What the rest of us had to do with it.
by Jeannette Maw
Last month's shootings at Trolley Square offer a unique opportunity to check in on your personal vibration and see the future you are creating for yourself. What were your immediate thoughts after hearing six people were killed at the local mall?

Some responded with fear and anger, others were inclined toward compassion and renewed gratitude for life. Some felt a mix of emotions. A few were irritated that live coverage interrupted their TV show. 

Since we get what we vibrate (and our vibration is simply our feelings about our thoughts), becoming aware of our vibration allows us a glimpse into our tomorrow. And, when we truly grasp that our feelings create our world, we're motivated to choose feelings much more deliberately.

Trolley Square's event offers not only an exercise to embrace better-feeling thoughts under challenging circumstances, but also an opportunity to see how we are responsible for what happens in our world. It also provides inspiration to create something new by flowing more positive personal vibrations.

Our role in the world

Because like attracts like (as dictated by the universal Law of Attraction), your feelings are a beacon, calling forth more experiences that match those feelings. Thus, your emotional responses to what happens in the world create more events that evoke those same feelings. You can only participate in that to which you are a vibrational match.

Which means, since we experienced the incident at Trolley Square (even if it was just by reading or hearing about it), that we were a match to it. Indeed, we were not only a vibrational match to it, but we played a role in creating it.

Whether you felt fear, revenge, anger, blame, victimization or maybe community togetherness, love, strength, hope or compassion-those feelings were already activated within you. (What did 9/11 bring up for you? Did Trolley Square feel somewhat like a replay?)  Your past feelings pooled together with others' to co-create the unfolding of the situation on February 12 at Trolley Square.

In fact, we're creating another event now, with the thoughts and feelings we have each moment. Our vibrations continually pool together with like vibrations to create various new experiences, adding power to an outcome we may or may not desire. Our vibration paves the way to our future. What future are you creating with your feelings now?

Remember "we are not in the world, the world is within us." Author Debbie Ford says, "When you understand that you contain everything you see in others, your entire world will alter. The key is to understand that there is nothing we can see or perceive that we are not."

So whatever you saw when you witnessed the Trolley Square shootings (good, bad or ugly), it arose from within.

We get what we think about.

Popular culture sets us up for vibrating violence. If we watch the news, read the paper, go to popular movies or listen to the radio, we likely entertain negative thoughts. Whether they're our own thoughts or we absorb someone else's, those thoughts create emotional responses within.

Abraham (a non-physical entity channeled by Esther Hicks) tells us, "Most people do not realize that thinking about something is inviting the essence of that 'something' into their experience." By overhearing or participating in conversations about war and terrorism, regardless of your position on the topic, you vibrate war and terrorism. Thus war and terrorism is your point of attraction.

What we resist, persists. As we think about what we don't want, we attract it. By immersing yourself in negative books, movies or even certain people, you attract more of how that feels to you. So if watching the news feels dark and depressing, you're a match for dark and depressing. On the other hand, if you listen to heavy metal or hard core rap and feel complete peace with it, you're vibrating peace and thus attract more peace into your life. How you feel about your thoughts is an individual matter. We don't all have the same emotional responses.

No victims

Nothing just "happens" to us, no matter how it seems the contrary. Random doesn't exist. Everything takes place in response to what we vibrate; there are no exceptions. We can manifest the appearance of randomness if we choose, but we're still creating it. Quantum physics is beginning to explain what ancient cultures and wise teachers taught us long ago: "As within, so without." "As you think, so shall it be."

Some find it hard to believe that innocent people killed two days before Valentine's Day wasn't purely random. Are we supposed to believe they each attracted that outcome, that they chose to be part of the crisis?

Although the possibility of sacred contracts, karma and destiny are potential arguments as to why this wasn't a random event, it could also be said these participants weren't "conscious" of their role in what unfolded that evening. But that doesn't mean they didn't co-create it. Most of us aren't creating consciously.

As we entertain thoughts that don't feel good, we become an unknowing match to occurrences that also don't feel good. So finding our way to better feeling thoughts liberates us from fear of repeat tragedies.

Know your power

The point isn't to place blame on anyone, including ourselves, for what happens in the world. Rather, it's to understand our creative powers in transforming the world. Your thoughts are things! They are energetic concoctions vibrating in a way that on some level affect the entire planet.

What kind of ripple are you creating? Your thoughts and feelings, as well as your experiences, are indicators of the footprint you leave on humanity. Each one of us matters, as do all our thoughts and the vibrations created by those thoughts.

Know your power to affect the world, and use it deliberately. Choose the thoughts that feel better to you, and you will reap the rewards.

Healing words

For those suffering with painful thoughts, no matter the source, an ancient Hawaiian healing technique may provide relief. Ho'oponopono says each of us is 100% responsible for everything we experience in our world. (You can read more about this online in Greta deJong's "Editor's Notebook," August 2006) Not just what we think and do, but for everything others do as well. If it's a part of your life, you're responsible for it.

Dr. Hew Len, who shares this method with the world, says total responsibility for your life means that everything in your life-simply because it is in your life-is your responsibility. In a literal sense the world is your creation- including the shooting deaths of six people at Trolley Square.

That means it's up to each of us to heal it. What can we do to clean up our act? Since this philosophy says everything we don't like in life is a projection of something from within, the problem isn't "out there." It's "in here" that needs work.

The healing technique calls for holding the transgression in mind and repeating four statements: "I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you." (I use Dr. Len's shortened version of "I'm sorry, I love you.")

As we direct these words to our higher self, the divine, source energy, Universe, God (or whatever we want to call higher power), we raise the vibration and allow the projection initiated within to heal.

Your experience of Trolley Square offers you the opportunity to see within yourself. If you like what you see, keep doing what you're doing. If what you see isn't something you'd like to experience more of, know and exercise your ability to choose thoughts that feel better. That's all it takes to pave the way to a future you enjoy much more.

A final observation offered by Jani King (channeling P'taah), "As it is occurring within you, so you are observing it outside of who you are. Because everything you observe outside of who you are is only a mirror. It is all a reflection. There is nothing in existence outside of who you perceive yourself to be, which is not a mirror. Nothing."

Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) inspires hopeful thoughts with these refrains from "Peace Train":

Now I've been happy lately,
Thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be
Something good has begun
Oh I've been smiling lately,
Dreaming about the world as one
And I believe it could be
Some day it's going to come
Cause out on the edge of darkness,
There rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country,
Come take me home again. 

Jeannette Maw is an Attraction Coach and founder of Good Vibe Coaching in Salt Lake City.