Let me add one more word of assurance here so people don't misconceive what I have said. I'm in no way opposing what Jat has said above. They are all timely advice. It isn't even anything above I've this spoken. What I say applies to applies to positivism...not being positive. There is a difference. Positivism comes from abuse of the LOA and discounting reality, mostly from misunderstanding how it all works. Being positive is an attitude...and on par with the above post, is valid. I've only added here, not taken away.

Fix error above: "Whilst I do not oppose being positive..." (third and fourth lines)

Hi Daniel, I always appreciate your take on everything, because you are thoughtful and authentic. And I know you have had some challenges in your life that could topple anybody's equilibrium. I, too have been battling a few circumstances lately, that have led me to seek a new way of observing reality, something that would contribute in a more positive way to my coping mechanism, and maybe even heal what is wrong. Like you, I wish to grow and become a better Joan as I get older, and not be stuck in old ruts and ways of thinking that are often unproductive. I know that this all sounds very esoteric, so I will explain further. When I talk about "being positive", I am referring to just changing your mind from a negative thought to a positive one. So, when you think the sky is falling, change your thought to how beautiful the sunset looks. When you are not happy about an unkind thing someone said to you, then think about your best friend and how lucky you are that this person is in your life. Focus on that feeling of being loved, and don't focus on that one event that made you feel lousy. It's just shifting focus from the negative idea to a real positive idea. Here's an example that is somewhat banal, but it will illustrate it for you. I've recently given up sugar for health reasons. Now Daniel, understand that I am a person who would rather have a cookie than a 5 course meal at a 5 star restaurant. I have had no trouble giving up sugar because I have been appreciating that bowl of fresh raspberries, focusing on the glowing color, the beauty of each berry. I don't even care about cookies now. It's just shifting focus. If you read new age thought, and you probably do, then you you have heard that we create what we think. If you picture a beautiful car, put a physical picture of it on your wall, and believe it is yours, then eventually it will be yours. I know that is a frustrating idea, but Daniel, we do this sort of thing every day, without knowing it. Have you ever cleared a parking space in your head, and when you arrived at your destination, you have that parking space? When you go into a meeting, just accept that the people are going to smile at you, you are "on" that day, and the outcome will be as you want it. Remember to put it all in the present, not project it to the future, otherwise it'll stay in the future. Your head may not be here. You might think Joan is nuts. But you can shift focus from a bad thought to a thought that feels better, and it will be very healing to you. I hope I have helped you in some way. Take care Daniel.

Everything you said below I believe in one-hundred percent...except for one thing and one thing only...first the things I believe in...you talked about the cookies, the unkind words, the sunset, the beautiful berries, the shifting of thoughts. This is all very correct and nothing esoteric about them at all. These are just as I say...being positive. Here you truly have control over the situations at hand because you are able to do something about them all...including the beautiful car. This is totally correct. The one thing I disagree with is the bit about the parking space. You can visualize that space all you want...but when it comes down to it...whether or not there is one available when you get downtown in a rush totally depends on circumstances that you happen to find there. This is the kind of thing I see as positivism. What happens when you get there and, after you've manifested that space in your mind...and it isn't available. You wind up hunting for a space and find one three blocks away. You're late already and now you are even later. I assume someone in that situation would say, "It didn't work because I wasn't positive enough." "I had some slight doubts so I was not awarded the space." So you kick yourself in the pants because of this. Joan, this is the ONLY type of things, to me, is esoteric. It goes beyond reality and more likely than not, what you are REALLY seeing here is NOT you being rewarded for being positive (because in the first place, you really don't have control spatially) but good ol' probability at play here. You are dealing with chance. To me, this is New Age stuff. I like the biblical saying, "It rains on the just and the unjust." Depending on how you see the rain, of course, one will like it and the other won't. It won't matter one way or the other whether you think positive or negative about it...both get rained on. Now, of course, how one deals with that is the issue, but all I'm saying here is that, just because you visualize that parking space, doesn't mean you're sure to get one where you have seen it in your mind. I do believe, however, that if you ask for something in the appropriate way, you will be more likely to get it than not...if it is suitable for you. There's quite a fine line here. You do get things when you are in control to get them and you play that part. Otherwise, it's a Russian roulette. I very strongly believe in the LOA. Even the Bible points this out in its own words...but you must take part and take action. This is where thought comes in. This is where the pictures of the car comes in. I may think too rationally, and that may not be good, but I just can't see visualizing a parking space there when you get there. To me, that's the work of probability for which we really have no control (unless we choose a time of the day or night when that probability is more in your favor.) I am very happy there is someone here I can relate to when it comes to self-improvement. When it comes to all the rest you've said, we are on target with each other. As for your efforts, I'm behind you all the way and rooting for you!

Clarification: When I spoke of it raining on the just and on the unjust, what I mean here is that everybody plays by the same rules when it comes to things like this. The Higher Power, Universal Mind, God...any way you want to look at this entity...does not favor one over the other, but all are equal and all have the same shots at life circumstances. There are no respecter of persons here. Again...where the law of attraction comes in is very dependent on what you do with what's available...and surely, if you have negative thoughts about something, there is nothing esoteric about you being less apt to get the thing. Being positive and believing in it and yourself does set you up to a far more likelihood of getting it...but this is because you take control and take action to get it. This is being positive. and it's why I agree with everything besides the parking scenario outside of which time you choose...and chance. Yes, it has been reported...but I strongly believe it to have been coincidental. In the original story, there might have been other parking spaces available as well...but we are not told this. I was in a Robert Allen Seminar in Tampa when I first heard the remote parking space scenario.

Daniel, I find many of these new age ideas to be esoteric and a total turn around from what I was taught. Like all of us, I was taught that our material view of reality is the real truth, and not to deceive myself by not facing hard cold facts head on. What are the hard cold facts? What really is reality? If I live in a tent, then the traditional view of reality is to see the tent as is. It may have a hole in it where rain comes in, it may have a sleeping bag on the ground, and a pile of sticks in the middle, with a grill on it. You get the picture. To the naked eye and at face value, that is the truth. Then we are told, we create what we think about the majority of time. Another words, our habitual thoughts. Well, consciously, I sure don't want to create the tent, even though it is supposed to be my reality. I want to create a warm cozy house with a kitchen and fireplace. So instead of focusing on the tent and the rain coming through the roof, I hold the image of that house in my imagination. If I can manage to believe it, I can create it. It may not manifest in a week, or two weeks, or a month. If I can shift my thinking pattern to visualizing what I want, and hold that thought long enough, relax about it, then eventually, it's going to happen. Why? Because, I will pattern myself after it. I'll do what is required to get there. Trick is I have to believe it. I create parking spaces all the time. It's strange. Now I am convinced I can create parking spaces. Look at all the good things in your life you have created. That's not an accident. I'm surrounded by beauty and simple pleasures, even in the face of difficulties. What do you think miracles are? I also have some heavy roadblocks that I wish were not there. So I am acknowledging my power, releasing resistance, and accepting my better vision while appreciating all my blessings. I think we were put on this earth to learn this. With the new age, it's happening very fast. I think that is what Jesus was teaching us, as well as Buddha, and other advanced souls. If we accept and truly believe we have this power, we will create a lot of good for ourselves and the world. I'm taking a big chance posting this here, because there are people who refuse to accept these thoughts, and in fact, think it's ridiculous. It's not ridiculous to me. But it requires "knowing" and releasing all the resistance and stress associated with striving. Believe me, it's difficult for any workaholic, type A personality and a worrywart. Just described myself. I think you just have to let go and be merry and not worry what people think about you. Daniel, this has been a week of taking chances for me. I just haven't been holding back.

Critical thinking, yes, you have to discern. We observe life. We watch human behavior. We make choices. In your work as a writer, you go back to a piece and decide how you can make it better. That sure isn't negative. Btw, I love the story of the origin of Christmas. Did you know that Christmas was originated as a Pope's idea to celebrate a saint?

For your top reply (I'm backwards here LOL) Yes, Christmas was started by a Catholic Pope, named Liberius. I was not aware of this detail about the pope celebrating a saint. The best of my knowledge, this person made a decree that Jesus was born on December 25th. There might be a two-fold reason why he founded Christmas, but I know Christ's birthday was one of them. Now you've got me curious. Do you know who the saint was? That's interesting. Anyway, you probably know the Jews kept meticulous records. When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, all the census records held there by the Roman governor for that area were completely destroyed. The lineage all the way back to the time of the prophets were destroyed with it, so the Jews today have no ties to the ancient Jews. Along with this, went the birth records, including Jesus'. But moreover, the early Christians had no interest about knowing when Jesus was born. Within a generation, nobody knew or cared when Jesus was born. Then came along Liberius and made this infamous decree. Constantine was more interested in unifying the empire than he was about Christianity...yet he is called, to this day, the first "Christian" emperor. He simply knew that if he could get the pagans and the Christians to celebrate the same holidays, he could bring about unification. He did just that by decreeing the pagan day of the week, Sun Day to be a weekly holiday. Thus we have Sunday...the day of the Sun in pagan culture. This same day had always been celebrated since the days of the apostles for the resurrection. He made the decree. Originally many folks believed Christ was born on January 10th, or about that time. Historically, it is now thought to be very close to the time of the Passover...during Autumn. The Feasts of Saturnalia were awful! It ran from December 17th to the 25th. In its beginning, each Roman community would pick out a person in its community it believe was the most notorious enemy of the Roman order and forced him or her to indulge heavily on the finest food and drink...and all other kinds of indulgences, including sex. During this time people would go around naked singing from house to house (where we get our Christmas caroling from.) One big hit back then was the buscuits shaped like humans. (still produced today.) On December 25th, these poor souls were made to run through the streets, being laughed at and taunted by the onlookers. They had rocks thrown at them. Finally, in an attempt to rid the empire of evils, they were brutally tortured and murdered. During this celebration the Roman courts were closed down and it was made law that nobody could be charged for destruction of property or injury and murder. Many people believe Constantine to be a friend of Christianity. This could be farther from the truth. What he did was abolish the Feast of Saturnalia so he could attribute it to Jesus' birthday in the attempt to unify the empire. Lastly, the earliest days of Christmas were held in the same traditions formally held by the pagan Saturnalia. By this time the church as it stood, had left the apostolic teachings (as was said by the apostles themselves would happen) and though some Christians sought to change this most horrible defacement of Christianity, little could be done. These awful things were soon forgotten as it phased out with the fall of the Empire and the date was here to stay. The rest is history and this is what's behind it all...Very briefly! There's much, much more to this and some of it starts with the Egyptians. I have not found anything at all regarding the veneration of a saint here. Not saying this wasn't a detail amongst many I have not yet found. Christmas is a very foul time of the year and neither I nor the church I go to celebrate or recognize it. Much later, on Christmas day, antisemitics, having rounded up Jews for the occasion, over time, fattened them up to great proportions, and then made them run through the streets naked and fat, being jeered on by the crowds on this drunken day. I didn't mean to take up a huge block here with this, but you got me going on this. There's so many details folks do not know about...and if they did, even to this day, would deny it in the face of historical evidence and call the one who discloses this information hereticks. Christmas is one of the most God-forsaken holidays that the world attributes to Jesus, thanks to Constantine, Liberius and the wayward church of the period.

Correction (there is a difference here) Liberius was a Roman official, in fact, a praetorius prefect, in or around Italy in the 4th century. He actually became a bishop and not a pope...My bad!

Now to your other reply...briefly. Again, the things you bring up here are certainly true. I can attest that thinking about the poverty I've been in for years will keep me thus. I know this and is why I do my best to think positive and visualize my life in the home I'd like, replete with gardens and statuary. Again, I have no problem with this at all I exercise myself to think in positive terms this way because I'm fully aware of the sheer benefits of doing so. I also believe this is what the Law of Attraction and all of its Articles are about. Though I still can't see how thinking positive about a parking space being there before you get to it will put it there, everything else you've mentioned has everything to do with first, getting rid of the negative thinking about a thing that you could otherwise manifest through action, replacing it with positive and fortifying thoughts (coupled with action to make them come to fruition) and in this way making the transformation. The danger I see in the parking space model of positive thinking is that I could do (and have been encouraged to) spend all my money on pleasure with the positive thought that something really pressing just ahead will take care of itself. I realize there are stories on this regard concerning unexpected situations arising just before the time of beckoning. I've actually tried this sort of thing with trying to get a credit card so I could pay a high ticket tuition for an eBay business course. It was AAO in 2004. I could not get the credit...and a VERY good thing it didn't happen! This company disappeared, or rather, reorganized. It pushed the same kind of thinking on the level with circumstantial positivism. I have no problems with calculated risks, but I'm not ready for the parking space method. If it does work, then, I'm really missing out on something great. I just don't get it. I will say again, that everything else you mentioned here stands tall and is exactly what the LOA is all about. Whew! I'm done writing for a while. It's been a very busy day. I do need to work on G+ and get that implemented into my campaign. If Jay ever came on this thread, he'd have my head! I really enjoy communicating with you. You're a VERY intelligent woman and you WILL get to your destiny. You've got your head on right and I love networking with people like you. There's not many around who can go the depths we have already! My grandest appreciation to you Joan.

Well, let's fix another error...the Jewish holiday I meant to put here was the Feast of Tabernacles, not the Passover. Off by about a half a year! LOL! I wish I had caught that before sending the letter! Oh well...there's probably more...but THINK POSITIVE DANIEL...that's one error fixed! The error is about half way down the letter.

I think you know much more about the history of Christmas than I do. However, I wrote a lighthearted accounting of the holiday for my website a while back. You might enjoy reading it. http://www.shopsicle.com/article_fulltext.php?article_id=54

The Pope is Julius 1, and it was instituted for Jesus' birthday, However, it is Saint Nicholas who is the early original Santa Claus. He lived in Turkey, under Constantine's rule. We won't tell Jay we had such a good conversation during work hours. It's 6:26 AM here. I don't usually go to work till after breakfast, and I'm up at 5:00. Jay is absolutely right about discipline. One more thing. As far as the parking space thing is concerned, I think the trick is in releasing outcome. I just brought that up as an exercise. Not to think too much about it. Remember bending spoons? That's something else. I hold the spoon and nothing happens. Uri Geller is spooky. Some people say he's a fake. The paranormal is fascinating

I think I broke your blog! The pictures are messed up below. I will look up Julius I. This is interesting because both Liberius and now Julius I are attributed to have decree'd that date. Julius I is said to have enacted this to counteract the horrible debaucheries of Saturnalia and other pagan holidays going on at the time of the year throughout the known world. This history takes a lot of twists and turns!

Well, which one actually did this is not certain. In this an article I've found, "Sometime around the year 350 Pope Julius (d. 352) or Pope Liberius (d. 366) officially adopted December 25 as the Feast of the Nativity." I think one directly succeeded the other on the papal throne. They were also contemporaries with Constantinus. That these celebrations were to replace the pagan ones holds true with what I read about the awfulness of early celebrations of the Nativity. This was mean to be gradually replace them and not abruptly. It was in the minds of certain church leaders to do this, though for the most part, Constantinus didn't care, he did legalize Christianity and made it the state religion. Again, this was for the sake of unifying the Empire, not the cause of Christ. It would be interesting to look at what I wrote over there. I have learned much more about Christmas. The earliest appearance of our English term was Christes maesse.

That's great Dell.

Haha, no one ever said it would be easy. I've been at it for years, and often slide back, then go forward, back and forth. After a while most of it sticks. Worth the effort. You profit the most.

The subject of SOPA has rattled me. Good example of a test. Have to calm down, meditate, and get back to center.