Having read a few of the other posts, would you say that anything ever happens out of the blue? We think not. Out of the blue really means out of the oblivious.
None of this is medical advice. Always follow the advice of your doctors.
Traffic laws
Nobody particularly likes the notion of traffic laws, but every one of us appreciates what they give us.
In short quantities, we can successfully drive outside the traffic laws. If we’re conscious and cognizant of our surroundings, driving on the wrong side of the road will get us to where we’re going. But what happens when we get distracted? When the unconscious automatic driving habits take over? How about when a favorite song comes on the radio? What about when your passenger starts a good conversation? Or when there are too many things in the environment to be aware of at once. What happens then? Something bad happens then!
Traffic laws are really a language, a language of safety. As long as everyone’s speaking the same language, we communicate intent, negotiate positioning, and travel to our destinations safely. The laws are designed to quickly become habitual so that we can follow them unconsciously when the going gets boring. It’s probably alright to circumvent the proper lawful action occasionally, but it takes awareness and reflection to avoid doing it too often. That is to say, don’t make a habit out of it.
Traffic laws give us valuable guardrails for when we’re unconsciously driving automobiles.
Ignoring certain aspects of traffic laws too often obviously sets us up for unwanted situations. Statistically speaking, it’s a matter of time (and alignment). If we manage to go long enough without any crunchy feedback, we might falsely conclude, “It happened out of the blue.” In reality, it happened out of the oblivious.
Choose your friends wisely
Pleasant interaction with other people makes the day go by. Random fun conversation with random people increases smiles everywhere. We’re surprisingly deliberate with unfamiliar people.
On the flip side, we’re surprisingly not deliberate with our friends and family. You relax in your comfort zone.
We quickly adapt to the subcultures of our cliques, but if we belong to multiple then we’re possibly aware of this process as we switch among them. When it comes to family, we spend our entire lives immersed in our particular family’s subculture. It’s all really automatic and unconscious.
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
Jim Rohn
What does your vibration look like if you spend the majority of your life around people and personalities who complain about their health? You can fight the good fight reminding yourself that they’re attracting those experiences into their own lives, and you needn’t repeat their mistake. This works temporarily, but the longer you’re a part of this group, the less likely you are to succeed. It’s important to realize they remain in your life because you’re attracting them.
Monkey see; monkey do. You can only hold out for so long. Wake up with a sore ankle, and you’re part of the conversation easily. Don’t surround yourself with people who sacrifice their health for conversation.
The subcultures of our friends, families, support groups, and cliques provide guardrails for when we’re unconsciously driving our thoughts. Do we surround ourselves with guardrails that direct us toward happy, healthy thoughts? Or do we unintentionally surround ourselves with guardrails that direct us toward unwanted things that will eventually appear out of the oblivious?
Out of the oblivious and into the deliberate
Diseases don’t appear out of the blue. Neither do traffic accidents. Nothing ever happens out of the blue. When we play by the clueless rules, things can and will happen out of the oblivious.
Sometimes people say it just came out of the blue. And we say, “No, it came out of the oblivious.” You’ve got vibration going on, that you’re not aware of.
Abraham, frequently
Exactly like traffic laws, we want something in place that helps steer our vibration in productive directions even when we’re asleep at the wheel. We want uplifting friend groups. Productive, resourceful, and inspiring coworkers are nice too. People that seem half a step ahead of us would be ideal. The awkward bit is that as we evolve our vibrations to better places, our peer groups will also evolve to match. Peer groups evolve both by replacement of individuals and improving vibrations of individuals.
Housemates and spouse-mates share an inordinate amount of time and conversation together. Whether we realize it or not, conversations and complaints are planning for the future, law of attraction style. Make sure to choose people who direct your thought processes in productive directions even when you’re not on guard. Install the best guardrails you have access to, but realize you’ll have access to improving guardrails as you continue to clean up your vibration.
Take control of your environment
Decision fatigue is a real problem for deliberate creators, so we want guardrails for the majority of the time when we’re on automatic pilot. We need a healthy set of traffic laws for our unconscious habits. Our environments dictate our habits, patterns of thought, and actions to a large degree. Creating our environments to incentivize productive thought or action is really very helpful.
What we see and hear all day long has a profound influence on what we think about during that time.
If our living space is full of junk food, will we be heavier or lighter in a year? If your employer surrounds you with clutter, will they get as much productivity from you? His friends speak all day of health problems, so will he be healthier or unhealthier next season? Her friends exercise routinely together, and she can’t help but join in the fun. Which of these environments is more conducive to healthier vibrations?
“Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat.
Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.”
James Clear, Atomic Habits
The above quotation is from an amazing book, Atomic Habits, about creating productive habits; we cannot recommend it enough. For our purposes, reread it substituting “habits” with “habits of thought.”
Be aware of your habits of thought and you’ll be aware of your default thought process, usual train of thought, and vibrational “set-point” (Abraham’s words for the same thing). Our thought processes tell us what we’re attracting, but how it feels tells us how we’re going to like it. Ignore either of those, and you can look forward to lots of surprises, both pleasant and unpleasant, coming out of the blue and out of the oblivious.
Out of the oblivious and into a new game
Researchers claim that we make 35,000 decisions in a day. Let’s rephrase that slightly to say we make 35,000 conscious decisions each day. How many unconscious decisions to we make? It must be millions. Which foot do you step with first? What’s its angle? What’s its accleration? How about now? How quickly do you lift the other foot? At least millions.
Almost everything we do every day is unconscious. Practically every action is largely on automatic pilot. Our thoughts, words, and actions are mostly habit. Only a small percentage of those are conscious deviations from muscle memory. When our lives are dictated mostly by unconscious behavior, habits reign surpreme. Babies, toddlers, and children take so long to develop partly because it takes time to create and install these habits.
“You are perceptual beings with different vantage points and — it does not matter how much information is given — you cannot see beyond the vibrational limits of where you are standing. You cannot live or see or experience outside of your own individual beliefs.”
Abraham, excerpted from Dallas, TX on 3/13/99
Habits, environments, routines, peer groups, and everything else we experience on a daily basis only serve to further reinforce our habits. They’re all self-reinforcing guardrails. Only when we take conscious control does anything change, and only when we seek to install different guardrails can we make lasting change.
The physical matter and energy that surrounds us in every waking moment is such a guardrail. It’s a constant reminder of the default physical laws governing the physical (uni)verse. We need to be very conscious and deliberate if we ever hope to wake up and make change.
