It's rare you see anyone talking about loss of any kind in a positive sense. When you think about it, how would we appreciate all the great things and people in our lives if we didn't know about loss. If everyone in our lives would just stay put, not change, and never go away, would we really like that?

The old saying "you don't know what you got til it's gone" has some real merit, because very often we take certain people and situations for granted: we think they will last forever. It's often true that when we experience the greatest loss, the opportunities for change really unfold. When I was a sophomore in college, my brother suddenly decided to get married in Mexico, so I took a short leave to attend the wedding. When I returned to school, my two roommates (who were my best friends separately) announced they were leaving the apartment we all shared off campus. This left me in quite a bind, because I was staying in school to finish the semester: my social life revolved around them and our common friends. My world was turned upside down in a flash. Walking around depressed and in a daze for several weeks, I happened to pass by the international studies department; this time I went in and inquired about studying abroad, something I never would have done if my cozy social network was still intact. It was late in the semester, and I had a choice of two programs: the University of Grenoble(I speak passable French) or the University of Copenhagen, where the classes were in English. I applied to the University of Copenhagen and was accepted. Once accepted, I had to fill out a questionnaire to be placed with a Danish family. I was fairly mischievous at nineteen (still am today actually), so I fudged my interests a bit: when it came to hobbies I said I loved to play polo, though the one time I was on a horse I fell off! Apparently, this equestrian interest qualified me for placement with a super eccentric Danish family that lived in the ritzy Copenhagen suburb of Hellerup. After picking me and my roommate, another American(Howie)up at the hotel, and showing us their beautiful old house(with sauna and outdoor pool, no horses though!)they sat us in their plush living room covered in Persian rugs and announced " we all go in the sauna together nude." It was all very innocent, I assure you, a typical Scandinavian practice, but from the look on Howie's face, he was about to flee back to New Jersey. Since I was from NYC, I was adept at feigning some sophistication, but let's just say this: I had never seen my own parents naked together, let alone lounging in a sauna! Welcome to culture shock and one of the best six months of my life. So much for loss.

I would love to hear how loss allowed for interesting things to open up in your lives.
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I am trying to think about when I first heard the word "lifestyle," and I can't pinpoint the exact time. I suppose when the TV show "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" was popular in the 1980's, the word "lifestyle" had crept into everyday usage. But I do remember a very funny incident when I first moved into my New York apartment.

A friend of mine from the health club, Leonard Levi, came up to see the new place. He was a pretty smart guy as I recall. Both of us were pretty wet behind the ears and recently out of graduate school. He stepped out onto the wraparound terrace that looked over Manhattan and said: "Bob, I remember when people didn't have a lifestyle!" I laughed pretty hard when he said that, but there was a lot of truth to what he said. When he and I grew up, people just had "lives," not "lifestyles." And I wonder if the current economic "fluctuations" will compel people to have lives again, and not focus so much on enhancing their "lifestyles," whatever that meant.
And that's the thing: as the word "lifestyle" crept into the language, I was perplexed as to what it really signified. And when I was fortunate enough in recent years to travel to some remote parts of the world considered by some to be "third world," I was surprised and heartened to find that people still had "lives" there, that they seemed incredibly genuine and sincere, and often had no agenda up their sleeves designed to further their position or "lifestyle."

Am I saying that there is something wrong with striving to achieve the ultimate "lifestyle," however one defines that? I'm really not sure, but I can say this: when your focus is mainly on obtaining all the toys that you think will make you happy, your energy is not in harmony with some other goals, such as providing emotional support for the people in your life who need it, nor are you inclined to appreciate all the things you already have. What kind of society is created when the "lifestyle" goals are dominant? You are living in it, and it is not a very pretty picture when these "things" start getting taken away from people who value them so much.

It could be that something vey good will come out of the economic "fluctuations" we see today: people may realize that the things they coveted so much are really not all that important, that their "lifestyle" was never everything they thought it was anyway. People may rediscover how great just having a healthy, productive "life" can be.
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There is much attention being paid these days to the concept of "energy vibration," and how it affects one's ability to manifest what one wants in life.

Since Monergy is a book about "energy," I have some definite ideas about how energy vibrates, and how that vibration may or may not determine what happens in your life. My book ascribes enormous importance to the quality of energy at every step, but I believe I am careful to show the interplay of many different elements in determining how to recreate one's financial world: it is not an easy process and I state this repeatedly.

Although I have never read "The Secret," I went to a discussion group loosely based on the "law of attraction" about a year ago lead by a former chiropractor. I had the distinct impression that most members of that study group were adherents to "The Secret" too.

One member of that group started talking about what she wanted to manifest in her life, and she gave the impression that it was almost as simple as "her wish is her command." I raised my hand to comment, and I said that I don't think it was all that easy. Her response was immediate and a little defensive: "If I thought that making money or changing one's life was difficult, it was only because I was putting up blocks to making that happen!" After this discussion group, about six of us went out for a light dinner. I was curious if the group leader was as dogmatic about this issue as the person who spoke up. She (a former chiropractor) was! I ended up on her email list when I signed in before that discussion began. A few months later I received an email from her, and she had moved to Hawaii and was now selling water filters to survive. She even mentioned about the high cost of living in Hawaii, and complained about how hard it was to make money there!

I have a good friend who also believed very much in the "law of attraction." Several years ago I was experiencing a great challenge in a personal relationship. His advice to me was if I wasn't "vibrating" at a certain level, I never would have had those problems. At the same time as I had these personal challenges, he was trying to save a close relative who had advanced cancer. He did everything and more to save this person, including some very aggressive surgeries, but the person ultimately passed away. Does this mean that he was vibrating at the wrong energy level because something "unpleasant" or "bad" happened to him?

I think that we all face personal challenges and losses on this human plane. The great fallacy with ascribing all power to "energy vibrations" is that there are other factors that come into play in life- all of life can't be "pleasant" or "without loss" no matter how we vibrate energy wise. I only wish that it could!
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Just to be clear, this blog post will show you how to solve any life problem in three steps; but they are not necessarily three EASY steps, nor is this a method that is guaranteed to occur quickly. How much time it will take is up to you, and the type of energy that is applied to the problem.

Step 1- Refrain from the activity or relationship causing you distress.

This first step may be the most obvious, but is often the most difficult to do. That's because the first step involves identifying what the problem causing issues are, and then requires that you take action. Most people can identify the source of their problems in some fashion, but it is often inertia that must be overcome to start the process that solves what is wrong. If we are in a bad relationship, or we dislike our job, the first step would involve disengaging from that relationship or job. If we are unemployed, or don't feel we have sufficient funds at our disposal, the first step might be to engage in activities that will bring us more money, and to look at unproductive time as something we need to let go of. As usual, the key here is energy, and at each step we want to tune into a better and more effective energy. All the tools we need, such as sincerity, good effort, generosity, no expectations, taking advantage of what is available, etc., should be employed here to maximize effectiveness.

Step 2- Release the energy of the activity/relationship.

Once we have succeeded in actually disengaging from that relationship or activity, we need to make a conscious effort to release the energy that we have absorbed from the time spent in that relationship or job. Many methods exist for this release, but each individual should choose what works best. It could be increased exercise, starting a program of regular meditation, learning a new language, taking a short or extended trip. The important thing is these activities are designed to let go of the energy associated with what we have already stopped, whether it's a relationship or job related activity.

Step3- Rebalance your energy to impose safeguards against repetition/falling back.

Everything is a process, and getting yourself out of a bad relationship or job/financial situation is no exception. Repeated efforts are necessary to establish new energy patterns, Like every other process, rebalancing your energy takes sustained efforts, and may include
temporary setbacks; don't worry, it is perfectly normal. To the extent that you have spent sufficient time in the two preceding steps, this rebalancing will be so affected. When rebalancing is clearly working or nearly complete, expect to feel periods of intense calm and happiness: you are emerging from that black hole!

Each of us is constantly engaged in the above three steps on such a wide variety of issues.
In order to maintain some degree of happiness these days, it is so important to use these mechanisms to "clean sweep" our energy field.

Let me know how these work for you!
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It would be a virtual miracle if you weren't. There is so much being thrown at us each day that we are seemingly forced into a situation where we have to multi-task just to get by. Right?

NO NO NO it is definitely wrong! One of the things we are being brainwashed into believing is that we have to constantly keep moving, to multi-task, just top stay afloat. But if you look into the end product of all that multi-tasking, what do you actually get?

It is absolutely true that you could be kept on hold these days for twenty or thirty minutes, or even an hour, just to change your cable appointment or to report an error in one of the many bills you receive. But this is one of the by products of modern life, where we take so many services and things for granted that would be considered absolute luxuries just a short time ago. We have an amazing amount of choice in just about every class of product; but I don't think we every considered the time, effort or aggravation factor involved in maintaining these perks.

We can get hundreds of television channels at home, but still find nothing worthwhile to watch. I remember when Cable TV was first introduced in Manhattan, and quite frankly while I love a few of these channels, I am definitely not happier now than before these channels were available. But in the last year, I have probably had to call the cable company at least six times because of a problem in my service.

Of course, the cell phone has changed everything. While I love the flexibility of doing business on my phone while walking on a beach with the added satisfaction of nobody knowing this, the cell phone has also interrupted so many private moments that I gave up counting them long ago. And with the advent of more sophisticated devices like the iphone, people's range of possibilities has been extended exponentially. Unfortunately, with these possibilities comes so much more distractions, so it is becoming increasingly difficult to get anyone's attention while actually in their presence. I, for one, miss people being actually present while I am in their company. When I see people in public "manipulating" their mobile devices with heads down and with a shifting look of pleasure and seriousness, I can't help thinking this is a new and slightly prurient form of publicly accepted masturbation.

I don't have the iphone now, but I am considering purchasing the new iphone. It will be interesting to see if I can minimize the distractions that seem to affect everyone I know who has one.

What are your thoughts?
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