How My Life Changed

A couple of years ago, I had been having night terrors(nightmares)--dreams in which I was so certain of my very real and impending death that I ran out of the room in my sleep.
I went to an acupuncturist who directed me through a visualization exercise that sent me into a state of pure joy.
The shocking awareness that resulted was of the vast difference I felt between the feeling of Joy while lying on the table and of the Anxiety that I normally felt.
I didn't know I had been feeling anxious. I thought how I felt was normal. And I thought how I felt was completely dependent upon what was going on in my life.
But when I lay on the acupuncturist's table and felt joy from my thoughts, I knew I was on to something life-changing.

When I discovered the direct and powerful and instantaneous connection between what I think about and what I feel, I was astonished.
It also made sense in the context of Law of Attraction, which I had heard of (by the video, The Secret) and was intrigued by, but didn't yet understand.

Then books pertaining to the Law of Attraction began to fall in my lap.  Every time I went to a bookstore and was drawn to a book, or saw a book review, or was offered a book by someone, it always had Law of Attraction as its subject.  Even my husband, who was repelled by The Secret, felt compelled to buy a copy of The Alchemist for me.  He had no idea what it was about, but it was a fable about Law of Attraction.  He eventually loved the book, by the way.
I started to read everything, starting with the scientific basis of how this universal law worked.

I got more and more excited about it. I spent a lot of time reading and thinking about how the world may in fact be so much more than I can see, and about why it really is so precise and perfect and unerring and interconnected and flawless.
At that time I also began to have vivid dreams that demonstrated my new understanding.  The dreams felt thrilling.
The more I let go of the limited view I had grown up with, the more my life became what I had always wanted it to be.

I began the practice of making myself feel better.  All day, every day I would take note of how I was feeling and if I didn't feel good I would intentionally focus on anything I could think of that felt good.

I also began the practice of intentionally feeling better about a subject that was troubling me.  I loved the Abraham-hicks tool called the Focus Wheel, and used it daily on various subjects.

I gradually let go of the need for circumstances (or the behavior of people) to make me feel good. I learned that my thoughts were responsible for how I felt (and for the circumstances that then showed up, which had matched how I felt).

During this time, in 2008, I let my two businesses, one of which I had been operating for 23 years, fold.
I challenged myself with the task of feeling better about empoyees no longer having jobs (with me).
I challenged myself with the task of feeling better about my husband becoming the primary wage-earner.
I challenged myself with the task of not 'producing' anything.
I challenged myself with the task of letting go of clients' disappointment with my leaving them.
I challenged myself with not getting accolades.  (there really aren't any accolades for cleaning the house!)
I challenged myself with the idea that my investor in my second business lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I used every one of these topics, and many more, in Focus Wheel and Moving Up The Vibrational Scale exercises.  I genuinely reached a place of joy and appreciation on every single one of those challenging topics.

Consequently, I now have constant joy and love and abundance and freedom and experiences that I would not have had were it not for those challenges.

One interesting point of background to this story is that I had always been an atheist.
And I mean the literal sense of the word which is without religion, not against religion.

I grew up without religion.  I always thought that this is all there is.  What I can see and feel is it.  And when I die there is no more.
I believed there was randomness and luck and unfairness and limited resources and competition and a required course of hard work and struggle and correct mate choice and correct career choice and correct child rearing and daily re-earning of value...

When I understood what Law of Attraction really is, I saw that every single one of those beliefs were ridiculous.

It was a process of understanding, but once the ball got rolling, it was an exhilarating path of discovery.
But it wasn't just the thrill of reading words that felt right to me, it was that my life started acting the way the books said it would.
First, I felt so much better.  I had let go of the idea that worry was a useful thing. 

I began to focus on good-feeling thoughts on purpose.

I began feeling good more of the time (in contrast to the constant anxiety that I hadn't even been aware of before..)
Then things immediately began to happen that made me feel good. 

When I focused my thoughts on appreciating clients I had, more clients appeared who were easy to appreciate.

When I stopped focusing on empty bank accounts and focused on the abundance of ideas and abundance of love and abundance of freedom and abundance of produce in the grocery store, the bank accounts filled up again.

When I looked for things to appreciate about annoying people, they became wonderful to be around.

When I playfully expected smooth traffic, empty parking spots, exemplary service, happy conversations, animals on my hikes... they were always there.

I also began enjoying my own company.  I began to enjoy quiet, which I rarely had before.  I began to enjoy long hikes (which I used to hate) and cleaning house, (same).
I began to notice that there were qualities about people that I loved.  (I used to be very critical and picky about the people I would hang out with).  I noticed people seemed to be funnier.

I began to appreciate my children in new ways.  They suddenly began to act more loving.

I also noticed an extraordinary and amazing thing.  Whenever I had a question about anything, I could go for a hike or sit in a chair and suddenly know the answer.

Also, one morning I was lying awake in my bed when my brother appeared in my vision and started talking to me in German.   The language was something we had in common, and especially one word he used, 'erinerest', (remember) had been a word we had used with each other as teenagers (just because it's difficult to pronounce, but we both enjoyed that we could pronounce it). 
He was so exhilarated by the trasition he had just experienced, and he said that he had already gone to our favorite spot in Hawaii and he had also gone to where we had lived in Japan...
My mother called shortly thereafter to tell me he had died a couple of hours ago.

I knew that my new gift of joy had allowed me to communicate with my newly-transitioned exhuberant brother. (same channel!)

But regardless of the incredible, constant, miraculous manifestations I receive every single day, what I value most of all is the ability to feel good.