April 1999 -- Prosperity

April, 1999 - Prosperity

April is a Pivot Point for the Year; Tips for Increasing Your Own Prosperity; Article on Generosity and Prosperity; Books, Internet Resources and Humor
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April is a Pivot Point for the Year

April is a time when concerns about Prosperity tend to arise.

April is the month when tax returns are filed in the US, when many people also are faced with paying property taxes and when many corporate budgets are being reviewed.

Those in school or with children in school are preparing for an end to the current school year, preparing for final exams, getting ready for graduation. Many people are thinking about planning their summer vacations.

Choices about where to spend to money come to the forefront of people’s minds. When faced with income tax bills, property tax bills, graduation bills and possible budget cutbacks, some people will become discouraged. They may put their vacation plans on hold or avoid other purchases that might bring them more personal satisfaction than fulfilling an unpleasant obligation.

April is also the time when many people are seeing signs of Spring in the air. The weather may be unpredictable with thunderstorms and widely fluctuating temperatures from one day to the next.

April is a pivot point in the year and tends to grab our attention as we look at what we have accomplished so far this year or not accomplished.

A Year of Great Hope and Great Fear

As we said in our annual forecast, 1999 is a year of great hope and great fear.

The news media has latched onto the Year 2000 issue now that political antics seem to be of less interest. Some people are very afraid of the change in millennium and this fear can be accentuated during April.

The US economy in general has been very productive in the last few years. If you are lucky enough to have prospered, you may find this year’s income taxes an increased burden if you moved into a higher tax bracket. If you have not prospered, you may be feeling "left out" when hearing glowing reports of the robust economy.

Many company and government fiscal years start on July 1. For them, April signifies a time to at how well the organization is doing financially. There can be changes in budgets to compensate for lower-than-expected revenues or higher-than-expected expenses. This often results in budget cutbacks or shifts in priorities.

Spring is in the Air

Spring in the air often gets people thinking about their own life, their career and their expectations.

They may start brushing up their resume in light of budget priority changes. The natural apprehension about seeking another job coupled with the focus on other financial concerns adds to the overall level of stress that some people feel around this time of year.

These personal and individual stress factors easily find themselves affecting people in the workplace. Attention may be diverted to concerns about family or career concerns in addition to the management pressures that come with financial concerns and budget scrutiny.

When people are stressed, they do not perform as well and they are less able to deal with other people’s stresses on top of their own.

Tips for Increasing Your Own Prosperity

Be aware of just how well off you really are and express gratitude for what you already have. Make a list of all the things that are good about your life, regardless of how small they may seem to you. These can be things such as having a safe place to live, a supportive family and friends, a job that you like, a hobby that gives you pleasure. This list can be quite long if you really pay attention.
On days when you feel stressed or doubt that your life is moving forward, update your list. You will be amazed at how much better you feel.
If you any doubt whatsoever that you have much more than you need to function, spend 15 minutes cleaning your office, cleaning your closets or cleaning your garage. That will point out just how much extra "stuff" is already cluttering your life.
Take a few minutes to feel gratitude for all that you already have and then share your excess with someone else who can use it. Donate your extra "stuff" to a non-profit agency or have a garage sale so that someone less fortunate can benefit from your prosperity.
Cleaning up your life, the place where you live and and the place were you work has other benefits for enhancing your own prosperity. It removes some of the clutter that keeps you from having room for the new things waiting to come into your life.
Keep a Wish List that you update periodically with wishes large and small, regardless of how silly they may seem at the time.
If you have priority items on your Wish List, make a list of the steps you are taking (or plan to take) to move those items along. Resolve to spend some amount of time each week doing something that gets you closer to your most important goals. Remember that the most successful people make this very simple technique a regular habit.
Do something special for yourself this month to balance the sense of obligation. It could be an outing with someone you care about or a quiet evening at home alone. A special purchase of something for your own pure enjoyment or a gift to someone you care about. Do something that makes you feel good.
Prosperity requires having a positive attitude. Prosperity attracts prosperity. To increase personal prosperity requires that you be willing to accept that you are worthy of having more and setting up thought patterns that allow you to achieve your dreams. The power of your thoughts when clearly focused is an amazing thing to behold.
At some point, you will be bored with maintaining a Wish List or agonazing over unrealized goals. It is after a time without looking at your lists that you realize how many of your wishes have come true without you doing anything consciously. This is one of the amazing secrets that only a few people seem to have remembered: Letting go of your attachment to something often allows it to manifest in your life. It's like planting flower seeds, then forgetting about them. They grow and develop with little attention. If you dig them up every day to check on them, what happens? They will be mutilated, misformed or simply die. Wishes follow the same law of nature � if watched and worried over constantly, they suffocate. When left alone to bloom, they prosper on their own.
If you use meditation or visualization techniques, you may be interested in reading this article.

Tips for Overcoming Fear and Maintaining Balance

Pay attention to media reports and realize that they are usually designed to elicit emotion and grab your attention. Many television advertisements and programs use music that is specifically designed to trigger the emotion of fear.
Don’t watch the late night news if it gives you nightmares or makes you more anxious.
Don’t go to "end of the world" movies.
Don’t listen to the news or loud music in your car. Instead play a soothing music tape or CD as you make your way to/from work during rush hour. You'd be amazed at how much calmer you will feel.
Keep the fear in check by being prepared in whatever way helps you feel secure.
Develop a specific plan for your family to deal with any potential Year 2000 issues. There are many websites that provide assistance in this planning effort (see the Year 2000 resources page).
Keep the ups and downs of the stock market in perspective. Because the Stock Market is a daily indicator of the economy, the media uses it to grab people’s attention even when there are small fluctuations.
Most of all, remember this: You have lived through difficult times before and you will live through this one too! If for some reason you don't live through this one, it won't matter anymore.

Tips for Dealing with Friends, Family and Co-Workers

If you encounter others that are overly stressed, offer them a kind word of support rather than cricism.
Before engaging in verbal combat with someone, count to 10, take a deep breath or take a walk and allow yourself to return calmer and more relaxed yourself.
Help your family, friends and co-workers see our changing times in a broader perspective.
This is only one month out of one year of your entire life.
Take an hour, a day or a week this month and do something that is just plain fun! (some fun internet sites are listed in this month's humor section).

Generosity and Prosperity

(from an online chat group recently facilitated by Barbara Taylor)

The topic for tonight is Generosity, especially as it relates to Prosperity and as an anti-dote to this year's dragon of Greed. Many people are feeling the sense of not getting enough, of feeling pushed to accomplish more, do more, have more this year. That is part of the Greed energy. Also, the power mode/moving center energy this year is like a gale force at times ... pushing hard! Periodically, we need to take a break from the pressure and put things into perspective.

Generosity is the aspect of opening up to both giving and receiving ... the "flow" of the universe. That energy can be stopped dead in its tracks by Greed, or by feeling a need to hold onto what we already have. Generosity allows us to give of ourselves (love, money, time, whatever). It also requires that we be open to accepting those things from others as well. If we only give, where would it go if there were no one to accept what we have moved along?

This exercise may be of interest to any of you who would like to be more open to Prosperity of your own. You can read this later in the log, so don't worry about doing it right now, just try to get the "feeling" of it a little bit, then try it when you have a more quiet place.

Meditation Exercise:

Sit in a comfortable chair with your feet on the floor, hands in your lap, uncrossed.

Take a few breaths and feel yourself relax.

Connect with the earth and feel it's strength supporting your body.

Feel your aura around you and notice how wide it spreads.

Now, consciously expand your aura until it is about a foot wider. Notice how that feels.

You may find that you need to breathe more deeply to expand your aura. Allow your breath to move, as it needs to. Then, consciously expand your aura slowly until it fills the room. Notice how that feels.

Feel the energy coming to you from the earth, the sky, the air and feel your energy expanding as you move your aura outward. Take some time to simply enjoy that expansion feeling.

As you get more comfortable with exercise, you can practice expanding out farther than just the room. Don't try to cover the whole world in one exercise, but allow yourself to expand, as you feel comfortable.

While you are in that expansive place, take a moment to think about some small act of generosity that you would like to do, a letter to a friend, a phone call, a donation of some kind. Make a mental note to remember that when the exercise is over.

Also, take a moment to think about some area of your life that you would like to be more prosperous. Allow the expansive energy to help you open up to more prosperity and again, make a mental note to remember that when you are done with the exercise.

When you are ready, bring your aura slowly back toward yourself. Allow it to remain a little larger than it was before you started.

If you can do this exercise fairly regularly, you will find that your ability to give and your ability to receive will be increased. It can happen rather quickly, so do not be surprised if things start to change rapidly for you.

Also, do not get discouraged if you don't see immediate results. Everyone has their own right timing and you must get into your own "groove" before it will work very quickly.

Please, everyone, take a couple deep breaths and bring yourself back to the present time and space.

��

Another exercise that can be very helpful is to write down what it is that you would like to achieve before starting such an exercise. The clearer and cleaner your own energy, the more powerful the results.

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If you'd like to stay in that place, feel free to work with it. Doing an exercise in a group, even such as this, adds more energy to the experience. We all feel part of the collective power that is available here tonight. This power can literally move mountains when pure and focused like a laser beam.

Student Comment: I liked the fact that Generosity is both giving and receiving. There must be other words for just giving and just receiving.

Energy has to move in order to work properly. It can be up/down, +/-, in/out, over and through. They are just words, expansion./contraction. You might want to ponder the nature of energy when doing the exercise. Find new ways of describing what it is doing to and for you.

Student Comment: Well, if I'm understanding your premise correctly, energy requires actualization.

YES! Energy IS active.

Student Comment: In other words, don't wait for the reflection in the mirror to smile.

Smile and the mirror will smile, too!

In order to accomplish prosperity, you must first give what you want to receive. You must become what you want to be in order to attract what you seek. That's the principle of tithing ... priming the pump. Give a little to get the flow started. Once the flow of energy is flowing freely, it can sustain itself with very little additional energy. That's why the rich get rich. And, stay rich without seeming to work very hard at it.

Student Comment: Hmmm ... less work, more money. I could get aligned behind that concept.

That's the secret!

Student Question: Also, don't you need to make room for new "stuff"?

Keep cleaning out the closet and the garage. Keep the energy moving along.

Student Question: But the rich traditionally rise to the top by stepping on the backs of others. How does the spiritual person compete with this mindset?

Some of them do yes. It will come back around to them later. Competing is not necessary. There is more than enough for everyone. We can increase the energy as needed. When you see a big foot coming down, move out of the way. Don't get trampled. If we work on our own energy, we don't have to worry about anyone else's. That's their job.

Student Comment: Sounds like the old soul motto to me.

Yes, indeed. We are very old. We've probably all been together in Egypt ... at one time or another.

Student Question: With the shift to more mature focus on working together, won't a lot of this competing and trampling be lessened?

Yes, the competitive nature of everything is shifting and changing quickly.

For more information about the use of certain words (dragon, mode, center), see The Personality Game definitions.

Download a text version of the paper. Right-click on the link and select "save file" or "save target" to download the file on your hard disk.

Books - Disclosure: We get a small commission for purchases made via links to Amazon.

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Susan Jeffers. Fawcett Books; Reissue edition (May 1988) ISBN: 0449902927
Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Richard Bach, The MacMillan Company, New York, NY 1970 (a classic, this little book is a "must read" for anyone who wants to expand their horizons) Avon; Reissue edition (July 1995) ISBN: 0380012863
Life 101, John�Roger and Peter McWilliams, Prelude Press Inc., Los Angeles CA, 1990 (the book we wish we'd written, it uses humor and simple wisdom to make its point). Mary Book / Prelude Pr; (December 1996) ASIN: 0931580161
Success! Michael Korda, Ballantine Books, New York, NY 1977 (author of Power! How to Use It, How to Get It and Male Chauvinism: How it Works) Ballantine Books; (August 1978) ASIN: 0345310551
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. Stephen R. Covey. Fireside Books, Simon & Schuster; New York NY 1990 ISBN: 0671708635
The Celestine Prophecy and The Tenth Insight by James Redfield

The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky, Villard Books (Random House), New York, NY (c) 1984, updated in 1998. ISBN: 0679778063

Think And Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill; Fawcett, New York, NY Reissue edition (November 1990) ISBN: 0449214923

What Color is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job�Hunters & Career Changers, Richard Bolles, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley CA, (this annually updated book continues to grow and provide invaluable methods to determine the best job/career) 2003 issue ISBN: 1580084605

When Smart People Fail, Carole Hyatt and Linda Gottleib, Simon and Schuster Inc., New York, 1987 (excellent way to re�think 'failure' and 'success') Penguin USA (Paper); (Updated May 1993) ISBN: 0140178112

You'll See It When You Believe It, Wayne Dyer, William Morrow and Company Inc., New York, 1989 (with 50 million books in print, Wayne Dyer knows how changing his thinking profoundly changed his own life and the lives of millions of others who follow his work) Quill; Updated September 2001 ISBN: 0060937335

Internet Resources

http://prosperity-institute.org/ - Prosperity Institute Online
http://www.prosperity.com/ - Prosperity Central
http://www.eaglepointproducts.com/ - Prosperity Products
http://www.unitycinti.org/ - New Thought Unity Center
http://deming.org/deminghtml/wedi.html - The Deming Institute
http://www.mindbloom.com/corporate.html - 10 Commandments for Corporate Creativity
http://www.prosperityplace.com/spirit/index.html - Prosperity Place
http://www.cyber-nation.com/victory/quotations/subjects/quotes_prosperity.html - Quotes on the subject of Prosperity
http://www.anand.to/quotes/confidence.html - Quotes on the subject of Confidence
http://www.womensu.com/quotes.htm - Send an online postcard to a friend
http://www.self-worth.com/quotes.htm - Motivational quotes
http://www.metrokc.gov/exec/mlk/quotes.htm - More quotes

Humor

http://www.proaxis.com/~gregerk/humor/16progfool.html - April Fools jokes to pull on Computer Programmers
http://www.rcac.com/april1/ - from April 1 Media
http://www.bigstinkin.com/ - Big Stinkin' International Improv & Sketch Comedy Festival - annual festival hosting troupes from all over the world. April 5th-10th 1999.
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au - Melbourne International Comedy Festival - 1-25 April 1999.
http://www.drue.com/vnet/ - VNET - vivid studios' 1998 April Fool's Day parody of CNET.
http://www.aprilfools.com/hllink.htm - Make Headline News - make anyone (including yourself) famous in a matter of seconds.
http://www.wyb.com/april_fools.html - The Unofficial Origin of April's Fool Day.
http://www.fearlessbooks.com/FeatureLine9.html - article "What to do with Entirely Too Much Money"

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