcoming conversation going well… for it being peaceful and easy, for me to have the right heart about it, for me to offer the solution/idea that came to me just a couple of days before [of offering him the monthly profits to make up for the lump I had spent].
He asked how the rental was going and I just spilled out the truth. But I felt SO at peace. I didn’t emit an energy of cowardice. I didn’t speak from a place of shame. I told him the misinformation I had received about the rental profits and I told him that I had used the money for needful things and that the most important thing to me is maintaining a loving relationship with them.
I told him of the idea of he and his wife now managing the monthly payments and keeping all the profits instead of us from here on out (the solution/idea that had come to me a few days before). I told him that when the house sold, we would give him any remaining money due to him from our profits. He loved the idea. I apologized for not having an envelope of cash to give him and he said with such kindness “Oh, it’s okay. I don’t really have a need for it so I would probably just spend it on something I don’t need to spend it on, anyway.”
It was the easiest conversation I could have imagined having about it. I could write and write and write about all the feelings I have and the lessons I’ve learned, but I will just stop here and say that the goal was accomplished and it gutted me and grew me in all the ways I needed for these principles to become a PART of me… not just knowledge I have outside of me.
Well done, Stephanie. This is a prime example of coming to realize that the REAL goal isn’t the money. We tend to think we need money to get what we really want – but when we focus instead on what we really want – what the money is for – sometimes those things can be achieved in unexpected ways.
I love how Stephanie used the Mindset Mastery principles to navigate from guilt and shame to hope, healing, and growth. And solutions! Her solution truly was only an idea away.
I am also impressed that even when there was no resolution in sight, Stephanie chose to believe. I can feel her faith when she says, “The time had come where there seemed to be NO WAY the money could be generated in time, but I knew that the months of effort had grown me in big and important ways.”
At the conclusion of the course, I was thrilled to receive the following message from Stephanie:
I’m feeling overwhelmed with gratitude at being able to graduate with honors. It represents profound growth and victory that I never could have imagined a few years ago.
Congratulations again, Stephanie! You’ve done an amazing job!
To learn more about Stephanie and her art courses, ebooks, mentoring, and lots of other goodies, visit her website: stephanieleeart.com. You’ll see that her website is a work of art in and of itself. I especially love her beautiful videos showing her process for creating art.
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What’s YOUR story going to be?
I want to see YOU graduate, too!
Learn more about the Mindset Mastery program HERE.
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The Mindset Mastery Program is not to be confused with the Mindset Fundamentals Ecourse.
The Fundamentals Ecourse provides an introductory exploration into the principles that govern success for effective goal setting. It also fills the gaps to give you a basic but complete understanding of the principles, so that you have a solid foundation on which to develop true mastery.
By contrast, the Mastery Program is focused on the *implementation* of those principles and the *achievement* of your goals. It is full of interesting assignments that take you step-by-step through two experimental goals, challenging your thought processes, helping you experience success, and setting up a pattern in your thinking that you will be able to utilize over and over for effectiveness with all of your future goals. There is a self-paced version, but we also have a GUIDED version if you want to go through the lessons on a weekly basis with an expert guide. View all your options here.
I hope you’ll join me in one of these programs, so I can help you take your understanding and success to the next level in ALL areas of your life!
I want to help you crush every challenge, achieve every goal, and vanquish every monster under your bed. Let me show you how to use the kind of faith that causes things to happen in finances, marriage, and parenting.
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