WHAT IS THE POWER BEHIND PALS?
The greatest healers, athletes, shamans, and achievers have used this
tool to bring success. The
advertising industry uses this secret to
entice you to buy products that you do not even need. By
repeatedly
saying, seeing, and feeling a message associated with common objects, people,
and
animals we merge how we want to be, into how we live. People from
many different lands and
ages have used such techniques such as these
to improve their lives. Words that can be vividly
seen, felt or imagined
change the way that we relate to the world around us. These palpable
thoughts show up in everything from cave drawings, to ritual, prayer,
and poems. Ideas made
concrete contain and defeat fear and bring dreams
to reality. Ultimately where our thoughts go,
energy flows.
Guatemalan Indians offer their worries and fears to "Trouble Dolls." These tiny wooden dolls are dressed in bright colored threads.
They speak to one doll for each problem they have before
going to sleep. While sleeping, they believe the dolls solve their problems.
In literature, songs, and prayers metaphors are bridges to give a reader a picture, a feeling and an experience. Spiritual practices emphasize that the faith and belief in what is thought and said produces an outcome.
The bible says pray for whatever you desire, and believe that you receive it and you shall have it. The Song at the Sea in the Torah uses metaphor to give us an expansive feeling of gratitude:
"Were our mouth as full of song as the sea, and our tongue as
full of joyous song as its multitude waves . . . and our eyes as brilliant
as the sun and the moon, and our hands as outspread as eagles of the sky
and our feet as swift as hinds - we still could not thank you sufficiently.
. . "
There are certain that we can imitate to become more aligned
with our own individual
nature. Cultures have focused on animals to
become better at who they were. Native American
hunters visualized
the animal that they were about to track down to become better hunters.
An
observer of American Indian culture comments that, ". Pictographs
and petroglyphs of elk or
antelope draw their magic in part from the
process wherein the focus of all concentration is upon
the thing itself,
which, in its turn, guides the hunter's hand." "Landscape, History, and the
Pueblo
Imagination," Leslie Marmon Silko, On Nature, editor Daniel Halpern,
p.85.
PALs makes it easier for us to imagine, feel and touch what we
hope for and desire . When an
idea is made into something concrete,
it often helps us to focus on it and the meaning that it has
for us.
Being able to picture a scene in your mind and attach a special message
to it can be a very
powerful exercise. Visualizing a scene can help
a person internally face fears.
Both [landscape and dreams] have the power to seize terrifying
feelings and deep instincts and translate them into images - visual, aural,
tactile - into the concrete where human beings may more readily confront
and channel the terrifying instincts or powerful emotions into rituals and
narratives which reassure the individual. . .Ibid, p.92.
PALs reassure and encourage us to listen to the best within
ourselves and discard the rest. PALs name the blessings in our life
so that they continue to grow and come into being. The PALs support
network tunes us to joy and helps build immunity from fear.
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