Your thoughts come with an accompanying energy, so you might as well shift to those that empower you. When you move from a thought that’s a very low energy vibration to one of a higher frequency, you go from weak to strong. When your thought is on blaming others, you’re weakened. But when you shift to loving and trusting others, you become strong. Today we are going to investigate the thoughts that make us stronger. Once you realize that what you think about is the source of your experience of reality, then you’ll begin to pay more attention to what you’re thinking in any given moment. Many years ago, in a tremendously popular audio program called The Strangest Secret, Earl Nightingale taught many of us that we become what we think about all day long. Your thoughts determine whether you’re being empowered or weakened—whether you’re happy or sad, successful or not. Everything is a thought that you carry around with you. Happy thoughts create happy molecules. Your health is determined largely by the thoughts you have. Passionately think that you won’t get a cold, and your body will react to your thoughts. Refuse to entertain thoughts of fatigue, jet lag, or headaches, and your body responds to your thoughts. Your mind tells your body to produce the drugs it needs to keep you healthy. Give someone a sugar pill and convince them that it’s an antiarthritic drug, and that person’s body will react to the placebo with the increased production of anti-arthritic energies. The mind is a powerful tool in creating health. It also creates divine relationships, abundance, harmony in business—and even parking places! If your thoughts are focused on what you want to attract in your life, and you maintain that thought with the passion of an absolute intention, you’ll eventually act upon that intention, because the ancestor to every single action is a thought. T he greater your desire, the more thought horsepower you’ll apply to its fulfillment. The more intense your desirous thoughts, the greater the measure of love going into your asking and your labor will be—and coming in contact with love is the very essence of Spirit and inspiration. Weak thoughts will attract doubt and weakness, which will cause you to experience monotony and drudgery in your efforts. With monotony, you’ll give up, but with love, you’ll be available to abundant hope. For example, I find it impossible to think in boring terms when it comes 63 to my writing. My thoughts are so intense that I feel love for what I’m doing and joyful when I even pass by my writing space. I get a warm feeling throughout my body because my desire to convey these ideas and express what I’m learning each day is so intense that it matches up with the spiritual energy of the Source of All Creation. Obviously when I’m asking for guidance, my thoughts or queries go out to my spirit, which then matches up with the Divine Source. I know that my thoughts are energy and that those harmonizing with Spirit will align to activate the creation process. I love watching all this flow so perfectly and being in harmony with the Force that’s responsible for all of creation. I know deep within me that I can participate in the activation of this Force to bring into reality the manifestation of my spiritually aligned desires. If you make this an inner mantra: I intend to feel good, you can think of and picture yourself experiencing joy regardless of what’s going on around you. You can remind yourself that whatever you desire is on its way, in amounts greater than ever imagined. If you keep this thought uppermost in mind, then before long, the All-Creating Source will conspire to bring your thought into your physical life. Most important, you’ll begin to act on your thought and receive Divine guidance. T he most empowering thoughts you can have are those of peace, joy, love, acceptance, and willingness. These thoughts don’t create a counter-force. Powerful, joyful, loving thoughts stem from your willingness to allow the world to be as it is. Then you’re in a state of inner bliss where serenity replaces fighting, reverence for all of life substitutes for craving and anxiety, and understanding supplants scorn. You become an optimist. Rather than seeing the glass as half empty, it’s always half full. All of this is nothing more than a conscious decision on your part to be in charge of your thinking. Be aware at any given moment in your life that you always have a choice about the thoughts you allow in your mind. No one else can put a thought there. Regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in, it is your choice. Choose to replace disempowering, weakening thoughts with thoughts of a higher spiritual frequency. Don’t convince yourself that it can’t be done or it’s easier said than done. Your mind is yours to control. You are the creator and selector of your thoughts. You can change them at will. It is your God-given inheritance, your corner of freedom that no one can take away. No one can have control of your thoughts without your consent. So choose to avoid thoughts that weaken you, and you will know true wisdom. It is your choice!

Afterword Experience has taught me that the laws of the material world truly do not apply in the presence of God-realization. And I know that I have the choice to live at this level of awareness and be successful and find inner peace. When I do so, it seems that the world changes: Animals behave differently than their biological genetics would seem to allow, people at a distance seem to hear me telepathically and respond to my highest thoughts, objects seem to materialize in defiance of what scientists say is possible, and healing takes place in spite of modern medicine saying otherwise. In other words, miracles seem to be ordinary. T he world looks like a place where everything is possible, where restrictions and limitations are nonexistent, and where the power of our Creator seems to roll right up and land at my feet, begging me to hop on board and witness the infinite possibilities it offers. This is how I feel when I align myself to Spirit: pleased with myself inside because I know something that so few ever come to realize, but humble and awestruck on the outside at the miraculousness of it all! I’ve come to understand that when one thing appears to be going wrong, I can see clearly that ten things are going right. For example, if my cell phone isn’t working, I can note that my health is fine, my family is safe, the ocean is calm for swimming, my bank account has a surplus, my electricity is fully functional, and on and on it goes. I automatically shift my attention away from what’s going wrong and onto what’s right—this then becomes my point of attraction and I attract more of what I’m focused on, whereas at an earlier time in my life, I’d attract more of what was going wrong because that was my point of attraction. How sublimely beautiful the world now looks to me from this magnificent place! No longer do I stay focused on and attract more of what’s going wrong, for I’ve learned to place my attention on what’s right, what’s working, and what’s aligned with the All-Creating Spirit. Rather than hoping, wishing, and even praying for an outcome, my inner world aligns with the idea that what I desire is feasible and on its way. This kind of inspired knowing frees me from anxiety and worry. I affirm: It’s on its way; there’s absolutely nothing to fuss about. And I leave the time of its arrival into my life in the hands of the All-Knowing, Always-Creative Spiritual Source. I find that I no longer question the Creator of the Universe because I’m at peace with the timing of everything. I know enough now not to push the river, not to demand that the timetable of my ego be the same as God’s. What I so sincerely want to share here is that the feeling of being completely in harmony with our Source generates not only success and inner peace, but miracles everywhere. I have the delicious spine-tingling sensation of bliss as I observe and interact in this world from the wondrous vista of being inspired. These words from A Course in Miracles ring true for me: “All that must be recognized, however, is that birth was not the beginning, and death is not the end.” This is the knowing that I have from this infinite spiritual perspective. It’s my intention to continue to live what my mind knows, rather than only what my eyes see. And my mind knows that we’re all in a Universe that has a creative, organizing intelligence supporting it. I know that it flows through me, and God willing, I’ll assist you to live the life that you came here to live. There can be no greater blessing! I send you love, I surround you with light, and I invite you to enjoy success and inner peace as you live your life aligned with Spirit.