Living With Intention | June 28, 2006 
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Hello, everyone!   

A special announcement and a special discount.  I’m so excited to share with you that I am a contributor for the forthcoming book 101 Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2 (along with bestselling authors Jack Canfield, Richard Carlson, John Gray, and others).  It’s wonderful to be in such good company!  

To celebrate the release of this new book project, I am offering a special 25% off coupon s^ale exclusively for Living With Intention and Pause and Play subscribers.  Through Thursday, June 29^th, you will save 25% off your entire order of Living With Intention resources, including the new 101 Ways book.  Visit www.deannadavis.net for secure online ordering—just be sure to use coupon code “play” at checkout to save 25% on your entire order.  And remember, when you invest in Living With Intention, you will have immediate free access to an entire electronic library from world-renowned experts.  

So, don’t miss out!  Log onto www.deannadavis.net and use coupon code “play” at checkout to receive your discount.  This coupon expires at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, June 29^th!  

Deanna Davis, PhD

Deanna Davis, PhD deanna@appliedinsight.net www.AppliedInsight.net www.DeannaDavis.net

In this week's issue:

• Ideas for a Wildly Fulfilling Life
• Ideas for a Remarkably Successful Life
• Resources That Will Change Your Life
• Feedback and Free Stuff
• People Making a Difference
• Contact Info

Ideas for a Wildly Fulfilling Life…
Universal (and Spinal!) Alignment:  Gratitude and the Law of Attraction 

I had been in excruciating back pain for the better part of a week, brought on by the two things that tend to cause spine snafus for me—too much time at the computer and too much time on the road.  Ok, because I dwell in honesty, I’ll come clean that I hadn’t been faithful my yoga routine for a couple of months, and since it’s my magic pill for both vertebrae vitality and psyche soothing, I was paying for my neglect in more ways than I care to admit.  I’m back to my mind/body practice now, though, and it’s definitely impacting the body side of things.  I’ll get back to you on the mind side when I know more.  

Anyway, on the day in question, there I sat in overwhelming discomfort, grimacing every 2 minutes while I would rather have been fully immersed in the discovery process at Jack Canfield’s Breakthrough to Success workshop (a wow of an event, to be sure).  After a morning of striking various vogue-like poses in the back of the room to relieve the razor-sharp pain radiating down my spine and left arm, the attendees in the back row seemed mildly entertained by my antics and I was mighty miserable.   

I sat down with my partner for the next exercise and tried to position myself at an angle that didn’t cause convulsions with every breath.  The exercise we were asked to do was to ask each other repeatedly, “What are you grateful for?” and to then record every answer our partner gave.  I had done this exercise once before and found it really meaningful, and since I’m a gratitude junkie (as you well know from my focus on it in this very e-zine), I figured the process would pleasantly distract me from my distress, if only for a few moments.   

Just a couple of moments into the exercise, I found myself responding to the question with the following statement:  “I am grateful that my back is causing me excruciating pain.”  My partner tilted her head at me like a confused pooch trying to decipher the human language.  I was as surprised as she was—these words came out of nowhere and made absolutely no sense to me in the moment.   

When I asked myself why this phrase had emerged, I followed it up with, “because my back is telling me that I haven’t been doing what I need to in order to bring it into alignment so that it can heal itself.”  It all boiled down to the fact that I had not been attending to my own wellness and, subsequently, was suffering the consequences.  My partner and I nodded in agreement and went on with the exercise.  I felt like my subconscious had given me the little epiphany my back had been trying to give me for a week or so, and that my back was seething at me like a brooding teenager, shouting, “you never listen to me!”  I made a mental note that I wanted to focus on getting my back healthy, pain-free, and out of its adolescent moodiness, and finished the gratitude exercise.  

At the conclusion of that exercise, a fellow participant in the event, Shirley Maginnis, asked to purchase one of my Living With Intention books.  Here’s a brief response to the questions I know you’ll have after I tell this story:  I didn’t previously know Shirley and she hadn’t been anywhere near me to overhear my “back pain gratitude revelation.”   

I sat down on the floor of the auditorium with her to sign the book and started a little chitchat to learn more about her.  I asked her what she did for a living and she said (this is the absolute truth, my friends), “I am a Cranio-Sacral therapist.  I help people bring their spine and their energy into alignment so that the body can heal itself.”  I looked up in disbelief, because, not 20 minutes earlier, I had uttered those very words (or something very similar) to a fellow participant, and here I sat with an individual whose sole purpose in life was to help people like me get back into a state of health, vitality, and pain-free balance.  I was stunned.  

Without telling her my situation, I asked a few more questions about the science and practice of Cranio-Sacral, and wanted to know a bit more about how it worked.  Shirley eloquently described the process and described how she approached the practice.  She shared her take on the way that it impacted the body.  And then she started giving some examples, saying, “For instance, I would put my hand right here…” and as she said that, she placed her hand on the exact place on my spine that was radiating all of the pain.  She turned to look at me and simply said, “Wow, it seems like there’s something going on here.”  All I could say was, “Uh…yeah.”  She proceeded to provide ten minutes or so of gentle treatment on my back, there in the middle of a bustling auditorium, and by the time we were finished, my pain had diminished by 90%.  

At this juncture, you might be nodding your head and saying, “Riiiigggghhhhttttt, Deanna.  I’m suuuurrrreeee that’s what happened.  Uh huh.  And did Santa Clause come rushing in with a ‘Back In Action’ kit and a elfin chiropractor in tow?”  But I kid you not that the above event actually did happen, much to my amazement.  It’s interesting that it just happened to occur within 24 hours of learning about the Law of Attraction, which suggests that we can effortlessly attract to us the people, resources, ideas, and support we want to create a rich and fulfilling life experience.  

While some people might chock up this experience to coincidence, serendipity, synchronicity, or dumb luck, I believe that it was a perfect example of the Law of Attraction at work.  Basically, there are three primary elements of attracting what you want in life, whether you’re talking about a solution for your back pain, a new chapter in your financial books, or an ideal relationship (or any number of other things).  These elements are:  

1. Practice Gratitude.

2. Ask for What You Want.

3. Be Open to Receiving It.  

For the purposes of this article, we’ll be focusing on gratitude.  Future issues will address each of the remaining elements.  

For anyone who’s read Living With Intention or attended any of my seminars, it will come as no surprise that gratitude is a huge part of attracting the life experience you want.  As I tell people, your mind can only focus on a limited amount of topics, so the more gratitude you weave into your perspective, the more you will crowd out negative thinking or negative energy, both of which repel what you truly want in your life.  And, as you may also know, I have amassed volumes of research from the field of Positive Psychology that demonstrate that gratitude favorably impacts everything from depression and anxiety, to relationships, to health, to…you name the topic and it makes a positive difference.  

But in the realm of the Law of Attraction, gratitude has a slightly different spin.  It basically helps create a positive “energy vibration” that puts you in the ideal state to identify the things you want in your life (or the things you want to eliminate) and open yourself up to receiving them (or eliminating them).  Since Quantum Physics has shown that everything is connected at the energy level, it makes sense that if you place yourself in a positive “energy vibration,” you will reap positive benefits not only physically and emotionally, but also spiritually, relationally, professionally, and financially.  

I truly believe that because I had grounded myself in a positive state of gratitude in general, and had very specifically identified appreciation for the messages my back was trying to send me, that’s why I so readily attracted Shirley into my experience, and why she was able to so readily help me relieve my pain.  If I can draw this type of an experience into my life, what might you be able to draw?  Program yourself for a daily - better yet, hourly - gratitude practice today and see where it leads you!

Ideas for A Remarkably Successful Life…  
Staying Organized  

Since my readers and audiences frequently ask for tips on staying organized, I am pleased to present this guest article from a sweet and savvy professional organizer, Dana Mortimer.  In it, she offers a few simple but powerful strategies for getting—and staying—organized.  Thanks, Dana, for sharing your expertise!  

As a Professional Organizer, I rarely meet a client who hasn’t already worked on creating organization solutions for themselves.  Baskets, rolling towers with drawers, bins, boxes, sorters – all sorts of wonderful tools.  Somehow though, in spite of their best intentions, all these new organizers are soon crammed full.  The piles begin to form again and the table/desk/counter/floor is once again buried.  How discouraging!   

So how can you get organized and stay that way?  One key is to always ask yourself “Where does this go?” not “Where can I put it”?  By asking ourselves “where does this go?” we deliberately choose storage space that keeps the item grouped with similar items and enables us to remember the item’s exact location.  The “where can I put it?” question leads us to squeeze dissimilar items onto increasingly crammed shelves making it difficult to find and retrieve anything.  

You can create organized space for your belongings.  To start, pick an overflowing, disorganized area of your home - maybe a closet or a desk or a counter.  Now ask yourself “what goes in this area?”  Once you know exactly what goes in that area, sort through everything.  Any item that doesn’t fit your purpose gets set in a pile to go elsewhere.   

Set the remaining articles into similar groups (linens, office supplies, outdoor clothing, etc.).  Choose the organizer that will contain each group of items – maybe a shelf or a drawer or one of the baskets you’ve already purchased.  Clearly label the container so you and everyone else in the family knows exactly where to find – and put away! – each item.  

The next time you are tempted to stuff that leftover Christmas décor into a corner of the entry closet, stop yourself and ask “Where does it go?” not “Where can I put it?”  Breaking the “put it” habit will take some effort – it’s the difference between putting something down when you’re rushed and choosing where it belongs.  The reward is an organized space where you can find exactly what you’re looking for every time you need it.  Deliberate storage choices, clearly labeled, will keep you organized.  

Dana Mortimer is a Professional Organizer in the Tri-Cities, WA.  509-947-0306.  Have organization questions?  “Ask an Organizer”!  Visit  www.solutionsbydana.com today for tips, tricks, and products that can help you get—and stay!—organized.