By Nancy Rynes, author of Awakenings from the Light
Article copyright Nancy Rynes
How important are the words you tell yourself, your inner dialogue? Are the words in your mind helping you or hampering you? Jacob’s story shows how important it is to take a good, hard look at your inner dialogue to gauge whether it is helping you create the life of your dreams, or keeping you from achieving what you desire.
My daughter has loved books ever since she was a toddler. For her, a perfect gift when she was growing up was to have someone take her to a bookstore and let her pick out a few new inspirational or motivational books. She would always sneak in a young adult fiction novel too, but her favorite books were true stories of young people overcoming challenges to achieve success. Most of the time she used the library to get her reading fix, and sometimes we purchased used books for her. But for special occasions, I occasionally indulged her and splurged on a gift of new books. So when she graduated from high school, part of her gift from me was allowing her to pick out several inspiring, new books from her favorite bookstore.
One morning, a few days after her graduation, we decided to head to the bookstore for this part of her gift. Before we left the house, did something I often do…I placed a note in my “God Jar”. This time my request was a question. I asked to be shown how I could continue to be helpful to people. It had been several years since I wrote my book (Awakenings from the Light) and I was unsure whether I wanted to continue doing any future writing in the spirituality arena.
After I put my request in the God Jar, my daughter and I made the trek to the bookstore. She immediately veered to the spiritual and inspirational section, picked out three or four non-fiction books to look through, and sat down in a comfortable spot so that she could page through each one. Since I had given her a spending limit, she wanted to make she chose just the right books.
As she was reviewing her potential purchases, I browsed through the shelf on general spirituality. I didn’t really find anything that jumped out at me so I started to turn away and go to another section. Just then, a young man who we’ll call Jacob, approached the spiritual books and began looking at them too. We started chatting and he asked if I saw any Neville Goddard books on the shelf. I replied yes, pointing the only remaining one out to him. I said something to the effect that it was a good book and I had found Goddard’s work helpful in my own life. He seemed intrigued and kneeled down to pull the book off the shelf.
As he reached out to grab Goddard’s book, I noticed a large tattoo of “I AM” on Jacob’s wrist. That caught my attention. I felt it was a little sign from the Divine that I was supposed to be here, helping this young man in some way. Why? A colleague of mine, Howard Falco, also an author and speaker, had written a wonderful book titled I AM and I thought maybe, just maybe, Jacob had read it, which then had inspired the tattoo. I asked Jacob about the tattoo but he replied no, he hadn’t read Howard’s book. I glanced up and was surprised to see Howard’s book right there on the shelf in front of me! Pointing it out to Jacob, he eagerly picked it up and asked me how I knew the author. I explained that Howard and I had been in a spiritual mastermind group together and I was very impressed with his work because he always helped us stay focused on the importance of our words, both internal and external. One of Howard’s messages was that we can change our lives, in part, by changing how we use the power of our thoughts and words.
Jacob perked up and started telling me of the challenges in his life, how he was at a point where he realized that his internal negativity and negative self-talk was doing nothing but bringing the things he feared into reality. In his last job, through a series of challenging events and co-workers, this young man had convinced himself that the boss didn’t like him and would fire him. By Jacob’s own admission, his thoughts could not get off the “my boss is gonna fire me” merry-go-round. He seemed obsessed by this happening even though, up until then, he had been a rock solid employee.
Guess what happened.
The boss fired him.
Jacob said that being fired was his wake-up call. In that moment, he realized his negative thoughts had started a chain reaction which led to speaking and acting out in negative ways, and eventually created the reality of his getting fired. Being worried about losing his job, then obsessing over it, caused fear to take hold in his mind. Because Jacob wasn’t conscious of what he was doing to himself (the fear and worry), his negative, fearful thoughts caused him to do and say things that alienated his coworkers and supervisor. Jacob was eventually fired when the boss had finally had enough of his negativity and outbursts. This turned out to be the a ha moment that this young man so desperately needed. He was here in the bookstore hoping to find help in changing the destructive pattern that had taken hold in his mind.
Jacob was beginning the process of waking up to just how powerful he was as a spiritual being. We all are powerful, really, but most of us don’t realize it. But this young man was on the cusp of learning to use that innate power to bring what he desired into his life, rather than what he didn’t want.
How did I know he could be successful in making the shift? Well, it was obvious that Jacob was already quite accomplished at making his thoughts become reality: his boss firing him was one example. But it was time to switch what he created. No longer content to exist mired in his own negative thoughts and fears, and the resulting negative reality, he was beginning to learn that he could start to change his life simply by changing his inner dialogue.
I spoke with him for another ten minutes, giving him a brief rundown of my NDE and the lessons I learned there…lessons that backed up the reality of how powerful we can be, and how important our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions are in changing our lives and shaping our reality.
Jacob was beginning to understand that where your mind goes, so goes your life. Remember, our minds are more powerful tools for change than we have been led to believe.
The takeaway from reading Jacob’s story is that we cannot truly have peace in our lives without aligning our minds to the positive outcomes we want for ourselves.
Another important point to consider is this: if this reality we find ourselves in is really a type of simulation or classroom, which I and many others believe it is, then learning how to make our thoughts align with our desires is one way we can shift that simulation to live the life we desire.
As always, take care and many blessings to you,
Nancy
Disclaimer: If you have been diagnosed with a mental or physical health condition, or suspect you might have one, please check with your qualified, professional provider. You deserve specific treatment for your condition. Nancy Rynes is not a medical or psychological professional. In this series of articles, Nancy is sharing with you what her experiences have been and what has worked for her. If you choose to use any of this information in your life, which is your right, Nancy Rynes is not responsible.
Archive: Past Newsletter Issues
TODAY Show: Nancy's Interview on NBC TV's TODAY
Messages of Hope with Suzanne Giesemann: Exploring NDEs with Nancy Rynes
Article: Seven Lessons That Dying Taught Me About Truly Living (Aspire Magazine)
Article: Lives Changed by NDEs (Boulder Daily Camera)
Article: Awakening to Life(Pages 6-10, Journal of Exceptional Experiences and Psychology, Summer 2016)
Article: The Meaning of Life (Excellence Reporter)
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