On a personal note - living in California, I've faced many different kinds of phenomenons...explosive population increases, droughts, earthquakes, and the latest : wildfires.

This has been a strange few weeks with smoke filling the horizon, frantic calls from friends who face evacuation, and some real fear, deeply rooted.

What if? What if I have to be evacuated? What if I can't get all my stuff? What if I have to move my family? FEAR.

Followed by immense GRATITUDE. I have friends and family. GRATITUDE. I can easily make more money to buy more stuff should I lose any possessions in this disaster. GRATITUDE. I have my health, and my family is healthy and loved. GRATITUDE.

When I release fear, and realize the amazing abundance I have in my life, I feel strong, ready for what's coming next, and again immense GRATITUDE.

As thinking, feeling beings on this amazing planet, we all have times when we feel negative emotions, fear, sadness, anger, hopelessness, despair. So how do we elevate ourselves when we feel badly? We can consciously choose a lighter, better feeling in the space of a single second.

Feeling negative keeps us in lowered energy states, and low frequencies. It's an uncomfortable place, but because we feel disempowered when overwhelmed by sadness or low frequency emotions, we tend to stay in that place.

You can change or elevate your mood by acknowledging or recognizing the feeling, and releasing it.

Holding onto negative emotions does not serve our purpose. The law of attraction brings to us what we focus on. Feeling bad? Flip that thought or feeling or you'll experience more things that will bring you the same emotion. As soon as you recognize the negative thought or feeling, acknowledge it and release it.

Consciously choose to think of something that makes you feel good: children's laughter, your favorite music, the way rain smells, or how it feels when sunshine lands on your shoulders.

Choose any though that is even slightly better and you'll feel your mood improve.

We can't control the outcomes, only our responses to the outcomes. Being aware of your thoughts and feelings, even in difficult times, will allow you the opportunity to change how you feel. Positive thinking takes practice, but it's more than attempting to be positive during every minute of the day. It's about having self awareness and taking conscious action to choose a happier, lighter state of mind.

In order to be there for others, you must first take care of yourself. Many of us make time to caretake for the important people in our lives, and we forget the most important person of all, US!

If you don't already do this, try it for a week, and see if your mental and emotional health don't dramatically improve: Carve out 30 minutes every day for yourself. Just 30 minutes. Some of you might read that and say "That sounds like a lot!" while others might think "Is that all?" The point of the exercise is to get yourself into the habit of taking care of yourself and allowing yourself quiet time, time where nobody else is placing demands on you, nobody else is coming firts. Theses minutes - they belong to you. Use them however you truly wish.

Six Ideas that Can Improve Your Life

You can reprogram your present reality by taking six easy steps, and you can begin right NOW.

You need to quit focusing on what is missing from your life. This includes focusing on what you don't want to happen. As soon as you realize you are focusing on what you don't have, choose a different thought, or flip the switch. Shift your focus to what you intend to attract and manifest in your life. Put yourself in a state of receiving and accepting and move away from the state of lacking.

If you find yourself viewing your present circumstances as the reason for why you can't have what you want, STOP. Whatever difficulties you are currently facing, know they are only temporary and will last only as long as you continue to give the difficulties your attention. A song I particularly enjoy has a verse that goes "No matter how cold the winter, there's a springtime ahead." Remember your present circumstances are alive in just THIS moment. What you give your attention to grows. You attract what you focus on. So move your focus away from your current difficulty and you'll stop feeling the struggle.

Focusing on the past will inhibit your ability to create. If you find yourself thinking about how things have always been, stop giving the past your focus! If you keep doing things the same way, you'll keep getting the same results. What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing again and again, and expecting different results! Stay in the present moment, live in the NOW.

Quit sharing your tale of woe with others. When you quit telling your dramatic story, you won't have to live up to the story. Replaying the story forces you to focus on it. It's impossible to move forward when you're facing backward.

Don't worry about what others expect of you, or think is best for you. Everyone has an opinion on how you should live your life: the kind of job you should have, how you should dress, whom you should be involved with. When you feel pressure to live up to someone else's ideals, ask yourself if their expectation matches yours. If the answer is NO, let it go. You are creating your own life, and you have to live for you.

Let go of judgments. Don't decide a situation or a person is "good" or "bad," "right" or "wrong." This practice only creates negative energy. Because like attracts like, beware of attracting into your life the very thing you judge or don't want for yourself.

Making these six simple shifts in your behaviors will allow you to change your life, live in a higher vibration, and move you closer to a life of riches. TODAY.

You can improve your spiritual health and create abundance in your life when you tap into your passion, your true desire for your life. Humans are trained to take action based on what they think, not what they feel. But when we are pursuing a goal that we are passionate about, we have an easier time, don't we? The motivation is there, we focus on the limitless possibilities in front of us; in essence we manifest with great intention and energy when we focus on the things that offer us the strongest positive emotion.

Make a list of three things you want to manifest in your life. Think about how achieving each one will make you feel. Focus on the feeling, the emotion, associated with reaching each milestone. The stronger the positive feeling or emotion, the higher the vibrational frequency of the desire. The goals that stir up the most emotion inside you - those are the goals that you can manifest into creation more easily because your desire and thoughts will be in a vibrational match.

Live in the Possibility of Today

Living in the Now allows us to believe in the limitless possibilities of our achievements. When we let the fear, disappointment, or negative experiences we've had in the past live in our conscious minds, we resist the abundance that we can access at any time.

We have two choices when we experience disappointment: we can choose to adopt a state of struggle and victim hood, or we can release the negative emotions related to the experience and create a different future with our intentions and our focus.

It has been said that our greatest victory comes not in never falling, but in rising each time we fall. If we don't consciously choose to release our past experiences then we end up manifesting similar experiences over and over.

If You Don't Think It, It Doesn't Exist
Science tells us that we create the reality we experience. Think about it; if the Universe is made up of sub atomic particles, and those particles are made up of energy, we are surrounded by unformed energy fields. When we observe that energy and use our attention, the energy manifests into objects in a particular point in space and time. Until you give it your attention, that energy exists only as a probability of existence.

When you withdraw your attention, the energy returns to a probability, it does not occupy a specific place in time or space. That's pretty amazing, when you think about it! It also implies that the possibilities in any situation are infinite, until you determine how you wish those energy packets to manifest. Another example of why the thoughts and emotions you focus on are so important - what do you want to manifest today?

You can't use positive thinking to wish away your problems. No matter what you focus on, you don't have control over the outcome of situations, and you can't prevent problems from popping up in your life. But the way you deal with problems can keep you from aligning yourself with a victim state of mind.

You can't control outcomes, but they way you respond to situations can shape the type of situations you attract into your life in the future. Don't allow temporary situations, and that's what problems are, temporary circumstances, to shape your future. Your future possibilities are unlimited, but if you view your problems as a permanent state of being, you attract more of the same.


Problems are Actually Opportunities

No one likes to feel unhappy, or dissatisfied with their life. Our problems often discourage us from seeing the possibilities that exist for us. They can overwhelm us and keep us paralyzed in fear. What if we try to change, and we fail? It can feel like once we solve one problem, another pops up. But what if we alter our perception of what problems really are? In actuality, our problems offer us the opportunity to make changes and to experience personal growth. If we never feel uncomfortable, never feel discomfort, what would motivate us to do things differently?

If we always do things the same way, we always get the same results. If we feel dissatisfied, we have the motivation to try to do things differently the next time. Our problems are opportunities that allow us to forge a new path, a new direction.

From the time we're born, we collect and assemble opinions and ideas about who we are. With these ideas we create identities for ourselves. We then develop ideas about the roles we should play in our lives, and the lives of others. We decide that we're smart or funny or needy or wise or selfish. We assign adjectives to ourselves and then live up to them. But these identities are really only ideas. The self-image we assign to ourselves will either motivate us to achieve great things, or keep us in a state of struggle.

In creating this mental blueprint, this picture of ourselves, we either consciously or unconsciously take actions or adopt attitudes that will live up to our self-image. What do we do when our self-image is distorted, or self defeating? It's important that we understand that our actions are not who we are. We are imperfect beings, and our actions are often imperfect. But our actions do not define who we are, not who we truly are.

So if your self-esteem or self-image is damaged, or the blueprint you've built isn't working in your life, change the schematics. Focus on times when you've experienced success or confidence. Realize that you've been seeing yourself through an imperfect lens, and forgive yourself for any of your perceived short comings. It's never too late to decide who you want to be.


Tuning your Receiver to the Right Channel

Have you ever tried to listen to a radio station and found yourself listening to static? It's fuzzy, the reception is bad, and it's all because something is either blocking the radio waves or you aren't on the exact frequency the station broadcasts on. Our thoughts work a lot like those radio frequencies.

If we aren't experiencing the things we desire in our lives, it is because something is blocking, or resisting, them from manifesting. Maybe we need to do some minor tuning to find the right frequency.The energy we send into the Universe finds a similar channel and plugs into it, like a radio receiver. To find the right channel or frequency, you have to put off vibrations that match the vibrations of your true desires.

One way to get rid of the static and find the channel you want is thinking and feeling high energy emotions like gratitude, abundance, joy. The high energy vibrations automatically plug into a frequency of the same energy level, and you begin to manifest, create, and enjoy the high energy experiences you are now able to receive.

We all have a life purpose, and your Authentic self knows what yours is. The Authentic self uses your body to navigate around Earth, and communicates to you through feelings and emotions. You are always connected to your Authentic self. It's not something you turn on and off. When you're manifesting with intention, you likely access your intuition, little voice, or Authentic self regularly. Your Authentic self lets you know when you're on the right track, if you will.

If your connection to your Authentic self is strong, you have an easy time manifesting what you want into your life. When you feel a disconnect, you still manifest, but you probably don't get the results you hoped for.

Your ego can often interrupt the communication between you and your Authentic self. Ego operates in the limited capacity of past experiences, knowledge of what has been. If you want to feel as though your potential is limitless, which it is, move out of your ego and get in touch with your Authentic self. You'll feel less resistance, I promise.

Live in this moment

Unless you have a magical time machine, you only have this moment. You cannot change the past or live in the future. The secret to being happy is finding contentment in the NOW.

If you spend time focusing on negative emotions like fear, regret, or worry, you cannot consciously create abundance in your life.

A positive mental attitude is just the start. The moment you are in is exactly as it should be. When you release fear and let things be, you open yourself up to positive experiences and feelings. Your intuition, or inner voice, knows what to do and will guide you through your life, if you simply stop the negative chatter and learn to just be. The moment you are in will take care of itself.


Negative Thoughts and Emotions Create Epidemics of Negativity

Have you ever felt like you're just one person, in this great big, old world? It can be easy to feel like we're not all connected, that we're just millions of beings taking up space on this planet called Earth. But truthfully, because we are all beings of energy, and the Universe is made up of energy packets, we are connected and our thoughts and actions create a ripple effect. It all contributes to the collective consciousness.


Not convinced? Let's explore some of the things going on right now that we all experience, as a collective group: war, crime waves, global warming, etc. Negative thoughts and emotions spread rapidly like a disease, and what do epidemics do? Infect huge populations rapidly. And that negativity manifests as negative collective experiences.

So yes, just one person can make a difference. Your thoughts and emotions contribute to the collective consciousness. When you feel helpless or hopeless, or fearful, your thoughts and emotions put off vibrations that impact others. The same is true when you experience and project positive emotions and thoughts. You co-create with others in the Universe and have an impact on what we all experience.