Good Writing

            One of the things that brings joy to my life is reading.  Ok, ok, ok, that is a huge understatement. Reading hasn’t just brought joy to my life, it has brought healing, respite, knowledge, and at times full out escapism.

            What do I like to read? Well, I used to think I had very specific tastes and I only read self-help books and historical romance novels. As time moved on, I discovered classic literature, mysteries, thrillers and spy novels, paranormal, and most recently urban fantasy.

            The last six months I have been working for a small publishing company as a Preliminary Manuscript Reviewer. The publisher’s niche is in historical and nautical fiction. Although I love history, there are a few time periods that I don’t find interesting and tend to avoid. Also, reading a book about adventures on the high seas never registered on my “books to read” raider.

            The position requires me to read query letters, synopses, and the first two and last chapters of manuscripts and write reviews based on my first impressions. I did so with the intention of being objective and focusing on plot, characters, setting, etc. I didn’t want the “boring” subject matter to bias my opinion of the quality of writing. The process has been enlightening to say the least. I have been exposed to some awful writing and to some great writing and have learned a lot about what makes a good read. However, the most important thing I have learned is…

If the writing is good, than any genre, subject, or topic can be interesting, compelling and will always make an incredible novel.

            So regardless of what you like to read and have read for years, consider trying something new. You might be surprised by what you find. How do I get started looking for something new, you ask? Here are a few tips: Ask friends for recommendations for their favorite books or authors; check out the website Goodreads, they list the top reads for different genres; find out what your favorite authors are reading (sometimes they enjoy reading outside their own genre); and check out the classics (you know what they are). Personally, I belong to a book club and that forces me to read something I would have never chosen on my own.

Any subject can be made into a great book through good writing.

            Whether you are an avid reader or only get to read a book every once in a great while, you know that reading can enhance our lives in ways like nothing else can. Using recommendations and reviews, dipping into and exploring new genres can be easy and the benefits can make it more meaningful.

           Thanks for stopping by Meaningful Living Now and allowing me to share my ideas, thoughts, and musings with you.  Please feel free to leave a comment or question.

In love and light,

Christine

            

Affirmations

     Affirmations are said to be wonderful tools to help raise your vibration and help keep you focused on what you want to bring into your life.  Years ago I was working with a personal training client who was a smart intelligent woman with a Masters degree in counseling and a wonderful career as a life coach. Both of us were in the business of motivating clients to reach their goals and one day our conversation turned to affirmations.  Her experience was that they did not work.  I personally was new to using affirmations as a tool and just assumed they worked because the books I read were full of testimonials of their success and I had never heard of them not working.  As I pondered my client’s statement, I realized that I had not experienced much success with affirmations either and my client’s statement raised a good question, why is it that they work for some and not for others?  I was at a loss, I had no idea why affirmations may not work for everyone, that part of the concept was not discussed in the books.

                The answer to this question of why affirmations work for some people and not for others came to me sometime later while reading Ask and It Is Given by Abraham-Hicks.  They explained that the most affective affirmations are the ones that do not stretch your beliefs or imagination too much and hold a vibration that is a bit above your own.  If you use an affirmation that deep down you believe is not true or will not happen, it will not happen and if you use an affirmation that you think is possible, even though it may be a stretch, it will happen.  If your current vibration is much lower than the vibration of your affirmation, it is too far of a jump for your mind, body, emotions and spirit to make.  If you are vibrating at a 0 and the affirmation you choose to use vibrates at 60 you will not have success in jumping past all the other intervals to get to 60. Going from 0 to 60 in just a few seconds may work for automobiles, but we need to take it a bit slower and build up our faith and belief in ourselves and the universe.  For example, let’s say you affirm that a million dollars will appear on your door step, but there is a part of you that cannot conceive this happening and so your vibration does not match the want or desire; the million dollars will not appear.  On the other hand if you ask that you receive checks in the mail or enough money to cover a current bill that affirmation may be a closer match to your vibration and belief and so it will happen.  Know that you can certainly move through the vibrational intervals quickly, but you still need to move through the intervals, you can’t skip them.  Does that mean that you can never wish, dream, or manifest something big?  No!  It means that you will manifest what you believe and as your belief or faith in the universe to provide for you increases, so will your vibration, your dreams, your wishes, and your desires. As a result, your affirmations ability also increases to provide an appropriate vibration to help you focus on your goals and draw them to you. 

                Affirmations are wonderful tools to help raise your vibration and help keep you focused on what you want to bring into your life.  Build your way up the vibrational affirmation ladder, step by step and watch the miracles unfold in your life!

 

     Thanks for stopping by Meaningful Living Now and allowing me to share my ideas, thoughts, and musings with you.  Please feel free to leave a comment or question.

In love and light,

Christine

Creating Vision Boards, What's Next? (What If? Workshop Part 2)

The What If? Workshop part two was wonderful!  Some even experienced the abundance flow just after the first workshop.  We had so much fun playing and creating together.  As we gathered around tables with our cut outs from magazines, glue, and gel pens, we enjoyed sharing a piece of ourselves during the creative process.  As we helped each other with ways to express our wants on our boards we discussed what comes next in the manifestation process.  

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            Now that we cleared ourselves and created vision boards, what comes next?  The first thing about manifesting to be understood is that we must allow things to happen.  The process of manifesting is not about controlling what we want and how we get it, but it is about allowing what is best for us (we think to small) and allowing it to happen in its own way not the way we think it should happen.  I think that the later is the most difficult thing to do.  We are limited in the way we think that things can come to us.  We can’t envision achieving our goals in any other way so we sometimes don’t even notice when it actually happens.  For instance, last year I put on my vision board that I wanted to write.  In my mind this meant finishing a book I had been working on, writing my blog and in general spends a good portion of each day writing something.  When I created my vision board in January I had already enrolled in and was about to begin a college English course.  With taking two college courses and all the other things going on in my life I really didn’t have time to work on my writing projects everyday as I had planned.  It wasn’t until the middle of April did I realize that I had been working on my writing through my English class.  I must have written a full book that semester between both classes I was taking.  I received exactly what I needed.  During that time I learned so much about writing and received so much practiced which was what my goal had been.  The moral of the story is to be open to your dreams coming to you in unexpected ways.

            It’s time to start allowing and stop controlling and begin recognizing all the ways that your dreams are coming true. 

Thanks for stopping by Meaningful Living Now and please feel free to leave a comment.

In love and light,

Christine

Asking What if? and Creating Vision Boards

Hello,

                Since many of you couldn’t attend the What if? Workshop last week (because you don’t live in the area) I wanted to share some of the things that were discussed.           

            In part one of the What if? event, we discussed two important ideas that ensure the success of manifesting our goals.  They are one; get clear about what you want and two; stay focused on it.

            To get clear about what we want we need to let go of beliefs that no longer serve us and listen to our hearts.  A list of things such as; old beliefs, out dated goals, negative self-talk, unsupportive people in our life and mental thoughts of lack and limitation (boy the list is long, hug?) can sometime prevent us from reaching beyond what we think we can achieve or what we deserve.

Clear away the old:

            Our group did some serious energetic clearing and forgiving to release those things getting in our way of knowing and achieving our goals.  You can do the same through prayer or making a list of things you want to let go of and one by one go down the list and say (or think) “I know willing release (fill in the blank) as it no longer serves me.”  There is no wrong way to release just do what feels best.  Once we can let go of those things that no longer serve us we moved on to getting clear about what it is we want by looking inward and listen to what our heart has to say.

Listen to your heart:

            This is the simply part, so don’t make it hard on yourself. We started by making a list of five things that we have wanted to achieve and used it as a guide.  Then we tried to expand each item on the list by asking “What if?” By asking the question “What if?” it allowed us to dream and think outside our normal beliefs of lack and limitation. Now take it a step further and listen to your heart and ask it “What if?”First you need to create space and time to get quiet and where you will not be disturbed.  Give yourself about 10 to 15 minutes to get quiet and try to clear your mind.  Next focus your mind’s eye on your heart and literally ask your heart what it truly wants.  You can also ask your heart about the items on your list such as do they still serve you or steps to achieve them. Your answers will come in different ways so again just go with it.  Picture, feelings even sounds and smells might come to mind to let you know your true desires.  Write them down and continue to write in a stream after the initial ideas have been expressed.  This flow of writing allows unconscious desires to come up (getting out of our head)!

            Now that you have an idea of what you want take some time to fine tune it.  “Sleep on it” if you will, to refine and get specific about your goals.  The next step is to create your vision board.  My next post will describe this process so you don’t want to miss it. 

            This week our group will gather once again and continue the process of making our dreams a reality through creating our vision boards.  I can’t wait to share with you the wonderful things that we come up with!

            Thanks for stopping by Meaningful Living Now and please feel free to leave a comment or question.

In love and light,

Christine

Don't forget to enter the Giveaway! 

New Year Giveaway to Inspire You!

Happy New Year!

                It is amazing how fast I let go of 2012 and now all my focus is on what I want to create for 2013. In reviewing my vision board from last year, there was only one thing that I didn’t make much progress in, but everything else I hit spot on!  Woo Hoo!

                Last year I facilitated a What If? workshop (for more information on this year’s What If? Workshop go to (Livdivine.com) where we cleared away beliefs that no longer served us; listened to our hearts to understand what our soul desires; and then we created vision boards.  Within weeks everyone had already manifested something on their board!  You can bet that we will all be back again to create our year of 2013.

                I had taken some time off from my teaching and healing work due to burn out and my own health challenge (all better now).  The time has now come to go back to my life purpose of helping people embrace and live their true self through my teachings and writings.

                The beginning of a New Year can be confusing and scary for some.  “What will the New Year hold for me?” “It has to be better than last year, right?”   If you didn’t already know, YOU have control over your life.  You and only you have the power to create the year (world) you want for yourself.  And the thing you should be aware of is that if you don’t consciously create your world, you will create something that you don’t want because you are not paying attention to what you are saying, thinking and doing.  And that my friend is when life goes out of control and we can’t seem to achieve our goals.

                So how do you enter the New Year full of excitement and knowing that you will achieve your goals because that is the way you planned it?  First get clear on what you want (no matter how crazy it may seem), next write it down and review it often.  That is where a vision board comes in handy.  It is a wonderful visual reminder of what we want and keeps us focused.  Also, if you can take a moment every so often and really see yourself reaching your goals that can be very powerful.  And when faced with a decision always ask yourself, “Will this bring me closer to my goals”?  Before you know it you will be where you wanted to go!

                Do you still need a little inspiration to figure out what you want for 2013 and how to get started?  No fear I can help with that.  Three things that ALWAYS inspire me are books/reading, writing (helps me get unstuck if I write randomly) and creating (anything).   

With that said, I am offering my blog readers a chance to win some tools to help create their best 2013 they possibly can. 

Enter to win one of the these three inspirations: 

$25 Barnes and Noble gift card (books/reading/learning)

$15 Joann’s gift card (creating)

A Lovely Jane Austen inspired Journal (ideas flowing.)

It is so easy to enter to win one of the above gems.  
All you have to do is either or both of the following (total 2 entries possible):

1. Email subscribe (upper right corner of page) to this blog AND enter a comment here letting me know you did it. Counts as 1 entry.

2.  "Like" my Facebook page (upper right hand corner of page) AND leave a comment here letting me know what name you liked it under (first name and last name initial are fine).  Remember you must like my page from your personal page NOT business or blog page or it will not count.  Counts as 1 entry.

That’s it!

Good Luck and Happy New Year!

In love and light,

Christine

The giveaway is open until Saturday, January 19th at 11:59 p.m. PST. Open to U.S. residents only. All winning entries will be verified. Winners will be announced on this post. All winners must respond within 48 hours, or new winners will be chosen. Good luck!