The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent

I've spent a big chunk of the last 5 years of my life reading, researching and applying the things I've learned from a host of books and audio/visual programs all aimed at helping people live happier and more fulfilling lives. And like so many of the resources I've used during this time, "The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent" (TAPoDI)focuses on tapping into the unrealized potential that lives within all of us, but simply isn't used because we a) don't know about it and b) don't understand how to use it.

As someone who's studied a large volume of material on this general topic, I tend to look at such works from the viewpoint of "how is this material similar to other works I've studied" and "what does it have to offer that's new, original and, especially, useful. Here's my take on TAPoDI:

Like many other "New Age" authors, Esther and Jerry Hicks present to us a view of life in which WE, ourselves, are both the biggest limiting factor in our lives and the key to unleashing the utterly unlimited potential that is the human "spirit". WE create our own life experience. Period. If our lives aren't what we want them to be, aren't enjoyable and don't consist of the things we love most, we have only ourselves to look to for change. If we are living limited and unsatisfying lives, it is we who have (often unwittingly) CHOSEN to do so ... nothing or no one else is to "blame" ... it is we who create our own eperience of life.

But, never fear. As beings whose true nature is that of unlimited spirit with the power to create all that we dream of, it is only our lack of understanding of our true potential and our unwillingness to explore that potential and use it that has kept us locked in lives we don't enjoy completely. Esther and Jerry clearly believe, as do many authors I've studied, that the practical potential of humanity is truly unlimited. In this sense they seem to be adding their voices to the growing number of people whose experience of life is teaching them that we have within us ALREADY the power to create whatever life we want for ourselves.

For me, what differentiated the Hicks' book from others I've read on this general topic was their understanding of the role of human emotions and our response to them in navigating the "HOW" of unleashing our unlimited potential for joy and satisfaction. I mean, it's one thing to declare that human beings have truly unlimited potential ... it's quite another to figure out how to EXPERIENCE that unlimited potential in our day to day lives. What Esther and Jerry have to show us in this book is incredibly useful. What they seem to understand in a way I've not seen presented elsewhere is nothing less than "what human emotions are for and how we can use them to help us navigate our way to a better and better life". What's the scoop?

As unlimited beings of spirit, energy, vibration ... call it what you will ... we are constantly creating our own experience of life. The question is ... are we creating the the experiences we WANT ... or the experiences we DON'T WANT? And how can we tell? Along these lines, I've often heard people jokingly say "wouldn't it be nice if our lives came with a little dash board full of dials and idiot lights that told us when we were doing something stupid and when we were doing something smart" ... well, according to Esther and Jerry ... that's precisely what our emotions are!

From their point of view, negative emotions like frustration, anger, resentment, fear, doubt and the rest are indications that we're looking at life from a point of view which is NOT in harmony with our truly unlimited potential. In short, if you feel bad, you're looking at life from a direction that is NOT an accurate reflection of who and what you really are or what you're capable of creating. IN that moment, you're creating precisely what you DON'T WANT. Your negative feelings are trying to tell you "stop looking at life this way ... if you keep it up, you're not going to create the kind of experiences you want for yourself."

On the other hand, when you're feeling happy, peaceful, kind, cheerful, relaxed, satisfied, joyful and free ... it's an indication that the way you're looking at life is in harmony with the "real you", who is fully capable of creating exactly what you want in life. In those moments, you're creating the life you DO want for yourself.

According to the Hicks, our emotions are the most useful, immediate and relevant indicators of whether or not we're creating the life we want for ourselves or creating it's opposite. So ... when you feel bad ... learn to understand this as a warning to change your outlook and move it in the direction of "I am the unlimited creator of my own experience ... what do I want to create here? What do I really want?". And keep moving your thoughts in this direction until you start to feel good ... the indicator that you're now creating what you DO want.

Much of the New Age message is "stop looking to the world around you to tell you whether or not you're living your life as you should ... rather ... look inside yourself and pay attention to what you find there ... follow it ... trust it ... and find yourself living a life that works better, feels better and IS better." What the Hicks do in TAPoDI is give us an INCREDIBLY useful tool for figuring out HOW to do that. Let your emotions be your guide as to whether or not your living in harmony with your "best self" ... that's what they're FOR.

READING NOTE - The Hicks use the words vibration and vibrational a lot in their book, and to those who aren't used to this language, it can be a bit like reading a foreign language ... you see the word, but you're not sure what it means. The first time I read this book, I found their use of these words very challenging, as I was never quite sure what they were trying to say with them. But something drew me back to this book recently, and I had an insight. I started reading the book and jotting down on the page the word I would use in place of vibration or vibrational, depending on the context of the sentence. I re-read the entire book this way, and it made a huge difference.

In my common language, I found that "vibration" or "vibrational" could mean a wide range of things like spirit, spiritual, desire, the combination of a desire and my attitude about that desire, etc. The way it felt to me ... when I wasn't quite ready to hear what the Hicks had to say, their use of these words was very challenging to me. When I finally felt ready to listen, what they meant became perfectly clear to me. What do I mean?

What the Hicks are really saying in their book is quite simple. Human beings create their own experience of life ... we come equipped with emotions that tell us when we're creating experiences we'll enjoy and when we're not. If we take full responsibility for listening to the guidance of our emotions and using our unlimited spiritual power to create what we want ... we'll be unbelievably happy and fulfilled ... if we don't, we'll continue to live lives of mediocrity and frustration. The up side of this message is ... you can be as happy as you decide you want to be. The down side ... ONLY you can make you happy. My experience of life has taught me that MOST of us are NOT quite ready to take full personal responsibility for our happiness. MOST of us would rather belive it's someone or something else's fault that we're not completely happy. Someone or something else is keeping us from living the life we want to live. What the Hicks are saying is "it's all us, baby" ... "if you're happy ... you did it. If you're not happy ... you did it."

When I first read this book ... or tried to read it ... I wasn't ready to take that level of responsibility for my happiness. I still wanted to believe, at least in part, that someone else should fix my broken life. When I finally got past that ... suddenly understanding their words was not just easy ... it was joyful.


To get an even more "effective" presentation of the ideas the Hicks and Abraham are offering, try their audio CD's (recordings of their workshops). I find them REALLY helpful. In the workshops, the ideas presented in this book are explored from more different angles, with a broader and more flexible vocabulary, and with a wider variety of examples of using these ideas to address real life, every day "problems" of people from the audience. The CD's really helped me form a much more gut level, intuitive understanding of how we truly create our own experiences, how we get in the way of experiencing many of the things we want most and how we can practically and effectively change that, so that what we want becomes what we experience MUCH more quickly. The CD's helped me really understand that the biggest challenge to utilizing the material presented by the Hicks is that it's SO easy, it takes most of us a long time to get to the point where we believe that life really can be this good. But it can. My fiance and I have seen what seemed to be hurdle after hurdle just fall away as we've learned to truly and practically ALLOW our lives to be enjoyable and effortless. Things that used to feel like dreams to us are happening at a much more rapid pace and we have a very strong sense of the connection between the choices we're making with our emotional state and the results we're achieving in the "real world". Check out the CD's if you enjoyed the books. I don't think you'll be disappointed.