Call Me Esther Williams

So back to the book I’ve been (slowly) reading, called Excuse Me Your Life is Waiting (which apparently is very similar to The Secret, but I haven’t read the latter so I can’t vouch for that). Anyway, in the book, the author talks about how the Law of Attraction means that for positive change to occur in your life you need to shift gears to feel good, and put that good feeling energy out there. She’s really emphatic that you have to generally FEEL it, not just think good thoughts.

So I’m struggling here. Sounds great in theory, but how are you supposed to ignore something big, like say unemployment or the prospect of losing your house? She’s insistent though, that you have to stop thinking about whatever the IT is that is stressing you out, hard as that might be, and reach in to find things that make you actually feel, physically and emotionally, good and positive. Tough to do. She literally is suggesting that we put on rose-colored glasses, ignore the problems at hand and go all Grateful Dead, spinning around the lawn barefoot on a warm summer night feeling awesome.

Not that I've done that. Ahem.

Anyway, I experimented last night, trying to just play with my brain and see what kind of visualizations made me happy, relaxed, and joyful. There were some that are kind of expected. Watching my son sleep at night, sharing something special with my husband, etc. But one that surprised me was water. I love to swim, granted. I grew up on a lake, so swimming and swim teams were a constant in my life. Specifically though, I was thinking about playing in the water. Jumping as high as possible, doing as many underwater somersaults as you can, handstands – that kind of thing. And it made me really joyful and happy to think about. I love the sensations of the water, the physical effort, the way you have to move to get the water to work with you, and just the pure FUN of it.

It also struck me how rarely we allow those elements of play in our lives, now that we’re all mature older and such. I’ll go swim laps, but unless I’m playing with some kids (and yes, I have TOTALLY borrowed children for this express purpose) I won’t just PLAY. And given how much joy even the thought of it gives me, I should probably do it more.

I’m still having a hard time believing that simply thinking about (and feeling joy about) underwater somersaults will result in tons of good results in my life. But I guess I’ll never know unless I try, eh?