Will Bowen's Blog, page 99
January 28, 2014
Happy Stories Book Launch
Meet the real people behind Will Bowen’s powerful and inspiring new book Happy Stories!
Happy Stories book launch video!
January 15, 2014
InVision Radio
In Native American culture, there is a revered position held by those who dream of thunder. These select few become the Sacred Clowns whose job it is to create chaos. In this episode, Will interviews Gil Nichols, American Indian Scholar about this phenomenon and together they delve into the lessons we can learn from our own Sacred Clowns.
In the Namaste’ Lounge, Bukeka Shoals, the powerful singer songwriter shares her inspiration for some of her most popular songs. And, she offers insights into her process for manifesting what she desires.
Dance of the Sacred Clowns
December 5, 2013
A Holiday Season Full of Silent Nights
A man puts distance between himself and his problems and, in the process creates the greatest Christmas Carol of all time.
It may have been mice gnawing on the pipes. Or it may have been rust. Whatever damaged the organ at St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf, Austria; the instrument would not be repaired by Christmas Eve service.
It was December 23, 1818 and Joseph Moor, the minister of St. Nicholas, was walking home having just attended a dramatization of the Nativity by a band of roving performers. The performance had ramped up the town’s holiday spirit. Everyone was in a festive mood—everyone, that is to say, except Rev. Moor.
He trudged home, his eyes downcast. The gas streetlights reflected shimmering gold on the hard-packed snow. His body shuddered from the cold and he pulled his scarf up over his mouth.
The following day was Christmas Eve. The entire town would converge upon his tiny church with the expectation of exalting the birth of Jesus Christ through singing. Unfortunately, there would be no singing because the church’s organ was out of commission.
Moor slowly shook his head from side to side as he walked. The annual Christmas Eve service at St. Nicholas was always the high point of the year in Oberndorf. It elevated the spirits of the faithful and generated much-needed offerings to help the poor during the long winter months.
As Moor neared the corner where he would turn left to go home, he felt guided to, instead, take a right. He walked unhurriedly outside the lights of the town and meandered up a tall neighboring hill.
His mind ruminated over the predicament in which he found himself. How could he provide a touching and powerful Christmas Eve worship service with no organ?
He crested the hill that rose above Oberndorf, removed his scarf and peered into the vast night sky. He thought for a moment about the star that had lead those first followers to find Jesus in the manger. He gazed into the heavens looking for just such a guiding star or any divine sign as to what he might do.
He drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes to pray. He thanked God for the birth and life of Jesus and he surrendered the outcome of the Christmas Eve service to hands more powerful than his own.
He drew in a deep breath and exhaled a long “Amen.” The breath from this word froze into a small cloud before him. He opened his eyes just in time to see it whisked away by a soft breeze.
From his vantage point high above the town, Moor now saw the homes and businesses all laden with snow. The moonlight caused the snow to look artificial—like meringue on a pie. He could see the wafting of streetlamps as well as the twinkling dance of colored Christmas tree candles.
It’s so beautiful. He thought. Everything is just so beautiful.
He stared for several minutes at the unchanging scene.
It’s so quiet. He thought. No, more than that—it’s absolutely silent and so peaceful.
Taking one long last look, Moor turned to walk back to town. He thought of a poem about the birth of Jesus he’d written a couple of years previous. His mind began to weave the evening’s distant and magical view of his town into thoughts of another enchanted night eighteen hundred years prior in Bethlehem.
Moor walked and the crunch, crunch, crunch of his feet in the snow gave a tempo to his speech as he recited his poem from memory. Here and there he added a line or two inspired by the scene he’d just witnessed.
“This is a song.” He stated aloud realizing what was forming in his mind. “A song we can sing at Christmas Eve service tomorrow night. “ Then, he stopped mid-step as he once again remembered that the church organ was broken.
I don’t care. He said resolutely. We’re going to do this.
The following morning, Moor beat on the door of church organist Franz Gruber.
“I didn’t expect to see you until tonight.” Gruber remarked as he hastily pulled his suspenders onto this shoulders and invited Moor into his small, tidy home.
“We’ve work to do.” Replied Moor ungloving his hands and rubbing them enthusiastically above Gruber’s stove.
“Sir, need I remind you that the church organ is not functional. There is no work that I can do.” Gruber said.
“There is much that we can do—together.” Moor said reaching his now warm hands into his breast pocket to fetch his notes.
The two men sat as Moor read the poem over and over while Gruber sought out a melody that would be simple enough to be played on the only working instrument he had—his guitar.
That evening, while the town packed St. Nicholas, Gruber and Moor sang Silent Night for the very first time—accompanied by a guitar.
The assembled townsfolk listened in rapt, sacred silence.
Two weeks later, a world famous organ builder repaired the organ at St. Nicholas and when he completed his work he invited Gruber to assess his work. Gruber sat behind the keyboard and played Silent Night on an organ for the first time.
The song moved the repairman deeply and he took copies of the music and lyrics to Kefling, Austria where he shared it with two groups of popular singers of the day. They spread the song around Europe and in 1863, forty-five years after the song was first written, it was introduced to the United States—sung in German.
Since that time, Silent Night has become one of the most popular Christmas carols of all time.
As I think of the story of Rev. Joseph Moor steeped in a very big problem over what to do about the organ, I marvel at his course of action.
In that same situation, some people would complain to everyone about how unjust it was that the organ was broken in an attempt to excuse them from being responsible for creating a powerful Christmas Service.
Others in similar circumstance might actually go back to the church and, without tools or expertise, try and fix the organ—possibly damaging it worse in the process.
Rev. Moor didn’t gripe about his predicament nor did he try and force his way through it. He simply chose to separate himself from his difficulty by taking a walk. He went off alone and gave his problem over to God. When he did, he saw from his vantage point that his town seemed more beautiful than ever before.
When we step away from something, we get a very different perspective and often the view we get is a much more peaceful one. If we are in the middle of a challenge or an argument, simply stepping away for a while can give us the opportunity to see things from a higher level.
As Moor looked at the town, he didn’t see all of the discord, challenges and struggles that were going on with the townsfolk—challenges that he, as the minister, would have probably been well aware. Instead, he saw a beautiful Christmas scene that opened his heart and made him feel more connected to God.
It’s been said that “time heals all wounds” and this is true because time gives us the one thing we most need to put our problems into perspective—distance. So often, we keep challenges active and ongoing simply because we think about them so much. In the process we stir them up and keep them active.
The more we think about problems, the more upset we get.
The more upset we get, the more we think about them.
The last time I went scuba diving we surfaced after a thirty-minute dive to discover a storm raging. Rain was pouring and the wind was creating some sizeable waves. However, we had been 70 feet away from the squall and saw only the beauty of the ocean.
When we step away from what is troubling us and, more importantly, when we follow Moor’s example and turn it over to hands more powerful and capable than our own, we experience the heavenly peace of a silent night.
So, what problem are you facing that might better be solved by taking a step away to gain a new perspetive?
November 4, 2013
InVision Radio
Welcome to the inaugural episode of InVision Radio. On the show you’ll hear an inspiring interview with Edwene Gaines the author of The Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity.
Musical Guest Jon Troast joins Will in the Namaste’ Lounge. Hear excerpts from his classic hits and get an insight into what inspires this singer/songwriter who is a true American troubadour.
InVision Radio
http://willbowen.podbean.com/2013/10/...
May 3, 2013
I think therefore I am…happy
“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”
These words are attributed to the Taoist Lau Tzu although I cannot find any proof that they are actually his. Meryl Streep most recently popularized this saying in her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in Iron Lady but there is no evidence that this saying originated with the Prime Minister.
The truth is that we have no idea who first put these words in this particular sequence but the result is powerful. This saying is a profound comment on the ingredients and recipe for happiness.
Thoughts
Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Very little is needed to make a happy life it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
Many people complicate happiness when it is actually quite simple. If you think you are happy, you are. Every happy person I have interviewed defines him or herself as a happy person. There is power in declaring one’s self as happy.
We cannot declare ourselves tall and be tall. We cannot declare ourselves short and short. But we can declare ourselves happy and we are, indeed, happy because happiness is best defined as “subjective well-being” and our subjective declaration that we are happy makes us a happy person.
There is nothing…NOTHING more important than to learn to control our thinking. Most people have adopted the thinking patterns of their parents and of their social groups and don’t, in reality, think at all. Rather, their minds follow habitual patterns that are not really thinking, they are replaying.
Just as it takes time to train a dog or a horse, it takes time to train our minds but training our minds is the first and most important step to happiness.
Spiritual Teacher Eckhart Tolle has written, “Most people don’t think their thoughts. Rather, their thoughts think them.” As usual, Tolle packs a mountain of wisdom into a simple sentence. We are not conscious of our thinking, we don’t realize it is a process; we think it is automatic and unchangeable and so we simply let it run like a wild horse.
However, we ride this wild horse wherever it chooses to go. If we were to mount a wild horse with the intention of going someplace specific, it is highly unlikely that we will be taken to our desired destination. However, if we climb aboard a trained horse, we can steer it wherever we would like to go.
Our lives follow our thoughts so we need to train our thoughts to focus on where we wish to go.
You train your mind the same way you train your body. If you wish to become fit, your training would include being careful of what you put into your body (your nutrition) and what you do with your body (exercise).
The same is true for training your mind. You must begin to carefully select what you put into your mind and what you do with your mind.
What you put into your mind
You must monitor your emotional state as closely as a diabetic monitors his or her blood sugar. To shift your mind to happiness you need to stop listening to things that make you sad or “nostalgically melancholy” such as sad songs.
Trust me, when you first start doing this it will seem silly. To switch off the radio every time a break up song comes on seems pointless. However, as your emotional HappyStat begins to rise, you find that when you DO listen to sad music, you will feel a sudden and painful sinking feeling. You will want to get away from the negativity of such songs right away.
Second, stop watching violent TV programs and movies. Now, in the past my favorite movies were Fight Club and ANYTHING by Quentin Tarantino so this was a difficult shift for me to make. I simply could not understand how watching violence and gore would make me less happy—until I stopped.
It’s like coffee. If you drink 3-4 cups of coffee each morning, you become desynthesized to the caffeine. It’s still having an effect; you just don’t notice it. If you cut down or cut out coffee, and then have several cups…wow!
The sad songs and violence are sending negative ripples through your spirit. Cut them out and you’ll find that your mind is more fit and healthy.
Substitute negativity and violence with positivity and happiness. Again, this sounds saccharine-sweet but it works! There are many happy playlists online. Find one and listen to positive, happy songs. You’ll find yourself singing a happy tune and feeling happy inside.
And, most importantly, seek out and spend time with happy people. Find people who want to share the good stuff in their life and in the world. They are out there and they are, well, HAPPY to share with you their positive approach to life. Stay away from whiners, complainers and gripers.
What you do with your mind
When I was going through a tough time a couple of years ago, I called my good friend Greg Baer the author the phenomenal book Real Love. I was telling Greg about all of my troubles and found that I was marinating in my misery by ruminating over what “might” happen.
Greg asked me a question straight out of his book. He said, “Will, what’s a better feeling thought?”
They say that the fastest way to control the mind is to ask it a question and this question pulled me up short. For weeks, it became my mantra, “What’s a better feeling thought?” I would ask myself and I would force myself to find a thought that made me feel better.
“What if things all work out well?” I’d think.
“What if that thing I’m afraid of never happens?”
The point is to harness the mind and force it to look for good stuff—there’s a lot of it out there if we will just look.
The formula
If you train a mind the same way you train a body, there must be a secret to success in these endeavors. There is, and it’s the same for both the body and the mind. The formula is:
Consistency
_____________
Time
Consistency over time.
A person who goes to the gym once a month, isn’t going to get in shape. A person who holds a positive, happy thought once in a while isn’t going to be happy. You must do something consistently to succeed. This means to force yourself over and over to hold a happy thought in your mind. It means that whenever you feel your happiness slipping you ask, “What’s a better feeling thought?” And you search for such a thought—every time!
Then, you do it for a long enough period of time until it becomes automatic. Consistency over time creates a powerful habit, which will lead to a happier life.
Master your thoughts and you master your life. You can become happy with consistent effort applied over time to think in a way that makes you feel happy.
Find out more at HappyThisYear.com
April 19, 2013
Is the formula really < Money = + Happiness ?
Money = Happiness
A thousand times and in hundreds of ways we have heard that this is not true and yet inside we all still have some latent belief to the contrary. Consider ads for casinos and the lottery; they always show people who seem insanely happy and we buy into the lure of their images.
Billionaire media mogul David Geffen said, “Anyone who thinks money can buy happiness hasn’t got money.” But,why? Why would increased levels of money not bring us higher and higher levels of happiness? More is better, right?
The problem is that wealth is external and happiness is internal. George Carlin explained, “Trying to be happy by accumulating possessions is like trying to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches all over
your body.” A nicer car, a bigger home, a more attractive spouse are all external and happiness is a result of our internal processes.
There are other reasons why our happiness level is not increased as our wealth increases.
1. The disease of more
The World Happiness Report compiled by the United Nations’ General Assembly states,
“While higher income may raise happiness to some extent, the quest for higher income may actually reduce one’s happiness.”
Having money may make us feel happier but the striving for money leads us to feel less happy because it is a never-ending struggle. There will always be MORE for us to want.
Not long ago, I went to a success program presented here in the Sprint Center in Kansas City. Bill Cosby, who is reported to be the sixth-wealthiest African American in with assets nearly ½ billion dollars stated flatly, “There’s no such thing as enough money.”
Think about that. Bill Cosby, who is by most standards staggeringly wealthy, believes that there is no such thing as enough money. Why? Because the fear-based ego always thinks that more is better—the more we have the more we want, so we go for more, which only makes us want more, etc.
It’s as if the more we eat, the hungrier we become.
The Hindu sacred text explains the futility of trying to have ‘enough.’ “Never can desire be quenched by repeated enjoyment of desires; like butter poured on a fire with the view to quenching it, desire only gets inflamed thereby.”
Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China had it all but was not satisfied. His wealth was inestimable but he wanted to have everything in the afterlife as well. Assuming the throne at age 13, Huang began preparing for his afterlife at age 22. When he died at age 50, nearly 8,000 hand-made soldiers created from terracotta surrounded him. Each soldier was believed to be able to live in the next life and protect the emperor and so each was equipped not only with weapons but even canteens and flasks for wine. In addition to the soldiers, ranging in rank from what we would call privates to generals, there were 130 chariots, 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses.
To make sure he had wealth and companionship, much of Huang’s vast store of jewelry was buried with him as well along with terracotta concubines he believe would come to life for companionship.
This man had more wealth than most people can conceive and yet he spent his entire life trying to have more for the next life.
Whether we realize it or not, we all do this. Our “next life” is our future life and although it makes sense to make certain that we will be comfortable and, possibly, have things that are even a little nicer, to go after more, more, more just leads to greater frustration and less happiness.
Further, having a lot of wealth can trigger…
The Upper Limit Switch
One study found that people of who gain significant increases in wealth, one in ten feel less happy.
Bestselling author Gay Hendricks has observed that we each have a thermostat in our minds that regulates our lives. If things aren’t going well, we ramp up activity until they get better. However, if things go “too” well, it triggers our feelings if inadequacy and doubt and a mental switch flips causing us to screw things up.
A lot of money can pose a threat to our sense of identity and actually make us less happy.
Fear of Falling
If you’re on a short ladder, falling is a concern but not a huge one. If you’re on a ladder 25 feet up, falling is a big worry.
Right after I got my first significant book advance, I mentioned to a friend that I never worried about money until I received a lot of it. She remarked that, previously, I didn’t worry about losing money because I didn’t have much.
When you have a lot, a lot is at stake. And it’s not just the loss of the money.
The #1 fear people have is of being embarrassed. Not having money is one thing. Having it and losing it is another and can lead to scorn and ridicule and so it causes us to be protective, anxious and fearful. People with money can cling to what they have leading them to feel trapped by their own possessions. As Chuck Palahniuk wrote in Fight Club, “The things you own end up owning you.”
So, are we stuck?
So, having a great deal of money can challenge and even lower our level of happiness. Are we stuck being poor s as to be happy?
No. The World Happiness Report states, “The beneficial development of human society takes place when material and spiritual development occurs side by side to complement and reinforce each other.”
If we work to develop ourselves spiritually, we begin to see ourselves as one with all. We cease to worry what others will think of us and so we don’t fear embarrassment. Our happiness comes from our connection with ourselves and with everyone else and this removes the happiness limiting challenges most people experience with money.
This is what Jesus meant when he said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you.” We can have money first but it won’t make us happy; in fact, it may make us less happy. Having a connection to our own indwelling spirit allows us to know the value of love, compassion, connection and giving and these then bring us real happiness so that the money is the icing and not the cake
April 18, 2013
Overcoming the Barriers to Happiness
A couple of weeks ago, I visited the Taipei zoo in Taiwan. This is the zoo where the movie The Life of Pi was filmed.
There were dozens of classes of kindergarteners visiting that day, hundreds of smiling, giggling kids each sporting a bright blue cap, blue jacket and little blue knapsack. They were overjoyed at everything! Not just the animals; they would stop and point excitedly at flowers, bugs on the sidewalk, leaves—anything brought them joy.
Later that day, I rode the metro through Taipei and I saw the sullen, downcast faces of adults. These very same adults were once like the children I had seen. The children knew how to be happy—it was natural for them. But, somehow we adults tend to lose our capacity for joy.
Returning home to the United States, I began to ponder why we lose our grasp of happiness as we get older and I realized that there are strong barriers to happiness. Happiness is like water. It should flow naturally but as we get older our happiness pipes get clogged up.
Studies have found that children laugh 400 times a day whereas adults laugh only 15 times each day.
If your desire is to get happier, then it is important to understand and avoid these 4 barriers to happiness.
1. Unrealistic Expectations
There is confusion about what we mean with regards to happiness. The best definition I’ve found comes from Psychology Today:
What is happiness? The most useful definition—and it’s one agreed upon by neuroscientists, psychiatrists, behavioral economists, positive psychologists, and Buddhist monks, is more like satisfied or content than ‘happy’ in its strict bursting-with-glee sense.
If we think happiness is “bursting-with-glee” all the time we will conclude that we are not happy. Other people may be, but we’re not.
Happiness is not an all or nothing proposition. Happiness exists along a continuum. In fact, I believe that there is no such thing as unhappiness; only lower levels of happiness. Just like there is no such thing as darkness; only lower levels of light.
When we embrace that happiness is not a never-ending state of bliss but rather a foundation of contentment, we realize that it is within our grasp.
2. Contempt for happiness
The United States, founded upon Puritan ideals, harbors a great deal of latent contempt for happiness. Our Puritan founders seemed to eschew anything that might make one feel happy. H.L. Mencken quipped, “Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere might be happy.”
We tend to view happy people as naive, frivolous, disconnected and flighty. Think of a CEO or high government official and your mind will conjure up a steel-jawed, solemn, determined individual. We want leaders to smile and be affable before they are promoted or elected—this makes them likeable. But, power is serious business and we want our leaders to be serious.
Similarly, we all want to feel important ourselves and important people have important problems. Our problems must, therefore, be significant for us to feel significant.
3. Other people
Other people, especially parents or others with whom we have close relationships, are famous for saying, “I just want you to be happy.” In reality, what they mean is, “I just want you to do what I want so that I will be happy.” Or, “I want you to be upbeat so I won’t have to deal with your emotional discord.”
Further, some people—let’s be honest, most people, don’t want to be happy. It is programmed in their psyches to dwell in pain and negativity and they resent another person breaking out of the herd. These people consider a happy person threatening because it challenges their perspective of life. If you are happy, then it means that they, too, can be happy and most people don’t want to put forth the effort because happiness takes effort.
People at the lower end of the happiness scale want you to wallow in misery with them. Wayne Dyer explained this well when he joked, “How dare you be happy when I have this hangnail.”
3. The Media
“Is there lead paint in your drinking water? Find out tonight at 10.”
“Is your cat trying to kill you? We’ll have the answer at 11.”
I once had lunch with the newspaper publisher and he told me that running a headline that read, “CRISIS” will outsell a headline stating, “GOOD NEWS!” by ten to one. This goes back to the previous idea that important people have important problems and we all want to feel important. Before we blame the media, let’s realize that we are the ones consuming what they are putting out.
Know that the media has found that we will stay tuned for bad news because we think, somehow, that after exposing the danger (real or imagined) that they will offer us the solution. Sometimes this happens but often it doesn’t. The late night news just leaves us anxious and afraid and we go to sleep with fear in our minds where it simmers in the Crockpot of our psyches. No wonder we wake up with dread.
Media in the form of advertising also impacts our happiness level. Look at any ad and you’ll see smiling, attractive people. The message of such ads are, “buy our product and you’ll be happy—oh, AND good-looking.” And the implication is that if you don’t purchase their product you will be neither happy nor attractive.
4. We don’t decide to be happy
Every happy person I have interviewed considers him or herself to be happy. They have decided that they are happy; they define themselves as happy and, as a result, they are. 99% of people think that getting, achieving or receiving something will make them happy—it won’t. Happiness is a decision we make.
Happiness is a delusion.
But then, so is unhappiness.
You’re being deluded either way. You might as well choose the one that makes you feel good.
Visit HappyThisYear.com
April 17, 2013
3 Tips for Happiness
People are literally searching for happiness.
Every year, 259 million people worldwide Google the words ‘Happiness’ and ‘Joy’ and that number has increased 250% since 2004. People are looking for happiness everywhere except in the one place it can be found–inside.
Here are 3 tips to help you unearth the gold mine of happiness within:
1.The best vitamin for happiness is B1
Begin to define yourself as a happy person. This seems simplistic but happy people believe they are happy people. When someone asks, “How are you?” Resist the automatic affirmation of mediocrity, ‘I’m fine.’ Instead, when someone asks, ‘How are you?’ Answer, ‘I’m Happy!’
2. Set a happiness goal every week and measure your progress.
The brilliant Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky observed, ‘Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn’t calculate his happiness.’ Most psychologists prefer the term ‘subjective well being’ to ‘happiness.’ How happy we are is how we, subjectively, feel our life is going. We, therefore, get to decide how happy we are and how happy we will become.
The free HappyStat smartphone app helps you set and monitor your happiness level.
3. Order the combo
Studies have found that (1) having something to look forward to and (2) doing something nice for other people raises our subjective well being and makes us feel happier. Therefore, combine the two every day. Commit every morning to finding something you can do for someone else. This gives you happy anticipation as well as a positive feeling for having helped someone else.
March 9, 2013
Don’t let the past remind us of what we are not now
What happened in the past does not always predict the future. Regardless of past experiences, you can choose a different outcome. Here is true story from my own life:
When I was 17, my pet parrot flew away. It had been awhile since I had trimmed his flight feathers and a gust of wind set him aloft. He flew up into a tall tree and stayed there until another blast of wind sent him flying.
I never saw him again.
Over the next two decades,I spoke to several people who had experienced the same sad situation having lost parrots to flight. “Once they takeoff,” I was repeatedly told, “You’ll never get them back.” Not a single person said that they were able to recover their lost, beloved birds.
In my late twenties, while I was living in Seattle, WA, the situation repeated itself. This time, Juggles, my blue front amazon, was on my shoulder and a strong wind set her flying. She, too, went up into a tall tree. My heart sank as I realized that I would never see her again. But I caught myself and resolved that I would get her back!
Regardless of my own past experience, regardless of the repeated lamentations of others who had experienced the same thing, I set an absolute intention that I WOULD get her back.
Juggles perched in the highest branch of an enormous pine tree in the middle of a large park. I sat down and imagined what it would be like to have her with me again. I refused to tell anyone who might doubt that I’d get her back choosing to only tell friends and family that would support me in my belief that she would return.
For a week I camped out in the park sleeping under the tree and spending my days visualizing how it would feel to be reconnected with her. A young man who frequented the park would often sit with me and I told him how I was certain that I would get Juggles back.
Unfortunately, at the end of the week a storm blew in; the wind dislodged Juggles and after circling overhead three times, she flew away.
The next day I called animal shelters across the city. An employee at one of the shelters told me that someone had just brought in a parrot.
I drove to the shelter and, yes, it was Juggles.
What transpired to make this a reality? As it turned out, the young man who had sat with me in the park was speaking to a friend on the phone the night the storm set Juggles to flight. His friend lived nearly ten miles from the park. As part of their conversation, the young man told his friend about my lost parrot.
That evening, the friend happened to watch a television show about parrots and discovered that parrots like to eat sunflower seeds. He remembered thinking how ironic it was that, on a whim; he had purchased sunflower seeds for himself just that day.
Out of the millions of homes in Seattle, Juggles chose to land on that man’s fence the following morning. He put out a line of sunflower seeds that ended in a large cardboard box and captured her.
My own personal experience was that this was impossible. Several other people had similar experiences that reinforced that there was no way that this could have happened and yet it did.
Why? I believe it is because I held tight to my belief that Juggles and I would be reunited. Even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, I never gave in to fear and doubt.
What are you facing that others tell you cannot be done?
What are you trying to do that you have failed at in the past?
As Crosby Stills and Nash sang, “Don’t let the past remind us of what we are not now.”
Reality is a projection of your belief. You, alone, decide what your mind will focus upon.
