despair, we automatically tune in to a higher vibrational level, freeing ourselves from the negative impact of the slower vibrations like fear, anxiety, and doubt. We don't have to be held back by self-limiting thoughts and ideas that have become ingrained and that tell us something isn't possible. We can change them.
Neuroscience has shown that we create our world moment by moment with our thoughts, words, and deeds, something the truly wise have always known and that are expressed here in the words of the Buddha:
The thought manifests as the word
The word manifests as the deed
The deed develops into habit
And the habit hardens into character.
We can envision and create better lives for ourselves through accessing the higher vibrational states of imagination, insight, and intuition. To develop these states, we need a greater balance of the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Most of us tend to be left-brain dominant, relying on it for rational thinking and our actions and responses to events in our lives. There's nothing wrong with rational thinking, but sometimes we don't know all the facts, or a situation is gray or confused because of too many facts, and that's where intuitive skills are more helpful. It's the right brain that is more attuned to these. Even a great scientist like Einstein recognized that intuition is important. All of us have intuitive abilities, but we just need to practice using them more.
We can develop our intuition by changing the way we pay attention in the world. Technology has brought so many distractions that our attention is focused on what is going on outside and around us, rather than what is going on in our inner world. We tend not to trust the signs, gut feelings, coincidences, or our dreams—those sources of information that come from our subconscious mind and are there to help us on our journey. Intuition gives us a different way of perceiving the world and helps us see what's hard to see. It can tell us what's right and wrong in our lives, what we need to change, and where we need to make adjustments.
When we access both right and left sides of the brain, we're less trapped by the problems we find ourselves facing. We're connected to the life force and attuned to the higher vibrations, enabling us to eliminate those attitudes and behaviors that keep us stuck.
However difficult the circumstances of our lives, hope and despair are both attitudes experienced by our minds. When we choose to bring the higher vibration of hope to a situation, we find things begin to shift and change.
I let go of fear, anxiety, and doubt.
I create my world moment by moment, envisioning a better life for myself.
I choose to use my intuition to perceive the world differently.
4. Dreaming the impossible dream
What is it we most long for? Most of us want good relationships, a comfortable home, a rewarding career, good health, but probably much more besides—and there's nothing wrong with that! We're all entitled to dream, we don't need permission, and neither do we have to prove anything. Basically, we want what will make us happy. Sometimes, however, we have a burning desire to do something that may seem impossible and that others might regard as a foolish dream. We have to take that passionate desire and make it our quest, no matter how difficult it might seem to reach our goal.
Dreams are expressions of hope, and how our lives unfold depends on our dreams. When our imagination is fired by them, we're lifted to new heights, and we can overcome those patterns of thoughts and beliefs that so frequently hold us back and prevent us from realizing our dream.
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams,” wrote Eleanor Roosevelt, who in spite of her privileged position as the wife of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt had her share of misfortunes and is to be admired for how she coped with them. She campaigned throughout her life for human rights and as head of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights helped draft the 1948 declaration of human rights.
Doreen Peachy did not have a privileged background, but she had dreams. When she grew up in the 1950s in England, there wasn't enough money in her family to pay for ballet lessons, but she always wanted to be a ballerina. When she was seventy-one, she became the oldest woman ever to pass the grade six exam at the Royal Academy of Dance in London. Having had a successful career, she was able to fulfill her dream by taking up ballet when she had retired ten years earlier.
My own experience with singing is not dissimilar. I always loved to sing, but there was no money for music training when I was young. I put all my energy into getting an education and a career, and it never really occurred to me that I could take up singing without a music background, but the dream never left me. It was not until I was fifty, after many years of going to India, that through a curious serendipity I became involved with classical Indian raga. Indian music and the way it is traditionally taught, totally by listening and by repetition with no need for musical notation, suited me perfectly. Because I had studied Sanskrit, singing in different Indian languages wasn't really a problem; I seemed to be able to pick them up enough to be able to sing in them. After many years of practice now, learning different styles with several Indian teachers, I have become reasonably proficient, even performing on stage in both London and India. It's clearly never too late to fulfill an impossible dream!
I allow my imagination to run free.
I know that what I long for is attainable.
I believe my dreams are being realized.
5. Saying “yes” to possibility
With all its uncertainty and unpredictability, life may be challenging for us at times, but it's always richer with possibilities than we might at first think. We always have a choice as to how we react to situations. If we remain hopeful, open, and receptive, the future unfolds in a manner that allows us to pursue and realize our dreams. Possibilities emerge that, if we're negative and despairing in our attitude, we fail to see.
Throughout history there have sadly been exiles and refugees, and recent history has been no exception with the turmoil in the Middle East. We have all been appalled by the plight of thousands of refugees leaving the horrors of war-torn Syria to come to the West. One of the most heart-rending, but at the same time inspirational, stories is that of the young girl Nujeen Mustafa, who has cerebral palsy and cannot walk. She traveled in her wheelchair in search of a new life, wanting to join her brother and sister in Germany, and dreaming of becoming an astronaut. From Bodrum in Turkey, she traveled in an overcrowded dingy to the Greek island of Lesbos and then took a fourteen-hour ferry ride to mainland Greece. The Hungarian/Serbian border had closed to refugees the day before her arrival, so she had to make a long detour via Croatia and Slovenia, where she was held in a detention center for twenty-four hours, before finally making the long bus journey to Germany. Now settled and at school, she plans to go on to study physics. It was her positive attitude and saying “yes” to the possibility of safety and a new life that Nujeen believes helped her face the long and difficult journey: “I thought of it as something that I'm living through now, but that will pass. I thought of everything as a big adventure.”
I have Gujarati friends living in England, who similarly had hopeful attitudes when they were expelled from Idi Amin's Uganda in August 1972. Of the eighty thousand Asians who were ordered to leave Uganda, thirty thousand came to the UK, leaving behind their wealth and possessions. They brought with them, however, a determination to rebuild their lives,
