Change. Nothing ever stays the same. As spiritual beings we get to choose the experience we will have in relationship to those changes. What an amazing gift! We can choose to experience love and beauty in everything we see. The word of great value in that last sentence is ‘choose,' for this gift of choice can also be experienced as a huge curse leading to self-actualized nightmares. The latter choice just described also has another name: fear.

Fear is usually the last thing I relinquish. I will do everything else in the name of self-progress and then, only when all is exhausted, I might let go of my fear. Why should I? Most of the time I believe my fear protects me. It is always making sure I know what is wrong. What is wrong with the world and especially what's wrong with me.

My clients are amazing. They can very quickly tell me what is wrong with them. Without one empowerment question, they will very thoroughly come up with a faults' inventory a mile long. Ask them about their strengths, though, and that is when the resistance usually arises. Most clients hesitate. Some even get a little miffed when strengths are discussed. When challenged with the assignment of writing out 50 of his strengths, a client of mine reminded me that he had hired me to work on his weaknesses, not his strengths.

Why the resistance to looking at strengths? I believe that most of us think that we have arrived at this place in our life not because of our great strengths but because of the failures caused by our weaknesses. The thought is, " if I could only overcome my character faults, then I would be successful." So looking long and hard at the weaknesses in order to change makes sense.

INTENTIONAL EXPERIENCES

The universal law of intention basically states that whatever we believe in, we will manifest that experience. If we believe we are rich, then we will experience being rich. If we believe we are poor, we will experience being poor.

An acting teacher of mine spoke about the use of intention in acting. The many ways a line can be said is determined by the intention of the actor. The important thing is that an actor can only play one intention at a time. Take the following line from a play:

Man A: Get away from that box.

One way this line may be spoken is with the intention of keeping someone from finding the gun you hid in the box. Another intention may be to tease a wife who knows you bought her that fur coat she has always wanted. Either way you choose, the experience of the line will be quite different. The important thing is that a choice must be made because you can't play both intentions at the same time. The ironic thing is that by choosing the experience of one, the other almost seems to disappear.

This goes for our thoughts also. We can never have more than one thought in a moment. We can have multiple moments, each with different thoughts, and experience them as one moment. But with the choice or experience of one moment, the others, even if for just that moment, disappear.

THE CHOICE IS YOURS

Strengths and weaknesses are just thoughts or judgments we make up to define ourselves in experiences we have had. Since these are just thoughts, in any given moment, we can have strengths or we can have weaknesses, but the existence of both at the same time is impossible. Of course there is the spiritual belief that God is everything and since we are a part of God, we are everything, all the time. But at our present level of existence, we deny the experience of a thing by choosing the existence of another.

Weaknesses are the fear that we are not good enough, fear that we can't do something and fear that we are broken. Strengths are love experienced. Strengths are saying yes, I can have that experience because I am great.

With the power of intention, when we are working on our perceived weaknesses, we are saying to the universe," I am broken and need to be fixed" and that is exactly what we will experience. It doesn't matter how many traits we "correct," we will keep experiencing being broken because that is what we have declared to the universe. We will be attracting more and more things to be "fixed."

What if we started saying, "These are my strengths and I am going to keep working on them." What are we telling the universe? Simply, I am a person who is strength filled and that is the experience I want to continue to have. We are also denying the experience of our faults for that given moment.

The universe always listens and gives us exactly what we are asking for. If you believe you aren't getting what you want, right there, by the mere fact of believing that you aren't getting what you want, you experience not receiving. The universe is always reflecting back to us our thoughts, beliefs and yes, what we want. From acknowledging our true beliefs from our perceived experiences, we gain the freedom to choose again. If one chooses to deny an experience they are not letting it go but rather drawing it near. In denial, we are saying, I believe in this thing and I want to get away from it. In order to get away from something, it has to first exist. Then, after its creation, we can attempt to escape from it.

JUST SAY YES

So how does this all work? Choose your intention. Start working on your strengths. Let go of working on your weaknesses. Even if you believe that you only have one strength, acknowledge that one strength. Make a commitment to the universe that you want to work on your strengths by working on that one strength with the faith others will follow. Soon additional strengths will pop up, because that is what you have been asking for. By working on your strengths, a strength filled life is what you will experience. The funny thing is that usually those "challenge areas" seem to disappear in the light of your strengths.

Some helpful hints:

1) Acknowledge and celebrate all of your strengths. This is saying to the universe, "My belief is that I am great and the experience of this greatness is what I am choosing."

2) When thoughts of weakness surface (and they will) simply acknowledge them and in the next moment think of how they might be strengths. Again, it is not the actual events or traits that are weaknesses but rather our ideas about them. We can choose other judgments. If you get stuck, ask the universe for a change in perception. The universe is always glad to give a helping hand, just ask (and listen for the answer!)

3) Acknowledge the strengths in others. Again, we create what we believe and see. Focusing on the strengths in others reinforces the belief in our own strengths. What we are seeing is a direct reflection of our belief system and specifically what we are asking the universe to provide.

4) Be grateful. Gratitude says to the universe that this right here, this amazing experience, is what I choose to experience again for the next moments I am about to have.

COPYRIGHTED 2006

Bob Kiser, CEC, is a life coach who empowers people to manifest spiritually directed careers they excel at financially.

www.bobkisercoaching.com