The following is an excerpt from the "Attracting Genuine Abundance" on-line course. If you would like to enroll in the course, click here.
I had a powerful moment of enlightenment when I was 24, an experience that revealed to me the key principles about how manifestation works. It showed me what I needed to do to change my life. This wisdom came the hard way, but I think it only did so because I was closed-off from my feelings and the presence of spirit within me. If we're sensitive and paying attention, the universe can teach us what we need to learn by tickling us with a feather. If we're resistant to learning and sleepwalking through life, we require the universe to use a sledgehammer to deliver the same lesson. I was ripe for a sledgehammer lesson the day enlightenment struck. I weighed more than a hundred pounds more than I weigh now, I smoked 2-3 packs of Marlboros a day, I wore thick glasses to correct my 20/400 vision, I was stagnating in an awful relationship and a job I hated. I didn't like my car, either.
After that moment of enlightenment, my life changed profoundly: I lost a hundred pounds, quit smoking, moved out of the toxic relationship and found a job I loved. My vision changed so much I no longer needed glasses. Best of all, I gained an unshakeable conviction that human beings can change their lives by learning and practicing a few simple principles.
I'd like to tell you a brief version of my enlightenment experience. If you want all the details, you can read about it in my books or see me talk about it in the Louise Hay movie, You Can Heal Your Life.
Here's what happened: I had gone for a walk to clear my mind after a grueling afternoon of arguing with my then-wife, Linda. It was a frigid winter afternoon after a light snowfall. My mind was in such turmoil that I wasn't paying attention to my feet. I stepped on a patch of ice and my feet shot out from under me. The back of my head slammed on the frozen road and for the next two minutes I went on a journey that changed me forever. I hit my head just hard enough to knock me out of my normal state of consciousness but not so hard I blacked out completely. It wasn't an out-of-body experience, but it was definitely an out-of-Hendricks experience.
As I lay on my back on the road, I felt and saw many layers of myself I had never been aware of before. I could feel that I had many buried emotions in me—sadness, anger, fear—and I had never acknowledged or spoken to anyone about them. I could feel how those hidden emotions caused me to tense all my muscles to keep them inside and to keep people from seeing them. I could feel how my extra hundred pounds of fat provided another wall of insulation against those feelings. As I saw down through the layers of myself, I realized that I was programmed early in life by forces before I was conceived. My father had died under mysterious circumstance two weeks after I was conceived; my mother was not aware of my existence until months after burying him. When he died he was more than a hundred pounds overweight, smoked heavily, was in a painful relationship and wore thick glasses. He was 32 when he died. At 24, I was replaying his life to an eerie degree, and I had never realized that ! I was doing it.
As I lay on the frozen road, I felt and saw something else, though, and it was this awareness that I believe changed my life more than anything else. I could feel and see a space of pure consciousness that was underneath all my layers of programming. It was like a vast ocean of calm awareness; it was everywhere within me, at the center of everything. A radiant realization dawned on me: This is who I really am. I am not my programming. If I had grown up in the house next door I'd have a different name, different parents and a different type of programming, but underneath it would be the spacious ocean of pure awareness. It was universal, it was everywhere, and it was who we really were. I realized it was my choice—mine and every other person's—to identify with my programming or to identify with the vast space of pure consciousness.
As I began to come back into my normal awareness I made two commitments that propelled me into a new life. I made a commitment to do whatever it took to live every moment of life in that state of pure consciousness, and I made a commitment to find my own life instead of replaying my father's. I made those two promises to the universe and to myself, and then I got to my feet and started the long walk home. I didn't know where my journey would take me, but I now had the inner compass of spirit to guide me.
To this day it has never failed me. It guided me to invent a new body, to heal my vision and my addictions, and it brought me to Kathlyn and 28 years so far of a joyful marriage. It brought me work I love and a community of friends and fellow consciousness-adventurers throughout the world. It brought me to you, and I'm very grateful for that. The purpose of my life is to expand in love and creativity every day, and to assist others who are willing to do the same thing.
Acknowledge and Accept Your Genius
Now, if you are willing, I'd like to show you a much easier way.
Begin By Acknowledging And Accepting Your Genius
It's always a good idea to see things as they are before starting to change them. A firm grounding in reality is a powerful springboard to manifesting new love and abundance in your life. The best way to ground yourself in reality is to accept it just as it is, and one thing I want you to accept about yourself is that you're already a manifestation genius—I guarantee it. Now, all you have to do is hitch your genius to your heart's desires instead of your default programming.
I realized many years ago that I was an absolute genius at manifestation…with one big problem. My problem was that my genius was hitched to my unconscious programming instead of what I consciously wanted to create.
Let me review how I was using my genius: By 24 years old I had managed to attract several women in a row who abandoned me, and finally I took refuge in a marriage that was mercifully brief but spectacularly painful. Anyone who can create the same pattern with three or four different women is a genius. I'd also managed to create a job I hated and a house I didn't want to live in. I also weighed 320 pounds and had a heavy cough from sucking on Marlboros all day. I was an absolute genius at created a life I hated. I had mastered the art of making myself miserable.
Fortunately I woke up from this trance. I realized I could create a new body and a magnificent life, just as easily as I had created my old body and my awful life. When I woke up from the trance of my old programming, I realized I could invent a new body—one of my own design instead of a dead man's design. It took me a year to lose the first hundred pounds, and a year to lose the next 20. It took me a few days of discomfort to kick the addiction to cigarettes, but immediately I felt better than I ever had in my life. I didn't stop there. I went on to invent work I love, in a field I never knew existed until I was in my twenties. It's taken daily focus to create a magnificent life, but I haven't had a dull moment in thirty-some years of working on it.
When I woke up from my trance, I realized, if I could unconsciously attract one woman after another who abandoned me, I could just as easily re-write that script and consciously attract women who loved me. I re-wrote my script, and my marriage to Kathlyn has been the greatest treasure of my life.
I know it can be done. My question to you is this: Are you willing to make a commitment to creating a magnificent life? If you are, take a bold step right now. Say the following sentence out loud, filling in the blank with your name. Say it out loud and mean it:
I, ________, commit to creating a magnificent life, measured by my own chosen standards.
Say it several times, savoring the feeling of genuine commitment.
Next Steps: Your Practices For The Week
To deepen the work we've done in this first session, I'd like to give you a Ten-Second Practice and a One-Minute Practice to do every day. Your Ten-Second Practice can be done as you move through your day, even when you're walking or working or waiting for a traffic light to change. Feel free to do it as many times as you like throughout the day, but be sure to do it at least once a day. Your One-Minute Assignment requires a pen and paper.
Your Ten-Second Practice
Renew the commitment you made by saying this sentence in your mind or out loud:
I, ________, commit to creating a magnificent life, measured by my own chosen standards.
After you say the words in your mind or out loud, take a few seconds to feel your commitment in your body. Go even deeper by feeling how wonderful it is to have a magnificent life, measured by your own chosen standards. Your One-Minute Practice This assignment will engage the unique powers of your left and right hemisphere in a playful but meaningful way.
Take a pen and a blank sheet of paper. It's important to do this assignment in your handwriting, so don't use a computer for this one.
Write the following sentence, filling in the blank with your name:
I, ________, commit to creating a magnificent life, measured by my own chosen standards.
Now, take the pen in your other hand and write the sentence again with your non-dominant hand. Notice the feelings that come up inside you as you write with your non-dominant hand.
Switch back to your dominant hand and write the sentence again.
I, ________, commit to creating a magnificent life, measured by my own chosen standards.
Now, take the pen in your other hand and write the sentence again with your non-dominant hand. Notice the feelings that come up inside you as you write with your non-dominant hand.
Switch back to your dominant hand and write the sentence again. Then, switch to your non-dominant hand and write the sentence again. Repeat this sequence as many times as you can in a minute.
Pause when the minute is up and savor the feelings in your body. Then, resume your normal activities.
Remember Heartfelt commitment is your entry-gate to the journey of manifestation. Make a sincere commitment to creating a magnificent life, and watch the miracles start to happen.
Do you want to experience more happiness, peace, and contentment? The secret to happiness is moving out of the ego and mind and learning to delight in each moment--in life. Happiness is the natural outcome of being aligned with our true nature, which is experienced when we are fully present in the moment. In this course, every day for sixty days, you will receive a short meditation, in both written and audio form and set to music, for you to enjoy and contemplate at your leisure. The sixty empowering essays/audios that are part of this course will inform you, inspire you, and enable you to be more present in your life and, consequently, to be happier. The happiness you will be uncovering over the sixty days is the true and ever-present happiness that comes from contact with Essence, your true self.
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