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The Secret to Manifesting
by Mary Anne
Thomas |
I once knew a girl who
was completely unselfish. She was generous with friends
as well as strangers. She spoke kindly to others and was
rarely angry. She should have enjoyed many blessings:
happiness, prosperity, satisfying relationships (our
world values unselfishness so highly). Instead, she
experienced jealousy, ridicule, and the downfall of her
successful business. Why? Let's take a closer look at
unselfishness, and find out what too much unselfishness
can create.
In the
beginning, unselfishness brought her joy. She was the
oldest of six children, and she cared for her younger
sisters as though they were hers. She bathed them, fed
them, designed and sewed clothes for them, and took them
to school. She was a little mother to them, and she
experienced joy in that role.
As a
young adult, she transferred her ability to care for
others into her role as a businesswoman, and she
experienced success. The first firm she managed was
known as the best place in her city to work. Her
employees worked fewer hours than she did, and many
received a higher salary. She was proud of the
popularity she enjoyed.
She felt
vaguely unappreciated, but didn't understand why. Not
everyone in the firm worked as hard as she did, but she
didn't believe in asking them to do more. "Everyone
has a right to be accepted." It was her motto.
When she
was thirty-five years old, she started her own business.
It was popular from the start. She had created the first
custom-written practice brochure for doctors (marketed
in a package that included design, writing and
printing), and doctors from all over the world rushed to
buy it. The business reached its peak when it had
created jobs for forty employees. A majority of
employees were paid two dollars an hour more than the
highest hourly wage paid by other businesses.
Within a
few years, she had earned enough money to buy an office
building. It was a two-story colonial, one of a handful
of stately historic buildings in her town. A mentally
handicapped man kept the building and workspaces cleaned
and polished for her. He was grateful for the job, for
it was the only job anyone had ever given him. But she
believed he deserved better, and so she called other
business owners to find a job for him that did not
require him to scrub the dirt of others. "Everyone
has the right to a better job."
Other
merchants marveled at her success and tried to
congratulate her on it. Once, her favorite butcher tried
to give her a cut of filet mignon for the price of chuck
steak. "Oh, no," she replied. "You
deserve full price."
Demand
for her business' product was overwhelming, and soon
employees began to feel burdened with new orders they
couldn't fulfill. They offered to work extra hours and
not charge overtime to help out. "I'd be happy to
come in on Saturday," one employee said. "Dr.
Martin is really eager to have his new brochure. His
practice is in trouble and he knows the brochure will
help." But our girl couldn't accept. "I'd feel
guilty depriving you of time with your family," she
explained. Instead, she hired more employees and she
wrote Dr. Martin's brochure herself.
Her
employees were well taken care of, but they were not
happy. They were jealous and resentful. One day, an
employee's finger collided with a printing press; and
she was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. When the
swelling subsided the finger returned to its normal
healthy state, but the employee did not. She filed
claims with four government agencies, claiming unsafe
working conditions. The investigations failed to find
evidence of wrongdoing; but the complaints tied up the
business, its owner and its employees for months; and
they hurt the owner's feelings more than she was willing
to admit.
Our
unselfish girl's husband urged her to fire the unhappy
employees, but she couldn't. "Everyone has a right
to a second chance." She changed her mind when a
sexual harassment claim was filed against the company
(spearheaded by the employee whose finger had been
hurt), but harassment laws legally prohibited her from
firing anyone until a government investigation was
conducted. Once again, the investigation exonerated the
business and its owner, but jealousy and resentment had
reached a critical stage; and the business was forced to
close its doors a year later.
"How
could this have happened to me?" the owner asked.
"I did so much for everyone. I loved my employees.
Why didn't they love me back?"
Sometimes,
it is only through tragedy that we are able to see the
truth of our lives. As she scrutinized her life, the
girl in our story remembered the butcher, the retarded
man, the overtime employee. They had all tried to love
her, but she couldn't allow it. She knew how to give,
but she didn't know how to receive. It took a tragedy,
but she finally learned that:
Giving
and receiving were not meant to be separated; they were
meant to work in cooperation with each other
The
insight our girl gained was important, but it did not
help her change her pattern of being unselfish. The
pattern had become too ingrained, too stubborn, too much
a part of her life. When she stepped out of it, she felt
guilty. The idea of giving it up frightened her; and the
idea of keeping it frightened her too. Where was the way
out?
Our girl
found it with a powerful, new exercise called the
Dictionary Game... that enabled her to create the
experiences she wanted to have.
The
Dictionary Game
For
almost two thousand years, philosophers have known that
mental activity (or thought) has the power to create
some of our experiences. Have you ever thought about a
person, heard the phone ring, and found the person you
were thinking about on the line? That's what Plotinus, a
famous Greek philosopher in the 3rd century AD, was
referring to when he said: "What exists is
ultimately mental. Thus, for something to be created is
for it to be thought."
Can we
create an experience just by thinking about it? In a
way, yes. In the 1950's, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale showed
us how powerful our thoughts are in the best selling
inspirational book of all time, The Power of Positive
Thinking. More recently, Dr. Deepak Chopra taught us
that our intentions (or thoughts) can create experiences
of success in his best selling, The Seven Spiritual Laws
of Success, which has its roots in natural law and
eastern philosophies. And there are many more gifted
teachers - Catherine Ponder, Louise Hay, Eric
Butterworth and Shakti Gawain - who explain how our
thoughts make us healthy and prosperous. Together, these
books have opened the door to the power of thought. Yet,
there seems to be something missing in this great
treasury because the philosophies presented work some of
the time, but not all of the time.
What's
the missing piece? It's the fact that thought by itself
does not create, and thank goodness for that! Would you
want every one of your thoughts to manifest? No, but you
do want your dreams to manifest; and so, if thought (by
itself) doesn't create, what does?
It's
thought plus feeling that creates.
What do
feelings do? Feelings add a second element of the
mind-body-spirit equation to our manifesting efforts,
but they do it in a way no one has suspected: they do it
through cooperation. Cooperation is a word that means
"to work together for a common end or
purpose." In common language, it means that
something on its own (pretty much) goes nowhere. Have
you ever tried to live on your own without needing other
people? It's impossible. People need people in order to
exist, and thoughts need other thoughts for the same
reason.
Let's
take an updated look at how experiences are created,
with the definition of cooperation in place, and you'll
understand how the mind-body-spirit process works:
1) Your
thoughts need other thoughts
2) They go out looking for other thoughts which are
similar to themselves
3) When they find a similar one, they join up (for a
common end)
4) Once they're joined, they start to become a mass
5) The mass gets bigger as more thoughts join up
6) When the mass gets big enough, it can be seen
7) A mass that can be seen can be experienced
Now,
there's only one more piece of the puzzle left to solve:
how do thoughts look for other thoughts? They do it
through feelings. Think of your feelings as radio
signals. Have you ever caught someone else's bad mood?
Of course you have. If someone in your office is in a
bad mood, you'll soon be in a bad mood (and so will
everyone else in your office). Why? Feelings are like
radio signals that make our thoughts heard, felt and
seen by other thoughts.
Remember
what Plotinus told us almost two thousand years ago?
"Thus, for something to be created is for it to be
thought." It's time to update Plotinus' statement
and say: "First you have to think it; then you have
to feel it; and then it is." Here's what this
update means to you: if you can find a way to think and
feel about something, you can have it. Is there a way to
do that? Yes, with a new spiritual tool called the
Dictionary Game. With the aid of a simple dictionary,
you can "think it; feel it; and have it."
Let's try
our new spiritual tool with the lesson from the story
you just read, and experience being able to
"receive" just as our girl did.
1) Grab a
dictionary. (Any dictionary will do, but online
dictionaries or dictionaries on CD work best. They
enable you to go from one definition to the other
without breaking up your thoughts, and you'll be able to
manifest more quickly because of that concentrated
effort.)
2) Look
up the following words, one after another, and read
their dictionary meanings:
* Receive
* Credit
* Admit
* Reward
* Payment
* Acknowledge
* Appreciate
Your feelings changed,
didn't they? That's your Dictionary Game at work, using
your thoughts and feelings to bring the new experience
of "receiving" into your life. I have
witnessed the power of the Dictionary Game in my own
life, for I once was the girl in the story you read:
unable to break free, unable to fulfill my own desires.
Now, my life is filled with praise, honor, and emotional
and financial rewards. Quite a difference, and all
because of a simple dictionary.
© Copyright 2000, Mary Anne Thomas. All rights reserved.
Mary Anne Thomas
is the author of "An Adventure of the Mind," a
new spiritual workbook that teaches you how to manifest
your dreams. "If you are looking for the definitive
self-help, spiritual growth book, this is it," a
recent reviewer wrote. "Mary Anne helps people
overcome obstacles and problems, on the way to achieving
their dreams, in a way that no other author has ever
come close to accomplishing in the past." Background:
National articles
author,
writing on spirituality and personal growth, most
recently for Family Circle, the Christian
Science Monitor, the Washington Post, and the
Phoenix (the largest recovery magazine in the
world)
Columnist
for a monthly column on "Creative
Relationships," currently being run in a soon-to-be
launched national magazine, Couples Magazine, a
regional women’s magazine, Today’s Woman, and
on several major websites.
Author
of "An Adventure of the Mind," a spiritual
workbook that showcases the spiritual exercises Mary
Anne and her husband discovered that enabled them to
manifest their dreams.
Regional columnist
for a weekly column on spirituality and business
titled "A Time for Miracles," published in all
major newspaper markets in North Carolina, about the
business success Mary Anne achieved through her medical
marketing firm
Creator, Gabriel’s,
Inc. a
national medical marketing firm dedicating to teaching
physicians how to increase their practices using
"positive thinking" brochure designs and
copywriting. Wildly successful from the start with the
use of Mary Anne’s spiritual techniques, the firm grew
250% each year for five years, until it grossed $1
million a year and employed 35 people in high-paying
jobs.
Teacher and course
designer for a
popular relationships course, "Creative
Relationships," taught to the general public, to
professionals as part of the University of North
Carolina Medical School, and to counseling professionals
at seminars around the world (in France, in Holland, in
Mexico, and throughout the United States).
"Creative Relationships" began as an
internship at the Fleming Center, a large women’s
health care center, while Mary Anne was an adult college
student at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC. The course
was so popular with the Fleming Center’s patients, the
owner of the Fleming Center, Dr. Paul Fleming,
introduced Mary Anne at medical and psychology seminars
he was scheduled to speak at. Her techniques were
well-received by these professionals, and Mary Anne was
invited to teach them and speak at seminars around the
world even though she had not finished her degree work.
At one seminar, the famed sex therapists, Dr. William
Masters and Virginia Johnson, were in the audience and
they listened to Mary Anne’s views with interest.
Editor and agent
for the bestselling inspirational golf books, "Ben
Hogan’s Secret" (Macmillan) and "Golf Gave
Me Something to Love," by Bob Thomas, and also for
these inspirational books by Anne Kinsman Fisher,
"The Legend of Tommy Morris" (Amber-Allen
Publishing) and "Masters of the Spirit"
(Harper San Francisco)
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