Excerpted from an article by David Cameron, author of the empowering and perception-shifting book A Happy Pocket Full of Money.


There are two very simple questions which, once you get their answers, can change your life dramatically for the better. This is so because these two questions relate to absolutely everything that you experience and create in your life.

Everything in this universe runs under universal laws that never err even once. To be in the flow - to live in harmony with these laws - leads you to being all-around prosperous. Such harmony results in effortless well-being and prosperity, simply because you would be riding the currents that build and maintain all of creation.

Now the two questions:

1. What are universal laws? (Hint: They are like glue.)

2. Why are there any universal laws? (The answer is more profound than you think it is!)

Let us now look at the answer to both of these questions. Once you have the answer, you will begin to see how dramatically your life can be empowered by your new insight.

A universal law is a bond that connects all experience so as to achieve total knowing. It was a big project, but it worked! Now let us look at some of these laws and see specifically how they apply.

Before we start, it is important to know that these laws do not punish you for breaking them; they cannot be broken. Suffering simply comes up when you try to ride against them. It is amazing how much time and effort can be saved by riding along with them. You literally collapse time when you are in the flow.

Law of Gratitude -

You have heard many times that an attitude of gratitude has the power to get you realizing your dreams at record speed. Why? Because gratitude completes the cycle of knowing. Remember, you cannot know what is without knowing what is not. What you like and what you hate are two ends of the same thing.

For example, if you like being with your spouse and hate being separated from them, realize that you are working within the same essence, which is your spouse. It is because of the moments of absence that you appreciate and recognize the moments of presence.

When you are grateful for both what you like and what you don’t like, you complete the knowingness and you are released from having to experience what you don’t like. This cannot be explained logically, but some very significant shifts occur in your mind and soul (and you can feel this releasing shift) whenever you are genuinely grateful for all things, even the ones you don’t like.

Gratitude will speed you through your growth and success more than any amount of hard work ever can. Gratitude completes the lesson, and as a statement of completion rings that tone of success, pulling to you the end result desired.

Another way to put it is that you cannot leave a situation permanently unless you appreciate the gifts it brings you, and all situations bring a gift, no matter how terrible the situation may appear to be. This law ensures that you will always complete your knowing and embrace all that is before moving on.

Law of Attraction -

This law states that you attract whatever you put your attention to. The point of this law is to establish the creative power of thought. Whatever you put in your conscious or subconscious mind, you attract into your experience.

This law is very much tied to the law of cause and effect. It is the law that establishes you as a being made in the image and likeness of the Creator, with a mind that possesses the same creative properties.

Before you learn that you indeed have this power, your mind will wonder and raise many thoughts, some of which conflict and attack you. At this level, things such as doubt and preferences exist, for you do not think you are responsible and powerful enough to be the creator of your reality.

As you watch your life and begin to see the link between your thoughts and your experiences, you become a deliberate thinker, and you no longer think negative, doubt or even have preferences.

Finally, you create purely by extension of your thought without doubt or conflict. This law ensures that one way or another, you will get to that point.

Law of Cause and Effect (karma) -

It is easy to see the use of this law. It simply shows you that you are an active part of All That Is, that your will has effect. As you grow, you begin to see the link between your thoughts, words and actions with your reality. This leads to responsibility and increased power and care.

This law ensures that through this process you come to eventually know yourself as a sovereign creator. It is a gentle law that lets you build your own evidence, for whatever you believe you will see as truth, until the day you step aside and notice this link. At this point you become a Deliberate Creator.

Law of Love -

Love is the building block of all things. Love is energy. Love is not just some mushy feeling. It is energy, the actual building material of all things. It is an actual substance; in fact it is the only substance that exists, taking on the appearance of many forms.

Love is also acceptance. It is acknowledging that All Things Are One. The law of love ensures that you see this truth.

You cannot leave an experience permanently unless you exit with love and acceptance. That is why people tend to keep repeating the same types of experiences until the day they stop hating and fighting it and instead embrace it with love and see what the situation holds for them, and heal it with love.

This could be a money, health or relationship issue. It doesn’t matter. You cannot leave a situation permanently until you exit it with love. You can’t permanently get rid of what you hate; you can only leave it or transform it through love.

This law ensures that you recognize the truth of unity and drop the illusions of separation.

Do you now clearly see how these laws work and how your life can be so much more effortless and prosperous simply by flowing with the laws? Why resist what you can’t break? Just flow with it! Resistance creates time, acceptance creates miracles.

Look at all this again and you will see how time and effort are the creations of resistance against these unbreakable laws. For certain, flow with the laws and they will carry you where you wish to go effortlessly. They have to - they can never fail! You were not meant to struggle - struggle is unnatural. I wish you the highest possible achievements.

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For even greater insights into your quest for prosperity and freedom, visit: Images of One. Excerpted from an article written by David Cameron Gikandi, author of A Happy Pocket Full of Money.

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For years, meditation and I had a love/hate relationship.

Ok that sounds too negative. Here’s the thing: I’d hang out with meditation for a bit and somehow the relationship just wasn’t going anywhere. Blame it on my mind chatter, I just couldn’t seem to get it together.

I mean, not that you need to listen to everything you hear people say but folks would always tell me, “You and meditation would make such a great couple!” … and I truly, truly know this.

Meditation has such a good heart.

Meditation is everything I’ve been looking for.

Meditation and I would be *so* good for eachother!

Yet every time I hung out with meditation, I would get bored. And I know it’s ok to get bored. I know that, I do. Life isn’t always all crème brulee and hershey’s kisses but even so, we just weren’t clicking. I’d be with meditation yet thinking a zillion other things … I’d catch myself over and over again … bring myself back … and wait to get better at it.

But I just never got past that stage and on to The Good Stuff.

So me ‘n meditation. A tenuous relationship. A respectful relationship but not all that I just knew it could be.

Now this morning, I was listening to Buddhist Meditation for Beginners by Jack Kornfield. Put the “Buddhist” part and the “beginners” part aside for a minute, k? Let’s take a peek at the meditation part. Because he mentioned some things which open up space for a whole new relationship with meditation.

Jack talks about people saying, “I’m lost in thought so much of the time … What should I do?” In insight meditation it’s called “seeing the waterfall” … how much thought there is inside.

Don’t be afraid of whatever arises in meditation … just let it be part of the practice. It’s fine. In fact, it’s more than fine … it’s perfect.

What matters is not how many thoughts we have or how long we’ve been lost in thought … that is not so much in our control … what matters is the moment you notice and in that moment you can choose to continue to be lost in thought or to come back again and say, “Here I am, alive in this present moment.”

Softly come back to the awareness of what your breath feels like or what your body feels like.

It’s the returning which is the training for awakening to living in the present, in a mindful way.

The “top ten tunes” is your list of repeating stories. If something comes back again and again, you can name it softly and accept it in. It could be something which needs to be felt … and it’s knocking on the door saying, “Hey, I’m important, feel me, acknowledge me.”

So we name it softly.

“Oh, here’s remembering. Thank you for your contribution.”

“Worry, thank you.”

“Aah, planning.”

Meet whatever arises with kindness and balance and wisdom … and whatever comes to you can be a part of your meditation. I sense a peaceful new relationship unfolding!

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Order Buddhist Meditation for Beginners by Jack Kornfield at Amazon.
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Affirmations can either help you attain your dreams or keep you from them.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with an affirmation. Affirmations are my buds. Thing is, you need to get the right ones. Ones which will make the best friends. You and only you will know which ones are just perfectly right for you.

How will you know? By your feelings.

Here’s what I mean …

Would you hang out with someone who makes you feel like crap? Uh, no. Well, don’t hang out with an affirmation which makes you feel like crap. You want to find an affirmation which lifts you up and makes you feel good. Not one which feels so implausible that you feel terrible about yourself every time you hear it.

What happens when you hear the sentence “I have ten million dollars in my bank account”?

Does that feel good? Awesome! Then that affirmation is your friend.

But maybe, just maybe, when you read that sentence, you feel repelled. All sorts of doubts pop up in your head like, “That’s not true. That’s bs. I have ten dollars in my bank. I just bounced a check. I need to pay the rent.”

Then this affirmation, for you, is not a friend.

Now maybe down the road, this affirmation will be your friend. But right now, not so much.

Because you see, your hopeful thoughts are like a train taking you to the right place, a magical, mystical place where all your dreams come true. But first you need to get on that train. And how you go about doing that makes all the difference in the world.

So you are standing next to the train tracks on the ground of your current reality. On that ground is “I have bills” and “I have ten dollars in the bank” and “I bounced a check.”

Just say you *do* want piles of money in your bank account, you want to be able to pay for things with ease and to have more than enough money to be generous with people and to take good care of yourself and your family. Well, ok, great … That is your train, your hopeful thought. And your friends will help you get on that train.

Let’s take a look at these potential friends you’ve got lined up to help you here.

Friend One: The affirmation “I have ten million dollars I the bank.”

This one represents an affirmation which may be too far away from your current reality to be believable. If it brings you joy, great. But if not, that would be like trying to get onto a moving train from a point of standing still. Can you just stand there and jump on as the train rolls by? You’d get creamed.

You’d be better off running beside the train and then jumping on, right? Affirmations which are your friends will run alongside the train with you and lift you up to get on. That’s the most effective way.

So you need to think of an affirmation which is somewhere in between the speed of the train and the speed of standing-still. Uh, the non-speed of standing still. You get the point.

What sounds better than where you are currently at … but not so far away as to throw you off the train?

Maybe it’s:

• I’m grateful for my paycheck which comes every week.
• As I express gratitude, it opens the flow of prosperity to me.
• I am getting better at managing my money every day.
• My prosperity serves the world because I add value to people’s lives.
• I always have enough money to meet my needs.
• I have an abundance of good in my life.
• I look forward to focusing on my dreams and moving towards them.
• I am lucky to have a roof over my head and food in my mouth.
• I notice that there are little daily miracles in my world.
• I am the source of my abundance.
• I am an unlimited being. I can create anything I want.
• Everything is perfect and I am moving towards my higher good.
• I know that my dreams are reachable.

If any of these feel good, adopt them as your friends. Write them down to repeat to yourself each day when you get up and before you go to sleep. Do that for a month and then next month make them even bigger and brighter.

And as they begin to come alive for you, you can begin to move closer to that train and jump on.

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A very special thanks to Morgana Rae for the fourth money mantra on my list. Morgana is an expert on wealth manifestation and money magic! She guides clients to attract more than they chase and to enjoy success without sacrificing their humanity.
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Sadness helps us grieve and let go. If we repress and deny sadness, we will inevitably become depressed. Psalm 30:5 says, “weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” Sadness is always the path to joy, because sadness signals a hurt that needs to be processed.

- Changes That Heal by Henry Cloud

Sadness is not depression. In fact, suppressing sadness can lead to depression.

“What? You’re full of it, Col!”

Oh if you only knew how not full if it I am, you’d be amazed!

Lately I’ve been allowing sadness to coexist and I have to tell you … I’ve never been happier!

Yes, it’s true.

Interesting thing about that. I used to wish it didn’t exist. And that only made me feel worse when it came. I’d feel sad and then on top of that, I’d feel upset about the sadness being there.

Not a good situation. Kind of a double-whammy.

Now that I allow it, it moves through me pretty quickly and it is not nearly as intense or scary. This is what works for me. It may work for you.

Express not repress.

• If I feel sadness, I may cry.

• I may lie down with a soft fluffy blanket for a few minutes (who are we kidding, maybe an hour even).

• I might talk to a friend (a really good one who knows I’m doing it to move through it not to wallow in it … big diff.)

• I accept it and respect it.

• I may ask, “What are you here to tell me?” (Sadness always answers, if you’re a really good listener.) And “tell” often means “teach.”

• I might write a little story in my journal.

• I may paint a picture.

But the important thing is the allowing. Because in that lies great power. It’s freeing. And that is what I wish for you, my friend! Freedom, freedom and more freedom. You deserve all the freedom your heart can hold!

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Don’t hide your light under a bucket.

This took me nearly twenty years to learn! For my first two decades in business, I tried to always be “professional” at all costs … and, of course, I am still professional but my definition of that has changed.

Just a tiny little shift with big huge consequences.

My web site was always elegant but my “voice” was sorta like Charlie Brown’s teacher … y’know “blah blah blah.” All white bread and no flava! I wanted to be all things to all people … afraid of turning off some secret sector of society, the one I didn’t have the password for.

Actually, I did this equally in life and in business. I shone my light but maybe like a flashlight so I could hide it away if the wrong person was around, the one who wouldn’t appreciate the brightness.

And guess what? If guy sorta-ok is hanging around, do you think guy perfect-for-me is gonna show up? I think not!

Know what I say now? Shine your light, your very own unique and special light, the one with the sparkles and the special colors, the one all your own.

And if that turns somebody off, that’s PERFECT! Rejoice! Who on earth wants someone around who you have to go out and buy a dimmer switch for, huh? Not me!

If somebody wants to leave, you give them a hug and a big kiss and a sandwich for the road because they have just done you the biggest favor of your life. They have just cleared a perfect sized spot for the exact person who does resonate with you to fit right into.

The one who “gets” you … who appreciates your quirks and idiosyncracies … who laughs at your jokes and thinks you’re cute as hell when you’re doing the perfect impression of YOU!

I would encourage everyone who lives and breathes to be on the lookout for the mini-miracle. I’m tellin’ ya, if you look closely (and sometimes not so closely) they’re EVERYwhere, people!

It doesn’t take a special person to have them, it takes only the willingness to be open to seeing them.

The mini-miracle is like a tiny little gift which an angel plopped down on your lap at just the right moment. And I’ve noticed that living in anticipation of them … and truly, truly believing … I mean on a heart level, where you just know like you know like you know that they exist … living in this place of expectation just attracts them like mad!

They love this place!

Today I plunked my open-topped bag on the back seat of my mom’s car … After the fact I recall having had this sensation that doing this was not the best idea in the world but sometimes we ignore those little precursor, tragedy-averting sensations, don’t we?

Well, ten seconds into the ride I hear “plop!” and then “chinka, chinka, chink!” as my bag fell over face-first onto the floor, completely upside down. Open-topped bag, remember? Open-topped bag.

‘Course my first thought was, “Oh no!” I said, “I just heard my bag fall down and everything came out of it.”

Mom says, “I think it’s ok, I don’t think it fell.”

Chinka-chinka-chink!

Me, “Naw, it definitely fell.”

Me (reframing the experience), “Maybe there’s something I was supposed to find in there.”

Well, as God-or-fate-or-the-Universe-or-whoever-you-happen-to-believe-in would have it, when I went back to pick up my bag, yes it was fully on its head … everything had plopped out in a neat little upside-down plop (very easy to put back in, actually, because the bag was right over the little mountain of “stuff” keeping it in place on the floor) … and the ONE thing that had fallen away from the pack was this lip gloss I used to use every single day (my friends will attest to the fact that I am a lip-gloss addict) … which I had “lost” … and there it sat, waving up at me, “here I am, here I am, didja miss me?”

I laughed because why did I say, “Maybe I’m supposed to find something in there” right? That’s just the way of the universe and the way of mini-miracles.

Kinda like Santa Clause, you just have to believe. Believe it and you will see it. Like a tiny piece of magic.

Annie B. Lawrence’s Monday Morning Focus Call was really empowering! When she asked about our self-sabotage, I started to cry. (Ok, ok, it doesn’t sound empowering, hang in there with me, it gets empowering, really!

My saboteur …

What does it look like?
“It’s navy blue … a heart in a box.”

The saboteur is your protective little child, it’s sort’ve a bit misguided, right? Well-intentioned, but misguided all the same. Precious little thing. Pick her up and give her a hug!

What is your protective little child saying?
“Be small. The higher you go, the farther you can fall. You might get hurt.”

Give your little child a new job:
“Just shine your light, be genuine and allow whoever loves you for that to be attracted and whoever doesn’t, they weren’t your people and if they had stayed, it wouldn’t be empowering to you anyway.”

What does it look like now?
“It’s a heart but not in a box … and it’s colorful.” (I sketched it as Annie talked.)

Doncha just love transformation? Thank you, Annie!

My friend Laurie married the love of her life a few years ago. She had a saboteur in full effect and she told her boyfriend-turned-husband (prior to his turned-husband status ) “Listen, I have this saboteur, don’t let me do that, k?”

So when she’d start listening to the wrong voices, he’d ask, “Hey, is that your saboteur?”

Pretty cool, huh? Nice to have love and support around these totally-human, super-normal things we’d just looove to be nonexistent and yet they exist! (Until they don’t )

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The first word Anna ever said to me was “sandwich!”

She wasn’t speaking and would sort of just wander around the classroom. I worked with her every day with books, counting ducks, asking questions about pictures and identifying objects.

She never spoke to me.

As a matter of fact, she’d be walking in one direction and if I went over to her, she’d turn and walk the other way, like a magnet repelling its identical pole. I felt pretty bad about that. Until the day the Anna’s physical therapist Christina told me it was actually a good sign.

She said Anna knew that if I was there, she’d have to communicate or something would be required of her and she walked away because she wanted to stay in her own little world and not face the challenge of me.

That made a whole buncha sense (and felt better). Even so, a small child running from you wasn’t exactly the ideal work situation!

Still, I knew that she was capable of great things so I’d read books with her anyway and keep trying to make contact. Each day I’d get Anna off of the bus, ask her to look up and talk to her about the weather, “Look up in the sky … I see blue sky … It’s sunny!”

I’d talk to her about what we were doing each step of the way so she could hear how sentences were put together, how ideas were expressed and how things were described. “What am I doing? I’m tying shoes.”

Never any response or sign of recognition.

One book had pictures of food objects all over the page so I’d point and ask, “What do you see?” No reply. I’d tell Anna, “I see sandwich … fries … apple … muffin …” pointing to each.

No response.

One day I went to get Anna from the bus as usual. I stood on the sidewalk and the doors opened. Anna appeared at the top of the stairs and as the attendant was putting on her backpack, Anna looked directly into my eyes and exclaimed, “Sandwich!”

I was floored, stunned for a second, and then I recovered replying, “Yes, yes, sandwich!”

Funny how a thing like that can make your whole day.

From then on, our conversations went something like this …

Anna: “Sandwich!”
Me: “Sandwich!”
Anna: “Fries!”
Me: “Fries!”
Anna: “Apple!”
Me: “Apple!”

(Pause as Anna’s eyes searched an imaginary page in her mind, deep in thought… )

Me: “What else is in that book?”
Anna: “Muffin!”
Me: “Muffin!”

(Another pause)

Me: “Burger!”
Anna: “Burger!”

When Anna would communicate this to others, they would often reply, “No, silly, you can’t have a sandwich now, it’s not lunch time!” and I’d tell them, “No, no, she’s telling you about a book she read.”

When we ran programs, I’d get all excited and happy if Anna got something right, I’d exclaim, “YAAAY!” and hold out my hands palms up. Anna would put her hands on top of mine and give me this gleeful look, like she was so delighted that *I * was so delighted. If she got an answer wrong, she’d look at me and ask, “yaay?”

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Carly: “ANNA is the CUTEST KID in the WHOLE school!”
Molly: “She’s cuter than a TEDDY BEAR!”

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Share on Facebook :: Photo by Anna’s sister Maria, a loving, supportive and precious girl as well as a kick-butt photographer!

Sometimes y’just gotta get dooown with your bad self. I know, I know, we all are trying to be so good all the time and that is an admirable pursuit and tra la la and yaay for us. Trouble is, sometimes we make a mistake. Sometimes we trip and fall. Sometimes we’re just not looking.

Sometimes we are looking, only we’re looking waaay too hard.

This is me.

I want so bad to be good that I get all mad at myself when I falter. When I do something I didn’t want to do (stay up late when I intended to sleep) or don’t do something I did want to do (get something accomplished). I want to be there yet I’m here. Why am I still here? What’s wrong with me that I’m not there?

But getting mad doesn’t help. Matter of fact, getting mad is the perfect recipe for stuck.

When we set the GPS in the car, do we get mad at the car because it’s on the street it’s on? Does the GPS ask, “Where are we now? I need to know! Why are we here?” No. The GPS asks, “Where do you want to go?” It knows where you are. And it will tell you where to go.

Our guts are like that. They know.

Today I was doing something and I noticed this tension in my core. I thought, “Wo! Stop!” Pay attention to those feelings, they know. Are you forcing something which would be better off done later … or perhaps not at all?

Could be. Take a look. Check in.

And while you’re at it, give your bad self a break! Let go of the wheel and you’ll get where you’re going.

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Share on Facebook :: Very special thanks to Elyse Hope Killoran for the GPS metaphor :: Photo courtesy of Ian Britton (beautiful, huh?

Introducing … [fanfare and joyous throngs celebrating] … my very first vlog ever … (EVER!) No, look, there’s a “v” at the start of that word, I am now officially a vlogger. How ’bout that? And my oh my, what a beauteous screen capture below! [rolling eyes]

My 45-Day Challenge? Looking for a fun-filled, sweet, soulful, supportive, contented, healthy, loving relationship grounded in trust and filled with positive energy with a special, affectionate, easy-going, loyal, supportive and loving man.

Someone who is just a tad spiritual-minded or positive in spirit … In other words, he knows enough not to sweat the small stuff!

Wish me luck, it’s a jungle out there!

Follow the progress of my Boundless Living Relationship Challenge.

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