MY SITE HAS MOVED!
I’m on to new things. Come see what I’m up to at my new website:
www.melodylarson.com.
And visit my new blog at Melody’s blog.
Thanks!
Melody
The Pull of Probability
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How small are you living? How limited are your dreams and visions? Are you, heaven forbid, making the same New Year’s resolutions you didn’t quite resolve last year, and the year before, and the year before that?
There’s a reason resolutions don’t work: they are based on being pushed rather than being pulled. This month’s ezine is all about being pulled towards your highest potential rather than being pushed to fix and resolve the small stuff that just keeps you focused on, well, what’s small.
So often we limit our visions to what’s probable–from the micro perspective of our minds and egos–instead of using the broader perspective of our heart and soul to venture out into the lands of infinite possibility.
When we move beyond setting goals based on who we think we are, to choosing who we will be and how we will show up in our lives, we move into those vast fields and our lives become a reflection of our greater selves instead of reflecting our limitations.
It is impossible to ever be off course and it is also impossible to ever reach a destination. For life isn’t about accomplishing anything “out there” but about enjoying the ‘now’ of our ever-unfolding inner journey.
And so, let the larger adventure of your highest life begin!
ILLUMINATION: a winter meditation
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Here in Seattle we’ve been snowed in for a week. In the midst of this northern darkness, I am comforted again and again by the simplest of tools: my candles. What is it about candles that leave us so full of warmth, stillness, and hope? As I sit today looking at the unlit candles on my table, I am compelled to light them even though dusk hasn’t yet fallen. Unlit candles leave me feeling cold and forlorn. Why is that?
My inner voice answers me with a startling revelation: we ourselves are human candles, a beautiful incarnation of non-physical energy, of Light. When we are not illuminated we are superfluous in our being, for we were meant to be lit up with joy, passion, warmth, creativity, and love.
When I look at an unlit candle, I see cold wax and a blackened wick and this is just how I feel when I am not on purpose, when I am not using myself to light up my own life. When I light a candle, I see pools of soothing waxy balm and a wick afire with movement and grace. I see that wick enveloped and consumed by a flame whose purest joy is to light up everything around it in a golden arc. Isn’t that me when I am wrapped in the hot embrace of my Soul, my Inner Being, my Spirit, my Source?
Do you feel cold and exposed and superfluous in your life? If so, my advice is to get yourself illuminated. Get yourself connected to that inner fire, to the non-physical Light that gave birth to your incarnate form. When you are illumined, you sit in the center of a heat that keeps you safe and warm and comforted. That same fire also sets you ablaze with passion and purpose. If you want to illuminate your life, you must first illuminate yourself.
A simple way to do this is to meditate or pray using candles as your point of focus. Place a candle in front of you and then place four candles all around it, mirroring the directions of north, east, south, and west. As you light the central candle, silently affirm “I am now illumined.” Then spend some time feeling yourself becoming that flame. Feel you heart opening and feel yourself like the wick, embraced all around by the heat and love of your Inner Source. When you reach a place of inner peace, love, or empowerment you are ready to move to the four other candles.
Begin with the east, symbolized by the rising sun and the dawn of new beginnings. Silently affirm, “I now illuminate my creativity. New ideas for a new way of living now rise within me.” When you are ready, move to the southern candle, which symbolizes the abundance that comes forth from the earth. Affirm, “I now illuminate my prosperity. All the abundance that is my heritage can now be seen by me.” Move then to the west, symbolized by the setting sun and the rising of the moon. Here in the darkness you tap into your deepest power as a manifestor of all you desire. Affirm, “I now light the wand of my inner magician and I see that I am the creator of my reality. I now choose to create intentionally and wisely for the highest good of me and all.” Finally, light the candle of the north, which symbolizes heavenly wisdom. Affirm, “I now illuminate my inner knowing, my broader wiser perspective, my intuition. I am able to tap into that knowledge whenever I choose.”
When we are illumined we then set about the task of illuminating our lives. It is only when we are illumined that we can illuminate our creativity, our prosperity, our power and our wisdom. These flames are what assist us to attract whatever we desire into our lives. The Law of Attraction is defined as “like attracts like” but I am seeing now that “light attracts light” is a fitting description as well.
We must be alive inside like the candle serving its purpose rather than dead like the candle never used if we want to manifest our desires. More importantly, when we are alive and flickering we cast a glow that illuminates the lives of others. We become their beacon until they too see that they need only illuminate themselves. What a world this could be if every being were alit with passion, love, joy and purpose.
THE PATH OF AUTHENTICITY: 7 stepping stones to a life of joy
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What does it mean to live authentically? Authenticity holds a power that is almost mystical in nature. It’s magnetic and we long for it now more than ever. Why? My view is that authenticity opens the doorway to a life of spirit. What does the path of authenticity look like? Let’s explore the seven stepping stones that lead to a life of freedom and joy.
FIRST STONE: Be happy for no reason. There’s nothing you need to become, nothing that needs to happen, in order for you to be happy. Happiness is simply a choice. Let go of the ‘when/then’ game: When I lose 10 pounds, then I’ll be happy. When I’m in that perfect relationship, then I’ll be happy. Here’s the deal: Happiness doesn’t come when you’ve achieved your goals—it’s what allows you to achieve them. The happiness that you seek is not the reward waiting for you at the end of your journey. It’s what makes the journey possible in the first place.
SECOND STONE: End the blame game. Do you blame others for the way your life has unfolded or is unfolding? Is it the fault of your childhood, your spouse, your boss, or the current state of world affairs that you are not happy? Are you giving away your power by seeing yourself as a victim? To become empowered you have to take responsibility for yourself and for the way your life is going. No person or event can determine the shape of your life unless you allow it. You allow it when you choose the safety of powerlessness over the risk of self-determination. The only failure in life is not choosing for yourself how you’re going to live it. When you choose responsibility, a glorious thing happens: You stop living life in half measures and your life blooms in all its richness.
THIRD STONE: Simplify. Authenticity has a very hard time flourishing in the weed-strewn soil of complexity. You must pull out the weeds and make space for your soul desires to flourish. Simplifying involves ridding yourself of materials, activities, and people that drain or scatter your energy. Clutter is the most visible sign of an overgrown life. Go through your stuff and clear out everything that you don’t use or that doesn’t please you emotionally. After you’ve cleared some physical space, see if you can free up some time. Without time to slow down and connect to your heart, you won’t be able to hear its whisperings. Finally, you’ve got to rid yourself of people who are toxic to you, who weigh you down instead of uplifting you. When you’ve cleared a clean, fertile space in your life you can plant the seeds of your authenticity and cultivate your passion.
FOURTH STONE: Relish being selfish. Oh no, I used the ‘S’ word! We’ve been told for so long that being selfish is bad. If you stop to think about it, anyone who says so is probably saying it out of a selfish desire for you to follow their rules! If you want to live freely you have to become selfish. There is nothing wrong with serving the Self. You have to put your own needs and desires above everyone and everything precisely in order to serve everyone and everything. It’s exhausting to try to be all things to all people. You were never meant to apply your energy in this scattering way, but to concentrate your energy into the singular expansion of your own genius and uniqueness. Selfishness in the highest sense of the word is about being yourself so fully that you can share yourself fully with others.
FIFTH STONE: Do your healing work. Healing work is about confronting the habits, hurts, and fears that keep you living small. When you allow the fullness of who you are to step into the light, healing happens. The need for escapism, cures, and self-destructive habits diminishes. When you let go of any guilt, pain, anger, or unworthiness that you’re experiencing you open up the channel of effortless being. Universal Energy can flow through and you become the instrument of spirit you were meant to be. There are many practices for doing healing work, from therapy to EFT to prayer. Find what works for you and commit to shifting any beliefs or feelings that are holding you back.
SIXTH STONE: Cultivate compassion. Compassion is a profound human emotion. It pulls us out of egocentrism, enabling us to experience oneness with another and with all things. This is another facet of authenticity because compassion removes the ego’s false gods of competition, morality and judgment from their thrones. It allows us an expanded view of the world—as spirit sees it. There is nothing more freeing than allowing others their choices, than supporting them instead of trying to change them, or than honoring their own ability to guide themselves.
SEVENTH STONE: Hand over your keys. We’ve all heard the adage of surrendering to a higher power, of “letting go and letting God.” The key here is to realize that this higher power is not something outside of you, it’s within you. Surrender, then, is not powerlessness. Surrender is about turning over the driver’s seat of your life to your soul–to the full, intelligent, powerful, creative being that is the true you. It’s about freeing yourself from the reckless driving of your personality that keeps crashing you into one dissatisfying conundrum after another or that keeps speeding you right past all those lovely, magical roadside attractions. When you let your soul guide you, you surrender to the need to reach any destination, knowing that wherever you are in the moment is perfect.
The path to an authentic life is a journey inward to our inner being instead of outward into the world. It’s about claiming the power within us instead of seeking our power externally. Authenticity means honoring the self, not the self-image. It means listening to soul rather than to ego. It allows our hearts, so long shushed by our intellects, to finally speak.
(Adapted from my latest book, Delighting the Soul: Lessons on Life Purpose, Authenticity & the Law of Attraction)
Live who you are out loud!
Melody
delightingthesoul.com
HOW POWERFUL ARE YOUR INTENTIONS?
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I’ve been reading Stuart Wilde, and though he’s pretty controversial and you either love his in-your-faceness or you hate it, a few passages struck me as very important for those out there who are setting intentions, especially those new to intending. Here’s some great wisdom for powering up your vibrational force to turbo level:
“The difference between Will and intention is that for many people intention is just a mental act–a kind of wishful thinking–whereas the force of Will projected from your consciousness contains not only your thoughts and desires but also the enthusiasm of your own Life Force. Your Will, projected correctly, will contain that vital ingredient, your Spirit–the very essence of what you are.
The force of that Spirit, clearly defined, will deliver to you the focus of your Will by virtue of the fact that the clarity of its concentration is honed to such an uncluttered purity that it cuts right through reality and fires the full weight of its power upon any target….
In that pea soup of mumbling and grumbling, along comes the magician: powerful, clear, uncluttered by yearnings or fanciful ramblings of the imagination. Detached as he is from the emotions of humanity he stands on a launch platform that is already a rung or two higher than the crowd. From there he fires his Will into the circumstances of life, knowing that his power is unstoppable.
How could the Universal Law of life deny this man? It can’t. His power is too great. His Will is uncluttered by any thought of deserving, of good and bad, of having or not having. It is focused solely on what he wants….
If the level of enthusiasm you are willing to commit to your quest is not great, then obviously you don’t want what you think you do, or at best your quest is not that important to you. But if some aspect is very, very special to you, it becomes sacred by virtue of its integrity. Then the level of your commitment to that ideal is vital, for you know that the whole reason for your life is contained and centered in that one quest for achievement….
Somewhere in your life there will be an overrriding theme to your quest, some part of your desire which cannot be denied without a terrible cost to the very essence of what you are. Are you going to ignore it, or do you have the courage of your commitment and the confidence to demand that life, humanity, or circumstance give you what you want, with no other excuse, reason or apology, other than that you demand it?”
From The Trick to Money is Having Some
So I ask 2 questions:
1) When you look at your intentions, how powerful are you in your vibration, in your Will? Because it is passion and a magician level of power that you need in order to manifest.
2) How vital to your life are the intentions you’ve set so far? Do they relate to your mission and to your deepest purpose for being here? Because those are the intentions that Universal Law responds to most powerfully.
Become magical in your approach to manifesting. Know that the wizard isn’t outside of you. You are the magician. Use your power wisely. Not on half-whims or toys, but on what you really want from this life, on what is vital to your passion and your joy and your essence.
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE HAPPY!
So many are searching for things and experiences that will bring them happiness. Are you one of them? If you are one, here is some fantastic news: there is nothing you need to find in order to be happy. There is nothing you need to become in order to be happy. There is nothing that needs to happen in order for you to be happy. Self-acceptance and acceptance of your life are not something you seek, but something you claim from within you. It’s an inner state of being, not something that happens as a result of external events. Acceptance is simply a choice and a recognition that you are a spiritual being having a human experience, and not the other way around. You are a whole and beautiful being, right now, just as you are. You are always growing and evolving and that evolutionary process is perfect.
The joy that you seek is not some reward waiting for you at the end of this journey. It is not something that belongs to your future. Joy does not come when you have achieved your life purpose–it is what allows you to achieve it. Joy is the way! And the way to joy is acceptance. Are you going to wait to be happy? Are you going to play the when/then game? When you lose 10 pounds, then you’ll be happy. When you have that magic number in your bank account, then you’ll be happy. When you are in that wonderful relationship, then you’ll be happy. Unless you are happy first, those things have a hard time coming because you just aren’t in the necessary joyful state to draw them to you.
Becoming authentic means loving who you are and what you’ve created, knowing that you will never get it just right. There is no just right! Whew! Isn’t that a relief? As soon as you achieve some goal you will immediately want to achieve something else. The Universe seeks infinite expansion. As a part of this Universe, it is your very nature to always be evolving. You are never going to be satisfied with who you are or where you are because that would mean stagnation.
But satisfaction and acceptance are not the same. Acceptance of the current state of your life does not mean acquiescence. You can accept it and not be satisfied with it. You can accept it and still desire to change it. In fact, acceptance is the only way to change it. You must accept your beautiful, learning, growing Self just as it is. You must accept the purposeful, Soul-guided circumstances of your life just as they are. It is only from a place of acceptance that you can find any kind of real joy in the moment. And it is always this moment that determines the shape of the next one.
When you accept yourself as a being that is always changing and evolving, you can find joy in every aspect of that evolution. You can be grateful to your past because you understand that it has led you to where you are right now, and you can delight in every aspect of your life now because you understand that now is leading you to your future. From this place of delicious, delightful contentment you can begin to expand your desires: if you want to lose weight it will happen effortlessly form a place of accepting and loving your body as it is now. If you want greater prosperity you can begin to attract it from a place of enjoying and appreciating the money you have now. That lucky someone will find you when you acknowledge what a lucky catch you are.
Don’t give away your precious power to create a delightful, joyous life by postponing your happiness! Claim it and be it, and all you desire will find you. My desire for you is to wake up each morning and smell the happy!
Live your joy!
Melody
WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?
I’m an Aquarian, and for those of you who know a bit about astrology, Aquarians are, well, a bit into doing things differently. We revel in nonconformity and nothing delights us more than shocking others. I admit it puts a smug little smile on my face every time. Since I tossed my career out the window a year ago, I have been faced with grappling with that horrid question: What do you do for a living? I get it every time I meet someone new: What do you do?
What do I do? Suddenly I was stripped of my identity. Without a job, how could I define myself in the eyes of the world? For weeks I found myself in a mini dark night of the Soul, questioning my value just a bit. Who was I and how was I important if I no longer had the status symbol of a job title to define me? At first I went through the drill and tried to come up with something socially acceptable: “Well, I was an Education Director (oh the importance of those capitals!) and now I’m taking a sabbatical to start a business.” That seemed to do the trick! “Oh, how exciting!” or “Wow! Aren’t YOU lucky!” or even (yes folks, it still lives) “How lovely that you have a husband who can support you while you experiment.”
But something was wrong. It didn’t feel good to say this. For one thing, I knew in my heart that this was no sabbatical–I was making the final cut and had no intention of ever reentering the world as a paycheck collector ever again. Secondly, the term “business” still had all those socially viable connotations attached. When the inevitable follow-up question of what kind of business I was starting came and I responded by saying Soul Purpose Guidance, well, that was then my newly found acquaintances subtly and politely sashayed to the other side of the room. A problem? No way! What an Aquarian delight! I quickly began to feel the pleasure of speaking my truth and it gave me courage to be, and to announce, who I am. A few months later I progressed further to answering, “writer”, “author” “inspirer” “and Joy Guide”. Hmmn. STILL, I was defining myself by what I did. More searching, and then it came to me:
I discovered the best answer of all, “I live for a living. Like the flowers do.”
Another dinner party.
“What do you do?”
“I live for a living. You know, like the flowers do.”
They still bolt across the room or stare at their shoes, but I know that in shocking them I am also giving them a gift. They can do what they will with my little verbal bouquet of wisdom, but I wil keep giving it. I’m on a mission, you see, to wake people up to the fact that their presence on this Earth is what makes them worthy and valuable, and no more. In fact, it is being your unique being that the world most needs. I’ll give my bouquet to you here too:
Your purpose is not what you do. Your purpose is who you are.
Live who you are out loud!
Melody
ARE YOU FOCUSED ON THE POTHOLE?
“Imagine a magical city. It is very small, only ten miles by ten miles square. It is filled with magnificent points of beauty and interest. It is tied together by an intergral grid of streets and thoroughfares that efficiently take you wherever you want to go. There is only one small thing that is not perfect in your city: There is a pothole on 6th avenue.
Your logical mind tells you that in knowing about the perfection of an amazing city that you would barely notice one wee pothole. However, our observation of our physical friends is that you not only notice the pothole, but you give it an inordinate amount of your attention. You see it, you complain about it, you write letters about it, you talk to friends about it–until it literally consumes your city.”
-Abraham-Hicks, A New Beginning II
Are you focused on the potholes of your life? Are you focused on the one thing you do not like about your body (your personal city) instead of on all the magnificent well-being that it offers you? Are you focused on the one irksome trait in your mate instead of on all the things that are glorious and wonderful about him or her? Are you focused on the person at work (and I bet it’s the boss, right? lol) you loathe instead of on all the other people there that are rather pleasant? Are you focused on what is going wrong in our world instead of on all the things that are going RIGHT? Are you focused on what you don’t have instead of on what you want to have?
My challenge for you today is to lift your head up! Look around you! Stop staring at the little pothole and begin to take notice of all that is beautiful in this world and that is good in your life!!! WHAT YOU LOOK AT GROWS. Your focus on one pothole creates more potholes. Your focus on one little thing you don’t like in your body will literally create disease, but your focus on all that is good in your body will literally bring more health and well-being to it. Your focus on one little thing you do not like about someone else will literally surround you with people who hold that characteristic as a dominant trait, but your focus on all that is good in your relationships will literally enhance the love and joy your receive from them. Your focus on the debt you have will literally decrease the flow of money that comes to you, but your focus on the income you do have coming in will literally bring you a greater and greater income. Your focus on one negative event happening on this planet will literally multiply all negative events, but your focus on all that is good in the world will literally change this planet for the better.
What are your personal potholes? Forget about them. Stop making them the focus of your attention and thus the ‘reality’ of your days. They are so insignificant against all the magnificence of your life!
Live who you are out loud!
Melody
GET OUT OF THE AUDIENCE & ONTO THE STAGE
What makes an actor or actress great instead of just good? They don’t play the part, they become the part. There is no concept of “Wow I am doing a great job on this stage!” There is no self-observation of their own acting because they are no longer there to do the observing. They have become one with the character they are playing. For the time that they are on stage, the play is no longer a play but instead is the only real life they’ve ever known.
In human life, imagination is the stage. To use imagination as it was intended, to manifest our desires into reality, we’ve got to remove ourselves as the observer and become one with the play. In other words, we’ve got to get out of the audience and get up on the stage! True imagination means being in the experience, not observing it. You cannot fully experience something you desire vicariously. You must live it out like the actor lives out a scene.
An “I am sitting on a beautiful beach…” visualization (scene) means you feel the sand beneath your bum and in between your toes; you see the waves rolling towards you; you hear the seagulls crying above you; you feel the wind in your hair; and you taste the salt on your lips. You don’t stand off to the side and watch yourself sitting on the beach, you are on the beach. When you do that, you become one with the experience emotionally. This is how all worldly reality is created.
If you don’t put yourself in the play, when the play manifests as real life through the Law of Attraction, you might not be in it! The Law of Attraction is a law of energy, of vibration. To manifest anything we must vibrate at the exact same frequency of our desire so there is an energetic match up. We do that by becoming one with the experience of our desire in our imagination. We become the part.
When you observe someone else being, doing, or having something, do you then find yourself automatically receiving that experience as well? Of course not. Because by Law of Attraction, you only manifest what you believe is true for you. The only way to believe it is to imagine it. You can know a thing mentally by observing it. You can know all about it. But you cannot know a thing emotionally until you experience it. Imagination allows you that emotional knowledge, which is needed if you are to use the Law of Attraction to deliberately draw it into your physical reality.
Whenever an actress is on stage, everything is happening now. The future and the past are wiped out and there is only this moment, this experience. “Now I am feeling this, now I am saying this, now I am doing this…” She is emotionally and psychologically ‘caught up’ in the experience and that is how she makes it real. When you use your imagination deliberately, you too must think from within that experience, not about that experience. To manifest it you must first be it! Imagination means acting, not observing. So get out of your seat, get up on the life stage, and become the part. Don’t be a good actor or actress, be a great one.
Live who you are out loud!
Melody
NO SUCH THING AS MIRACLES?
Big and small don’t exist in the Universe. Call everything a miracle, or nothing a miracle, but not some things miracles and other things ordinary. Manifesting a cup of coffee is no more or less miraculous than manifesting new cells to heal a terminal illness. Everything is possible, but only according to our level of belief.
Believing is seeing, not the other way around. Are you a non-believer? Does the term faith make you squirm a bit? Webster’s dictionary defines a miracle as “evidence of Divine power in human affairs.” Duh! We are that divine power. We are individuated aspects of the Universe, Souls here in human form! You are the bringer of everything that exists in your life.
Heighten your sense of wonder. Look around you. Be in amazement of everything that exists: all of it was manifested from consciousness, from intention: individual intention, collective intention, and Universal intention. You can call what you manifest a miracle, or you can call it daily living. The greater your intention, and your faith in your own ability to manifest it, the greater your life becomes. What will you do with your time here on Earth? What so-called miracles, big or small, are you going to perform?
We look at the miracles of saints and prophets and say, “Look at what they did! They performed miracles!” But for them it was all just in a day’s work. 
Live who you are out loud!
Melody
