Our society has not always openly supported the idea of living holistically; however, thanks to those like author Theresa Cloud Eagle Nelson, a third-generation practitioner of restoration, this total way of life is something that has been proven to reach and provide resolutions for the restoration of many core issues we face in life. The practice of conscious living, which she shares in these pages, is a part of who she is. Here, she shares many of the tools she has developed to help people find the fundamentals of effective living. These are tools she habitually uses every day of her life, and she doesn't know any other way to live. It is how the divine desires us to live, she teaches, in a full understanding that when we do, we will have heaven right here on Earth. This is nothing new; it's been around for millennia.

Tools for Effective Living

Guide for a Purpose-Filled LifeBy Theresa Cloud Eagle Nelson

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Theresa Cloud Eagle Nelson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-0343-3

Contents

Preface.....................................................xiIntroduction................................................xvLife-Giving Thoughts........................................1Affirmations—The Language of God......................17Words of Compassion.........................................31Forgiveness Is Love.........................................43Prayer—A Living Seed..................................57Meditation..................................................69Part One Empowerment Through Meditation.....................70Part Two The Process of Meditation..........................82Establishing Ideals and Making Goals........................99Bring Your Dreams into Reality..............................117Conclusion..................................................131Bibliography................................................133

Chapter One

TOOL ONE

Life-Giving Thoughts

Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes, And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills, Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:—He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass: Environment is but his looking-glass.

—As a Man Thinketh James Allen

Your thoughts create your world, but your heart plays a big role throughout this creation. An often quoted phrase captures this process—"as a man thinketh in his heart so is he. This statement not only embraces the whole of your being, but it is so comprehensive as to reach out to every condition and circumstance of your life," says James Allen in his book "As a Man Thinketh."

Your desires rest in your heart. What you speak "from the heart" is what you want to happen.

When you look in the mirror, you see your image, a reflection of what is there. And by seeing what is there, you can correct what's not in place. Similarly, your life reflects what you have put your attention on, using your thoughts and words. Your thoughts impact and portray the image you have of yourself, projecting that image into your world or environment.

What you put your focus on, whether it is a thought or a spoken word, is what is created in your physical world. You do not realize that your thoughts, which become verbal expressions and manifestations (– words), have power. Ideas begin as thoughts, and thoughts become words. Once "a thing" is given "a name" it has even more power. The more you speak "the name" the more power you give "the thing." This, in turn, allows it to manifest more quickly into the seen world.

In the book of Genesis, God gave Adam the assignment to name every living creation God made appear on the earth. Whether you believe this story or not, it depicts the power we have by giving "names" to our creations, just as God gave Adam. Through your belief, you know that when you name something, it is exactly what you have named it—a song you have composed, a child you have birthed, a book you have penned, or a piece of art you have painted.

Thoughts take expressions as the spoken word. Words are creative energy, alive and moving. Once you name something it has power. Every word you speak holds power, no matter how minuscule you think it is. To help us understand this point I like the way H. Emily Cady states it, "there is in the formed conscious man, a point of concentration for this word." As we concentrate on what we are creating in our mind, a word is put with it. You want your words to be living words, words of life for prosperous creation. Words have the power to restore and make whole. And words have the power to tear down and destroy.

Think of thoughts as seeds planted by the heart. The fruit is the desire of the heart manifested or harvested (i.e., what is reaped). What are you planting through your thoughts and words?

The following is a story concerning my little sister cousin, Rhonda, and her life changing experience. This was so powerful that I asked her to share it, because the outcome resulted from her thoughts and subsequently her words being manifested:

Yes, I will recount those moments and why I truly believe in the power of the tongue and the importance of being careful of what you speak out of your mouth, for you just might "will" it into your life.

One of my best friends and I were just sitting around one afternoon talking about life in general when she said, "Oh, I'll probably get cancer and die."

My remark in reply was, "I'll probably get something that they don't have a cure for." We were both in our twenties and not thinking much about it. This is sort of painful because I still remember it so clearly.

Years went by, and by the time I was in my thirties, I became real sick and went to the hospital. First, they couldn't find anything. But there was a young, new doctor who continued to do tests and finally figured out, from the results that I had lupus, which was fairly new to the medical field. He said, "I have some good news and bad news for you. Bad news is you have lupus. The good news is you can live with it, but there is no cure for it." As always your mind begins to entertain negative thoughts. But I had faith, and I knew God would bring me through it.

After my episode, my best friend was doing a self-examination when she found a lump in her breast. She went to see about it and found out that she had breast cancer. She went through all of the treatments, but at the early age of thirty-five, she passed away.

With this personal experience, I unequivocally believe in being careful of what you speak. I have learned the power of words and am living more consciously aware of what I say and think.

Another young woman I know admired the parenting and wife skills of her much loved aunt and said she wanted to be like her. She married, had children and began emulating the wonderful parenting skills of her aunt with her family. Later in life she came to the conclusion that she no longer wanted the life she had built and decided to choose another way of living. She more than likely forgot what she had said and desired earlier in her life, which brought her to this unwanted lifestyle. She is still learning, but she is coming into her own through this great learning experience.

For the most part, no one remembers or is conscious of the many factors that go into making the choices we make. Many of us are like these two women, but without realizing the power of our thoughts and words, we find ourselves in difficult and unwanted learning situations.

What you see reflecting back at you as your life is the result of what you have planted and are now harvesting. It is easy to blame someone else for what you imagine is seemingly happening, because then you don't have to really look at yourself. The responsibility however is yours—and yours alone—to change, seeing a positive outcome in the situation or as the saying goes, "making lemonade out of lemons." You don't want to become stuck in your thinking as a result of what happened in the past. This train of thought keeps you bound in the victim mentality. You want to regain the power that was either taken or given away. To help you understand more clearly, here is another quote I want to share as it pertains to your words creating your world:

Either make the tree sound (healthy and good), and its fruit sound (healthy and good), or make the tree rotten (diseased and bad), and its fruit rotten (diseased and bad); for the tree is known and recognized and judged by its fruit.... For out of the fullness (the overflow, the superabundance) of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man from his inner good treasure flings forth good things, and the evil man out of his inner evil storehouse flings forth evil things. But I tell you, on the Day of Judgment men will have to give account for every idle (inoperative, nonworking) word they speak. For by your words you will be justified and acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned and sentenced."

Matthew 12:33-37 AMP

As a race of humans, we go through life not paying attention to our thoughts, but they are so extremely powerful. The important lesson on the power of our thoughts was left out. The power we held within was not typically explained to us during our religious orientation. Not until the past fifteen years or so did that hidden truth start to come to light for a large number of us. Our words can be a "two-edged" sword that either builds life or takes life away. Our thoughts are to be seen as gems because then they become our words.

The Divine wants you to realize that even your so-called negative thoughts are things that will be granted. The Creator, a pure essence, gives you whatever you desire. What you strongly desire, ask for, and focus your attention on, you most often will receive either immediately or in the future.

The Divine Spirit is so pure that "good and bad" really do not exist. Those are human terms. To Pure Spirit, your energy (divine rhythm) is either vibrating at the harmonious level of divine love or it is vibrating out of rhythm at an inharmonious level of consciousness. The rhythm's either build your life force or destroys it; enriches your world or causes your world to exist in poverty. There is no judgment from the Divine about your chosen desire.

If you desire "the thing," you want it to manifest into the physical world. Being aware of your co-creative abilities is essential to the acknowledgment of your divinity. God will not interfere with your desires. The Divine is waiting for you to choose and to create righteously. Again, where is your attention?

Your thoughts begin as a mental idea. They do not have form. As you concentrate and focus on these thoughts and ideas they begin to take form in the ethers until a physical manifestation appears. So you want to imagine positive, prosperous thoughts and words to begin living consciously. When you use the words "I am" before any thought or group of words you are using the creative vibration of God to manifest what follows.

In the beginning, all things were first created in the Mind of God, Divine Intelligence. This consciously creative energy was not idle play or fancy. Each living image was a unique and precious pattern of creation within the Mind of God.

Much of your language is prefaced with "I am" without anyone realizing the co-creative power the "I am" carries with it. When you use "I am" you are praying in a sense. You want to steer away from prefacing negative statements with the "I am". It is the powerful name of God which was revealed to humankind when God spoke to Moses. And typically the Creator grants you what you pray for.

You want to develop your heart and produce good seed. Here is an analogy that was shared with me by one of my mentors, who is also a spiritual mother: When a farmer plants seeds for a crop, he expects that seed to grow and develop into something tangible to harvest. You are not different. Only your fertile ground is your heart and your thoughts. The harvest is what you see in your tangible world, good or bad.

The heart as defined here is the spiritual heart, not the physical. Something intangible (the spiritual heart) can produce something tangible (the emotional or physical reward). If you are not conscious of your thoughts and words you will manifest the opposite of your true desire without realizing it. The following ideas are examples of rewards that we strive to achieve as we go through life, but their counter-part is also there. If you don't mindfully use your thoughts the opposite reward will manifest in your life.

• Happiness

• Unhappiness

• Prosperity

• Lack

• Healthy

• Imbalance

• Dis-ease

What are you creating? What is getting planted through your thoughts, words and deeds? How do you see? What do you hear? What do you think? What are you speaking? What are your actions and responses? What you sow (the seed) is what you reap (the harvest). As I said previously, your world reflects back to you as a mirror reflects an image. It is the Universal Law of Cause and Effect. Our holy books help us understand this phenomenon pretty good:

Do not be deceived and deluded and misled; God will not allow Himself to be sneered at (scorned, disdained, or mocked by mere pretensions or professions, or by His precepts being set aside.) [He (you) inevitably deludes himself who attempts to delude God.] For whatever a man sows, that and that only is what he will reap.

Galatians 6:7

Divine Intellect is mind. Your soul as a living thing, houses the essence of the Creator, which means you can create and co-create your world with God. Your innate essence is that of love, peace and harmony, but you don't always create with that intent. When you activate your thoughts and words, you create that exact experience whether it is positive or negative. One of the teachers at Unity explains our active thoughts this way, "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

The Law of Attraction requires that it join with like thought. Your thoughts are drawn by magnetic attraction to other thought streams either positive or negative. People, dis-ease, all types of conditions are attracted to you by your thought streams, and these give you what you want. The Law of Attraction brings to you what you desire via your thought processes.

You want the world to see more of who you are authentically through the expression of your divinity. A part of living authentically is to change from how you are currently living in your spiritually undeveloped earthly expression, to the loving spiritually developed being the Divine created you to be.

Living effectively is a process. Don't expect everything in your life to change immediately once you decide to make the change. The old behavior has to get to the point where it is completely dissolved. The fruit from the seeds planted in the past have to die off, like the leaves from a tree as the seasons change. You were used to having your thoughts influenced by outside sources and making them your own, taking in the "good opinion (judgments) of other people."

In competition, with the external conversation, there is the internal dialogue in your head telling you what you are or are not able to achieve. You may wonder what people will think or how you don't know what to do. You can become quite confused listening to that negative dialogue, not knowing what to do and remaining stuck.

The people (including yourself) and situations left over from your previous way of being have to run their course in your life. This process will happen. Just don't run out of patience and fall back into your old ways of thinking and speaking. Attention is typically heartfelt. Attention to these old ways will put you back where you were before you decided to make the change. It is a process. Have patience. Listen to your sacred heart thoughts and move with it. There is an ancient book that says "Guard your heart with diligence for out of it flows the springs of life." This is something I had to learn as well and can now share with you. Your sacred heart will not misguide you.

As I approached graduation from college, the job search not going in the direction I desired, I said knowingly, without realizing the depth of my heart's desire, "I guess I would promote God." That statement came to be manifested in the form of a magazine.

Because I wanted to share information that could help people become knowledgeable of the holistic way of life I formed my platform.

When I began Pattern Pieces®, I did not have the journalism expertise one typically had as an editor and publisher, but I knew I could do anything that needed to be done because I was following the guidance of God. When you have complete trust in your parent that is what you do. You obey. It was very professionally done and successful during its season of five years, and it was distributed both nationally and internationally.

But as I moved deeper into this process, I realized my skills were building upon what I had previously learned. My trust and faith in the Divine Creator was also being developed. This entire process was a stepping stone on the path to my purpose. I removed the word "failure" from my vocabulary for there are no failures in life. Failing is not trying at all. It is important to follow your sacred heart's desire and direction. I was not led wrong. The magazine had a tremendous impact on many lives. One's I am still finding out about.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Tools for Effective Livingby Theresa Cloud Eagle Nelson Copyright © 2011 by Theresa Cloud Eagle Nelson. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.