Expecting the Best
by Tom Butler-Bowdon
Scovel Shinn (see end of article for biographical notes on Florence Scovel Shinn) devoted her life to helping people recognize the
link between their attitudes and their level of happiness. A relaxed
state of expectancy, she taught, is the best mindset for bringing
success into your life. Sometimes, intensity of desire can actually
turn away things that are good for you because it suggests faith only
in yourself and not in the higher power that has created you. Few
understand the success law that deeply felt, even burning ambitions and
desires are most easily realized by allowing them to be realized — a case of "set and forget."
It is hard for the driven person to accept the biblical
suggestion to "Have no thought for the morrow." Yet instead of madly
pursuing something night and day, it is much more efficient to have a
relaxed knowledge that the achievement you desire is pulling you toward
it. Be clear about what you want and then have the faith that it will
come. Employ what she calls the occult law of indifference: "Your ships
come in over a don't care sea." We have all observed that success has
its own time frame and often comes quietly when we least expect it.
Preparing for good things
While it is good to change your outlook so that you expect good things, you must also prepare for them.
You can read as much as you like about prosperity thinking and
make affirmations, but this is only "armchair faith," Scovel Shinn
says, unless you act prosperously in real life. She recounts the story
of a woman who wanted to send her two daughters to college, but clearly
did not have the money. However, against her husband's objections that
the idea was unreasonable, she went ahead with plans for their
enrollment, stating that "some unforeseen good" would occur. As it
happened, a rich relative sent her a sum of money that covered all the
girls' tuition costs.
Doubt, worries, and living in the past only buttress the walls
around your Jericho. Life has a way of shaping itself to our
expectations, good or bad, Scovel Shinn says, therefore let your
thoughts and actions express relaxed, unwavering faith.
Intuition
While Scovel Shinn describes prayer as "telephoning to God," she says that intuition is "God telephoning you."
Some people are careful reasoners, relying only on their
intellect to solve problems. They "weigh and measure the situation like
dealing in groceries," but the solutions they come up with are far from
perfect. How often do you wish that you had gone with your hunch on an
issue? At Christmas time a house can be filled with presents, but none
is felt to be quite right for the recipient. Consumption without
intuition is inevitably wasteful. Asking for guidance, Scovel Shinn
says, "always saves time and energy and often a lifetime of misery."
Intuition seems magic, because it has the power of Infinite
Intelligence behind it. "Unless intuition builds the house, they labor
in vain who build it."
Many of the great achievements have been guided by intuition.
Scovel Shinn mentions Henry Ford, who never gave up on his feeling that
the motor car could be for everyone. Despite his boss and his father
thinking it a crazy idea, he persevered, hearing only the voice inside
him that said "Do it." When you come to a fork in the road, follow the
voice of intuition. If it is God's role to give you hunches, it is
yours to be awake to them and not waste them.
Relieved of the Burden
Many times in your life you will feel overwhelmed. This is the perfect time to practice faith over fear.
A woman came to Scovel Shinn with a mess of complications in her
life, and was simply told, "Let God juggle the situation." The woman
took a leap of faith, imagining the matters out of her hands, and
things quickly cleared up. Try to juggle everything yourself and
inevitably you drop the balls; what you find so difficult is of course
nothing to God. Perfect faith leads to perfect outcomes.
It is easier to have faith with things that matter less to you,
but the real successes come when you entrust the big things. How can
you remember to buttress this confidence when you need it? If you are
beginning to doubt, Scovel Shinn says, say this to yourself: "His ways
are ingenious, His methods are sure." Let God take up the burden.
Abundance
The Secret Door to Success tells the
story of a priest on a visit to a French convent, which every day fed
many children. However, it had run out of money and the nuns were
despairing. Holding up a single piece of silver, one of them told the
visitor that this was all they had left to buy food and clothes for the
children.
The priest asked for the coin and the nun handed it to him.
He promptly threw it out the window, saying, "Now rely entirely
on God." Soon after, people arrived bearing gifts of food and money.
The moral? You don't have to throw away your money or close your bank account, but do not depend
on the money you have. Whenever you feel "short," remind yourself: "God
is the source of my supply." You don't need to know exactly how you
will he provided for; don't limit the channels by which you might
receive. The one caveat is that you should ask for what is yours by
"divine right."
Many people achieve wealth but then quickly lose it, because it
was grasped, not given. To maintain ownership of your investments,
remember that they are a manifestation of God for which you must be
grateful. Scovel Shinn recalls an old Arabic saying: "What Allah has
given cannot be diminished." If you happen to lose money you will not
be shattered, knowing that God will soon provide other opportunities.
Don't underestimate the power of words to make or break you
financially, Scovel Shinn says, for "Your world is a world of
crystallized ideas, crystallized words." Those who speak only of what
they lack will therefore end up with little. "You cannot enter the
Kingdom of Abundance bemoaning your lot." Instead, you will enter it by
being more and more aware of the world's abundance; you can never
really feel a state of lack, knowing the truth of the statement that
"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want" (Psalms 23:1).
Final comments
Most people give up just before something great is
about to happen to them. Success is a system, Scovel Shinn claims, in
which courage and perseverance are important elements. A friend once
took her to a New York City park to see the sun rise, and she found
this simple thing to be a wondrous experience. You may be so used to
your daily habits and patterns that you wear yourself into a rut. You
cease to be aware of the opportunities that arise through being fully
present in the moment, and you stop expecting great things.
If there is one overall message to The Secret Door to Success,
it is that you must avoid being overwhelmed by life and realize that
there is something larger than you that is willing to shoulder the
burdens. It is a simple fact that you are constantly "fooled by the
darkness before the dawn." If you can live by faith instead of fear,
you have found Scovel Shinn's secret door.
Florence Scovel Shinn
Born in 1871 in Camden, New Jersey, Florence
Scovel was the daughter of a lawyer. She was educated in Philadelphia
and attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1889 to 1897,
where she met Everett Shinn (1876-1953), a well-known painter. They
married after her graduation and moved to New York City to pursue their
artistic careers, living near Washington Square.
Florence became an illustrator of popular children's
literature in magazines and books, and also a teacher of metaphysics.
Her classic, The Game of Life and How to Play It, was self-published in
1925, followed in 1928 by Your Word Is Your Wand. The Secret Door to
Success was published shortly before her death in 1940.
Books by Florence Scovel Shinn
This article was excerpted from:
 50 Success Classics
by Tom Butler-Bowdon.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Nicholas Brealey Publishing. ©2004. www.nbrealey-books.com
Info/Order this book
About the Author
Tom Butler-Bowdon is recognized as an expert on the personal development literature. His first book 50 SELF-HELP CLASSICS has been hailed as the definitive guide to the literature of possibility. He has spent more than six years researching, reading, and analyzing hundreds of works to compile his guides to the self-help and success classics. A graduate of the London School of Economics and the University of Sydney, he lives and works in both the UK and Australia, and runs a self-help/success website at www.butler-bowdon.com
| Comments () >> |
 |
 |
sincerely chris melillo 
