Nature’s Guidance System

When you discover your deepest passions, you connect the essence of who you are, and gain the power to transform your life.  However, identifying your passions is only the first step to living a fulfilled and happy life.  Just like anything else in this world that’s worth it, you must commit, take action, and choose in favor of your passions in order to create your ideal future.

Action Keeps Attention Engaged

By taking action, you are directing your attention to the fulfillment of your passions. It’s not action that creates the desired result (even though it may appear that way). It is your intention directed through the process of attention that creates the result. You can see this is true because in almost every case, the way in which a result happens is different from the plan of action created for achieving that result.

Stay Open While Following Your Passion

It is so important to stay open. We can pretty well guarantee that things won’t unfold the way you think they will, but here’s some really, really good news: Nature will guide you every step of the way when you listen to her messages. Believe it or not, life is set up to keep you on the cosmic highway to ever increasing joy and fulfillment. Unfortunately, most people today are like the little toy cars that get off the track, hit a wall, and keep spinning their wheels, trying to go through the wall instead of turning and getting back on the track. The following is an exercise that Chris and I developed that will use attention to attract what you choose to have in your life, and help you focus on the next steps to fulfilling your passions.

Nature’s Guidance System

Nature guides us through internal experiences of contraction and expansion. To help you picture what we’re talking about, get a blank piece of paper. In the top left corner label it “Nature’s Guidance System” and draw a vertical line (up and down) in the middle of the paper. At the top of the line write “Joy and Fulfillment.” At the bottom write “Misery and Suffering.” To the right of the line draw an arrow pointing up, and next to that write “Expansion.” To the left of the line draw another arrow pointing down, and next to that write “Contraction.”

Limit the Contraction in Your Life You know what it feels like when you’re contracted, right? Upset, angry, anxious, tense, irritable, shut down, disconnected, unhappy, depressed. Generally, contraction feels uncomfortable. And you know what it feels like when you’re expanded, don’t you? Happy, excited, ready for anything, open, connected, loving, generous, kind, compassionate. All those wonderful things that feel so good. Now on your piece of paper, make a green light by the word “Expansion” and a red light by the word “Contraction.” If you don’t have colored pens, draw an open circle with rays coming out for “Expansion” and a filled-in circle for “Contraction.” When you feel expanded, this is Nature’s way of telling you go forward, take action, you’re on the right track. When you feel contracted, the cosmic Guidance System is saying, stop, take a break, look again, and reflect. When you’re feeling exhausted or constricted or uptight and you keep going anyway, you are insisting on your will and not listening to God’s will. When you do that, you are like the toy car. You’ve rammed into a wall, and you keep spinning your wheels trying to go through the wall instead of turning, getting back on the track and speeding forward.

Slow Down in Order to Move Forward

How many times have you thought, “Well, I’ve got to get this done, it’s essential to accomplishing my purpose,” so you keep going in spite of the contraction? Or maybe you hit a wall—you just give up and say, “I’ll never accomplish my purpose.” Guess what? As long as you tell yourself that, it will be true for you. You have turned off the cosmic guidance system. As long as you keep doing these things you will be moving down and down the line on your paper toward increasing misery and suffering. When you feel contracted, stop, take a break, and stay open to what is appearing in your life now. You’ll be giving yourself the chance for new ideas, new solutions, and new opportunities to show up. This is the principle of No Tension. When contraction strikes, take a break. Don’t try to deal with the challenge in that moment. Some part of your mind will continue to consider the issue, even when you’re not consciously thinking about it. And then, when you least expect it, a thought or an idea will come that gives rise to the feeling of expansion again. It’s the aha moment, and suddenly you feel excited and turned on again. Expansion is the green light. It’s the signal to move forward to take action. It’s really so very simple. The cosmic guidance system is always guiding you as long as you are open to being guided. There are only two states: stop and go. When you feel contraction, stop and look. When you feel expanded, go forward with gusto.

Let Go and Enjoy the Ride

Traveling the cosmic highway to fulfill your destiny has a lot to do with learning to trust that the universe is created to support you in experiencing ever-increasing joy and fulfillment. Once you let go of the idea that you have to control everything that happens in your world, you’ll be able to stay open to new possibilities and let go of your concepts of how things should work out.

Begin living the life you were destined for.

If you are just getting started in making the commitment to follow your passions, begin by finding out where you stand right now. Invest 3 minutes to take your Personal Passion Profile and find out how passionate you are, where you are blocked and what you need to do next. 

With love

Janet Bray Attwood