In 2006 I was living in Santa Rosa with my daughter and jack russell terrier.  We had a lovely, funky house that I dreamed of getting old in.  How I had come by this house is another story and a miracle.  I felt very blessed and looked forward to many years of bliss in my neighborhood.

After several years of habitation there, I woke up one morning with a persistent thought going through my mind.  It was really just background noise and at first I didn’t pay any attention to it.  However, after several hours, I stopped to give it some attention.

What I had been repeating over and over to myself was, “I am not moving to Petaluma. I am not moving to Petaluma.  I am not moving to Petaluma.”

At first it seemed completely bizarre and made no sense.  I mean, I was not moving to Petaluma and was not even considering it.  Sure, my daughter had decided that the local high school was not for her and she was transferring to a private school in Petaluma, but that was only a half hour from us and there was good bus service.  The idea of moving from my dream home was never an option on the table.

Yet, here I was arguing to myself that I was not moving.  What was the meaning of that?  Then it struck me.  If I was arguing with myself it could only mean one thing:  Part of me knew I was moving to Petaluma.

I never got the thought, “I should move to Petaluma” instead I was reacting to that by retorting, “I am not moving to Petaluma”.  Since I live a spirit driven life it seemed clear to me that “spirit” (whatever that is) was moving me to Petaluma.  Since the move turned out to be all about my daughter, perhaps she was the “spirit” that did the moving.

I am contemplating this story today, because I recently started a four week Mind Power training.  One of the contemplations assigned as homework this week is:

My power to think thoughts is my power to create my life.  I have the power to think whatever thoughts I choose.

I was struck by the idea that I have the power to think whatever thoughts I choose in light of my “I am not moving to Petaluma” story.  While thoughts may be real forces (Law #1)  and I can either entertain thoughts or dismiss thoughts (Law #3), I am wondering if I really have the power to create my life by controlling my thoughts.  I mean, my decision to move to Petaluma was totally done on a subconscious/unconscious level.  And the only conscious thought was the reactionary, “I am not moving to Petaluma.”

The Mind Power system is based on six laws regarding how the mind and thoughts work.  Law #6 is the law of connection that states that the outer world of our circumstances and situations and the inner world of our thoughts and reactions are connected.  This is obvious when we think about how someone saying bad things about us (outer world) makes us feel bad (inner world).  It is less obvious, or at least not conventionally recognized, how feeling bad (inner world) might make bad things happen to us (outer world).

Going into the Mind Power training I would have agreed with John Kehoe’s idea that our thoughts and beliefs determine our circumstances and beliefs.  Yet, now after contemplating, I am wondering about the effectiveness of his method.  His methods seemed to be focused on acting in the conscious realm, while ThetaHealing and Access Consciousness are designed to bypass the conscious and remove beliefs from the subconscious.

Further, I am wondering how effective changing beliefs and thoughts can be in creating my desired future in situations where I receive a “knowing of right action” that supersedes the planned life I have consciously chosen?  What would have happened if I would have clung to my thought “I am not moving to Petaluma?”