Before you jump into LOA, what cycle are you in?

Before you jump into Law of Attraction, consider the cycle you are in.

Let me explain.

If you are someone with small kids or are a live-in caretaker to elders or to those with special needs, your Law of Attraction journey will be different than those who are not. Same as if you are in a time crunch.

Here are some cycles to consider:

• Caretaker cycle
• Grief cycle
• Take-apart
• Time crunch
• Sweet spot

Layer that onto this path of growth:

• Brand new to LOA, doubtful
• Brand new to LOA, hopeful
• Trying to practice LOA but underlying belief that it's real is not solid
• Believe LOA is real but have a lot of unwinding to do from old training so the going feels difficult (co-dependency, feeling unworthy, current circumstances are not what you want and they are hard to ignore, etc.)
• Solid with LOA

Which means you may be reading a blog post from someone who is not in caretaker mode, who is in a sweet spot, and who is solid with LOA. They seem to be flying high and doing whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it and life is wonderful! And it is. For them.

If this is you right now, you get it.

If this is not you right now, you can get it too. But you have to start with where you are. 

Caretaker Mode
In caretaker mode whether you have a baby, a toddler, a pack of toddlers, a child with special needs, an elder living in your house, a pet who needs constant care, or something else, your challenges for joy start with FREEDOM. 

Freedom is the basis of a joyful life. When a person feels joyful they also feel free. But if you don't feel free? Because you can't do what you want to do when you want to do it? What now?

Seek relief. 

You can't feel joy until you have relief. Joy is too far up the scale from the desperate overwhelm that can happen to caretakers. But don't just seek relief, seek HEALTHY RELIEF. That will guide you, over time, to things that truly help over time. Things like deep breathing. Taking a break and meditating for five minutes when you can. Reaching out to a friend. This is in contrast to immediate relief that is not highest-good healthy. I don't want to say what that is because sometimes a trip to the fridge is that knee-jerk relief search and sometimes it's inspired. So pay attention to what you are doing and what feeling that doing is coming FROM and see if you can move more in the direction of healthy relief. It starts by setting the intent for healthy relief. I know that sounds repetitive because I just mentioned it, but intent is everything and focusing on that intent with, well, focus, is the start to all that you want and seek.

Also, LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS. 

If you are upset that your house isn't clean, expect a messy house. Even Marie Kondo admitted her magic of tidying up doesn't work with toddlers. She wrote her book before she had kids, you know. But you can expect a messy, HAPPY house. You can always aim for a feeling. Start there and see what happens.

Grief Cycle
If you have lost a loved one or lost a huge part of your life you're in a grief cycle. They say it takes a year to get a handle on that (just a handle even, not necessarily the whole thing). Why a year? Because within a year you will usually go through all of the events, dates, and activities you would have gone through with that person or part of your life. 

If you are in a grief cycle, your challenges with joy start with CONNECTION. 

You can't feel grief and feel connected at the same time. There is no separation in Source. Grief IS separation. But that is OK and I'm not telling you not to grieve or feel separated. No one can tell you how to move through grief. It's a very personal thing. But the way to process your grief with a ladder out of it can be to remember this aspect of connection. Grieve and then reconnect. Grieve and then reconnect. Grieve and then reconnect. Reconnect how you can with healthy reconnection. Taking a walk. Talking to a friend. Meditating. Listening to music. Even if it's only three minutes of connection, it's there.

With practice and allowing and support eventually the times and emotional crevasse between grief and connection will merge closer and closer until you can hold the object of your grief in your mind WHILE you are connected. 

In the meantime, BE EASY ON YOURSELF. 

You are allowed to feel happy sometimes and feel sad sometimes. You are allowed to want to be with people or not be with people. And you are allowed to not have a huge vision board you are checking off your manifestations on. You have a vision already–you have a vision for wholeness again after a loss. That's huge.

Take-Apart
Midlife crisis, teenage years, the time after a major move, a career change, a life shift, a realization about yourself you never knew before, you name it, there are times for a take-apart. My Quero Apache auntie taught me about the take-apart. Go in the cave, let Grandmother tend to you. Go deep. These are spiritual metaphors. In life it may look like you curling up in your blankie a lot or being quieter than usual or not having as much emotional bandwidth for things you usually do. 

The challenges to joy with this are SELF-ACCEPTANCE.

You must allow yourself to be where you are. You must allow yourself to feel sensitive or to feel confused. To feel like you don't know what your foundation is anymore. To feel like you aren't sure where you are going. To feel like you don't even know what you know anymore.

If you don't push against this you can create a time of inquiry. What DO I like? What DO I want? Journal. Talks with supportive friends. Listening to music. Going and watching old movies. Introspective and retrospective. What is no longer serving me? 

Your goal is CLARITY.

And while you are in this process of unfolding a new level of clarity (and it WILL be a new level) take less action. Don't make big decisions unless they feel so sure you don't even have to ask a friend if they also think it's a good decision. Breathe more. Be more. Let yourself be taken apart. Clarity is the unfolding of the core of you until it is known to you again. Usually a take-apart is an un-cluttering. Things you thought you liked or wanted and directions you thought you wanted to go in are shifting. And when they release, out of it comes a clearer, more sure, more focused YOU.

If you don't know how to do a take-apart without going into grief (which is separation), ASK FOR HELP. Get a coach. So much of the cycle of despair in a life that is unhappy is going from grief to take-apart and back to grief without finding the opening to clarity. This is a learned skill and if you have not learned it and you're stuck in this cycle it's like you keep jumping in the pool before you know how to swim. Seek to learn how to swim through these stages of consciousness. 

Time Crunch
Your house that you are renting is being put up for sale and you have to move. You need to get a new job. That bill is due. Often a time crunch is a financial deadline. Sometimes it's a biological issue with health or starting/growing a family. 

Your challenge to joy is TIME SHORTAGE CONSCIOUSNESS. 

You have to HURRY UP. But what happens when you hurry? How does that feel? 

This is a big tangle because it involves things that actually have to happen. You can't just bury your head in the sand and pretend you don't have a deadline. So what do you do?

Follow the rule of three:

1. Do what must be done.
2. Do what is possible.
3. Let the impossible become possible.
   

In practical terms:

Keep that job you don't like because it pays the bills you need right now. Do what you can do keep your necessary going. Don't throw it all away from a feeling of frustration saying, "I'm going to follow my joy!" and end up without. You probably like having running water and a roof over your head. So do that. Keep that going.

WHILE you are keeping going what is necessary, take all the opportunity you have to get into the mode of possibility. Change your thinking. Change your vibe. This is doing the Law of Attraction work. Script. Listen to LOA stuff on YouTube. Join Facebook groups for uplifting LOA stuff. Meditate. Take walks. Listen to uplifting music.

AND TURN OFF THE NEGATIVE.

Unfollow everything negative on Facebook. Turn off the news. Don't engage in your screens first thing in the morning if they make you miserable. Cultivate positive friends. Cultivate a positive environment.  Even if you only have that while you aren't in a job you don't like, if you practice the vibration you want the situations around you MUST CHANGE. IT IS LAW. 

Your key to success is FOCUS.

Not focusing on changing what you don't like, but focusing on building a new vibrational reality. Focus on LIVING the Law of Attraction in the parts of your day you can. If leaving your job or focusing on getting a new job feels great or necessary, do that. But in a time crunch, you might realize you've been focusing positively on what you want (you think) only to find you're focusing on it from a pressured time shortage issue (undercurrent) which is why you really don't have what you want yet.

Time shortage can also be linked to social pressure. What if we all had all the time we needed to be beginners?

Sweet Spot
If you are in a sweet spot, you know it. LIFE IS AWESOME. You feel unlimited. You look at everything with the eyes of Source. You see compassion and you see love and you see opportunity and you see fun. Even in the midst of contrast you are awesomely happy because the contrast is bringing you new things to be focused about. It's clarity, clarity, clarity all the way.

This is the time to post, comment, engage, video, write, and create. You are in a place of inspiration and you are naturally inspiring. Everything you do is inspired.

Until it's not.

You might not be in one of the big cycles I mention here but you're just not connected. So it's time for a break. A mediation. A walk. It's time to reach out to a friend. To watch a LOA YouTube. To do the things you know work for you. 

Because you do know.

And that's the best of living a LOA life if you ask me.