Art of Attention: Authoring Your Life

There were two working titles for this piece: "Authoring Your Life" and "Raising Your Vibration." I chose "authoring" because it's a bit more accessible. (And because it took me over 10 years to stop cringing when I heard the word "vibration" mentioned with regards to my energy or my practice.) It's an elusive word for most, and I will take a brief moment of your time here to describe how "authoring your life" and "raising your vibration" are actually one and the same.

"Raising Your Vibration" is the title of a workshop I'm co-teaching with Laurie Gerber, the head of the Life Coaching division of the Handel Group.

1. Saying that we can "feel bad" about something does not absolve us of responsibility. Notice how many times a day you say to yourself or others, "I feel so bad about (that habit)," or "I feel so terrible for (that thing that I said)." I was shocked to see how often I say or think that, and I am now working on remembering that "feeling bad" is just another excuse to back away from telling the truth in an uncomfortable situation. Lay it out, free yourself (and everyone around you) by telling the truth; and watch how you begin to feel more magnetic, more vibrant, more resonant and clear in your daily life.

Take time to realize that all the different moods and conflicts that arise within yourself are causing great disasters to this vast empire within your own nature. If you could see what happens inside of you when you have a temper fit [or tell a lie] you would be far less inclined to have one. You would be amazed if you could see the tremendous death rate arising from the conflicts of ambition within yourself -- how you are destroying whole populations [your healthy cells and organs that are destroyed every time you get angry or lie to someone], how you are taking free beings within your own body and casting them into slavery and serfdom [all your systems and functions become slaves to such negativity], how you are denying the rights of citizenship to all these different levels of yourself.

And on governing yourself inwardly, continuing this metaphor and bringing the idea of true authorship home, more from Mr. Hall. This bit brings back a critical point raised for me years ago by my teacher Hugo Cory. "Your purpose of government is always the same: to give the greatest freedom and the greatest opportunity to all things within the broad pattern of a constructive legislation. Freedom is never apart from law; and good laws, prepared with wisdom, permit all the different forms of life [within yourself] to fulfill their natural purposes without distortion, without conflict."

Lastly, and perhaps most impactful: "We've seen what happens in mob violence -- [can you see] how quickly this tyranny breaks out in us ... "

Exactly as we hope for our world, we want an inner environment of kindly, generous, constructive citizens [systems, organs and cells]. Every time we tell the truth, we are moving in that direction, we are authoring our lives, we are raising our vibration, inviting the highest, cleanest-burning energy to light us up and become our state.

I've spent the past 10-plus years ruminating on these concepts, but when I started studying with the Handel Group, I began to become the actual author my own life.

On November 6, 2010 in New York City, Laurie and I will be offering an afternoon on this topic, in which you will learn how to govern your inner life effectively, raise your vibration, and author your life, with such sweetness.