Presentation covers 7 topics: Thought, Perception, Choice & Accountability, Cause & Effect, Abundance & Gratitude, Health & Healing, Harmony & Rythmn. Exercises are provided for each topic.

1. Life Skills
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PRESENTED BY CAROLYN FRANCES
SOURCE: RAPID EYE INSTITUTE

2. Presenter Introduction: Carolyn Frances
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Experience Philosophy
 BA, Summa Cum Laude,  The art of therapy involves
Theatre Arts from Cal State HUGS and CPR.
East Bay U. 1998 That is, it results in
 MA, Counseling Psychology  Healing,
from Argosy U. 2010  Understanding,
 Currently an MFT Intern at  Growth,
Axis Community Health  Self-awareness & Self-
acceptance
 Long time teacher and
leader of youth ages 3-17  Through an emotional
awakening of
 Director – creating safe
 Connection,
space to guide artistic
expression  Purpose, and
 Responsibility.

3. Topics
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THOUGHT
PERCEPTION
CHOICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY
CAUSE AND EFFECT
ABUNDANCE AND GRATITUDE
HEALTH AND HEALING
HARMONY AND RHYTHM

4. Thought
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SOW A THOUGHT, REAP AN ACTION;
SOW AN ACTION, REAP A HABIT;
SOW A HABIT, REAP A CHARACTER;
SOW A CHARACTER, REAP A DESTINY.

5. Principles
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 Thought is Creative Power.
 The energy we commit to our thoughts impacts what
we create.
 A belief is a thought in the conscious mind,
reinforced by imagination, emotion and duration. A
belief is a thought with energy behind it.

6. Change
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 In order to change, you must be skillful in applying
the principles of directed thought.
1. What you believe is what you create.
2. You must clear your consciousness of limiting beliefs to
make space for new beliefs.
3. Maintain a clear vision of what you want to create.
 Affirmations and Visualizations make use of these
principles.

7. Steps for successful affirmations
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1. Write it down. This starts bringing thought into the realm of the
physical.
2. Make a positive statement. Talk about what you do want.
3. Be short and to the point. It will be easier to focus on.
4. Be specific.
5. Give the affirmation emotional energy.
6. Make a statement as if your desire already exists.
7. Use „I‟ in the statement.
8. Affirmations will only change you. However, as your attitude and
behavior shift, you will notice an affect on those around you.
9. Start small and exciting. If you write an affirmation that you feel
is out of reach, you will be silently canceling it out and resisting.
However, you deserve an affirmation that will stretch you.
10. Add a visualization of yourself and what you desire that evokes an
emotional response from you.

8. Challenge to Action
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Thought
 Every morning state your  Write one affirmation for
intentions for the day. (ie, the week and repeat it to
My intention is to enjoy yourself every evening.
today. My intention is to  For one day, carry a small
be loving. My intention is notepad and write down
to create joy.) Then watch anything you say or think
which includes the phrase
for evidence throughout “I am …” or the word “but.”
the day. Notice what you are
creating and what you are
canceling out.

9. Perception
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IF YOU CONTINUE TO SEE THINGS THE WAY
YOU HAVE ALWAYS SEEN THEM, YOU WILL
CONTINUE TO DO WHAT YOU HAVE ALWAYS
DONE, AND GET WHAT YOU HAVE ALWAYS
GOTTEN. ~ UNKNOWN
“…OUR PRESENT VIEW OF THINGS –
WHETHER DARK AND DIM OR BRIGHTER AND
FULL – FASHIONS IRREVOCABLY, OUR
FUTURE.” ~ NEAL A. MAXWELL

10. Principles
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 Perception is that value or meaning you‟ve associated
with certain situations or things based on past
experiences.
 Perceptions cause us to filter our experiences.
 Perceptions should be reevaluated. Some of our
greatest advancements we have judged as failures,
and some of our deepest retreats we have evaluated
as success.
 Perception does not equal truth.
 Our perceptions are a mirror of ourselves.

11. Challenge to Action
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Perception
 Choose to see only good in yourself,  Reframe some perceptions that no
others, and the world for 24 hours. If longer serve you. Write out three
limiting perceptions that you have of
you catch yourself seeing otherwise, yourself. Restate them from a
just forgive yourself and start the 24 different, more powerful perspective.
hours over again. (e.g., I am outspoken. = I have
important ideas to share.) You may
 Imagine that you have a pair of want to choose one of these as your
emotional glasses. Put them on and affirmation this week.
see what the world looks like colored  This week keep a notebook of the
by anger or fear or another emotion judgments you pass on those around
of your choice. Consciously take the you, positive and negative. Review
them at the end of the day as if they
glasses off again. How do things were insights about yourself.
change?

12. Choice and Accountability
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EACH DECISION WE MAKE DETERMINES THE
RANGE OF CHOICES WE’LL FACE NEXT.
~ UNKNOWN
THE CHOICES WE MAKE DETERMINE TO A
LARGE EXTENT OUR HAPPINESS OR OUR
UNHAPPINESS, BECAUSE WE HAVE TO LIVE
WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR CHOICES.
~ JAMES E. FAUST

13. Principles
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 Choice is opportunity.
 Choice is the opposite of autopilot.
 We are products of our choices, not our
circumstances.
 Choice requires responsibility.

14. Deciding vs. Choosing
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 Lets look at the difference between deciding and choosing.
 The word decide originates from the Latin meaning cutting off,
separating, and judging.
 The word defend means to fend or ward off, to forbid or prohibit, to
justify.
 The word choose means to select from many possibilities, to prefer, to
desire.
 Defending often follows deciding. First we pass judgment,
then defend our position. You defend because you feel afraid.
If you remove the fear and the need to defend yourself, you
will find yourself at choice.
 To choose connotes that there are options that one can select
from. With choice there is power. When you choose, you
have the option to choose again. When you decide, you
solidify yourself into one option to the exclusion of all others.

15. Facing Fear
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 Many people fear choice. They are afraid they will make
the wrong choice. We hamper ourselves by placing value
judgments on the learning process. There is often no
right or wrong, just what works and what doesn‟t work.
 Once we make a choice we begin to partake of the
consequences and we build a prison around ourselves
with them. You needn‟t feel you are stuck with what you
are getting. If you dislike the end results of a choice,
simply forgive and choose again. You will then start
experiencing a different result and be able to leave the
undesirable one behind.

16. Defining Accountability
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 Accountability involves claiming your own power and using
your own wisdom to create even better results in life.
Accountability enables you to take charge of your thoughts,
feelings, and actions, regardless of the actions of others. Do
you ever find yourself using some of these statements to
escape accountability?
 “I had no choice.” We always have a choice, even though we may not like
its consequences.
 “I don‟t know.” Often we do know, but we are hiding from the
knowledge in our heart of hearts.
 “I‟ll try.” The word try indicates an attempt, but not completion. In fact
trying is never doing because once you‟ve done it you‟re no longer trying
to do it. When we say I‟ll try, we are giving ourselves a back door out of
the obligation instead of being straightforward and honest.
 “If …, then …” These words place conditions upon our commitments and
goals without really promising anything. Usually once a condition is
met, we just set up another hoop to keep from committing

17. Challenge to Action
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Choice and Accountability
 Pay special attention to your  Give yourself the option to choose
reactions this week. Choose to stop, again. The reason the Magical
Coaching Stick is a pencil and not a
pause a moment, and then move pen is because you always have the
forward out of choice. This week be option of making changes and
as present as possible in regards to adjustments. Your life is not written
your actions. If you are, you in ink and your fate is not written in
stone.
shouldn‟t have any instances of  Think about some of your regular
reacting. rituals or patterns. Experiment with
 Get clear about what you want and different ways of approaching and
your values. doing things. Perhaps there is
another way that is less stressful and
more peaceful.

18. Cause and Effect
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A MAN WAS WAITING IN THE CAR FOR HIS WIFE AT A PARKING
LOT AS SHE SHOPPED. PARKED IN THE SPOT JUST ON THE OTHER
SIDE OF HIM WAS A VEHICLE HOLDING THREE SMALL CHILDREN.
THESE CHILDREN AT ONCE BEGAN TO MAKE FACES AT MY
FRIEND. A T FIRST THE MAN WAS OFFENDED. D IDN’ T THESE
CHILDREN KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT RESPECT? H E DECIDED UPON
AN EXPERIMENT. H E BEGAN CHEERFULLY WAVING AT THEM.
F OR A WHILE THE FACES CONTINUED, BUT HE DID NOT RELENT.
SURE ENOUGH, THE CHILDREN BEGAN TO WAVE BACK AND
INSTEAD OF MAKING FACES THEY WERE SMILING AND LAUGHING.

19. Defining the Principle
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 Sometimes we call it Karma, sometimes the law of
the harvest or the golden rule. What we are talking
about is the principle that whatever you do comes
back to you. For every action there is an equal and
opposite reaction. What a man sows, that will he
also reap. You don‟t plant corn and expect to get
pumpkins. We don‟t have to go very far to see this
law in action.

20. Laws of Nature
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 “We bring our troubles upon ourselves, be it
ignorantly or otherwise. We live in a world and a
universe governed by immutable laws which, if fully
obeyed, result in beautiful harmony and peace. This
is true of both the material and the spiritual realms –
so teach authorities in the fields of science and
religion.” – Joseph F. Merrill, 1950

21. Example
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 Our lives are initiated in the realm of spirit. Your
spirit provides the power; your mental body directs
that energy; your emotional body focuses your
energy into this dimension and an effect is then
produced in the physical. This is the trail of cause
and effect.
 We start with a thought or perception that leads to a
way of being resulting in actions producing our
results. The natural flow is Be -> Do -> Have. We
are attracting our results.

22. Learning
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 The principle of cause and effect is a great teacher, if
we become aware of it. Because once we are aware,
we can choose differently and get different results.
 This principle has a tendency to snowball if ignored.
What I mean by that is, that initially the results may
be small and easy to ignore, but the longer it takes us
to come into consciousness the more the snow piles
up until there is an avalanche, or dramatic event,
that flattens us.

23. Initiating Change
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 So how do we initiate change? First beware of denial.
Sometimes denial is a shield protecting you from facts
and feelings that you may not be ready to accept. Honest
relationships will assist you in overcoming this. This is
what it looks like with a partner:
 “You don‟t appear to be willing to talk about your feelings about …”
This is confrontation. It should be factual and not an opportunity to
criticize or give advice. Simply state how you are seeing or
experiencing the other person so they can have a mirror of
themselves.
 “It‟s still difficult for me to accept how I have hurt …” This is
leveling. Leveling is responding openly and spontaneously about
your feelings. Usually your feelings will become less intense and
easier to deal with.

24. Language
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 Second, look at your language, your self-talk as well
as spoken words. Language is very powerful. It was
by language that God created the world. Start
speaking positively and use the language of increase
instead of decrease.
 Decrease: speak of your problems, fears, ill health, and
failures
 Increase: speak of you blessings, successes, and lessons

25. Challenge to Action
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Cause and Effect
 Pull out your music collection.  Can you cause an effect in
As you listen to different another? Experiment this
songs, note the effect they week. If you run into a
have on your body, thoughts, grumpy person, see if you can
and emotions. How is the shift them by being pleasant.
music you listen to You may want to try the
influencing your life? experiment from Patch
 Recognize negative self-talk Adams and find different
and change to another ways of cheerfully greeting
statement. Don‟t beat people to elicit a response.
yourself up for having the  Take a look at three of your
negative thought, just recurring thoughts. Evaluate
recognize it and choose to what effect these are causing
change it. in your life.

26. Abundance and Gratitude
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REFLECT ON ALL THAT YOU HAVE TO BE
GRATEFUL FOR AND YOU WILL RECEIVE
MORE TO BE GRATEFUL FOR. ~ UNKNOWN

27. Lack
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 We are always experiencing abundance in our lives.
Abundance is always focused into supporting your
emotional state.
 If you think negative thoughts, belief or fears, the
universe supplies you with experience in abundance
to support them. Since what you think about
expands, you will receive even more.
 If you choose to think about lack, you will have an
abundance of lack.

28. Experience Abundance
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 The perception of lack of any kind in life is a direct
message to you that you are failing to love yourself.
 As you love yourself you will heal and change your
life. You will also begin to notice the tremendous
abundance in your life.
 To experience total abundance in our lives we must
think and feel abundance all around us, becoming
aware through conscious gratitude moment by
moment.

29. Benefits of Gratitude
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 An attitude of gratitude ensures that our attention is
on what we want. As we see ourselves living
abundantly and richly, and recognize what we
already have, we set up a flow of good things coming
our way.
 You will come to see that you already have what you
need. When you do, allow yourself a centered
moment to be at peace and free from want.

30. The Order of Things
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 When you feel that you must have something before
you can do something before you can be something,
life becomes a struggle. So much time is spent trying
to have, you never get to be.
 Backwards Flow – I could really be a really great musician if I
only had a recording contract.
 Natural Flow – I am a really great musician. I perform music.
I receive a contract.

31. Being Open about Letting Go
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 To make space in our life for abundance we need to
have a healthy attitude towards letting go.
 To find freedom and joy in living, one has to give it
all up to get it all back. What you are unwilling to let
go of becomes a source of anxiety and threat.
 Instead of being grateful you are focusing emotional
energy on fear. You are not open to receiving more,
but rather on holding onto what you already have.

32. A Creative Force
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 Emotion is a very powerful creative force. When you
feel something emotionally, you will create a
situation or condition to warrant it.
 Emotion is energy in motion, thought forms that are
felt. Energy follows thought and matter follows
energy.

33. Challenge to Action
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Abundance and Gratitude
 This week I have a  Your second challenge is
special challenge. Buy to give yourself the gift of
yourself a special journal. time to spend doing what
This is to be your journal you love. Express and
of gratitude and develop your talents, and
abundance. At the end of share them with others.
each day, write down five  The final challenge is to
things you are grateful write a thank you note to
for and list all that you your body. Be specific
have received. and full of praise.

34. Health and Healing
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EVERY HUMAN BEING IS THE AUTHOR OF
HIS OWN HEALTH OR DISEASE. ~ BUDDHA
HEALTH IS A STATE OF COMPLETE
PHYSICAL, MENTAL AND SOCIAL WELL-
BEING, AND NOT MERELY THE ABSENCE OF
DISEASE OR INFIRMITY. ~ UNKNOWN

35. Pain
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 Many of us have neglected the physical aspects of our
body. To assist yourself or anyone else, the physical
must receive care as well as our emotional, mental
and spiritual aspects.
 Physical pain has its valid, positive point. It is
continual feedback to tell us what to do and what not
to do.

36. Alarm System
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 Whenever we eat too much or we don‟t get enough
sleep or a part of our body is getting worn out or
something is broken and needs a rest, our marvelous
automatic alarm system lets us know.
 Similarly, if we are hurting emotionally, it is a
message that we need to change our approach or see
things differently.

37. Emotions and Health
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 Emotional upsets generate powerful and lethal
toxins.
 Blood samples taken from persons experiencing
intense fear or anger when injected into guinea pigs
have killed them in less than two minutes.
 Imagine what these toxins can do to your own body if
they are continually being generated.

38. Triggers for Illness
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 We carry subconscious patterns or programs around
in our brain cells that keep us either healthy or sick.
Those people who feel loved and secure have far less
illness and “accidents” than those who don‟t.
 Consider too that the body obeys the mind. If we are
not doing the job or leading the life we enjoy, our
mind is constantly holding the thought, “I wish I
wasn‟t here.” Our body will then respond by working
to get us out of whatever we want to get out of. The
first step is illness.

39. Stress
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 Stress management doesn‟t mean getting rid of all
stress. Rather, it means making thoughtful choices
about which stress to keep and which to let go.
 When you are able to control and direct the energy of
stress, your performance is enhanced.
 Take a moment to list the sensations of fear in one
column and of excitement in another. The only
difference between the symptoms is your mental
state.

40. The Body & Emotions
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 It is important to note here, that our body can have
an impact on our mental and emotional state. This
fact is commonly used by actors. There are basically
two tricks actors use:
 One is to mentally work themselves into the required emotion
and let the body follow.
 The other is to change their body posture and movement to
regenerate those feelings emotionally.

41. Stress Management - Laughter
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 There are many ways to manage stress: meditation,
stretching, communicating, laughter.
 When we laugh, all kinds of wonderful things happen
to benefit your body and mind.
 Endorphins are released in your brain which give you a
“natural high.”
 Your respiratory system gets the kind of workout that it may
get from jogging.
 Laughter relieves pain. You can only laugh when you are
relaxed and the more relaxed you are the less pain you feel.

42. Healing
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 All healing is the release from fear and from our
perceived negative past.
 You heal yourself by recognizing your own worth; you
heal others by recognizing the wholeness and divinity
within them.
 When you heal yourself, you heal another. You are made
well while serving another. To forgive is to heal.
 As you perceive others as yourself or learn to love your
neighbors and yourself, you will be released from your
out of balance condition and become emotionally
healthy.

43. Attitude and Balance
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 There really is a purpose for everything. If you feel
unhappy with the lessons you are learning, you can
set your intention to learn the lesson quickly.
Choose easy. Choose to learn the lesson quickly and
then choose to be healthy and whole. All things are
possible through the power of choice and faith.
 Creating a balance in your life can cushion you
against boredom, isolation, or lack of purpose, and
improve your self-esteem. Taking good care of your
body can create better protection against the
physical assaults of stress.

44. Challenge to Action
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Health and Healing
 There are many things you  Make yourself a checklist. How
can do without cost to support many of these items can you
a healthy body: check off during the week?
 Get lots of fresh air,  How have you created balance in
 Drink plenty of water - it makes your life? Do you have a social
up 70% of your body, life, personal time, engaging
 Spend time in sunshine, work? Are you participating in
 Exercise – walking supports both service to others and spiritual
mind and body, practices? Take an inventory this
 Trust in nature – eat close to
week to find out which area may
nature: whole foods, herbs, & need strengthening in your life.
spices, Decide on a simple action you
 Be social – spend time with others can take now to restore balance
who uplift you, and finally, to your life (and do it).
 Take time to play.

45. Harmony and Rhythm
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“YOU ARE A PART OF THE UNIVERSE, NO
LESS THAN THE STARS AND TREES, AND YOU
HAVE A RIGHT TO BE HERE. AND WHETHER
IT IS CLEAR TO YOU OR NOT, NO DOUBT THE
UNIVERSE IS UNFOLDING AS IT SHOULD …”
~ DESIDERATA

46. Definition
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 Harmony evokes feelings of peace, order, and
compliment.
 Rhythm brings to mind patterned, purposeful
movement.
 This is what differentiates chaos and order. The
universe is an ordered place, organized by a loving
God who is our father. It stands to reason, that He
created us to be orderly too.
 When things are in order we feel at peace and we are
able to move with purpose in compliment to the
world around us.

47. Taking Time
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 Nature always takes her time. Great oaks don‟t
become great overnight. They also lose a lot of
leaves, branches and bark in the process of becoming
great. Everything of value, of beauty, of majesty in
the universe took time to become so. It is the same
with our growth and development. Be gentle with
yourself.

48. Cycles
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 The natural world is full of rhythm. The sun rises
and sets. The seasons change. The tides ebb and
flow. You have a natural rhythm too.
 As sure as the earth revolves around the sun and
winter follows the spring, so must our life move in
cycles. There will be easy times and there will be
hard times. One of the great challenges of life is
dealing with the winter while you are waiting for
spring. Don‟t give up.

49. Rest
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 Nature has a rest from time to time. The soil needs a
rest, certain animals hibernate; even fish sleep with
their eyes open. We need to take time out; to rest, to
review, to ponder, to be.
 These are the times when wonderful ideas and
inspirations come to us because we are still and
open. It is when we stop and take a step back, that
we see the whole picture clearly.

50. In Tune
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 If you place a handful of iron filings on a thin sheet
of metal and play a musical note near the sheet, the
filings arrange themselves into a pattern. Play a
different note and they rearrange themselves. The
filings have no volition or will; they simply fall into
the vibrational pattern of sound.
 Our thoughts are like music, and the circumstances
in life are like the iron filings.

51. Internal Forces
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 Circumstances are the conditions that stand around
us, magnetized to us by the central core of our
thought-forms.
 Change the thoughts at the center of the energy field,
and you change the conditions that stand around
you. This is how our own internal harmony and
rhythm impact the world around us.

52. Challenge to Action
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Harmony and Rhythm
 See if you can find your own internal  Looking over the list of principles we
rhythm. Go a day without alarm have learned, consider the effect they
have on one another. Thought,
clocks and listen to what your body Perception, Choice and
tells you it is time to do. If you‟re Accountability, Cause and Effect,
always charging ahead, you‟re Abundance and Gratitude, Health
challenge is to shift down. If you‟re and Healing, Harmony and Rhythm.
 Make a list of all the things that have
always lagging behind or hanging claim upon you. Compare the level
back, you‟re challenge is to be bold of energy spent on each one versus
and take action. the level of importance of the item.
(Thing that might be on your list:
Family, friends, alone time, work,
recreation, exercise, hobbies …)

53. Questions
53