starting from scratch

Steve Pavlina suggests setting a “primary focus” for the year, rather than a more specific resolution. I have had some success with resolutions, here and there, but my best results have come when I kept my goals general. Which is basically what Steve is suggesting.

I believe that my weakest area is best summed up as “spirituality”, in the sense of having a connection to the things and events around me. In particular, I need to work on appreciating and enjoying where I am and what I am doing, rather than just doing because it needs to be done. So that’s my focus for 2007: to appreciate and find joy in things.

I am also starting a new 30 day trial: to spend 15 minutes, three times a day on my own personal development. I plan to use this time for actively visualizing my goals. I want to identify beliefs or fears that are holding me back, particularly in the creation of my own business. I will also use the time to read articles and books, review my goals and my progress, and to optimize my efforts. And sometimes I might just sit and empty my head to be One With The Universe for 15 minutes. I expect it all to be time well spent.

What are your plans for 2007?

So much has been happening lately, and no time to write. It feels, in a sense, as if everything is accelerating around me. Must be careful not to lose my grip.

I had two experiences — my first two experiences — of higher self. I can’t tell you how I know it to be higher self; the experience simply brought that label with it. Those of you who have had that experience already, I am curious if that is how it happens.

The first was while clearing my head at work, walking around the campus. I had just finished reading Erin’s article on chakras. I was focusing on spinning the colors up, not at all sure what I was doing or if it was having any result. As I moved up to white I suddenly had a very tangible experience of a deep, profound…humor, of all things. A feeling of joy and satisfaction, an experience of knowing a deep universal truth and finding it supremely…humorous. The experience — the only word that seems to fit — felt external, coming from above and around me, but connected. It lastest about 7-10 seconds, and left a lingering “afterglow” for several minutes beyond that.

The second came in a dream a few weeks later. The Dog started barking in the far too early a.m., and as I lay in bed attempting to restore quiet through sheer force of will, I remembered the dream that I had been having when I woke, of speaking to a woman among tall shelves of books, and of the encounter ending abruptly just before I woke, an ending that signified that what was spoken there was not to be remembered in the waking world. Again, the experience brought its own label; I knew “higher self” before knowing the memory.

Strange and curious. Must go be domestic now; I’ll try to plug in a bit more later.