Making readings real

I’m making this post because there’s an ebook I want to recommend to you. It’s not an I Ching book as such – in fact, it doesn’t mention divination from one end to the other, so what’s got into me? Give me a minute or two, and I’ll explain. (And then I’ll tell you about the book.)

I keep on coming back to the subject of making readings real. With readings about decisions, this is easy enough. After a series of readings about redesigning my site, I’ve ended up committing myself to spending over $3000 with someone I’ve chosen largely on Yi’s advice. Those readings are getting an unmistakably ‘real’ feeling to them 😉 .

But it’s not always that simple. There are open-ended readings, readings about the best attitude or best approach to take, and especially that staple, the ‘How can I…?’ reading. They’re probably the most helpful readings of all, but at the same time they’re the easiest to forget. We get our advice, have our ‘aha!’ moment of recognition as we take it in… and when we face the same situation a week or a month later, do we remember it? Maybe.

So I’m always looking for ways to hold readings in awareness, making enough space for Change. Some of these ways arise naturally from the readings themselves: finding a single phrase to encapsulate the reading and ‘carry with you’, for instance, or walking through a visualised landscape of the trigrams. And then there are some that come to mind naturally in association with a particular hexagram, like systematic self-questioning when you receive Hexagram 8, or sitting in stillness in response to 52.

Also (and now we’re drawing close to recommended-book territory), every now and then I read about a practice or method elsewhere, and it reminds me of something Yi-ish. Now, one size does not fit all, and many of these are practices that are right for some people, some of the time. We can draw on readings to point us to the right method at the right moment.

An example of this might be this way of seeing the great person that I picked up from Steve Pavlina. Or reading, ‘there is harvest in having a direction to go’ and taking this as permission to dream about where you want to be. Both these phrases can encourage a change of mindset; so, too, can ‘crossing the great river’, which doesn’t always mean an outwardly visible transition.

One way of changing mindset I’d never seriously considered was affirmations. I thought they were basically hokum. The idea of ‘doing affirmations’ brought up a mental image of standing in front of the mirror chanting,
“I love my fit and slender body! I love my fit and slender body!”
and thinking
“Yeah, right… so getting this fat affects your eyesight, too?”

But – and here’s the book recommendation – my interest’s been sparked by a new book by Jennifer Shepherd, the Lipstick Mystic, entitled, Why Most Affirmations Fail, and The Four Building Blocks of Successful Affirmations .

What I like about this book is that it doesn’t meander into abstruse metaphysics or pseudoscience. It’s lively, easy and enjoyable to read, solidly grounded in experience, and just as easy to put into practice. What to include, what not to do, how to ‘tweak’ your affirmations for best results… straightforward (but not obvious in the least), direct, and useful.

So anyway… I’m gained some new methods I’m using to hold a ‘direction to go’ in mind, or just to stay aware of a reading’s advice. I also have a lovely, exclusive, fat discount for you on the ebook.

Why Most Affirmations Fail, and The Four Building Blocks of Successful Affirmations is on sale now for $27. But Jennifer has very generously agreed to offer it to you for the grand total of $9.

This offer is only good for a couple of weeks, ending April 17th. So if this is something that would interest you, I strongly suggest you follow this link now.

[Edit: the sale is over, but you can still get the book from here.]

This will take you to a special page for Clarity readers only, where you’ll find more information (in Jennifer’s own inimitable style – read it and you’ll see what I mean) and an order link for the limited-time $9 special. Enjoy!