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There’s nothing new here. Truly. You’ve heard all of what’s in this post before. You already know the information, the concepts, and the ideas. So do I. But there are just times when I need a reminder. So I really wrote this one for me.

Joy. It’s not outside of you. Before my husband and I reached the millionaire mark, I thought doing so would make me happy. It did for a while, but the novelty wore off after a bit. I thought that when my health returned after an accident, that I would be happy. Again, it did for a while, but that joy was also temporary. And after years of inner work, meditation, therapy, and studies with world-known experts in the field of spiritual growth, I continually returned to that familiar statement “joy is within you, not in things outside you.” But did I really get it? I thought so. But maybe not…

Thinking I knew what to expect. For the past month or so, in preparation for a teleclass I’m teaching soon, I’ve been doing the abundance exercise presented in the Abraham-Hicks book, Money & The Law of Attraction. It’s the one where you get a check register and some checks that you aren’t using, and post “money” (imagined) into the checking account each day, increasing by $1000 each day. Then you “spend” that amount daily and actually write the check for things you will buy. To up the ante, and make myself “stretch” a bit, I began with $10,000, then “spent” that, added $20,000 the next day, and so on, increasing the amount added each day by $10,000.

At first, doing the exercise and “shopping” for stuff I wanted was fun and joyful. I actually felt like I had already purchased and ordered those things and they’d be coming in the mail any day. And I wrote the checks with no hesitancy, knowing that the next day there would be more money in the account, as if by magic, without my having to do anything. It was a feeling of freedom. And, after a few weeks of this, whenever I went to write “real” checks, from home or business accounts, I had a visceral experience of feeling the same freedom as I paid bills or bought things – no worries about investing right, the economy, or my businesses –  just knowing there would be more money in the account the next day. So far, so good.

Much more to learn. As I said, I’ve been doing this for a little more than a month now. So today in the exercise, I put the $400,000 amount I was up to into the account and chose to “buy” a condo on Maui. As I wrote the check for the condo, I had an odd feeling. A rather sad feeling actually. I couldn’t pinpoint it. So I stopped, took a breath, and sorted things out. What was the source of the sadness? What thoughts were present? Why wasn’t buying this condo bring me joy?

Ah. There it was. I wasn’t in a state of joy to begin with this morning. I wasn’t “buying” the condo from a place of joy. As I wrote the “check”, I realized that no matter what I bought, it wasn’t going to make me happy.

Now I’ve known this intellectually my whole life. But I didn’t know it as deeply as I do today. The money is just not going to make me happy. A new anything won’t make me happy. Perfect health, my spouse, the perfect career, or the perfect friends won’t either. Only I am going to make me happy.

This was sobering. I thought I knew this. I truly am a human in process, learning each day. I am sitting with today’s learning for now.

Just thought I’d share.

p.s. if you decide to give the exercise a whirl, let us know what happens…
p.p.s. “Most of you do not believe that it is your natural state of being to be well.”
— Abraham
Excerpted from the Abraham-Hicks workshop in Boston, MA on Sunday, October 20th, 1996

Tags: Abundance, Law of Attraction, Matters of the Heart, Mind, Sacred Attitudes, Spirit, Wellness Coaching, Wellness of Your Business by Erica Ross-Krieger
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I confess. I adore putting jigsaw puzzles together. The big ones. The 1000-piece size. The entire process of putting them together delights me no end.

From the joy of selecting which puzzle I’ll buy, to the sound of the pieces rattling around as I rummage through the box, to the trial and error method I resort to when I’m assembling a huge section of all blue sky. I love it all. I even like pulling the whole puzzle apart when I’m finished, and returning the pieces to the box. It’s a Zen thing for me.

Over the Labor Day weekend, I began a new 1000-piece puzzle of a summer scene in the Adirondacks (one in the Hometown® Collection if you’re wondering:) While working on it, and grinning from ear to ear, I realized the process of putting a puzzle together contains the exact lessons of well-being that I stand behind and practice myself. So I jotted down a few notes during puzzle breaks and joyously noticed what a powerful metaphor I’d found. The notes themselves made me smile, and I thought I’d share them today:

Jigsaw Puzzles Lessons
to Apply to Well-Being

1. Take your time selecting your puzzle — be sure the picture is one you want to embrace for a while.
2. Keep your eye on the big picture you are creating, the entire time.
3. When you start, and you look at all those loose pieces, you’ll be excited because you know with certainty that, as my favorite teachers, Esther, Jerry & Abraham of Abraham-Hicks are fond of saying, “you are in the perfect position to get ‘there’ from ‘here’”…you’ll trust the process.
4. Feel the excitement of both the end result and the process.
5. Focus on one small task or area at a time…be that the border, sorting colors, or just putting the trees together.
6. Enjoy the entire process of putting this together – all of it…even the part where you can’t find a piece. Yet. As soon as you shift your attention to what you want and away from what you don’t have, then let go, and the piece will be there.
7. Commit to enjoyment the whole time – from the sound of the pieces in the box as you rumble around and sift through them to picking out “just the edge pieces.” From finding “just the sky pieces” to placing each and every piece into the puzzle in its own time.
8.Remind yourself that you do this not just for the end result, but for the fun of the game.
9. If it starts being anything but enjoyable, or you can’t keep a smile on your face – take a break, get up and move around, do something else, shift your attention to another section of the puzzle, or just stop for a while.
10. Take a time out every so often and look at the finished picture on the box so you reconnect with where you are heading.
11. Know that when you are “complete”, it won’t be long before you want to do a new puzzle…know that it is the process that delights you.

I’m not suggesting you become a jigsaw puzzle aficionado…I am saying though that enjoying the process or journey of getting from “here” to “there”, wherever that is for you, is really what well-being is all about – whether the journey involves the well- being of your body, mind, spirit, finances, business or overall life.

I can just imagine that some of you reading this looked through those  “Jigsaw Puzzle Lessons” and may be saying, “Yes, it’s a cute metaphor, Erica, but this enjoyment thing, and trusting the process are only applicable to jigsaw puzzles because you know all the pieces are in the puzzle box — the manufacturer put them there. I don’t know that when it comes to my own physical, financial, or overall well being.”

Well, many of you know that I am a joyful student of the teachings of Abraham-Hicks and their Law of Attraction material…so it won’t surprise you when I say, “Yes, and YOU contain all the pieces of your picture of well-being that you could ever possibly imagine…your “manufacturer” put them there right from the get go…it is your job to FEEL this and ALLOW it.”

I’d love to hear what your “jigsaw puzzle” of well-being looks like. Keep me posted!

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Work with Erica on the Jigsaw puzzle of your own well-being:
- Well-being teleclasses
- Individual coaching series of 8 segments
- Individual coaching segments
Call to register: 925-933-7445

Tags: Body, General Wellness Tips, Mind, Sacred Attitudes, Spirit, Wellness Coaching by Erica Ross-Krieger
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