Are you a plant person? Do you notice that inner sense of satisfaction and joy that comes when you notice new growth on a plant you are tending? It could be a houseplant or a garden full of plants. There's a feeling of "Cool, I did it, I gave this plant the elements it needs to thrive."

Those elements are the right amount of sunlight, (sometimes you have to move the plant around to find it's "happy place,") the right amount of water and food and an unbroken attentiveness.

If it's a flowering plant, I feel clear, strong joy with a full flowering and a mild sense of concern when the flowering is impaired in some way. I wonder, "What can I do differently to nurture this plant to it's fullness?" I might prune it, water it differently, attend to it, breathe on it.

I am noticing that my life is like this. If I nourish my career and my relationships with just the right combination of attentiveness, authenticity and open-heartedness, I experience a flowering.

This attentiveness requires a combination of listening and action (yin and yang) that I'm just now discovering. There seems to be a "code" you can crack in your relationship to the world.

Of course, good health is prerequisite. The clearer your "instrument," the more energy and consciousness flows.

Some people seem to know innately how to conduct themselves in such a way that they somehow attract opportunities they want into their lives. How is that?

It seems to come down to how you talk to yourself (how I talk to myself.) When I become conscious of all the messages that are running in my operating system, almost below my verbal plane, I notice beliefs that create my world.

These underlying beliefs act as the soil for the flowering of my life.

One of the beliefs I recently became aware of through my work with the Empowerment Institute is my "Irish Pride." It makes me feel comfortable in working class neighborhoods and less-at-home in swanky ones. It makes me brag about the bargains I get shopping at second-hand stores and I have even found myself feeling uncomfortable about becoming affluent.

Like sunlight for my flowering plant, this belief constitutes a nutrient for the energetic flow of financial abundance into my life. When I couldn't see it before, I couldn't tweak it.

Through this work I have discovered many other beliefs that affect the energetic flow of all sorts of things into my life. I have been able to illuminate places in my operating system that are pinched and fearful, that have been manifesting effects all along, and I couldn't understand why. I couldn't see the mechanism.

Clearly it's my thoughts that are the soil, sunlight and water for the flowering of my life.

"I don't have an impact. I might get hurt. I am stuck. I will always be stuck. When the chips are down, I need to rely on my intellect, not my intuition. If I become affluent, I will betray my Irish roots. If I speak my truth, someone will get hurt. It works for other people, just not for me."

Really? I think THAT?

One after another I was astounded to uncover limiting beliefs that were manifesting effects for years. Decades.

One by one, I turned them around. I am turning them around everyday.

"I am part of a vanguard that's ushering in a new era on the planet. My thoughts and actions have an impact on the world."

"By conducting my life from a place of being in touch with the Divine Feminine, I heal the wounds of being exploited in this and past lifetimes."

"I manifest money easily, doing work I love."

"I am aligned with the universe and it constantly gives me feedback. I am learning to receive and respond to the feedback I get."

"My authentic truth is a vital part of my dynamic relationship. I reside lovingly in my truth and welcome others to have their reactions."

"I am proud of the affluence I create and use it to protect and defend people who are afflicted by poverty."

"I am brave, persistent and dynamically growing. I am illuminating old patterns and changing them now."

This process has created a flowering in my life. Like I am now dancing with the Great Mother-- the life force of the Earth, and realizing that she tells me when conditions aren't ideal. She communicates, if I'm listening.

It's very much like the process of when she communicates through a happy plant. She says, "Ah yes, that's better." Or "Nope, not enough!"

When I receive and respond to the feedback I get, my life flowers with opportunities through my work, deep and penetrating love, connectedness with my son, my friends and my family, music and creativity and best of all, a sense of peace.

The peace comes from a sense of being on the right track, being in right relation to the Great Mother.

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Holly Noonan writes about self-nourishment and food empowerment every month in her Mind Body Nutrition Newsletter.

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