Are You Aware of Your Forcefield?

Are you awake? Are you aware? Are you present? Are you pleasant?

Those four questions once appeared on the chalk board of a vegetarian restaurant where I enjoy lunch with my family each Saturday. My daughter Emily liked the questions so much that she wrote them down on a post-it note and I carried the hand-written saying with me in my wallet for a very long time.  I was really sad when I realized that I had somehow lost the hand-written reminder from Emily.  Her note is gone but, the words are imprinted in my mind forever.

Each of us spends approximately 16 hours each day awake (not sleeping).  The question is, are we really awake or are we just not sleeping? Our responses to each of the other three questions can vary significantly from minute to minute.

We all know that it’s possible to be physically present in a room but, be mentally and emotionally distant.  When we’re in this state, our bodies are present but our minds are elsewhere.

Pleasant is a relative term. Are we pleasant in comparison to most people?  Or, pleasant in comparison to Mother Teresa?   When we have goals and compare the goal with how we’re currently acting, a gap is created between the present and the ideal held in our mind.  The gap is the realization of how far off target we are in comparison to the ideal vision held in our minds. It’s critical that we think highly of ourselves and others.  When we have high expectations, that’s what we receive.

How about awareness?  Because there is so much information for us to perceive in the world, there is a mechanism within our brains that literally causes some information to be made unavailable to our senses.  Our brains block out all of the information that you consider to be irrelevant to you at the time.  It’s like a forcefield that surrounds our bodies that only lets through the information which we deem necessary.

Do you think that it’s possible that you’re blocking out happiness, health, income of God because of your limiting beliefs?

What kind of information gets through this forcefield of awareness whose parameters have been dictated by us?  Only information that  is either a  threat or of personal value to you.

Information that you decide might be a threat gets past this invisible forcefield with ease.   Examples might be a gunshot, thunder, siren, tires screeching, loud screaming etc. In order to maintain our safety, we welcome information that will help to keep us safe.

Who declares what information is and is not of personal value?  You do.  Whenever you set a goal for yourself, you’re declaring whether or not information that is readily available in the universe will get through this forcefield. If you set a goal to buy a new car, all of a sudden you will start noticing the car commercials on television and radio that you had blocked out prior to the need for a new car. We block out all information that is currently of no value to us.

What percentage of people consistently set goals for themselves and put them in writing with visual clarity and specificity?  Less than 5 percent!    Without new goals, we’re automatically recreating the life that existed yesterday.  When we decide not to set goals, we’re deliberately choosing to keep every aspect of our life the same as it is today. We’re also making sure that new knowledge and information stays outside of our forcefield.

Are we deliberately sabotaging ourselves by blocking out information that will help us to improve?

When you intentionally look at every aspect of your life to decide whether or not you have the potential to improve in those areas, you’re opening yourself up to the possibility that you can be better than what is normal for you today.  Goal setting allows you the possibility of envisioning in your mind what might become your new normal.

Here are some examples of what might be normal for some of us and what might be a new normal if we chose to improve:

NORMAL | NEW NORMAL

impatient | patient

inconsiderate | considerate

physically unhealthy | physically healthy

in debt | debt-free

hateful | loving

anxious | care-free

lacking in faith | faith-filled

negative mindset | positive mindset

Once you’ve envisioned what your life might be like at the new level of excellence, you’ve created a problem for yourself and that’s a good thing!  The gap that exists between where you are and where you’d like to be causes your awareness and creativity to wake up and kick-in.

Creativity and awareness are released once you set a goal. When we don’t create new goals for ourselves, our minds work very hard to keep our lives stuck in the status-quo.

Think of how you would feel if you knew that you had the ability to bring about or cause whatever you conceived in your mind.  How would that feel?

When we become aware of what’s possible for us, information that our forcefields had previously determined to be of no value starts penetrating this self-created bubble unbelievably quickly. When this happens, we say to ourselves, “I wonder where this trait, quality, information, money, etc. was yesterday?”  The answer to that question is, the information has always been available to you. You’ve just been deliberately blind to it while you hung-on to your old belief. When we do this we’re deliberately choosing to get rid of an old belief and create a new belief in its place.

Once you try this process and prove to yourself that it works, you will begin setting even loftier goals for yourself because you understand that as you increase your goals, your awareness increases.

Small goals create small amounts of awareness,  Large goals create great amounts of awareness.

What beliefs have you been holding onto for a very long time?  Are they still serving you or can you envision a better life for yourself?

Old belief:  I am naturally a big person. I don’t have time to exercise. Even if I exercised, it wouldn’t work with my body type.

New belief: It’s easy for me to exercise on a daily basis and I feel confident and healthy with my toned and lean body

Old belief: Church and religion create gaps between people.  I don’t need to go to church to be a good person.

New belief: I feel energized and unified each week as I  enjoy worshipping and praying with my neighbors.

When we are looking for the positive in ourselves and in others, that’s what we see and become aware of.  When we’re looking for the negative in ourselves and others, that’s what we perceive.  We are selective perceivers of information.

I encourage you to give careful thought as to exactly what you choose to perceive and become aware of in this world:

I am awake

I am aware

I am present

I am pleasant

I am ___

You decide exactly what you choose to become and to become aware of