Sometimes that inspires us to consider wild “leaps of faith,” trusting that the net will appear when we manage our energy and truly believe in a happy ending.

It might look like quitting a job before we have another gig lined up.  Or buying a new house before the old one’s sold.  For some it might be investing our life savings in a pet project we hope will yield a return.

As a rising Capricorn, I tend to prefer the sure-footed path.

In fact, when I quit corporate world to start my own business I hung a beautiful painting of a goat leaping over a huge chasm to remind me that goats are good at this risk-taking stuff.

But I wish I’d heard Abraham’s words on this topic back then.

On the June 2011 Alaska cruise they advised a woman who felt the rug getting pulled out from under her in lots of ways -losing her home, her marriage, her job – but still trusting it a sign she was meant to move forward with new work as a healer.

Yet, the new clients weren’t showing up.   So the old stuff is on its way out, but there’s not a good whiff of the new stuff yet.

Anyone else might think this is time for a leap of faith.  You’ve got to just trust the net will appear.

But Abraham said that when you do the work to get aligned (i.e. get in the vortex), and then follow the inspiration you receive there, it never feels like a struggle.  It just feels like the next logical step.

Their suggested mantras and tips:

I believe the path will unfold before me.  But I’m not going to push anything.

Don’t get in a hurry, and then things will happen quickly.  Don’t try to make it happen and then it will happen effectively.  Don’t try to micromanage it, and it will unfold just right.

If you’re feeling unstable in your transition, it just means you haven’t done your vortex work.  And there’s no reason to have anything less than a stable transition.

Just slow it all down and say things to yourself like “I trust everything is always working out for me, and oh look – there’s evidence of it, and there’s evidence of it,” etc.

Where you’re going is a sure thing, so relax and have fun on your way to the sure thing.

Which just puts an even stronger spotlight on how important it is to feel good.

So if you’re in the middle of a major change, and nervous that the support or the clients or the money or whatever won’t be on the other side, this is your reminder to tend to your vibration.

Make a point of thinking thoughts that feel better and taking actions that feel good.  We don’t have to suffer or struggle our way to success – in fact, that’s an impossible journey anyway.

Stable transitions don’t make great material for movies or docu-dramas, but if you’ve got enough drama in your world already, know that it’s your choice how you manifest your next big change.

So it becomes pretty helpful to be flexible in adopting beliefs that support what we want to create.

How do you change what you believe?

If you ask around, you’ll hear things like:

• you need to identify your limiting beliefs
• your core beliefs are deeply buried in your subconscious, so knowing what they are is crucial
• you may be getting payoffs from existing beliefs that you want to handle before you change anything
• understanding where your beliefs originated is helpful in dismantling them
• the key to changing beliefs is recognizing the role emotions play in keeping them in place, etc.

There are also a variety of personal development techniques designed to support changing beliefs including Byron Katie’s Work, the Option Method, Theta healing, Psych-K, subliminal or hypnotic programming, guided imagery/visualization, and many more.

Here’s my simple take on how to change a belief: practice the new thought.  It works.  It’s that uncomplicated!

Just pick the new thought that represents the belief you want, and invest some time in it.  The more you think it, the more you build that neural pathway in your brain, the more natural it becomes to entertain it, and pretty soon, with enough repetition, you’ve got a new belief on board.

But to elaborate a bit, I’d suggest the following four steps to accomplish that belief change.

1) know that you can and it’s easier than you think.

Some folks think that changing beliefs is hard.  Whatever wiggle room you have to suspect or entertain that it’s really easier than that, take advantage of it.  Changing your beliefs is easier to do when you don’t make it hard.  (And yes, you are in charge.)

Instead, think of beliefs as flexible, malleable, and totally within your realm of power to manage.  I like Abraham’s definition of beliefs for this purpose: “a belief is just an often repeated thought.”  Not such a big deal.  I can repeat a new thought.

2) choose your new belief.

An easy way to pick this one is to think about your manifested desire, and then ask what you would be believing in those circumstances.  (Example, when I was building a coaching practice: “I am a brilliant coach in high demand.”)  Some people like to baby step their way up the ladder of progressive beliefs.  Some like to make the big leap right to the big goal.  Go with whatever feels more energizing to you.

Once you know what you want your new belief to be, you’ll benefit from a two-fold practice:

3) look for the evidence that supports your new belief.

Since we get whatever we look for, we will start seeing the signs that what we want to believe is already “true.” And that makes it easier to make it an official “belief.”

4) practice your new belief.

That just means thinking the new thought regularly and consistently.  Yes, you could call this affirmations or brainwashing or subconscious programming.  All it means is you’re creating and strengthening different neural connections in your brain.  The more you practice them, the stronger they get, the easier they are to think, the more law of attraction shows up to “prove it,” and before you know it you’re home free with a new belief.

We sometimes get tripped up in embracing a new belief when real life contradicts it or when we have to take an action that’s not in accordance with it.

We’ll hit that in the next post.

In the meantime, here’s Abraham on the topic of changing your beliefs:

Would love to hear from you on this one, too, if you’ve got tips or ideas to share.  :)

So I dialed him up and asked how he was doing.

He was taken aback by my call, which he explained at dinner a couple nights later.

Apparently just a few hours before I rang, he’d been thinking of me.

In a not-so-nice way.

He had said to himself that he was done with this “one way friendship” where he has to make all the efforts to connect and I only respond occasionally to his messages.  He was fed up that I never took the initiative to reach out.

So it spooked him a little when I rang just a few hours after he mentally wrote me off.

He thought this was more evidence that women respond best when treated somewhat disdainfully, because they dismiss “nice guys” who do all the right things.

And he shared a bunch of examples from his own life and women he knew to prove his point:

• Like, how when he shows up at the club not looking or smelling his best, women are all over him.  But when he cleans up nice, he doesn’t get any attention at all.
• Or when he shows no interest in a girl, she’s practically pounding down his door.  But when he says and does all the right things, she doesn’t want anything to do with him.

I know there are dating experts out there teaching guys to “pick up chicks” by being somewhat condescending and withholding to women.  And getting results from it.

But I don’t think the proper conclusion here is that women need to be treated poorly in order to capture and maintain their interest.

The only reason anything changes is because the energy changed.  And there are lots of ways to create those energetic changes.

Like giving up your resistance about being the only one who calls – that’s one way to shift the energy.

(As proven last week, it gets results.)

Changing the story you tell is another way to shift the energy dynamics.

(Maybe instead of saying “She never calls,” it might behoove one desiring change to entertain a story that goes more like “She’s probably thinking about me even when I don’t know it” or even “She’s good about staying in touch.”)

Another way to shift the energy dynamics in the relationship is to … well, this is where I open it up for conversation with you.

How do you shift the energy when the relationship could use some tweaking?

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Everything is changing.

And by everything we mean, EVERY assumption, every belief, every
system, every pattern.

The only thing unchanging is love, oneness, peace, the unity of all things.

But even your experience of all of these is changing radically.
The entry points into these experiences are changing.

Can you feel the love in fear?
Can you feel peace in chaos?
Every moment is inviting you into the new world.
As quickly as you are willing to be made new.
  
Your DNA is changing.
Your breath is changing.
The consciousness that encompasses ALL is changing.
The very core of life is changing – through you.
Now.

Change is touching every part of human consciousness from the micro to the macro.

Some of this change is visible (especially to those on the leading edge), but most is not yet.

Trust your own experience and don’t worry about how others are experiencing their awakening.

Even the way you change is changing.

So what would you cling to?

Don’t even seek to answer this question, but simply notice anything that would not be easily released if you were to wake up in a
totally new world.

Focus instead on what is emerging.

Imagine the new world.

We realize this is antithetical to the human pattern of being “past-referenced.”

We know that for millions of years, you have been building slowly and incrementally in an evolutionary curve and yes, we are proposing
that you now become referenced instead to the unknown.

We invite you to fully open to quantum change, to allow a shift as significant as moving from ocean to land. The first creature to do that successfully was surely risking death, and instead created the ability to breathe air.

Play with this possibility.

Ask “what if…” and see what emerges.

Root yourself in the Unknown, and you will find it is the richest soil.

- Spirit speaking through Sylvia

Thank you, Sylvia (and Spirit) – and Happy New Year, everyone!