Afformations -- or -- Why is my life so freaking fantastic?

You've heard of affirmations, right?

Just in case you've been hiding under a rock, or are really new to this telling a new story stuff, I'll clue you in briefly about affirmations.

Affirmations are positive statements you make about yourself, your life, your friends, your finances. Statements that affirm your value and worthiness and inherent goodness. Statements that clarify what you are inviting into your life.

For example, "I love and approve of myself just the way I am."

Affirmations are fantastic.

Affirmations can assist in creating miracles.

(Though I am becoming more aware that what we call miracles are truly nothing more than us uncovering the reality of existence. We just think they are miracles because we so rarely open ourselves to the reality of life)

And as great as affirmations are, do you know what happens sometimes?

Sometimes they backfire.

Have you ever experienced this?

You get all psyched and do your affirmations -- "I love and approve of myself just the way I am. I love and approve of myself just the way I am. I love and approve of myself just the way I am. I love and approve of myself just the way I am."

Great! I did it!

HOWEVER...

If you don't believe the affirmative statement it can sometimes reinforce the lack of whatever you are affirming.

You can say the affirmation all day long, but if you don't feel the truth of the statement, if you are hearing your internal critic tell you all the reasons it's not true and could never be true...well it's not that effective.

Don't feel badly about it. It's just the way our minds work. It's difficult or impossible to just convince ourselves of something we don't already believe is true.

We need evidence to support our claims.

This is where afformations come into play.

An afformation is an empowering question you ask yourself that triggers your brain to search for evidence that it is true.

And as you gather evidence that it is true, you begin to trust and believe in the idea behind the afformation and big time shifts happen.

You will be telling a new story in no time flat.

So, an afformation related to the affirmation I used earlier would go like this:

"Why do I love and approve of myself?"

Ask yourself that empowering question.

Notice how your brain starts looking for evidence to support it. That's the beauty of afformations. Your brain will support you in changing your beliefs about yourself. You won't need to fight it, it will be your ally.

Once you start gathering answers to your empowering questions you'll be shifting your internal beliefs in a powerful way.

So, now that I have very briefly shared with you why affomrations are so potent and useful, I want to end with a little rampage of afforamtions for myself...

Feel free to borrow any of all of them...

OH! And I've found that mixing in questions that you already fully know the answers to along with the ones that you would like more evidence for increases the usefulness of the technique...

So, here goes...and know that repetition is just fine!

Why is my life so fabulous? Why do I have an ever increasing number of readers? Why does money and prosperity flow to me so easily and effortlessly? Why do I feel such joy in every moment?

Why am I able to find the best in everything? Why do clients and jobs and projects that inspire me just flow to me in such surprising ways all the time?

Why am I in such perfect health? Why does my relationship with Michael keep getting better and better every day? Why does everything I desire come to me in perfect timing?

Why am I so fantastically wealthy? Why am I sought after for my work throughout the world? Why am I so healthy and slender and strong? Why do all my relationships bring me endless joy?

Why do I have everything I have ever wanted? Why do I always remember my connection to the divine? Why does everything unfold in perfect time for me? Why is my heart so wide open?

Why do I know that a perfect house on the beach is on its way to me now? Why do I feel inspired to exercise daily? Why do I love everything about myself? Why is my patience growing exponentially in every moment?

Why do I have an unlimited supply of abundance that flows to me whenever I need it? Why is my life a perfect reflection of the joy I feel in each moment? Why do I have such a successful healing practice?

Why am I willing and able to stand in my power in every moment? Why are all my relationships a perfect reflection of the love and peace I have in my heart? Why am I traveling the world teaching and holding space for healing?

Why is my body at is perfect weight now? Why does everything in my life flow to me at the perfect time?

Why am I now smiling from each to ear?

Answer: Afformations!!!!

Go ahead. Try it now! Feel the love!

All love,
Sheri

Strike a pose!

Take a few slow, deep breaths...

In...

Out...

In...

Out...

Now take a moment to imagine something.

Imagine that every dream you've ever had has just come true.

Your dream job, dream house, dream lover, dream vacation have just all fallen into your lap.

Let that sink in.

You are filled with joy and lightness, eager anticipation, and gratitude beyond belief.

Now imagine how your body would look and feel in this moment.

What do you see?

For me, I imagine my hands together in prayer position in front of my heart and then raised above my head in a triumphant pose..

My smile extends from ear to ear.

My feet are spread apart and firmly planted on the ground. Well, actually they are doing some fine dancing and tapping as well ;)

And I am laughing like there is no tomorrow.

Do you have a mental picture of the form your body would take in this "imaginary" situation? It is likely to be different from mine. Just go with the first image you get and TRUST.

Now, stay with me here...

Get up and strike that pose.

Feel the energy as you do it.

By merely taking this physical stance you are inviting in the energies that will make you dreams come true.

Once you feel the feelings, the physical stuff is not too far behind.

We usually get it messed up and think that the feelings come from the stuff. Not so.

The "stuff" comes from the feelings.

And even if you don't believe me, the worst/best that will happen if you try striking the pose is that you will feel some celebratory energy -- and that's a great thing no matter what!

Get up and strike a pose!

I dare you!

Beaming,
Sheri

The Power of Make Believe

This is the first time I am including an entire post from another individual on my blog.

I never planned to do this, but...

Michael Neill is a brilliantly inspired writer and coach. His works have changed my life. The concepts and exercises that are expressed in this excerpt are especially powerful.

You can read more about Michael Neill's work at www.geniuscatalyst.com

In-Joy!
Sheri

What do you believe right now? Take a few moments to finish these 'sentence starters' for yourself. You can do this in your head, but I strongly encourage you to jot down your answers somewhere you can find them after you've finished the book. That's because they are likely to have changed so radically by the time we've finished our time together you won't remember them later:


Life is...

I am...

People are...

Money is...

The most important thing to know about happiness is...

Now, however you've finished those sentences - positive or negative, thought through or impulsive, heartfelt or not - is simply an insight into how you currently see the world. Hopefully, you chose to answer honestly, knowing that no one but you need ever see your answers.

Look again at your answers. Do they feel 'right' to you? Can you think of lots of evidence and examples to back them up?

The secret we will be exploring in this session underpins everything else we will be doing together, because it explains why we see what we see, hear what we hear, feel what we feel and do what we do. It's a secret that has been talked about in many times and in many traditions from around the world and is 'secret' not because no one wants you to know it but because it's so difficult to talk about - like trying to explain the concept of water to a fish.

The secret is that we each live in our own separate reality. This is not some kind of an esoteric theory, but a physiological fact. Our brains filter information through the five senses then make representations of that information inside our minds. We then experience these representations, first as thoughts and then as emotions. But as we re-present the information in our mind, certain bits of the data are inevitably deleted, distorted and generalized. And since we all delete, distort and generalize that information slightly differently, we all have slightly (or sometimes completely) different perceptions of what is going on around us.

In other words, the way we think determines what we see, hear and feel, regardless of what is actually going on around us in the world. Or, to put it slightly differently, there's what happens and there's what we think about what happens. And what makes this important is that the lion's share of our decisions, feelings and actions in life will be based on our thoughts, not the objective facts.

This is neither a new idea nor one associated with any one particular field of study. In quantum physics, the uncertainty principle says that we can never study anything objectively because 'the observer always influences the observed'. Psychologists talk about 'the Pygmalion effect' and linguists say, 'The map is not the territory.' Shakespeare wrote, 'There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so,' and in the Christian Bible, Jesus says, 'As you think, so shall you become.'

Perhaps my favourite way of thinking about this secret comes from one of my early mentors, author and supercoach Serge Kahili King. He describes the principle of thought like this:


The world is what you think it is.

While at first glance this may seem an innocuous idea, its implications are far-reaching. If the world is what you think it is, then life becomes one giant self-fulfilling prophecy. Your expectations create your experience, and if anything happens that confounds your expectations, you will most likely find a way of explaining it away or fitting it into your existing worldview. And any attempt you might make to 'prove' your theories about the world objectively will never gain universal acceptance, because you're creating that world through your thinking in one way and other people are creating it through their thinking in another way.

Today's Experiment:

If this all seems much too heady for a book about having more happiness, ease and success in your life, here's a simple experiment to experience this phenomenon for yourself:


Get a piece of paper and a pen (or make notes in the book).


Now, take 30 seconds to look around you and make a list of everything you can see that's green. (Do this before you move on to step three.)


When you have completed your list, put down your pen. As soon as you finish reading this sentence, close your eyes and make a list of everything around you that's brown.
Now, if you actually took the minute or so it takes to do this experiment, you will have had a direct experience of the effect of what you hold in your mind on what you experience in the world. If you're still a bit befuddled, all you need to remember is this:


You will always tend to see whatever it is you are looking for.

Everything you will be learning in our time together is based on the fact that you are creating your experience of everything in your life through the way that you think about it. If you're having a wonderful experience, well done - you're creating that experience from the raw material of your life. If you're having a horrible experience, well, well done - you're creating that, and it can begin to change at any moment. Because once you really begin to understand how your thoughts create your 'reality', you will no longer be a victim of the process.

With love,

Michael Neil
www.geniuscatalyst.com

Squeeze out every drop of juicy goodness

Another fantastic way to invite more blessings into your life is to squeeze every drop of juice out of all the good things that happen to you.

When something positive happens, whether it is a great parking spot, or a promotion at work, or anything in between -- make a BIG, juicy deal out of it.

Milk it for all it's worth -- and it's worth a LOT!

Esther and Jerry Hicks, law of attraction experts, talk about how they will go on and on for an hour about some "little" good thing that happened to them. They tell the story of the miracle and tell it again and retell it and tell it some more.

They say that if folks could hear them they would think they were crazy. I don't know about you, but I am willing to seem a little crazy on my way to inviting in the life of my dreams.

Can you be willing to be "crazy" about the blessings in your life?

Michael and I do this by playing the "remember when..." game.

Wanna play?

Okay, here goes...

Say "Remember when ______________________ (fill-in-the-blank-with-something-good and then ramble on about how fantastic it was and how incredibly lucky you are)

For instance:

"Remember when we went to see Stephen Colbert? And we were last in line to get in, but ended up with front row seats? Remember how I got the script that he folded into a paper airplane and autographed and threw toward the crowd? We are so lucky, the universe must be working overtime to give us the best fun ever-- every day! Remember how I still have that airplane on my desk and it brings us back to how much fun we had that day? Remember the fabulous juices we had that day? And the raw lunch at Quintessence? Remember how much we laughed at that show? And then watched the replay online after we got home and then reminisced about the whole thing again!? That was an amazing day. WOW! We were so in alignment and so in the flow. I love it!"

Or how about:

"Remember when it was so hot last week, like 95 degrees or something? And that cool breeze came up? It was as if someone turned on the air-conditioner! I felt my hair blowing back and my neck got all nice and cool. That was really amazing. It was like a little miracle. The sounds of the leaves rustling and the smell of the flowers. WOW! It was such a beautiful contrast from the heat. It reminded me of being on the beach with the ocean breezes flowing all day long. That's what it will be like to live on the ocean. WOW! I love breezes."

Try it now.

Choose an event in your life that you can put into your joy-juicer!

Squeeze out every last drop.

If you're inspired to send me a written version of your joy juice, I'd love to read/drink it!

Drink up,
Sheri

PS -- My current joy juice is related to this blog. I have SO many ideas and experiences that I want to share with you all that I am practically bursting at the seams. I think I'll never run out of topics! I could write for days and days and days. Don't miss out on the upcoming posts! Remember to subscribe and tell your friends. That way we can all share our juicy new stories.

Mind Movies

Have you heard of Mind Movies yet?

A Mind Movie is like a vision board set to music.

Here's mine -- in case you haven't seen it yet.

I still get chills when I view it. I have to wipe away the tears every time.



Mind Movies are an extremely effective tool to use in your quest to tell a new story.

The process of creating a Mind Movie allows you to gain clarity on what your new story will entail.

The combination of music and visuals really gets your vibration in alignment with what you are inviting into your life.

Once your movie is complete you just take a few minutes each day to watch it and get jazzed!

And that's when the magic happens!

Watching the movie each day really keeps your whole being on track with where you are headed.

Miracles will start to unfold when you really open to this new vision.

And the movies are very easy to make. The Mind Movie people sell a package that you can use if you are so inclined, but I made mine using the Window Movie Maker software that came with my computer.

First choose a song that inspires you and purchase an mp3 version of it.

Next, find images that represent the people, places, things, feeling, and ideas that you would love to invite into your life. I like to use Google Images for this purpose.

Finally, open Windows Movie Maker and have a blast!

I love making Mind Movies. I've even considered accepting commissions from folks to create their movies for them.

I'd love for you to share your movie with me :)

See you in the movies,
Sheri

Getting out of my own way

A few days ago I started to see very clearly how I have been getting in my own way.

I realized that I was beating up on myself for not already being where I know I am headed. I was beating myself up for not being the most perfect example of everything that I wish to embody.

I could give you a million examples, but here are 2 -- a tiny one and a BIG one.

Example #1 The "tiny" one-- I was beating myself up for eating two bananas in one day. Bananas are very sugary fruits and I am a "healthy" person.

So went the story from my internal judge.

That's the level of insanity I had stooped to.

Puh-LEASE!

As I shifted my awareness it became increasingly clear that I was chastising myself for just about everything in my life.

Every. Thing.

Example #2 The B-I-G one -- A wet blanket of heavy energy was descending on me -- and that was just "not okay" for the "telling a new story" queen. I had failed. I was a fraud. I was wanting too much out of life.

So, I tried all the techniques I knew to shift it. I tried really hard.

Really, really hard.

And I felt bad for feeling bad.

And so the cloud thickened. I couldn't find a way out no matter how many "techniques" I used to shift it.

Oh, I had little glimpses of feeling okay, even great, and I would think things were shifting (I was really attached to things shifting because feeling bad was not okay, in my judge's opinion), but the cloud would descend again as my judge reared its head.

"Two bananas in one day! Can't you use something else in that smoothie you are making on the 7th day of your juice and smoothie fast?" sneered the voice in my head.

See how it teases me?

Well, last night as I was going to sleep I had a major shift.

I decided to just see what it would feel like to say "this is how I feel now and it's okay."

BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

Instantly the feeling shifted and I was laughing so hard I had tears running down my face.

My partner Michael came into the room wondering why I was cracking up -- and I could hardly even tell him because I was laughing so hard.

My tummy hurt from all the laughing.

It was really funny!

A combination of laughing at the "joke" of how much I judged myself and laughing because I was experiencing the core of who I am -- who you are -- joy and love.

Once I made peace with where I was the energy of those dark emotions transformed immediately to overwhelming joy and love.

It was magical.

Once I stopped trying and just let myself BE everything was different.

I was so intent on feeling good that I managed to make myself feel bad.

Now, I am not saying you should just throw in the towel and live with circumstances are other than your highest calling. Don't sell yourself short!

But you can find a way to be at peace where you are in this moment -- as you open to what is unfolding for you.

Try giving yourself a break today. Love yourself where you are.

And let me know how it goes!

In-joy!
Sheri

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Share Wisely

Have you ever been really, truly excited about something -- something that just makes your heart sing and feels like it will revolutionize your life?

So excited that you rush and tell your best friend or lover about this obviously fabulous idea/book/movie/food/vision for your life?

So thrilled to know that your house on the Pacific Ocean is on it's way. Beside yourself with glee to imagine living your soul's purpose each day. Just knowing that your friend/mother/lover/son will be equally enthusiastic about it.

And have you ever been met with a blank stare or a rousing "oh, that's nice dear"?

Nothing like that to put a damper on your festivities...

As you are composing your new story sometimes it's best to keep it to yourself for awhile. No need to risk the buzzkill of folks who just don't understand.

Share your new story wisely.

Sometimes folks can't handle how amazing you are. Sometimes they are scared of how much joy you can embody.

Of course, you can also start telling the story of how you have a wonderfully supportive community that rejoices in all that you are.

And if you keep pointing in that direction you'll find that too!

I would love to be that for each of you.

I see your brilliance.

I know you are capable.

I know you are here with a unique vision that will bless this planet with it's unfolding.

I love you all,
Sheri