How to Navigate Bad Times

Update - June, 2010

I haven't posted here in a while, mostly cause I've been busy.  Busy with new customers, new venues to practice my talents and skills, and busy with life and living it.

This is what happens when things are put into perspective.  And by that I mean put into a positive perspective. 

The very first place to start is with your thought;  with your thinking.  So many times, especially now that I have not only the knowledge but the experience of seeing for myself that this works, I see so many people, who all they need is that positive attitude.

But it's really more than just a positive attitude, it's an obsessive positive attitude, an attitude that won't be side-tracked by one bad happening after another.  This sounds a little (OK a lot) illogical, but it's true.  And this doesn't mean that you're denying they happen - it's a little hard to do that.  What it does mean is that you integrate and go on. 

You go on thinking and acting in a positive way....ask yourself:  If I had everything right now, how would I be acting;  how would I be thinking;  how would I be feeling. 

I think one of the best ways to do this is to track back to a time when you felt like you had everything, and think how you acted, thought and felt.  Bring that time to the future and start acting, thinking and feeling that way.  That's the best way to start that positive feeling.

And this positive feeling multiplies

Now if you're at a standstill, or you feel as though you're stuck, trying jump-starting yourself. 

How?

Try doing something totally different; or re-read some favorite books, articles, biographies; go back to square one;  go back to some favorite quotes, scriptures or sayings that you have collected.  If you haven't done this, to go back to - do it now.  Pick out somethings new to read or refer to.

The important thing to remember here is to be positive.

I also encourage you to think outside the box - now this doesn't mean orbiting Mars or any such thing, but it does mean trying something a little outside your comfort zone - take a whole day 5-6 mile hike;  spend the night outside in your yard in a tent;  go to a concert you've never been to before but wanted to attend by yourself.  Only you know what is outside your comfort zone (without endangering yourself), and try something like this.

Another aspect of this I like to remember is that while you are in the very darkest times, it's often helpful to - for lack of a better word - compartmentalize.  This is an art by some very powerful and prosperous people.  While one part of their lives seem to be drowning, they work and focus their efforts in another part.  Pretty soon that "drowning" part sorts itself out and starts swimming again.  This is very helpful, cause often it can be that drowning part that brings a whole person down, unless you have the ability to focus on other areas and keep yourself above water.  Think of this like a boat that has separate compartments, and if one has a whole or starts sinking, it is just sealed off either till the boat gets into part, or they can pump the water out.  Either way the whole boat doesn't sink.

Now in the future after you are on an "even keel" you will want to sort out what happened, to prevent it from happening again, but while the event is occurring, do not let your focus being that drowning/draining/sinking event/part of you.

Most of all - do not loose your focus - your focus on the positive.  There are so many methods and ways to do this, and particularly now - use the internet as a means of focusing.

I will post here probably irregularly, and I will keep these posts available, as I realize we are all in different phases of making our lives more of what we want them to be for us.  My problem is that, quite frankly, my life is turning into exactly what I wanted, and I'm busy living it now.

I want to pass on that not only is this possible, but I'm living it.  I can see the end of the abyss-tunnel and it is an opening, and it is coming out just where I wanted.

Where is that?  I'm turning into exactly the person I wanted to be - open, approachable, but with clear boundaries, and the aura that you can not and do not want to mess with me.  I'm teaching and empowering my students to realize their dreams (that's a mouthful and one of my main goals).  I have the respect of my piers (another thing that was vital for me).  I am well on my way to financial prosperity and beyond the security that I thought was possible.

I'm living proof that this method is not only possible but it works.  Stay with it and remember that you are a child of God and that He only wants to bring you what you want - you just have to believe.

Forever

Too long it's been since I've posted.  I suppose this is what happens when things pick up. I have manifested what I wanted with one aspect of my life which has led me to manifest with another aspect of my life - the more favorite part. 

Why do we always wait to do the most fun stuff for last?

That will be for another post, but that's what has happened.  All my life I've wanted to be an artist and now I have finally given myself permission to do that.  To devote my life to my art and not only enjoy it, but hopefully empower others and pass it on to others the way it was passed on to me.

So I have been busy with that. 

The good thing about realizing your manifestations is that you get to enjoy the benefits and the rewards of your "work" - if you want to cal it work.  For me, my work now is like playing, and my time off is like dreaming.  Can life really be this fun?  Is it even supposed to be that fun?

I grew up thinking that work was work and play was play and play couldn't even be contemplated without work being completed, and completed well.  This made me just a little on the too-responsible side of the scale, and there was very little play or if there was it was usually play someone else picked out for me.

I think if I were to give a graduation speech or even a "going to college" speech to a youngster today it would be:  Figure out what you love to do and do it!  Sounds too simple, but there it is.

Course, figuring out what we want to do can be complicated, and then going after it may involve all sorts of hang-ups, but once those are worked through, Katie bar the door.  The fun and the good times do roll!

But while all this hullabaloo has been going on, I've returned back so some original reading I did a while back when I first started on this quest.

This book is short, to the point, and very pragmatic, which I enjoyed immensely.  It talks about a subject that is very abstract and hard to describe, and yet the author does so with economical words and thinking.  I enjoyed it very much and look forward to re-reading it over and over.

I've put it here for download.  It is "The Science of Getting Rich" by Wallace Wattles.  What impresses me most about the book is the simple explanation of the author of some of the most amazingly ethereal thoughts and concepts in the book.  

Reading it the first time is a real joy, but re-reading it, especially after some time has passed, is equally illuminating. 

There's nothing secretive or subversive about owning this book.  It's more or less in the public domain and can be downloaded in any number of places on the internet.

It's worth a quick read.

Allowing Failure

I watched Dave Ramsey's Town Hall for Hope, which was an excellent program filled with very down-to-earth and practical reasoning and talk.

Such practical thinking such as:

1. We are all responsible for ourselves, IOW, having someone else "take care of you" is not being responsible.
2. Fear eats hope and everything else.
3. Today's economy is not the Great Depression.  Check out these statistics.
4. If you do something stupid, you will more than likely suffer the consequences of it.
5. Do business with people not numbers or entities
6. Your work and businesses are in business to serve the customer not bilk the customer.
7. Capitalism works but there has to be morality injected into it.

And lots of other stuff that was presented much better than anything I could do.  Check out the site.  Lots of valuable information there.

My favorite is that Dave Ramsey has met a lot of good-hearted people who have wanted nothing other than to ease and solve the pain of others.  As Dave says, we need to love people so much that we allow them to fail. 

Failing is learning and it's learning at its very best and learning forever. 

This is the same rule we are taught as parents.  We love our children, and the last thing we want is for them to suffer or have a hard time of things.  But without these struggles, our children never learn.  If your child never tripped, he/she would never learn about cracks in the sidewalk, or what causes trips and how to avoid them and move on down the road to learn other important life lessons.

We all know people who have been rescued all their lives, and are they are a burden on the rest of us. 

Our lives are the same. The more we are rescued from experiencing the results of our mistakes and the rewards of our smart decisions, the more we learn.  If we are "rescued" from these, we never learn, and make the same mistakes not only to repeat them continuously, but may never know how to stop them much less that they can.  This is a life doomed to failure with the participant never knowing why.  Almost like hell on Earth. 

At the same time, looking at failure from a completely different point of view - one of a learning opportunity, affords us the chance to not only learn from our failure, but to approach it from a positive view.  This allows us to be in a much better and more effective state of mind to work through to a solution. 

Not only do we come out of these experiences learning, but approaching failure from the point of view that it is a learning experience, puts us in a state of mind that does not foster bitterness, anger, jealousy and resentment that can poison future relationships or endeavors. 

For me, this is the paramount reason that God entreaties us to give up revenge and Christ encourages forgiveness.  We humans are not meant to be burdened with these emotions as they eat and decay any positive and good feelings we may have.  This alone, is a compelling reason to give up these resulting negative and decaying thoughts in the midst of failure.  The next most compelling reasons to avoid these negative thoughts during times of failure is that it is almost impossible to see your way out of bad times without hope. And hope comes from positive and good thoughts.

Good thoughts then bring good feelings.  Good feelings then allow you to work through and correct or start again after your failure - they also give you the energy to work and keep going.

What faith offers is hope and hope is the beginning of blossoming in hard times.

Bad Times - an analysis

Uh-oh....analysis - that's Claire speak for long winded!  OK - I promise not to be too long-winded but this is pertinent, especially in today's economic climate.

Bad Times - it is all perspective.  And before you say, not so oh great mind of not even being on this solar system, much less planet!  Let me say, yes I'm a realist and I understand bad stuff happens to good people AND I understand that bad stuff happens to the most undeserving - as a matter of fact, I think we are all undeserving of bad times, but that's not reality either.

And yes, bad times are bad times....this is not a gloss-over post. 

At the same time, let's get a perspective about these times.  This is not the worst economic situation since the depression...unemployment wasn't as much as it was then and we have programs set up to prevent some of the horrible events of the 30's; foreclosures aren't at such a high rate as the depression; these current economic conditions are most in about 7 to 10 states.  The rest of the country is down a little, but not in a depression.

People, if there is one thing you get out of today's post, it's this:  we are NOT in a depression as bad or even close to The Great Depression of the 30's and if that's what you're hearing everyday, stop it;  you need another source of news or at the least less of that source of news.

We are not in a boom either, we are in a downturn of the economy, and that is not a depression.  If you are in one of those 10 states suffering more than the rest, then yes you are in a more prolonged and deeper downturn than the rest of the country, but 39 states are not in that deeper downturn.

So now we've established that this isn't the worst economic times since the Great Depression, let's move on.

The worst thing that this negative attitude brings about is negative thinking and that multiplies on itself, just the same way as positive thinking.  It's said that fear is the opposite of hope.  Fear can truly paralyze us;  we don't know what to do, where to go, how to feel (other than fear), can't work, can't move, can't think, can't be.  This is exactly what you do not want.

If this is where you are, stop it now.  Stop thinking negatively, start thinking positively, re-read the first 4 thru 6  paragraphs....we are not in the middle of the Great Depression II!!

How to get out of this negative feeling.  I've posted a lot about this, but scroll through the basic category on the left  (or here), to go through some of the techniques to use to get you into that positive state of mind.

Next is practice.  I'm a musician (OK, I'm not Billy Joel nor Vladimir Ashkenazy even though I would love to), but one of the main techniques we learn in playing music, is practice, practice, practice, play.  Meaning that practice makes perfect or close to it. 

The same is true of this whole process of negative vs positive...if you practice negative thoughts, you will have negative outcomes.  If you practice positive thoughts, you will have positive outcomes.

When you first practice this "positive feeling/visualization/meditation" business, you're most likely going to say: "Sure, yeah right - this is going to work, I don't think so!"  Stay with it, it does work.

But, let's take another look instead of dwelling on the doom and gloom....bad times are an opportunity to improve, an opportunity to clean out, even an opportunity to start again.  This keeps your attitude (and therefore your mind) not only in the game but in such a place that you recognize and realize the opportunities that are around in the middle of bad times.

Without this perspective, those emotions such as fear, bitterness, anger depression and all that, will overcome you.  They will paralyze you and overtake you to the point you can not even react, even if you see the opportunity - you will be so frozen with fear or other negative feelings that reacting and doing will not be within your capability.

So the best advice for these times:  remain positive, and be aware of the opportunities around you - opportunities that most likely won't come again in your lifetime.  From this perspective, not only will you beat off the ominous feeling of fear, but you are on your way to surviving and blossoming during these economic times.

The Drudgery of Life

Or as so beautifully expressed....The Slings and Arrows of outrageous fortune....

To be or not to be, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,...
Or to sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,

This is briefly paraphrased from Hamlet....but that's the meaning in a nutshell....and isn't this the "rub" of everyday life....to fight those slings and arrows?

It is.  And it's the biggest and most monumental fight we make every day.

How do we survive it?  How can we hope to survive it?

If we knew what all was ahead of us from the day we were born, we would probably (more like very likely) be overloaded, and there would be far few of us trying to do something or anything.

What can we do - what do we do?

First, we don't have to solve all our lifetime problems in the next 5 (or 6) minutes - fortunately....so we can solve them as they appear, which some of them very well may not appear.

Next, God has given us several tools and methods to use to keep us "whole" while we're fighting those slings and arrows.

God loves us.  Not only does He want us to know that, but He also has given us proof:  He wanted to be with us so much that he directed us how to build a Tabernacle in the Wilderness so that He could have a place to be and we could have a place to be with Him.

What me may not always realize is that we are born with a need for God and His love.  God knew this, that's why He directed the building of a place where we could meet and be with Him.  Those who get this early on, are ahead of the game, but doesn't mean all is lost if you get the message later in life.  What's important is that you get this message:  that we truly can not exist without His love, guidance, counsel and direction. 

Some of these are so subtle that they are lost in our complicated world.  The God of the Old Testament was a god of fear, but with the coming of Christ, came the love that God wants all of us to experience from him.  No longer are we doomed to live with the fear or punishment that we are banished from God's presence.  We are now not only encouraged but forgiven and a way is made for us to always be with God because of Christ.

As if that weren't enough, we're given another gift:  The Holy Spirit.  This is that voice inside you that you know is centered, grounded and from a place of calm and peace.  The very best way to hear this voice is through meditation and/or prayer.  In these calm introverted states, we can get in touch with that calm or Holy Spirit within us to guide, counsel and communicate with God.

We have additional gifts as well, community, friends, family, His love and continue support in no matter what circumstance or place we are in.  Of course it goes without saying that this process does not work when involving the negative feelings toward people, circumstances, places or things, but you already knew that!

In this wild roller-coaster life we lead on this planet, it is so comforting and encouraging to know that there is always someone in our corner, no matter how bleak, black or dark it may seem.....all we have to do is reach out to Him.

Enjoy

Some troubles I have

I wish I were a wordsmith like Jefferson.  Here were the colonists trying to build a life for themselves, and the more successful the colonists were the more taxes were levied. 

These led to such phrases as:

• No taxation without representation
• Live Free or Die
• Men are born with certain inalienable rights

Jefferson was left the task of explaining the revolution that was taking place and putting it into words in a "declaration of independence".

But I'm not the wordsmith Jefferson is, so I will struggle with this as best I can.

I have difficulty naming this "process".  I might use a "stretch of faith", but there is more to this than faith.  Especially when you just look at some of the Quantum & Relativity theories and discoveries.  These are on the verge of proving concepts such as faith, belief, effect of positive attitude, positive affirmations. positive feelings and prayers.  So for me this goes beyond faith.  It's almost the science of faith.  Like looking into the eyes of God.

But I'm still at a loss as to what to call this process which involves faith, and an abiding belief in God, Christ and the Holy Spirit, but also an expanding belief in .  But also a belief in the fact that each of us does have an affect on the future...or what a lot of Quantum physicists believe, that the future has an affect on our past.  That time is "relative".  That time as Newton defined it, does not exist.  It is not linear, but can move around and be folded so that your future does affect your past. 

This process requires thinking out side the box, but then this is the same thing that Christ was teaching in His lifetime.  He was teaching outside the box.  How many times did His disciples doubt Him;  how many time did they have to be told to believe, that's what God and Christ required of them.

So far the best I can do is "process".  Maybe  because I believe that each day I am learning more about the techniques and methods and the values.  This learning experience is a process - something that is always growing, adapting, changing - just like we all do in our life. 

It's hard to categorize something like that.

I would love to hear what you all suggest.  What name would you call this path?...experience?....process?

Evil

And now for something light!!!  Bad joke!  But it's something that you will have to deal with sooner or later.

A definition is a great place to start:

1. morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life.
2. harmful; injurious: evil laws.
3. characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days.
4. due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evil reputation.
5. marked by anger, irritability, irascibility, etc.: He is known for his evil disposition.

Yikes - that's enough already.

But they are also something we can all agree on.  What about the things we can't agree on.

What I'm talking about here is something more defined and personal.  What is one man's trash is another man's treasure....what is tempting to one man, may be only a minor diversion to another.

Alcohol is one example.  Some people can have one glass of wine and be just fine, while another can not stop until they pass out.

For some people, thoughts that wander in and out, whether positive or negative, may have little or no effect, while some others may be devastated with certain thoughts.  Of course this also depends upon their particular circumstances. 

For our purposes here, what is really evil are those thoughts, internal monsters and your personal demons that prevent you from doing what you really want to do. 

• If your list of your deepest desires is more of what someone else wants for you (instead of what you want for you), then that list is evil.  That sounds a little strict and drastic, but look at it this way, and it will help to get you straight about what you want. 
• If a well-meaning friend tries to tell you what you want...."...wouldn't it be better and more reasonable to refine your list to something more appropriate and plausible?"...no matter how well-meaning, if this isn't what you want, that wish is evil.  If what you want is a grander and greater goal, go for it.  It is achievable as long as you believe it and you will believe it if it is really what you want.

This may sound like a stretch for the word evil, and don't make a monster out of this, but this also helps you hone your focus for your goals.  After you are on the tract, you can let loose with this description, and evil returns back to it's normal place in your vocabulary.

It's clear to to delineate or at lease define the difference between "issues" and "evil".  The classic difference is that evil is an act rather than an entity such as an institution, person or place. Whereas "issues" can be those faults which result in acts, thoughts and deeds which could be classified as evil.  IOW, even though evil is an adjective and when used as "evil person" makes it sound as though the person is evil, what is really that person has evil feelings.  So the person isn't really evil, a more pertinent description would be that the person has evil thoughts, responses, feelings and/or acts.

There's something else to know about evil.  This process is not to be used for evil.  It's more that it doesn't work, and working or manipulating others to do, be or have things that are either against their will or cause negativity with you or them, is not only futile but very ineffective and a waste of your valuable time and energy.

Revenge is mine, saith the Lord, and it is His.  Don't try to work this process for revenge or retribution or to cause something evil or bad to happen to others, because they have wronged you.  Instead, work at giving up those bad and negative thoughts.  They can cause you far more problems to keep them.

My experience, which I am quick to say, is all I have to give, is that in most of the cases where something evil happened to me - and we can not live fully in this life without confronting evil - when ever I gave it up, not only did I feel a sense of relief from not having to deal with all that negativity and burden, but almost always the situation turned to my benefit. 

I'm not recommending you give up these negative thoughts so that evil people will get retribution, but more because it is a terrible burden that we were not meant to carry.  The relief of not carrying this burden, allows us to devote our energies and efforts toward more useful and productive avenues.  This is the reason to give up the negative feelings and thoughts.

But it has also been my experience, that eventually the truth wills out;  eventually the good and honorable to rise the the top like cream to the top of milk.  You may or may not see it, but it does win out.  I'm not Pollyanna about this.  It is the truth, but giving up the retribution and the manipulation of events to effect your revenge, offers no real benefit to you in the long run, and usually zaps needed energy, time and effort from an otherwise valuable and positive contribution to your world, community and environment.

Physical vs Spiritual

These physical and spiritual (psychological) are two totally entwined....sort of like the medical caduceus, but separated parts of our selves.
 
I always thought the two serpents were the physical and psychological bodies.  They aren't but they make a good example of how I think of the two parts of our bodies are connected.

So connected are they, that when one is sick, the other becomes sick;  when a person is so sick in the body, science has proven that the mind will suffer. 

The same is true when the soul is sick with depression, worry, anxiety, the body suffers - more so that we think.

But the opposite is as true:  when our soul is well, our body can follow suit.

If for no other reason than this, it is important to keep your soul well nourished, loved and cared for - your body will follow and thank you.  Haven't you ever wondered why people going through so much stress and strain (as in leading a country), can survive it all with a healthy soul?

So what happens when I may ask you to live your life in a completely different set of circumstances - sort of like playing in one of Einstein's parallel universes. 

What happens if you think of yourself as a spiritual being living in a temporary physical experience rather than a temporary physical being having intermittent spiritual experiences. 

In this process, it's important to realize that the physical and the spiritual are integrated and connected to the point that if one is sick or ill, the other will suffer as well.  During times of stress, the spirit suffers a lot, but the body suffers as well.  Science has proven that stress of the spirit or mind can debilitate and weaken the body's ability to fight diseases such as cancers and heart disease. 

If there is one reason alone to keep your mind healthy, which this process does, this would be a very real and pertinent one.

Of course what is an even better benefit, is that not only does this prcess enable you to survive, but to thrive, and blossom, even in spite of the mayhem, negativity and seemingly impossibility around us.

One more little science thing....

A lot of people (Stephen Hawking among them) think you are either a scientist or religious....I don't think they are mutually exclusive.  I guess I have an open mind.

First, there's no way we can know everything - only when we are looking into the eyes of God will we know everything, and that ain't happenin' on this planet!

Second, if we're not going to know everything, then there's always going to be something smaller or bigger for us to know - that which is created by God.

Third, we will always need God no matter what.  It is our very nature, no matter how smart we get, we will always need Him - we are born needing Him.  It is through him that we are able to survive and accomplish and even excel greater than we thought through all the wonders, or what others might say is the scary-dark of the unknown.

Fourth, We were not put on this Earth with our God-given intelligence, curiosity with the dictate not to use that intelligence - or to use it some places but not in others.  We are all meant to be curious, to experiment, to discover the wonder that God has created all around us.  Why wouldn't we want to know about all the wonders...they get us closer to God.

This is why I love checking out all these science sites, particularly the ones on Relativity vs. Quantum Theories.  I love checking out Michio Kaku, Brian Green, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Stephen Hawking, Einsten, and Max Planck.  Just to name a few!  But these are mostly the easiest and therefore more knowlegeable people I know.  These guys know their stuff so well, they can simplify it for the rest of us.

One of them was this site, which explains why there is a discrepancy between the rate mass travels and the rate light travels...which gets a little into the brain esplodin' territory!

But before we go too far...here's a wonderful piece by Michio Kaku - hold on - it's going to be a bumpy ride.

So what's the point of all this - why does it matter?...who cares about other universes, who cares if is uni-verse or multi-verse or schmuniverse - what's that got to do with how my life is now?

Well, one of the things that scientist are beginning to toy with is how the future affects the past.  What?  Isn't that the other way around?  Well, yes in Newton's world it was the other way around.  But in this new world of multi-verses - possible parallel universes, time warps, unfolding and folding space and other concepts that are in the BED (brain-exploding department).

These are some of the same concepts that philosophers have been talking about for years.   Concepts like believing your goals are already met, affirming from a future point of view as though your goals have already been met.  Isn't this the future affecting the present, which is the future's past?  Isn't this God having a plan for all of us and we are just now realizing that we can almost prove it with theoretical physics?

These are questions that can cause some to think they are heretical, but the truth is, that it isn't that at all.  As Michio Kaku says - we are in a Copernican time right now....a time when we are about to break through into a whole new way of thinking of our world and uni/multi-verses.  How exciting is that? 

Lent

Good morning and welcome to Lent.  That sounds so depressing, but actually it's not.  This is a wonderful time of introspection and examining ourselves and making sure that you are where you want to be as well as a chance to hone up some of those skills and techniques that will get you through your tough times.

Lent is that time that comes right before spring.  It's February 25th this year (2009).   Starting in the "dog days of winter," here we are bored to tears of cold weather and another cold front is coming through with dreams of warm lazy days totally lost in the snow and cloudy weather. All we want is a little warm weather and in comes another March ice storm!  In my part of the country, our worst winter weather is usually in March, usually after we've received a taste of some warm weather.

Lent is a lot of things to different religions.  My Catholic side of the family believes that giving something up for lent is a symbol of their faith.  A favorite when I was growing up was chocolate or something fattening.

On the religious calendar, lent is that time that Jesus went into the wilderness and was tempted by the devil.  He resisted and then started his ministry.  So the temptations in the wilderness were a time of preparation of his ministry.  That's the meaning that has grown through time to mean more of a time of discipline than anything else. 

At my religious school, where the establishment realized they were leading a variety of denominations, they encouraged the student body to not only think of lent as a time of "giving up" something but to also think of a time of doing something extra. I particularly liked this idea.  This is a time of discipline which can mean that you could decide to do something extra - like pick up my room and leave it neat every day; or add another hour of study to my schedule every day; or drink more water.

The point is that it is a time of discipline - whether that's giving up or doing something extra is up to you.

For our purposes here, you can use this "time of discipline" to do lots of things that will enhance your effectiveness like:

1. Be more aware of problems, doubts sneaking into your daily life that can erode or destroy your belief and work to rid yourself of them
2. Be disciplined and scheduled about your affirmations, meditations on a daily basis.
3. Hone up your wish list, but examining the most important dreams you have.  Ask yourself why you want this or why you want to be like this or why you want to be here or there.  This is not to question whether they are true, this is to get more clear in your mind why they are so true, and therefore help you be more clear about your affirming and meditating processes.
4. Add, refine, edit your vision board
5. Do some journaling starting with your affirmations and just let yourself wander with it and allow yourself to explore all your affirmations.  Try something like this:
       I am a patient person.  I enjoy being patient because it brings me great peace.  Being patient allows me to have the peace I really enjoy.  When I’m patient I’m easy and fun and so at one with God.  Patience is a way for God to speak to me and for me a chance to listen to all that he has to say to me.  He can tell me to go here, or do this or wait or not do that.  I love being patient.  It has taken me a long time to learn it, and I relish that I have finally become patient enough to enjoy the process.  There are certain things I do to really practice my patience, and when I do them more often, patience is much easier for me.
6. Are there some areas that need a little tweaking?...wish list, vision board....
7. Review a lot of the basic theories here and go through and see if any of your applications can use some updating. 

You can use lent to give you a greater discipline that will make you a better person than you thought you could be. 

This is the real purpose of lent, plus there's always a wonderful gift at the end:  not only will you have spent this time disciplining yourself and getting better at all the techniques, there's....

Easter!