Still working on bettering myself with some useful philosophy tips I've gathered from "The Law of Attraction".  I'm keeping a mantra in my head, complete with visualizations of what I want the word "JOY!" to represent.  So now, whenever a negative thing comes toward me, I think "JOY!" or "I Want JOY!" and pull my mind away from the negative to imagine the positive...and it's working.  I haven't actually had a BAD day in a week, since I started working on this with myself.  I lost some sleep Saturday night, due to neighbors, but a call to Security allowed me to get to sleep--and I caught up on more sleep last night.  So I'm not harboring anger this morning.

I've won $70 in the lottery in the past week, I've been chipper, I've gone to Disneyland and had good visits, I'm improving at work, and I was "JOY!"ing the whole last 5 minutes of the Super Bowl and getting my wish with every play that the Giants knocked the Patriots away from gaining a victory over them.  So I think it is helping, and I've got a quick mind and quick defenses, so when the dark stuff starts rising, I'm quick to machinegun it down with "JOY!"ful thoughts aplenty.

How Do You Embrace Joy? (Or Do You?)

Go get 'em Nutsy! 

I am pretty gifted at turning shit into fertilizer, but I attribute my moon for that.  My Mother The Saint also has a Sadge moon, and I think maybe she taught me.

Plus I learned some more in therapy.  But every situation has an up side and a down side - I just focus on the up.

With both arms! nyuk nyuk

Good for you nutsey :)

Really glad to hear that, Nutsy!  I followed some of your meditation tips today about breathing in 'peace' and exhaling 'acceptance', and it really worked for me!  So thanks for that :-)

The LoA is a wonderful book filled with extremely wise and helpful advice.  It has helped me manifest and attract that which I wish to experience, and to really develop my self-awareness.

I am focused on joy, happiness, abundance, peace, and fulfillment at this time! 

Best wishes to you all.  And for those who are curious about the Law of Attraction (and don't want to read), please watch The Secret!

:-)

i was driving home from work the other day and i passed a van.  "sitting" in the back window was your avatar Nutsy..  he was waving.  life sized. 

That gave me JOY 

i'm realy glad you've found a happy spot.  they are good things to have

Yay! So glad for you Nutsy.

I look at clouds for symbols while walking the dog.  A few weeks ago I saw the word "joy."  Ever since then, I've been seeing it all over - even watching a movie where a main character is named Joy.  I'll yell it in my head if something pisses me off.  I'm still trying to figure out why I've been given that particular word myself, rather than "love" or "peace" or something. 

This is AWESOME! I must give this a whirl :)

You sound so different, Nutsy, like something has really shifted for you. Congrats and keep up !

Thanks, le soleil, I do feel better--much better!  I've got to keep this process going, but sometimes (especially at work) it needs CONSTANT reinforcement.

Haha, tonight, around 7:50PM, I'm slipping down to my car for quiet and focus and I'm going to "JOY!"-will another lottery win--hopefully it will be a step up from my last win.  It's time for me to start hitting the thousands and millions, I'm ready for it! 

Congratulations on your JOYful success Nutsy. You have had an exciting taste of creating your own reality. There is a practice within the abraham-hicks philosophy which you need to master in order to keep up your excellent progress. That philosophy is "Focus on what you Want, rather than what you don't want". This takes a bit of perseverance and sustained practice, because the conditioned, random mind tends to drift toward the negative habit of thinking or dwelling on what we DON'T want or DON'T want to happen.

However, the intentional, focused, DELIBERATE mind focuses on what you DO want, and the Universe picks up this signal and (eventually) responds with the goods (it takes faith). It's like shifting from the passive passenger seat of your vehicle (your life) to the driver's seat, where you are steering and directing the vehicle.

Which isn't to say you should REPRESS your negative thoughts when they come up (as they will, but less and less often as you master this practice). When they do come up, just gently smile and insert the thought of what you DO want. It gets easier as you go along, and one day, you won't even need to apply the 'correction' because a new psychological habit will have been established inside you.

And know that each time you perform this deliberate 'reversal' practice of the negative to the positive, or from what you don't want to what you DO want, you are sending positive energy up ahead on your life pathway that you will re-experience in the near future as good things that come back to you.

Having pictures scattered around the house of what you want as a reminder can also be helpful for some people.

Wizron, exactly!  THAT's the hardest part.  The 'Don't Want's are always trying to crash the party--but I think 'JOY!' while extending mental middle-fingers in their direction, turn myself to a tune in my mind to distract them, and build my positive 'Do Want' castles in my mind.  With my imagination, it's very easy to clearly see what I really Want.  It's just a matter of time now. 

Okay, so I had to add to my "I want JOY!"  For several days, through a few ups and downs, I could feel that the thoughts of "I want JOY!" only went so far in satiating the Inner Being.  From my reading of "The Law Of Attraction" your Inner Being is what you want to satisfy with such Wants, or at least that's the central part of you that you are trying to find harmony with.  But whenever I ran that little mantra through my head if FELT incomplete.  It's like my soul was waiting for the rest of it...  I wasn't sure what the rest of it was, until last night.

As the 10:30PM people went home, I got up and took a walk through the building to stretch my limbs and keep my mind awake for my last hour of work.  I thought "I want JOY" and I could feel the lock turn and the door to my Inner Being crack open, and then I thought "I want Success!" and that door suddenly flew off the hinges and disappeared.  THAT second thought totally satisfied my Inner Being, because it felt like my soul glowed in that moment, and the inner satisfaction I'd been anticipating with just the "Joy" request was finally realized in a sort of melting satisfaction.  So now I have my two foremost Wants "Joy" and "Success" and I season them with "Peace" and "Freedom". 

"Things are going to start happening to me now!"  Steve Martin,  The Jerk

Awesome!!!! Way to go! Now we need a JOY emoticon!

You might find this video helpful Nutsy:

http://www.deepakchopra.com/video/category/7/meditation

Look for "Live Meditation with Deepak Chopra"

EDIT: I liked the fist as the brain part.

Cool Liz, thanks--I will definitely check that out! 

Something unexpected happened tonight.  Could have been nothing more than coincidence, but the timing of it gave me thoughtful pause.

I've been trying to use the Law of Attraction to ward off negativity.  I keep a certain mantra of words in my mind to try to conjure images of peace and happiness and contentment and gratitude and keep myself positive--even when the negative shit is raining down all over.  This week was a goddamn stretch, boy, and I lost my focus dozens of times.

But two things happened tonight, one good and one bad.  Though I didn't know about it until after the bad one happened, I'll start with the good one.  From 7:30 to 8PM I kept my thoughts on the Mega lottery, and when I got home I found I had three numbers of those chosen.  No mega.  BUT, since I use the same numbers on every line, rotating one of the numbers on each line for the mega number, I had three numbers on three lines which gained me $18.  Not a jackpot, of course, but it paid for my tickets and then some. 

The bad thing was something I thought toward someone, because I felt they'd discriminated against me.  This person went on a walk with some co-workers (their last break), so they weren't at their desk when I came back from a trip to the restroom--during which I'd been thinking some angry thoughts upon this individual.  When their break was over, the co-worker in question returned to their desk, coughing and wheezing and sounding like hell.  (One image I'd had on my mind during my restroom jaunt was throwing lightning bolts out of my hands like the Emperor in the Star Wars movies at this person!) 

About an hour later, they got permission from our lead to go home due to feeling ill.    This person was FINE before they went on their walk, giggling and talking...  Totally different coming back from it.  One of the other walkers had noted aloud that they'd turned to look back, at some point, and the person I'd "cursed" was gone. 

Funny thing is, the first thing I thought of when I realized all of this had happened, was telling my brother (in the past) that if I had superpowers I'd probably be considered a villain, because I would USE those powers for ill-will on my enemies.  That's not good.

The whole time after I saw the condition of my co-worker, my mind had a little debate.  One side maintained it was just an odd coincidence, I had NOTHING to do with it, and to just get back to work; the other side maintained that whether it was caused by my thoughts or not, I had to get out of that bad habit of vengeance-wishing and work harder at keeping positive and helpful things on my mind.