Tag: enlightenment

One of the best Law of Attraction books you could read today was first published in 1913.

Let me tell you about it…

Recently we watched the PBS television remake of the classic children’s book, Pollyanna.

I absolutely loved the new movie.

The acting, scenery, editing and story were virtually perfect.

There have been other movies of Pollyanna, going way back to 1920 with famous silent film star Mary Pickford. And of course Disney did their version in 1960 with Hayley Mills.

But this recent version is fresh and timely.

And I loved being reminded of the message in it.

At the core of Pollyanna’s sunny personality is “the glad game.”

In short, it’s the ability to find something to be glad about in any situation.

“There is something about everything that you can be glad about, if you keep hunting long enough to find it.” ― Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna

As Porter’s books reveal, this is at first something you have to train yourself to do. Even Pollyanna wasn’t born knowing it. Her father taught it to her.

It reminds me of the art I bought a few months ago:

“Train your mind to see the good in every situation”

In short, you can train your mind to see the good.

It’s what recent neuroscience is telling us.

You are not your brain; you are the operator of it.

You can teach your mind how to look for the “glad” in life.

And once you “get it,” looking for the glad in any situation becomes a fun challenge.

But the payoff is happiness.

And isn’t that what you want?

On my forthcoming new album, I plan to record a song called “Look for the Light.” It’s a reminder that there is light in everything.

But after seeing this remake of Pollyanna, I also wrote a song called “The Glad Game.”

I’m dedicating my forthcoming sixth singer-songwriter album to Melissa Etheridge. It’ll have a “glad” song on it.

I’m using what I learned from my private lesson with rock icon Melissa Etheridge to write something memorable.

And all of this got me wondering where the glad game came from.

Did Eleanor Porter invent it?

“What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not weakened…. Instead of always harping on a man’s faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. Hold up to him his better self, his REAL self that can dare and do and win out! … The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town…. People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts. If a man feels kindly and obliging, his neighbors will feel that way, too, before long. But if he scolds and scowls and criticizes—his neighbors will return scowl for scowl, and add interest! … When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the good—you will get that…” – Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna

In my new book, The Miracle: Six Steps to Enlightenment, I mention a little book called Just Be Glad.

My latest book mentions a 1912 book called “Just Be Glad”

I went looking for it and found it.

It’s by Christian D. Larson, a popular New Thought author of such books as Your Forces and How to Use Them. He also penned the famous Optimist Creed, which I’ve reprinted in a book or two of my own.

Larson’s glad book came out in 1912.

Porter’s glad novel came out in 1913.

I can’t find any references to any “glad game” before 1913, when Pollyanna: The Glad Book was first published.

Certainly after the book became a bestseller, it triggered more books, a board game, a play, movies, and rumors have it there were glad game mastermind meetings.

Pollyanna became a huge bestseller in 1914, became a publishing phenomena, ignited a joyous, glad-hunting following around the world, and is still regarded as a classic of children’s literature today.

Maybe Larson’s little book gave Porter the idea for her novel. I can’t say. It’s not likely, though.

Porter was probably finishing her novel and sending it to the publisher in 1912, when Larson’s book arrived.

Eleanor Porter author of Pollyanna and many other books

So I think Porter deserves full credit for creating the idea of The Glad Game.

But I was also curious why the glad game isn’t talked about much these days.

Considering how much stress is reported in the world, and how much “fake news” is triggering unsettling emotions in people, learning to play the glad game would be welcome relief.

It could even be healing.

It could even help us return to a clarity of mind where we could better see our choices.

In fact, the glad game could be a wonderful way to change your inner vibration to one that is higher, brighter, and even wiser.

As you know, you get what you radiate.

Change the dial inside, using the glad game, and you can attract happier results.

So, why don’t more of us play the game?

My guess is that critical, skeptical, wounded, or cautious people think being a “Pollyanna” is not being a realist.

Over the decades, the term “Pollyanna” has come to be an insult; used to tell someone they are foolish, not in touch with reality, and possibly even dangerous to themselves.

But being a Pollyanna is making a choice on how to see the world.

You can still see the challenges, and still see the good in them, and still act to change them.

Letting situations or other people steal your happiness is being a victim.

Choosing to see the good/glad in situations or other people is being empowered.

You have a choice, of course.

For me, life is an optical illusion.

You see what you unconsciously expect and believe.

Like Pollyanna, you can consciously choose to look for and find the good/the glad/the light.

It’s your choice.

“Be glad. Be good. Be brave.” – Eleanor H. Porter

Remember, if you see the good but just sit there, you aren’t co-creating your reality.

You want to see the good, see the actions you need to take next, and do them.

After all, when Pollyanna was injured by a car, she didn’t give up. (She did briefly, but she pulled out of it.)

Instead, she got treatment and she got better.

Eleanor Porter, the author of Pollyanna: The Glad Book, explained it this way:

“Pollyanna did not pretend that everything was sugar-coated goodness, instead Pollyanna was positively determined to find the good in every situation.”

Note the difference?

Just looking at the world with blind eyes to objective reality is not what the author meant; it was looking at the world and finding the good in it.

Eleanor Porter once told an interviewer –

“People have thought that Pollyanna chirped that she was ‘glad’ at everything … I have never believed that we ought to deny discomfort and pain and evil; I have merely thought that it is far better to ‘greet the unknown with a cheer.'”

I believe the 1913 book was an unrecognized Law of Attraction resource.

Maybe it’s time for all of us to read it again, or at least go see the movie.

I think you’ll find something glad in it. 🙂

Ao Akua,

Joe

PS – Learn about the recent PBS TV version of Pollyanna here:

https://www.amazon.com/Pollyanna-Sarah-Harding/dp/B01N67733P/

I think Eleanor Porter would love my latest book, or at least my new colored glasses

When it comes to using the Law of Attraction to manifest a miracle, or to attract anything you’ve been wanting, a few key principles are essential.

I explain this in-depth in my forthcoming new book, The Miracle: Six Steps to Enlightenment, which launches December 6 as a paperback, Kindle e-book, and on audio.

Available December 6

A few of the keys are –

Expect it.

You get what you expect. Expectation is built on belief.

Believe it.

Your beliefs filter reality so you only see what matches your beliefs.

Achieve it.

Your actions will stem from your beliefs and expectations.

In short –

If you don’t act, you reduce your chances to create anything.

If you don’t believe, you won’t even try.

If you don’t expect, you will attract a match to your lack of belief.

You can use these insights on anything you want to attract or achieve.

Want a better job?

Want to attract your soulmate?

Want enlightenment or spiritual awakening?

Ask yourself –

Do you believe it’s possible?

Do you expect to succeed?

Are you taking inspired action to attract it?

If you answered “yes” to all the questions, then go forth and congrats on your new job, soulmate, or awakening.

But if you answered “no” to any of the questions, then you have some inner work to do.

And that’s where my new book The Miracle will help you.

It’s packed with processes, exercises, stories, tips, techniques, principles and more.

It covers everything from the basics to advanced law of attraction, mind power, activating your brain, goals, clearing, intentions, counter-intentions, beginning and advanced ho’oponopono, Neville manifestation, the secret prayer, and so much more.

You will also get more than $5,000 worth of bonuses when you go get The Miracle from Amazon on Tuesday, December 6, 2016.

One of the gifts is my brand new online video training called “A Beginner’s Guide to Miracles.”

I am very excited as this is my most definitive book on how to attract what you want and achieve spiritual enlightenment along the way.

Bestselling author Susan Shumsky said, “In The Miracle, Joe helps us unearth the cause behind our deepest unconscious beliefs and shows us how to transform them…He helps us create and live miracles every day.”

You can learn more at http://www.TheMiracleBook.info

Meanwhile, Expect Miracles!

Ao Akua,

Joe

PS – Mark your calendar. Everything happens on Tuesday, December 6, 2016. See http://www.TheMiracleBook.info for details.

The sequel to Zero Limits

I’ll be 62 years old (young) at the end of this month.

While that means I’m a member of AARP, I can get discounts at certain stores, and my remaining hair is turning gray, it doesn’t mean that I have stopped growing.

In fact, I’m aging backwards.

I’m youthing.

In the last year alone I —

— attended a strongman training and bent a horseshoe, a steel bar, and a nail, all with my bare hands, and drove a spike through a board with my fist. I was the oldest person in the room, even older than the instructor, and probably the most inexperienced when it comes to feats of strength. But I attended anyway. I learned a lot, too, including the fact that virtually “Nothing is impossible.”

Bent and straightened this horseshoe

— attended an advanced guitar camp with legendary player Tommy Emmanuel. I was one of the oldest in the room, was surrounded by players far more advanced than me – including a 14 year old girl who dazzled everyone with her skills – but I attended anyway.

— attended an online class to learn how to play the baritone saxophone, wrote an article about playing for a sax mag, recorded an entire album of saxophone music, hired Grammy nominated sax sensation Mindi Abair to perform for me and tutor me, and more.

— discovered a synthophone — an alto sax turned into a midi instrument — and bought one and learned how to play it, using it to help make another healing music audio with Guitar Monk Mathew Dixon, called The Enlightenment Audio.

– went into the studio with one of my favorite singers in the entire world – Grammy nominated Ruthie Foster – and producer Daniel Barrett and created an album called Stretch! with me writing lyrics, playing baritone saxophone, and singing with Ruthie. Talk about a stretch! But I did it.

Daniel, Ruthie and me Stretching

— traveled to Kuwait to speak to people interested in self-improvement and curious about positive psychology, but also traveled to numerous domestic spots, as well, including to one where we discussed my having my own television show in 2016.

— despite having written more books than most people read in their entire lifetime, I released several more, including the best selling The Secret Prayer and volume 3 of The Miracles Manual. And I just signed a publishing deal for my next book, coming out April 2016.

— and even though I’m an author of books designed to help people, I’m still buying and reading other people’s self-help books, too. I’m always searching for new authors, new voices, new books, new material, to help me expand my thinking and my life.

Why?

Why do I continue to invest in courses, books, audios, coaching, classes and more?

Why am I continuing to do this as I turn 62?

Because I’m still learning, growing, improving, stretching and discovering myself.

Because I don’t know it all and am eager to discover more about myself and life.

Because as long as I keep moving forward, they won’t throw dirt on my face.

I have no idea your age, and it doesn’t really matter.

My father is 90 and still enthusiastic about life.

He gets up earlier than you or me or the sun every morning and wallops a standing dummy five hundred times.

And that’s before he does light weight lifting, walking, and other exercise – with a hernia.

Actor Dick Van Dyke is 90 and still dancing.

Turn on the right music and he’ll start free styling it without a word or a prompt but with a gigantic bright smile on his happy face.

I’m sure you are younger than 90.

I’m reminding you to think big, do big, and move forward in big ways, no matter what your age.

Or, drop the “big” and just think, do, and move.

“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.” ― Sophia Loren

It’s the end of this year.

The new one is firing up.

Ready or not, here it comes.

What would you like to accomplish in 2016?

You can begin right now by signing up for a course, or a class, or coaching.

The idea is to joyfully experience life.

It’ll keep you young, bright, happy and healthy.

“You’re never too old to become younger.”  – Mae West

And isn’t that what life is all about?

Happy Birthday to me.

Happy New Year to you.

Let’s make this new one rock.

Ao Akua,

Joe

PS — Consider my father. He’s 90 years old. He still gets up every morning and works out for two hours. He also is the primary caregiver of my ailing, bedridden mother. And, at 90, my father became an author. His book, The Most Contented Man, is on Amazon. He’s starting another book. He’s ninety. I’m sixty-two. Do you really have any excuses not to stretch and grow, learn and do?

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“What makes you think you aren’t enlightened?”

The question came from a quiet man who heard my presentation the day before at the Miracles Coaching event in Utah last month.

He went on to say…

“You write in your books that you are in the third stage of awakening but we all heard you speak, and we feel you are enlightened. We felt the energy in the room. We felt what you did for us. We feel you are there. Why don’t you think you are enlightened?”

I was honored and impressed.

After all, he was accusing me of achieving the very state spiritual seekers have been striving for centuries to attain.

It was a compliment.

But I saw this as a moment for him, not me.

“I love the flattering nature of the question,” I said, “but I think you can ask yourself the same thing.”

He looked at me, waiting for more.

“The only thing stopping you from being enlightened is your thinking about being enlightened,” I explained. “Your mind separates you from the experience. It’s probably as true for you as it is for me.”

I could tell he wanted me to explain, so I did…

I'm on cover September 2014 Austin All Natural magazine (Art by Donna Aloia)

“What most of us do is argue with reality,” I said. “Because we fight and complain and get frustrated over what is, we can’t allow ourselves any peace. When we accept reality, and know that all is good, we move in the direction of awakening, or enlightenment. But most of us simply think ourselves out of our bliss.”

But the gentleman persisted.

“The so called gurus of the world claim to be enlightened and act the part,” he countered. “Because they do, others follow them. Maybe you just need to own that you are enlightened.”

Again, I was tickled at the suggestion.

But I knew I would no more declare enlightenment as he would.

Saying “I’m enlightened” feels like what a non-enlightened person would say.

I’m told Buddha awakened and said we were all awakened but didn’t know it.

Maybe he was right.

Maybe the gentleman at the event was right.

Maybe all you and I need to do is own our enlightenment.

I’ve often said that if you want to tell if you’re enlightened or not, go visit your family.

Your family knows your hot buttons.

They put most of them there.

If you can visit them for a week and still feel at peace in every moment, you may be enlightened.

Then again…

I love the question and offer it to you…

“What makes you think you are not enlightened?”

Well?

Ao Akua,

Joe

PS — Check out Miracles Coaching right here.

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