Fear not, it happens to all of us who have lofty goals and aspirations. As the old saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, yet somehow we expect our results to be more evident, more forthcoming. We forget that each of those thousand miles contains hundreds of individual steps, and that in each moment we can only ‘see’ the few steps behind us and in front of us. Because of this limited view, we tend to forget how far we’ve come, and it is this amnesia which brings about feelings of stuckness (that may not be a word…:) ).

The truth is that life is dynamic and ever-changing, so there is NEVER a time when things are exactly the same as they once were. Even if you wanted things to remain the same, they would not – it’s not possible. In order to feel better about the journey you are on, you need to look back and see how far you’ve come, and to realize that you and your life are truly evolving, whether your outer world shows evidence or not. Some tips for getting your perspective back include:

• Keep a journal or some other record of your goals and dreams, your plans to achieve them, and your feelings, accomplishments and adjustments along the way. By documenting your journey you are providing evidence of where you’ve been, and if you’ve really been learning and growing you will find there are some major differences between ‘then’ and ‘now’ when you read your journal entries from a year ago.
• As Abraham-Hicks tell us, sometimes what happens is we look around at our current situation and see ‘what is,’ and this becomes our focus (see next point as well). Instead, we need to continue looking into the future at what we wish to create, while at the same time doing those things in the now which will continue to lead us there. Hold your vision in your mind, and adjust it as you go. See it, feel it, treat yourself as if you were already living it, and then live into it!
• Remember that the Law of Attraction brings you more of whatever you focus on, so if you’re feeling stuck and uninspired, guess what? You’ll get more of the same, and who wants that? Bear this in mind always, and vow to do whatever it takes to reset your thought processes in order to keep your mind on how you want things to be, not what you don’t want. For difficult days or moments, try such tools as visualizing, meditation, EFT and creating and watching a personal vision video. You may also find that just improving your mood and emotional vibration puts you back on track; try our Inspiring Videos for an instant boost, and of course anything that makes you feel great – funny movies, a walk outdoors or other physical activity, etc. – will help.
• Almost every person who has defined and ultimately fulfilled their own vision of success says the same thing: it took lots of false starts, many wrong turns and much in the way of hard-earned wisdom to finally make it. Those who settle and never try for anything may know what’s coming tomorrow (same old thing!), but they will never know the joys of reaching cherished goals and living a life full of passion and joy. Part of that passion is the emotional roller coaster that comes with pursuing your dreams, so instead of resenting it, ride the roller coaster and enjoy, knowing it’s your own special amusement. Each hill and valley is getting you closer to your dreams, and without the learning and growing you are doing along the way, none of them would ever come true.
• One last note and that is to remember that life happens in cycles. We cannot always be ‘up’ and feel inspired, although with personal development those times can be more frequent and prolonged. Sometimes we just need to rest or spend some time incubating and contemplating, in order to bounce back refreshed and ready to go. One of my favourite quotes is “Resting is paying homage to the magnitude of your journey,” and I couldn’t agree more. Relax, have some fun and take the pressure off yourself. You don’t need to be moving forward at every moment…enjoy the wonderful adventure that is your life, and take it easy sometimes!

Some related articles that can help with this:

Personal Development: The Upward Spiral
Why Aren’t You Constantly Creating Your Life?
Law of Gestation: What is Headed in Your Direction?

These issues are too extensive to write about in one post, so I want to split it up into a four part series: Rape, Murder/Suicide, Poverty/Starvation, Children/Creating.

Today I want to discuss Rape. It is human nature that we associate and give credit to ourselves for the good things but the bad things we disassociate from and say we did not create it. If you are religious then it is giving credit to God for the good things and blaming the bad things on the Devil. A person winning the lotto automatically says yeah I attracted this to myself but they meet in a car accident and instantly – they didn’t attract it, they wouldn’t have attracted such a horrible event into their lives.

People who look in on your life find it hard to believe that anyone would cause themselves such pain and heartache because conciously they wouldn’t do it to themselves- but the word here is CONCIOUSLY

How can you possibly say a rape victim would want to be raped?

Shauna asked me that question yesterday. Would I at the point when I was raped, have said ‘I created this’? The answer is No – I would have said No I didn’t create this; No I wouldn’t have wished such pain on myself; No one deserves this.

I was raped at 17; I was raped again at 19. Looking back more than ten years later, I realized the thoughts that used to cross my mind at that time. I can hear them clear as if it was today – I hated everything Ophelia. I felt unloved, unwanted, undeserving and I felt life was the most miserable place.

After my first rape, I felt dirty, alone, more unloved than before, hated by my parents who never said it was my fault but sometimes actions say a lot more than words. Years later I realize that they were going through their own private pain, but during this time I wanted to kill myself. However I was way too much of a coward – I had thoughts about slitting my wrists, using rope – I would think of my parents finding me dead and I couldn’t do it. But my depression grew so much that I wanted to die – dying to me seemed better than living.

No one knew that I was depressed. I wanted to die without having the pesky detail of actually killing myself, so I devised a plan – I would walk down the street at 3am wishing and hoping a drunk driver would help me out of my misery and hit me. It never happened.

But let’s just walk down that road for a quick second…what if it had happened? My parents and everyone who knew me would blame the DRIVER!! They would say she never wanted to die, she had so much ahead of her, she had her life taken away from her. It is unfair and the driver had a problem, she would have never created her death. No one would have known that deep down I wanted it for myself. But that is part of blaming and judgement isn’t it – to point the finger on the person you feel is to blame the most. In this case it would have been the unfortunate driver.

My pain and my wanting to stop that pain continued till I was raped a second time. I would do everything to get rid of the pain, living my life without much care. By the time I was raped the second time, I felt I cannot live like this – something has to change – I cannot continue to live like this. I made a conscious choice to change my life. Prior to that my life was running on unconscious feelings and thoughts without any direction attracting whatever incidents to it.

Playing the role of victim

When people are playing victim they feel that they play no part in the things happening around them. They are just passengers in their lives instead of drivers; just sitting back and watching. So the question remains – if you are playing victim, who is doing the driving? Is it on autopilot – just bringing random events to your life that you immediately dismiss as not being created by you, so you can blame someone else? Or is it that we learn as kids to only take credit for the good things that we do, bad things are outside of ourselves?…

The meaning in events

I wrote a post called the Meaning of Events in Your Life a few months ago about the fact that events in themselves mean nothing. It is about the meaning we as indivuals attach to those events. What is rape? An act. What are the meanings we attach to rape or the feelings we attach to them? When I was raped for the first time, I attached meanings that I had been taught, which were feeling violated. Once I got home, I now had several more feelings to attach to it. My mom made me feel the feeling of guilt, which was probably how she felt and my grandmother made me feel the feelings of shame – not wanting anyone to know as this would embarass the family. It is no wonder when I was raped for the second time that I told no one in my family.

Changing the meaning of events and changing your life

Most people when they experience negative things find it hard to put a positive spin on it. How do you put something positive on something obviously negative? For me, I started to think maybe it was for a reason…maybe I’m supposed to help people realize that life doesn’t end because you have negative experiences.

SPECIAL NOTE:  These events are private and although I no longer feel any pain or hurt when I think about them, they are mentioned to show that even though someone can create negative situations in their lives that they can change the meaning of these situations from one of negative feelings and emotions to one of postive feelings and emotions.

Editor’s note from Shauna: I just wanted to add my quick comments here. Even knowing and caring about Ophelia as I do, I am amazed and impressed by her willingness to put herself out there in this post. Her journey from feeling like a victim under these circumstances to triumphing by using all of the personal development and LOA steps we talk about and use, is testament to not only her strength of character and will, but also the power of the techniques and tools we talk about. If something is painful to you, it is all about perception. You can believe this or not, but as you can see from Ophelia’s story, there is freedom and gain to be enjoyed by pursuing this line of thinking – by changing your thoughts.