What is prosperity?

Prosperity is both a state of mind, and soul and can be achieved through a positive mental attitude, and meditation.

Prosperity As A State of Mind

When most people think of prosperity, they measure their own in terms of financial abundance.  For some people prosperity may mean a few thousand dollars in the bank, while others holding onto millions do not consider themselves prosperous at all.  Prosperity is a state of mind, where one reaches happiness and peace about oneself.

(more…)

Share This

Posted by Cary Darling | No Comments »

In 1969 Edgare Dale in his book Audio-Visual Methonds In Teaching talked about the “cone of learning.”  To quickly sum it all up, it has been discovered that the more involved we are in our education, the more we learn and remember.  We recall roughly 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, and only 30% of what we see, but combine all three of those elements and we reach the 50% level.  Active learning, which increases our recall (70%), really begins to take off when we participate in a discussion *study group*, or teach, and maxes out around 90% when we are involved in a dramatic presentation, or do the real thing.

I am currently studying Metaphysics and in order to ensure I fully understand what it is I am learning, it is my intention to summarize each lesson here on my blog during my course of study over the next year.  I will continue to write my gratitude posts, but these lessons I am learning, will be posted as a “sticky” post at the top of the blog until replaced by a new lesson.

I hope I am able to convey properly the information I am taking in, while sharing it with you, and giving you some insight into the journey I am on.

As always I am grateful for each and every reader of my blog and the wonderful comments I receive.

Sincerely,

Cary

Share This

Posted by Cary Darling | No Comments »

A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Every now and then I get a glimpse into life that offers a small but very valuable lesson. These little glimpses often happen at work and inspire me to write about them.

I read a quote from someone at Starbucks’ Corporate office one time that said with the many different syrups and add ins we had to offer, there were over 80,000 possible drinks that we could make.  That is a lot of options., however, we humans are creatures of habit and for the most part stick to the same old thing day in and day out, but what astounds me, is how often when people come up to order they never clarify whether or not they want their drink hot or cold, or what size, and when the standard recipe includes whip cream you ask them whether or not they want it they just shrug their shoulders and say something like, “It doesn’t matter.” YES IT DOES, it matters very much.

Jack Canfield in his book The Success Principles, he talks about a seminar he attended early in his career where he learned a very simple lesson. After a break during the seminar, they all returned to the classroom and on the attendees chairs were spiral notebooks. Some people had green, some had blue, Jack’s happened to be yellow. After they all sat down, the instructor told them if they didn’t like the color of their notebook they should try and trade with someone else in the room and get the color they wanted, which Jack gladly did, because he preferred blue.

The simple little lesson he learned was don’t settle for less than what you really want. Is the color of a spiral notebook all that important? In the grand scheme of things you may not think so, but this little “I don’t care” dance I see daily at Starbucks when people are putting in an order for a simple cup of coffee is pretty revealing. It tells me a couple of things about them.

1. They lack clarity in their lives, they can’t even define on such a small scale what it exactly it is they want not just out of life, but out of a cup of coffee.
2. They have such low self-esteem, they don’t feel as though they deserve to get exactly what they want in life, they are willing to settle for what the world will hand them.

Now it is time to notice the three fingers pointing right back at me as I write this. It is no wonder why I have not found much more success in my life, because I too in the past have not been clear on what it is I want out of life. Far too often I have been the guy on the other end when asked a question like, “What movie do you want to see Cary?” My response has been, “I don’t care, whatever you guys want to see.”

If you think I’m crazy, then just start asking your friends a simple question like, “What would make you happy right now?” Typical answer would be something like, “To make more money?” Now if the same question had been asked by their boss, his answer could be, “Okay, I’ll give you a raise of one dollar more a week.” They now make “more money” will this make them happy? Probably not. But it is no one’s fault but their own, they did not clarify exactly what, or how much they wanted.

It is my intention to continue to get more and more clear on exactly what it is I want out of life, to no longer be vague. It all begins though with understanding that I am a valuable being, that I am worthy and deserving of only the highest good that can come into my life and so are you.  Begin with just a simple cup of coffee, get clear on exactly how you want it, then apply that focus to the rest of your life and don’t settle for less.

Share This

Posted by Cary Darling | 2 Comments »

Don’t believe in miracles - depend on them. - Laurence J Peter

The only thing we can control in this life are our thoughts, and you must ask yourself what kind of thoughts are you holding in the forefront of your consciousness today? Are they positive, or are they negative? What is the level of expectancy in your life when it comes to abundance in all things? Is the world conspiring for or against you?

Now let me a little bit up front and honest. I used to live by the philosophy that God hated me, it used to be a running joke between me and my good friend Jim that this was true. If whatever I was involved in could go wrong, it could and would.

My personal level of expectancy was don’t expect too much, the world was not conspiring for me, it was conspiring against me. This is no longer true for me, in fact it was NEVER TRUE except for in my perceived reality that I was consciously creating about me. To put it bluntly I had friends and family conspiring FOR me on a daily basis. I look back now and realize I was the luckiest son of a gun to be walking this planet, and still am today. I tell people all the time I am blessed, and this isn’t some airy fairy affirmation that I am repeating in order to override some thought of negation I hold on to tightly, but something I tell people with all sincerity.

My outlook on life and the level of expectation I have for my experience has changed, so much so that the first thoughts uttered from my lips when I wake up in the morning are, “I bless this day.” This isn’t something I force myself to do, but are words that I am finding that I utter without even thinking before my mind is even fully awake and guess what. Regardless of what happens, my day is blessed because nothing can override the love, respect and appreciation I receive from some of the best people to walk this planet, which are my family and friends and in the end that is all that matters.

I am a wealthy man, I now know this, and because of this my level of expectancy has risen and the Universe works to meet those expectations and continues to bless me. Is my life perfect? Nope. But you can’t say I am not blessed, and when I get up tomorrow I’ll wake up and utter those words once again, walk out the door and expect abundance to continue to flow to me and through me and it will.

Share This

Posted by Cary Darling | No Comments »

I love and accept myself exactly as I am

If you wish to know what my biggest challenge in life is, I would lay even money that it is yours too.  Want to know what it is?  Go stand in front of a big mirror, look deep into your eyes, and tell yourself “I love you ____ and accept you exactly as you are.”  Self acceptance, it can be tough with all of the negative self-talk that I have trained myself with over the years.  In the past there has been so much guilt, and self-loathing coursing through my veins, it isn’t any wonder why I haven’t allowed someone into my life for a more intimate relationship.  I couldn’t stand myself, how could I expect someone else to love me.

Oh but the tides are changing.  This is  part of the work I am doing, and I use that word “work” far too often, because I find so much joy in all this inner exploring that I am doing, because the deeper I go, the more interesting things I find.  Where has it lead me?  On the path to healing a body, mind and spirit that was riddled with pain.

Writing this blog at times is like living in a house of glass with all of your most intimate moments exposed.  For the most part I am a very private person.  It may seem I’m very open with some of the things I have shared here, but that is hardly the case at all.  The buffer, or space if you will that email, or a letter, or this blog gives me allows me to open myself up and share some deeply personal thoughts, but every now and then I want to just shut the rest of the world off from all that I am experiencing, just so I can save a little bit of me, for me.  However today that is not the case, once again I will open myself up to friends and strangers alike because I feel that it is important that I do so.  If I’m going to talk it, I have to walk it.

I have blogged about my back pains that I have experienced in the past.  To say that I am not feeling any pain at all would be a downright lie.  I am still not 100%, but I know what I need to do in order to continue the healing process.  My victory lies in the fact that I no longer need anything stronger than ibuprofen to get through the day, in fact some days I forget to take that.

One of the books I have been reading is You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay, a fantastic book and DVD that I wholeheartedly recommend to all those within shouting distance.  In the back of her book, Louise has a chart of affirmations that she has used to cure a variety of illnesses, this is a culmination of all the work she has done as a therapist over the last 20-30 years.  During this time she has noticed a recurring theme in  all physical manifestations of disease, it all stems from anger, resentment, guilt, lack of self-worth among a few other things, and through affirmations she has helped people find their own way of healing themselves.

I was asked the other night if my back being healed was just mind over matter and my reply was that it was a combination of things including mind over matter, exercise and time.  However, I wasn’t being 100% honest, I truly believe that it has everything to do with the work that I am doing, and it all began to happen around the time that I watched the DVD and began to listen to the health affirmations as I slept at night.

Each night before I go to bed I run myself through a little system that prepares me for a restful night of sleep, this routine has its purpose, and ends with my meditating for roughly 15-20 minutes.  During these meditation sessions I have had  some pretty powerful experiences, very enlightening spiritual experiences.

A few weeks ago one of the intentions I set forth before my meditation was to release something that was causing a lot of guilt, something I had done in the past and was clinging onto that just needed to be dealt with.  I knew that this guilt was something that was holding me back from releasing the many wondrous things that the Universe had in store for me, only because I felt deep down that I did not deserve such good things.  During this particular meditation session I began to feel in my stomach something I could only describe as prickly air.  This was not a gas bubble, this was a “nothing” that had sharp edges, sort of like a golden head sticker I have had stuck in my foot on many occasions as a child growing up in Texas.

As I continued to meditate, I was telling myself over and over to just release and surrender, and quit resisting this problem.  The prickly air slowly moved up my stomach, into my esophagus, up my throat, and I could feel it as it was expelled out of my mouth.  Once again this wasn’t a gas bubble.  I could not feel any real “air” as this all occurred, only the sharp prickly edges.  My body began to feel relieved, I physically released the garbage that was holding me back and I could sense the change.  It was the very next day when I stopped taking pain killers, the back pain was not completely gone, but it was not crippling anymore.

What’s my point?  Well after watching the DVD, and finally getting the book just this last Friday, I looked up back pain in the back of her book, where she has listed the mental causes, and the affirmations for healing.  The listed probable cause for middle back pain is *drum roll please*  GUILT.   The affirmation for healing is, “I release the past.  I am free to move forward with love in my heart.”

I still have much more soul searching to do, much more pain to release, much more forgiveness to allow in my life, not just for those who caused me perceived pain, but for the perceived pain I have caused.

I am learning to love and accept myself.  In the beginning it was really hard to say those words in the mirror.  “I love you Cary, and accept you exactly as you are.”  But I say them, and each time it gets a bit easier to say, and the good thing is I’m starting to really believe it.

Share This

Posted by Cary Darling | 1 Comment »

What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it. ~Ezra Pound

I said this in a previous post and it bears repeating here. If I could experience this much joy and happiness worshiping a strawberry pop tart, then I would.  Why am I joyous, because  each and every day I get confirmation that the Law of Attraction is at work in my life.

I am on an interesting path to say the least.  Someday the experiences I have had over the past few months I will be more than willing to share, but for now I must keep some things close to the vest. But it is these experiences that I have with regularity, that continue to reaffirm my belief that I am creating my reality, and physical, mental, spiritual, and yes financial wealth are all within reach.

One challenge I continue to struggle with, is allowing The Universe deliver in its own divine time, because in this microwave, on-demand society that we live in, I want it now, and when I don’t receive it when I want it, my mind begins to focus on the lack I am experiencing or the “wants” of my desire, and in the end, lack is what I end up ONLY experiencing, because once again thoughts become things and we attract more of what our dominant thoughts are about.

However, it is amazing how often I manifest some things in my life almost instantaneously. Every time I visit the library’s used book store, I don’t just find books that will interest me, I will find the exact books I have thought about, and desired and they only cost me $1.00.

For example, Joel Osteen’s best seller Become A Better You, I purchased this book from Sam’s Club for a pretty good discount months ago. I sent the book off to my dad in a care package after I read it and a few weeks later I came across something that inspired me to read the book again but it was no longer on sale at Sam’s Club, so my options were to either purchase it for the full price at Borders at $25, or order it through Amazon and wait. Well the next time I went to the library which was about a week later, lo and behold, there it was, sitting on the bookshelf for only $1.00 with the Borders price tag of $25 still on the back. The same thing happened with Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Live. While I was purchasing the book, a little old lady that was in the store told me she had heard of the book and wanted to buy it, but left it, because she knew it was meant for someone else. Just this last week during my last visit, a book I read about a book that was published in the 70’s.  This would be a very obscure book to find in the Library book store, but there it was sitting there waiting for me and I had only been thinking about the book for just a day or so.

I manifest these books all of the time.  Why?  Because I don’t work at it, I don’t put so much effort into it. I see the books on line, or in a book store, or read about them somewhere and I just tell myself, “Wait, when the time is right it will be yours.” I then let it go, and they show up, almost immediately. In other words I am not busting The Universe’s balls over this issue, which is one of the most important part of the Ask, Believe and Receive tenets to my beliefs. When you believe and receive, you act in all faith that you already own it, and are grateful for it, and then just move on and allow The Universe to make it happen, and it does.

Just a brief update on my health before I sign off tonight. I have now gone a full week at work without the use of prescription pain killers and I am so grateful for this. I feel as though I again have some control over my life because I am not walking around in a stupor either first thing in the morning, or in the afternoon when I get home and so desperately need a nap. In fact, this last week after opening completely “drug free” I came home expecting to take a nap, and instead lay wide awake in my bed and watched the movie Reign Over Me (I give it 2.5 -3 starts out of 5) and did not go to sleep until it was time to do so at 10pm that night.

I want to thank you all for all your support, thank you all for your thoughts and concerns, thank you for all your prayers, thank you all for your wonderful comments and compliments that continue to lift my spirits today. I am grateful today for so many things, but I am most grateful for all those in my life who I love, and love me in return.

Share This

Posted by Cary Darling | No Comments »

Health is like money, we never have a true idea of its value until we lose it.  ~Josh Billings

Yes, I am writing about my health again, but I definitely have something to celebrate.  This week, I was able to put in two full days of work, one included lifting heavy boxes, and I did it without the use of prescribed pain killers.

Without focusing too much on the past, I was in the beginning using a fairly heavy pain killer to get through the day along with taking ibuprofen.  I successfully cut that into one pill a day broken in half along with ibuprofen, to just the ibuprofen.   To be honest, most days before I left the house, I made sure I had my all my little pills ready to go because I “needed” them.  Here lately, I tend to forget them, including the ibuprofen, and only take it as an after-thought.

It has taken a combination of exercise, meditation, and asking the Universe to help to get to this place.  But even as of last week, I didn’t think my back pain improved this much.  But here lately, as I sleep, I have been playing the health affirmations as spoken by Louise Hay on the bonus section of here DVD, You Can Heal Your Life. 

There are a number of different affirmations that cover a variety of topics, but health is what I am focusing on now.  I hoped that it would seep into my brain subliminally, and maybe it has.  Maybe it’s just mind over matter.  I don’t care what is curing my back pain, as long as it is cured.  People call things like acupuncture a sham, but after visiting Dr. Luc De Schepper over twenty years ago, within two weeks the migraine headaches I had been experiencing for over ten years stopped, and I have not had one since.  So once again I don’t care what the cure is, if you have faith that it will work, something tells me it more than likely will.

So yeah I am grateful.  This means so much for my quality of life.  To be able to work without pain, or without trying to fight the tiresome effects of narcotics while working at five in the morning until two in the afternoon means that I am that much happier, and being that much happier allows me to focus much more on the blessings I have received in my life, without having that gnawing pain reminding me that I was lacking in health.

Share This

Posted by Cary Darling | No Comments »

I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can’t find anybody who can tell me what they want. ~Mark Twain

As the architect of my life, at times I can’t quite answer one simple question, “What do you want?”  I look down at the blank page that the story of my life is to be written on and I freeze up.  I know I am not the only one with this problem, but others are dealing with their own experience, and I can only deal with mine.

Then there are times I think I know what I want, and I wonder why I don’t see it manifesting in my life.  It is because there is not  the same amount of feeling, or conviction behind that want as I would have against something I don’t want, only to see that manifest itself into my life.

I am coming to realize, it is not so much that I don’t know what I want, but I don’t know how to get what I want, or I allow fear and doubt to creep in.  I realize I am afraid of either the hard work to get what I want, or fear looking foolish, and not taken seriously by those around me, whose opinions I should not even bother myself with.  Not because they don’t matter, not because I don’t value their opinions, but once again this is MY reality, their reality is their own.  I am responsible for only my own happiness, and the quicker way to that happiness is just going ahead and stepping out in faith and doing what I need to do, in order to achieve it that happiness.

My point?  There is an easy three step process to achieving all that you desire.  Ask, believe, and receive.  It is not my job to figure out how it will happen, or how it will manifest into my life, it is only my job to ask, then with unwavering faith to not just believe that it is going to happen, but it has already happened, and then receive it.

I am just flat out impatient  When I plant that seed in fertile soil (ask), I begin to water it diligently (faith), however because of my impatience I tend to dig that seed up every now and then and check on its status, trying to see if it has sprouted even in the tiniest bit (doubt).  I for some reason just can’t leave it alone.  So I am working on building up that inner confidence to just know that I am in the process of receiving all of my blessings and just be grateful.

Share This

Posted by Cary Darling | No Comments »

View from flat on my back, August 01, 2008

Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability. ~Sam Keen

The last couple of evenings I have laid out by the pool, my feet just dangling in the water, my back’s muscles being warmed by the emanating heat from the ground while just looking up at the sky. I just let my thoughts wander, I think about life, I think about my health, I think about my friends, family, I think about God, and then there are the bats.

Yes I said bats. They put on an interesting show, coming in across the pool, skimming the water for a quick drink, and of course a bit o’ dinner because of the insects out getting a drink as well. I tried to catch them on video, but this is the best I could do:

I am grateful for nights like these, and to have a place that allows me to just be quiet and allow the thoughts in my head to run their course. It is during these times that I either think of nothing, or some of the answers to my most difficult questions come to me. Tonight it was the latter. Step 3 hit me. I have a goal in my life, and I have been trying to figure out how to get from A-Z, and I found B the other day, and tonight while I lay on the ground, looking up at the sky, C popped right into my head, and for that I am grateful. The speed of which I will be achieving this goal seems to moving a big quicker, part of the reason is I am no longer trying to force it to happen, I am allowing God, Source, The Universe unfettered access, I am in a sense surrendering to the idea that I can’t make a river flow backwards, no matter how hard I try.

Share This

Posted by Cary Darling | 2 Comments »