You are invited to join the

SW Intenders Circle
Tuesday, May 10th 6:30-8:30
11283 West Rice Place, Littleton CO
Please use driveway or visitor parking spaces, HOA does not allow street parking

Our topic this week: The benefits in adversity!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk22jDorvec

Please print and bring on Tuesday.

Napoleon Hill shares "adversity brings with it the seed of an equivalent advantage."  He writes that few people learn ”that every form of defeat, and all failures, bring with them the seed of unborn opportunity and success usually is but one short step beyond the point where one quits!"

This idea easily applies in relationships, work, finances and health; all aspects of living as a human being. 

"The greatest benefit of adversity is that it may and generally does, force one to change one's thought-habits, thus breaking and redirecting the force of hypnotic rhythm."  

The Law of Hypnotic Rhythm is explained by Napoleon Hill as “an impulse of thought that the mind repeats over and over and thru habit forms and organized rhythm.”   This idea is similar to what we have discussed previously in our Intenders Circles as creating neurological ruts in our brain; ruts that allow unconscious behavior to continue that does not align with our desires.  These habits can be so unconscious, that we are not even aware of them creating frustration with understanding the Law of Attraction and how it works – every time!

Using the tools we discussed last week create new thought patterns and thus positive hypnotic rhythms.  This creates a vibration that attracts awareness of self as well as easily allows our desires to manifest – because we get out of our way!

Hypnotic Rhythm can be used for both for the positive as well as the negative.  By consciously creating positive habits, we can use the Law of Hypnotic Rhythm to compel us forward with positive aligned thinking, feeling and actions; supporting our manifesting of our desires.   Allowing our hypnotic rhythm to continue to be negative keeps us from our desires, in a life of failure and frustration.  It is really a choice – to make conscious and use the law for attaining desires or remain unconscious and frustrated, blaming the world for misfortune.  

"Adversity forces an individual to test his mental, physical and spiritual strength; it thus brings a person face to face with his weakness and gives him the opportunity to bridge them."

The teachings in the Enneagram share tools to bridging our strengths and weaknesses.   Passions or our underlying motivators are ways we can lose our center and become distorted in our thinking, feeling and doing.   Unconscious motivators create a shadow side of repetitive behaviors; ways of thinking that repeat over and over again thru a person’s lifetime often creating a pattern of undesired outcomes or conflicts. 

The nine motivator’s represented in the Enneagram are:

• Anger/Resentment - repressed anger leading to continual frustration and dissatisfaction with oneself and the world.
• Pride/Vainglory – an inability or unwillingness to acknowledge one’s own suffering; denial of own need. Pride in one’s own viture.
• Deceit/Vanity – deceiving oneself and others into believing that one is only one’s ego. Focus is only on ego and not on true self.  Vanity – an attempt to keep the ego valuable and disconnected from Source.
• Envy – feeling that something fundamental is missing.  Feeling that others possess qualities that one lacks; a longing for what is absent and missing the many blessings in life.
• Avarice/Greed -  feeling an inner lack of resources and too much interaction.  A withholding of self, resources  and contact.  Minimized needs.
• Fear/Anxiety – feeling afraid of things that are not happening now; a constant state of apprehension and worry about the future.
• Gluttony -  an insatiable desire to “fill oneself up” with experiences; an attempt to overcome feelings of inner emptiness with pursuit of a variety of positive, stimulating and activities but never getting enough.
• Lust – driven by a constant need for intensity, control and self-expression. A constant focus on assertion and pushing outward.
• Sloth – a desire to be unaffected by life.  An unwillingness to arise with the fullness of one’s vitality to fully engage with life.

Unconscious motivators are often the root of all imbalances and the way one can get trapped in an unaware ego.    What is a pattern or belief that you notice has been repeated in your life?   Take clue from any criticism that is shared with you. Instead of becoming defensive consider the possibility of truth in the criticism.  Awareness can be attained when criticism is reflected upon and used to build personal awareness.   Use this form of adversity to build self awareness and new habits of being.

• Refocus anger and resentment into living for a Higher Purpose; being wise and discerning.

• Refocus pride inward and truly nurture self and others; taking care of self first allows a genuine ability to take care of others.

• Refocus deceit and vanity by developing self as an example for others; esteem and value others.

• Refocus envy and be renewed by experiences; use everything in life for growth and renewal.

• Refocus avarice and greed to let go of judgment and expectation; engage with reality and enjoy the riches of the world.

• Refocus fear and anxiety to build faith in self and the goodness of life; be courageous and capable, deal with life.

• Refocus gluttony to joyously celebrate existence and share happiness; add to the richness of experience for everyone.

• Refocus lust to speak out and lead; be strong and capable of affecting the world in many positive ways.

• Refocus sloth to bring peace and healing to the world; be an inexhaustible font of serenity, acceptance and kindness.

By becoming conscious and accepting the weaknesses in our personality, our innate motivators, we gain power over them.  Accepting all of our personality is a first step to realizing we are more then it!  From that place we can transform to our highest expression of self.  When we can stop defending our personality when can be a healthier and happier person; our Essential  Essence arises.   From that place, we can use adversity to continue to grow and fully express our highest desires and gifts.

 "New habits offer the only way out for people.  Most people who escape from the negative to the positive operation of the law of hypnotic rhythm do so only because of some form of adversity which forces them to change their thought-habits."  

Adversity can have a double benefit, first in helping us to own and become conscious of our part in the creating of the situation. Offering opportunity to accepting all aspects of our personality and shifting our use of it to a healthy expression.   Secondly, adversity often forces a change in the habits that created the situation.

"Many human beings discover their "other selves," the forces which operate through the power of thought, only after some catastrophe."

Having awareness of the benefit in adversity before it happens, in itself, will lessen the negative and open up the opportunity of the potential positive benefit.  Knowing ahead of time that when adversity comes into your life, whether in the form of an argument with a loved one, the loss of a job, a financial loss, an illness or any kind of loss, you have a choice to use the situation to gain opportunity can be life changing and positive. 

"The loss of material things may teach many needed lesson, none greater, however, then the truth that man has control over nothing and has no assurance of the permanent use of anything except his own power of thought!"

Can you share examples of when you lost material things?  Was there ever an advantage that came from the loss?

"Adversity forces one to seek ways and means to definite ends by meditation and introspective thought.  This often leads to the discovery and use of the sixth sense through which one may communicate with Infinite Intelligence." 

Can you share examples of when you experience loss or adversity and it took you out of your comfort  zone and forced you to become healthier?  Happier?  More responsible?  Realize a talent? 

"Adversity forces one to recognize the need for intelligence not available except from sources outside of one's own mind.  Adversity breaks old habits of thought and gives one an opportunity to form new habits; therefore, it may serve to break the hold of hypnotic rhythm and change its operation from negative to positive ends."

I look forward to discussion on this topic with you all.  See you Tuesday?