Boston Bovines Hold The Answer For You

Did you know that our brains are full of cow paths?

Robert Fritz begins his book _The Path of Least Resistance_,

by explaining how the streets of Boston were laid out; they

do not seem to be the result of any planning.

Long, long ago in Boston, grazing and wandering cows

walked the easiest paths they could find and, with each

passing cow, these paths became more clearly defined

and easier to follow. These cow paths became the “plan”

for Boston’s streets.

Fritz says, “As a result, city planning in Boston gravitates

around the mentality of the seventeenth century cow.”

The thoughts that we have over and over form cow paths

in our brains. Each repeated thought makes the path more

defined and easier. We think about not enough money

frequently and the not-enough-money path becomes the

easiest one to follow -- our thoughts just follow the same

old cow path. Same with thoughts of sickness and irritability

and judgment and all breeds and brands of scarcity.

Perhaps your thought planning gravitates around the

mentality of the old twentieth century you.

Once those cow paths get formed, they call to our

thoughts, and lead them to places where our dreams

can’t be seen. Our brains are riddled with deep furrows

meandering through hard, caked, crusted dirt. How do we

loosen up the dirt into pliable, rich, fertile mud? We need

to rain on our brain.

Mud, Marvelous Mud

Gratitude is the rain that smoothes the way for new

paths. When the storms of gratitude fall upon our

brains, the dry, stuck paths dissolve leaving the mighty,

moldable mud of potential. We can form new paths

where our thoughts can dance on down the new grooves

of health, wealth, love, and creativity.

Gratitude and rigidity cannot coexist. Gratitude makes

new freeways of thinking gently possible. Have you

ever found yourself thinking over and over about

something you do not want in your life? That’s a

sure way to get more and more of that something.

You probably know that, but all of a sudden you catch

yourself having those thoughts - again - of what you

most definitely do not want.

Why? Your thoughts are following those old,

well-worn, rigid cow paths in your brain.

They follow those cow trails while you are

not looking. And it does not work to put

roadblocks in the paths, to resist those thoughts.

You have to build new roads, create new paths.

Feeling gratitude will smooth out the landscape

so you can create the new paths. Replace the

thoughts of sickness with thoughts of health,

poverty thoughts with wealth thoughts, dread

thoughts with dream thoughts. You can then build

with your thoughts the health highways and

wealth byways and love lanes and self-express-ways.

Singing In The Rain

And we know that once your thoughts are

following the new paths, the health and wealth

and love and self-expression will manifest

openly and freely in your life.

Let the feeling of gratitude rain and reign in your

life. It will shower you with pleasures and treasures.

It will let you see how you are a mighty, shining

raindrop in the great rainfall of the good universe.

Let “thank you” be your prayer that you sing in the rain.

Gratitude Push-up

Before you go to bed, think of an incident that

happened to you during the day. Any incident.

It can be as simple as eating breakfast or

walking the dog or talking to a coworker. Write

the incident as if you were putting it in your

memoirs or journal or autobiography.

And do it this way . . .

When you write about the incident, revise it so

it includes your having a LARGE amount of

gratitude during the incident. How? As you

think about the incident before you write,

feel the gratitude flowing into the memory.

Feel yourself full of thanks. See a smile.

Maybe feel a bounce in your step, peace in

your shoulders, joy in your posture. Then write

the incident in this revised version. Don’t worry

about good style or grammar or punctuation.

Simply write it.

Do this exercise for a week with a new incident

from each day. I think you will be surprised at

what happens to your level of gratitude

during those seven days.

About the Author

Stephanie West Allen, JD, is the author of _24 7 This! The Merry Method To

Accelerate Success_. Excerpts at

http://www.allen-nichols.com/success.cfm

She coaches people in using the two Merry

Maxims, WYTUG (What You Think Upon Grows)

and LULU (Loosen Up, Lighten Up) to achieve health, wealthy,

creativity, and harmonized relationships.

Contact her at Stephanie@allen-nichols.com