Printed in the Conscious Creation Journal
April-May 1999, Issue 5
Three Steps Into the Magical: Loving Yourself in Every Moment
by John J. McNally
Loving yourself, aside from the belief in “ycyor” it seems to be the most essential element in conscious creation. For me, loving myself comes easily during those times of great success or enlightenment when I can recognize easily the perfection of any given moment. And in contrast, when everything “hits the fan” it is usually easy to spot when I do not love myself, although it may take some reflection to admit it. But these times represent only a small portion of the total human experience: what about the moments in-between? Those times during the day when you are folding laundry, or doing the dishes, letting your mind wander, etc…. These moments are also our creations, and I have recently become aware of just how important our focus during those moments can be.
I recently found myself in the course of my work as a cook wishing that I were at home enjoying myself with Kristen and Merlin, rather than making Jell-O. As I became aware of my thoughts and my vibration, I realized that I was not seeing the perfection in the present moment, not accepting who I was in that moment. I was judging my creation of the present moment as “bad” or undesired, and sought to escape it as if I was its victim rather than its creator.
If time and space are illusions, and reality is just an elaborate stage set that each of us creates through our thoughts, beliefs, and expectations, then it follows that each moment, each creation is perfect unto itself. As a microcosm of All That Is, you create a perfect and faithful reflection of your beliefs and expectations in every given moment. When you judge that moment as bad, or project yourself away from it, you are no longer loving yourself unconditionally, and honoring yourself as the creator of your life.
So what happens when you are wishing you were somewhere else, or just unhappy with the circumstances around you. It may sound cliché, but “you get what you focus on” if you are focusing on being unhappy, then you will continue to experience that situation. You will continue to recreate the situation until you shift your focus.
When you find yourself in these moments, look around and remind yourself that every nuance has been your creation, and open yourself to your own source of love. Use these moments as a contrast point, the same way you would if this was a major negative event. Create a vision for yourself with what you do want and hold it lovingly. Remind yourself that you have been magnificent in what you have created around you, even if it is no longer what you wish to experience.
The difference between holding a vision for what you do want, and projecting yourself away from what you don’t want is subtle, but important. In the first case, you are aligning your inner vibration with your desire, this is equivalent to pointing your car toward your destination and putting your foot on the gas pedal, you are now moving steadily in that direction. In the latter example, you are pointing your car in the right direction, but keeping your foot on the brake, remaining stuck in the place you do not wish to be. .
The task of monitoring my feelings in every moment seemed difficult or even impossible at first. How could I spend so much of my conscious energy on that one focus (as important as it may be) when I still had to move and function through my daily life? With a little effort, I realized that it wasn’t much harder than when I first began monitoring my thoughts to spot underlying beliefs.
Examining the thoughts which passed through my head during the day seemed a monumental task as well at first, but little by little I became much more conscious of what I was thinking in any given moment. This is no different, except that now I’m allowing the feeling of love and self-appreciation to flow with my thoughts. Forgiving myself when my inner critic goes into overdrive, and giving myself mental hugs where I used to send kicks. This feels like the ultimate alignment of my head and my heart, having the two now working in perpetual unison toward any goal I set my focus on.
As wonderful as this new awareness sounds, I am finding the process to still be a challenge. It seems so easy to slip into habits of judgement and self-criticism the minute things appear not to be going “my way.” Even when a greater perspective shows that there’s nothing really wrong, the nagging energy of self-judgement still hangs in there, bottlenecking the flow of love and making me feel tired and stressed.
I thought it would be a simple matter to catch myself in these little moments, surely they must be easier then getting through the BIG ones, like last month’s boar incident. What I discovered though, is that these little moments have a tenacity all their own. A cohesiveness that perhaps, when not dealt with, forms the core of a snowball, which becomes those big events, we can’t avoid.
It’s the little moments, which make up the majority of what we call our day. The big moments are areas where we call in more of our conscious focus, we become more aware because there is something that is demanding our attention. But the little moments, the stretches in-between when your focus is free to wander, while still maintaining physical awareness, these are also NOW moments, every bit as perfect, and every bit as much a creation as the highest of highs. Becoming aware of what your vibrating in these moments, allowing love to become an ever present center seems incredibly self-evident in its benefits, yet in practice I am finding it some what elusive, sometimes it feels ever present, other times long gone, yet with only a moment between each extreme. <G>
(c)1999, John McNally. Published in the April-May 1999 issue of the online Conscious Creation Journal. Feel free to copy this article for personal use – please include this copyright notice. http://www.consciouscreation.com/
John McNally lives in central California with his fiancé Kristen Fox. He has been applying the theories of conscious creation to his life for the last 9 years. Last year he decided to take that leap from the 9 to 5 world into the unknown. The leap has helped John open up to the vision of a grander life for himself, and he invites everyone to share in his journey.