Chapter One Excerpted from the book by permission of publisher.

"The Field"

     Have you ever experienced a sudden breakthrough? You know that feeling, when what you picture in your head actually happens and you want to pinch yourself because you can't believe it's real? Or when you have one of those moments of clarity, and your biggest problem suddenly disappears because you look at it differently, or when the perfect solution presents itself out of the blue? That's when you're playing the quantum field.

     When I was an undergraduate, I had a particularly wonderful experience of playing the Field. During my last two years of college I had the good fortune to study abroad in England and Germany. As it was for many young people at that time, hitchhiking was my main mode of transportation outside the cities.

During one semester break my friend Mary and I decided to visit the Lake District, north of London. We caught rides on the M-5, a major highway, and found ourselves on a small country road later in the day than we'd hoped.

     We walked for hours in the rain and fog, and the few cars that passed by didn't stop. Darkness began to settle in. We couldn't see twenty feet in front of us and felt scared. I had learned from severe asthma attacks in early childhood that if I focused on my fear I would only feel even more desperate than I already was.

I told Mary this, and we agreed to put our fear aside. We both let out a sigh. As we continued walking, we talked about how much fun we were having exploring Europe and immediately felt better. We told ourselves we'd find a ride and would be safe.

     The fog was settling in about ten minutes later, when out of nowhere two headlights emerged. Timothy, an elderly Englishman around fifty (well, that looked "elderly" then!) drove up in his camper and rolled down his window. "Have you two ladies lost your way?" he asked kindly.

We admitted we had. He said he was on holiday and didn't generally drive this way, and didn't know why he had turned down that particular road, but was glad he had. Then he took us to a campground and made dinner while we dried off and warmed ourselves by the fire. That night he slept in the cab and let us sleep in his camper.

     Instead of letting fear dominate our thoughts and actions, sending us into panic and ineffectiveness, Mary and I chose to connect to the power of the Field by making our intentions very clear. Timothy's appearance that cold, rainy night might seem like luck or coincidence, but what exactly does that mean?

Even Timothy had said he didn't understand why he had turned down that road. When your intention is clear, the Field quickly starts pulling things together. Some people call this synchronicity. I call it playing the quantum field.

     Why can't we create these magical outcomes all the time? Now, more than ever, we need the ability to create breakthrough results at will. The world is changing, and we need some new operating instructions.

Life continues to accelerate, and we find ourselves at a new frontier as we realize our world is filled with more change, more danger, and less integrity than we'd ever thought possible. We're overstimulated and maxed out. Something's got to give.

     And it has. In a way you may not have imagined.

     Science is on the verge of proving that everything is dynamic and connected. What was once considered the New Age fringe thinking of renegade physicists has been embraced by more and more people as a probability.

This new worldview is reflected in key scientific discoveries, kicked off by Einstein a century ago, and is becoming so widely accepted that it was celebrated by the World Year of Physics in 2005. The quantum field is showing itself up close and personal for increasing numbers of us.

Look at how awareness of the Field is expressing itself in our culture: the vernacular of personal-growth classes and spiritual practices help people "ground" and "get centered." TV audiences are fascinated with the numerous shows about kids and adults tapping into special powers.

Advertising for cellular phone services promise to help us "get connected," and the Internet itself is a metaphor for the interconnected web that more and more people are experiencing.

     Even the practice of law is reflecting this connection. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela supports the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act of 1995. This "truth and reconciliation process" is based on ubuntu, a Zulu or Xhosa word that means "humanity to others."

If you keep hurting the people who hurt you, the situation will never end. We are all connected. In medicine, more and more holistic health practices are acknowledging that the body is not separate from the mind and spirit. They all work together.

Major global economic powers are realizing they cannot ignore the plight of entire nations because of the interconnectedness of all nations and the consequent effects on the stock market.

In addition, world religions that have traditionally been closed to other perspectives are reaching out to each other to explore a connecting reality they can all respect and honor. Nondenominational churches are thriving.

     These provocative glimpses into different areas of life are imperfect metaphors for what much of the world is beginning to recognize: that there is a larger reality out there than we have ever imagined. We are on the brink of a huge shift in awareness that will absolutely change how we live.

     In plain English, every person and every thing is operating in a single energy field, and we each have much more power to create our lives than we ever imagined. According to Merriam-Webster, a field is a "region or space in which a given effect exists."

You've probably heard of magnetic fields, like those around your microwave. Or you may have felt the fields of sacred places like the pyramids, Stonehenge, and the Holy Land. People have personal fields. Have you ever noticed how some people feel warm and inviting, while others seem to radiate a kind of "stay away" energy?

Even though you experience the Field in small glimpses and in different areas of life, the epiphany for most of us is that these glimpses are all connected and part of the same field. Imagine it as one big grid that everything is a part of. No one is "off the grid," even if they think they are or want to be.

     In the old thinking, the cab you take to the airport is one field. The plane you take to your destination is another. That kind of thinking limits us. In the new thinking, the cab, the plane, the sky, and the universe are all one Field. The power of the Field is that you can tap into this collective. And the better equipped we become at embracing this new worldview, the more we will be able to usher in this new way of living.

     What we are really talking about with the quantum field is possibility. Think of the quantum field as all possibility and potential, which you can consciously access - if you know how. Anyone who studies quantum physics knows that your thoughts connect you to this field of possibility.

In the words of noted physicist Fred Alan Wolf, "Reality depends upon our choices of what and how we choose to observe. These choices, in turn, depend upon our minds or, more specifically, the content of our thoughts."1 For the purpose of this book, I am going to focus on your choices so that you can discover the quantum field of possibility organically for yourself.

I will translate this concept into simple language and day-to-day examples you can learn and practice so that by the end of this book, you will have experienced first-hand the power of the quantum field.

The Age of Accountability

     A lot of emphasis is put on personal accountability today. Upheavals in religion, politics, business, and culture are demanding that we take more responsibility for the choices we make and the results we create.

Now that lifetime employment with one company is no longer the norm, we've taken responsibility for our careers. With changes in medical care and insurance, we've had to become responsible for our health. Because we can't count on Social Security benefits, we've assumed responsibility for our retirement.

     It's time to expand this sense of accountability into every moment and every choice we make. By playing the Field, it is possible to become more accountable for our decisions. Although none of us want to be slaves to any system or person, we still end up enslaving ourselves with some of our thinking and actions. We no longer want to feel as if we're powerless to affect our lives. And we will realize we won't be powerless if we learn to play.

     Playing the Field is the responsible way to live and to use your energy. When you choose not to tap the Field, you more easily feel like a victim, forgetting that your choices have power.

In the past, when we have tapped the quantum field, we've sometimes performed miracles, persuading masses of people to change their minds, or loving a teen back into the fold. At other times we've chosen manipulation or control - choices that perhaps made sense in those circumstances. Now we can come into our real power and stay there more of the time - if we're shown how.

     The Field is an equal-opportunity provider. It doesn't matter if you are a stay-at-home parent, a CEO, or someone who serves customers across a counter or across the world every day. It's up to you to make the choices that will optimize your life.

In the Field everything is possible. Yes, you can meet your family's needs and your own as well. You just have to approach life differently. The time is ripe for a new way that will allow us to take personal power and accountability to higher levels.

     Every person and every thing is operating in a single energy field, and we each have much more power to create our lives than we ever imagined.

Why Change?

     Lynne McTaggart, an award-winning investigative journalist, reports that many prominent leading-edge scientists still agree with Einstein about his unified field theory. On the most fundamental level, the human mind and body are not distinct and separate from their environment but are bundles of pulsating energy that constantly interact with this vast energy field. "These subatomic particles have no meaning in isolation but only in relationship with everything else," reports McTaggart.2

     In other words, we're all connected. The very atoms that make up everything are interdependent, always interacting with one another. The events of 9/11 and global natural disasters in recent years have made this connection tangible. Worldwide differences fell away when nearly everyone on the planet felt linked in their shock and grief.

     Though in the Field this connection is always at work, it often takes great stress or loss or catastrophic events to remind us of how interdependent we all are. In the Field we are energetically connected - to each other, to the results of our choices, and to our futures.

The very next choice you make directly affects what will happen to you next. Even if you don't relate to physics, you can probably relate to this: you have far more power than you ever thought possible because you are part of what's happening, not just an observer of it. Instead of working harder to achieve your goals, you can choose to consciously tap this energy field and create what you want.

     This is what people commonly refer to as being "in the zone," that space where you break through into synchronicity and everything clicks. Doors open. Obstacles melt away. Golden opportunities materialize. But on those other days, when nothing works, you can't seem to do anything right, and you descend into what feels like the Black Hole, you're also playing the Field. You're just making choices that amplify that reality.

     So, you may be asking, why can't we operate "in the zone" at will? Well, we can. And I can show you how. We need to remember that the Field is always there, whether or not we pay attention to it. It reminds me of the year I left for a trip to Australia on September 7 and arrived on September 9. My birthday happens to fall on September 8. Technically, September 8 didn't happen for me.

Did I turn a year older? Of course. And to presume otherwise would be a bit ridiculous, because time did pass. It's the same thing with the Field. It is always there, whether or not you recognize it. If you choose to stay conscious and play the Field, you can change your life in the very next moment.

     Twentieth-century technology focused on mundane forms of energy, even as twentieth-century scientists (like Einstein and others) grappled with the Field. In communications, for example, we have evolved from rotary telephones to satellites, to wireless Internet connections. This is nothing compared to the power of the Field.

In the twenty-first century we are groping for a usable Field technology, and movies like the 2004 What the Bleep Do We Know!? are beginning to bring these ideas into popular culture. Galileo knew that the sun, and not the earth, was the center of our solar system before the rest of the world accepted this truth.

Columbus knew the world was round. The Egyptians and Greeks had proven both these facts more than a millennium before, but most people of Galileo's and Columbus's times denied these fundamental truths of nature.

     The Field is another fundamental truth of nature, but it's not yet visible or measurable. You've no doubt experienced this connection in the Field that transcends time and space. You think about someone in another state, and minutes later they call, or you know something is wrong with your child before he says a word.

Homes and businesses have energy too. You can feel it the moment you walk in the door. You also feel energy in music. As the research on the Mozart Effect has proven, our brain functions differently depending on the music we hear.

In Japan Dr. Masaru Emoto has demonstrated that water changes its crystalline form when researchers change their thoughts or expose the water to various types of music or photographs.3 The implications of this interconnectedness are stunning, and we don't need to understand all the scientific studies to experience it and reap its benefits.

It's a lot like the Internet. I can send an email from the middle of the United Arab Emirates on my wireless handheld Blackberry, and a friend in Chicago receives it within minutes. We don't have to know exactly how this works to enjoy the advantages of this new tool.

     In some ways, women are particularly equipped to take this leap. Like the quantum field, women have always been dynamic, their moods and chemistry fluctuating with lunar cycles, sensitive to even slight changes in their environments.

Many women are in tune with what's happening right now. Their default state is connectedness, and they don't naturally tend to use force to create outcomes. The Field validates what women have always known on some level: that the softer, "feminine" yin skills have as much, or more, power as the charging-ahead yang ways.

Women know the Field's energy and connection. The way they respond to various environments, or to another person, is an energetic experience. In fact, most women have experienced the Field in the form of intuition, but they've been unaware that it's always available to them.

     In the Field everything is created, including all the possibilities that stretch before you right now. When I refer to the "energy" of the Field, I do not mean whether you feel tired or refreshed in the morning or if you have the stamina to get through your day or if you feel strong enough to take the stairs instead of the elevator at work.

Energy refers to this invisible connection. Have you ever seen a zoom-in from a satellite that first focuses on the earth, then your continent, then your state, then your city, then your neighborhood, all the way to your house?

Tapping into the bigger energy of the Field is like the reverse: instead of focusing on our one little reality, we expand dramatically into multiple realities and possibilities, most of which allow us to live larger, more fulfilling lives.

     Everyone has had these experiences. Most of us just don't know how to live like this daily. The potential of the Field is the elephant in the room that no one is talking about in everyday language. Energy is present in every transaction and in-teraction. It's in the email you just wrote. It's in the article you just read.

It's also in the laundry you didn't fold and in the checkbook you didn't have time to balance. It's in how you feel about the dirty dishes in your sink. It's in your intention for the staff meeting or family vacation. It's in the review you just gave. It's in the thought you just had about your significant other. It's in everything you say or do.

Getting a High Return on Energy

     If you can set aside the old belief that we are each trudging through life alone and instead tap into the powerful energy that's all around you, you will be able to transcend circumstances that normally would pull you down. We all have access to the Field. How you choose to tap into it is up to you. Even when you feel depleted and think you have no choice, you always do.

     Today businesses and individuals want to leverage their resources and create the most value - in money, business, client retention, and life. In business meetings you'll often hear the term "return on investment," or "ROI," discussed.

Businesses have limited resources but want to receive the most in return for those resources, and they plan ahead, research, and find the best possible strategies for making their resources pay back dividends. This same principle can be applied to energy. If you're investing significant energy in a situation, make sure it's commensurate with your yield. In other words, make sure you get a high ROE, or return on energy.

In business and in life, you sometimes may not feel as if you have a choice about how and where you invest your energy, but you do. You make crucial decisions every day. If you're going to spin your wheels and not get anywhere, realize that your high- or low-energy choices are creating that spin.

The more familiar you become with the range of high- and low-ROE choices, the easier it will be for you to see when you're living an accountable and powerful life. For example, if you know that arguing with your spouse always gives you a low ROE, you may ask yourself why you're investing your energy this way and stop, midsentence.

     You are the only person who controls how you respond to the situations life throws at you, and you can always decide to make high-ROE choices. Low-ROE choices deplete your resources and originality and create more drama in your life. High-ROE choices enable you to become more effective. Energy doesn't vanish.

It just changes form. You choose the form, based in power (high ROE) or fear (low ROE). You just forget sometimes because you are stressed out and act before remembering that you can connect into something bigger than your next action.

The Old Way of Doing: Force

     If you're like most people, you often try to control and overpower things, using your energy to force and manipulate individuals and situations. Instead, if you choose to stay conscious and play the Field, you can make an impact on your life immediately.

This may feel confounding and disorienting at first because the way the Field works is the opposite of cause and effect. Instead of doing something to cause a result, you clearly state your intention - and the result finds you. Your challenge is to let it find you. Intention is the key to accessing the power of the Field. Rather than working harder or muscling an outcome, focus on what you want. Zero in on the what, not the how.

Most of us spend our lives trying to make things happen, which sends the message to the Field that things must be made to happen. When you know you can instead operate from power, much less effort and work are entailed.

For example, if you are going to a party and want to make contact with a specific person, you can try to force it by planning every little detail of what you will wear, say, and do, or you can set the intention of having a powerful connection with that person and then just go to the party. Think of all the time and energy you will free up when you stop trying to control and engineer what happens.

     Think of the Field as a cosmic version of QVC, the popular home-shopping channel. They both have everything you could possibly want, are "on" twenty-four hours a day, and are waiting to fill your order. With QVC, you see what you want.

With the cosmic QVC, you imagine what you want, and you don't have to figure out whether to shop online or by phone or determine the size, model number, or which credit card to use. You just need to be clear about what you want to create in your life.

     My friend Jessica knows how to "place an order." She wanted to get married and have a child. She was very specific about these intentions. She didn't worry about the how. The years went by, her biological clock was ticking, and still she hadn't met the right man, so she decided to adopt. Most people expect to get married and then have a child.

Jessica didn't get stuck worrying about the sequence. You've probably guessed the rest of the story. She met her husband, a single father, months later at a school event she would not have attended if she hadn't been a parent. People who have mastered this way of being, who can move into the Field and stay there most of the time, are the ones we call lucky. Most of us just don't believe we have the power to be "lucky" too.

     David R. Hawkins, a psychiatrist and director of the Institute for Advanced Theoretical Research, provides some guidelines for operating in this new world. He found a way to measure the levels of energy involved in various choices and to calibrate how operating at these different levels influences the way we live as individuals, families, groups, and countries.

Hawkins's extensive research has linked various energy levels to emotional states, attitudes, perceptions, mental processes, worldviews, and spiritual beliefs to create a Map of Consciousness that delineates and quantifies the various levels of personal growth. His fundamental belief is that "force can bring satisfaction, but only power brings joy. Victory over others brings us satisfaction, but victory over ourselves brings us joy."4

     Whatever we focus on creates a field of dominance, according to Hawkins. In his book he recounts how he discovered hidden energy patterns he calls attractors: "Attractor energy patterns have harmonics, as do musical tones. The higher the harmonic's frequency, the higher the power."5 Think of your "frequency" as the level you operate from and the signal you send out. It's a set point, a homing device, your personal sonar that sends out a signal and attracts people and experiences with similar frequencies.

The higher the frequency, the easier your access to high-energy choices, people, and situations. The lower the frequency, the easier your access to low-energy choices, people, and situations. Hawkins underscores the power of intention in the Field:

"A sincere desire for change allows one to seek higher attractor energy patterns in their various expressions."6 For me, this means that every morning when we wake up, whether we realize it or not, we connect to an energy pattern that creates our day. In this book I will explain the power of operating at high or low frequencies and what each can bring to our life.

     Most of us have directed our energy toward controlling and manipulating other people and situations instead of using it to tap into the Field. We have used it for force, not power. Though you may want to, you can't make people do something they don't want to do. And in business especially we get seduced by force. Here is an example of how easy it is to fall into that state of mind.

     During my fifteen years in the employment industry I worked with Patrick, who ran the most profitable region in the United States. He was one of the most gifted salespeople I'd ever met, and he was also one of the weakest administrators.

Every other month I would fly to Texas to spend time with him, and on each visit I would remind him that I needed his weekly reports. As long as I hounded him about not getting his paperwork in on time, neither of us got what we wanted.

     When I redirected my energy I realized that what I really wanted was for him to be even more successful. What had I been thinking? Here was our top salesperson, and I had been giving him grief about paperwork! I redirected my energy from force to power.

We finally agreed that he could turn his reports in every other month and that they'd be prepared by one of my employees in the regional office in Chicago. Think of all the energy wasted traveling to Texas to hassle him about admin policy when I could have been asking him how I could best help him do his job better!

     When you send an intention out into the Field, you place an order with the cosmic QVC. When you opt for force, you set a tone that often gets played out to your disadvantage. For example, if at dinner with your family you dominate the conversation with your concerns about an upcoming vacation, a nice meal can become a family battle, ending with cries of "I didn't want to go anyway!" from the kids.

If you create a "force field" at work, people become more focused on who messed up rather than on how to fix or learn from the mistake. Hidden agendas surface that conflict with overall objectives. This also shows up as funky communication with family and friends. Instead of a spirit of cooperation and partnership, each person views the other as an obstacle or, even worse, as an adversary.

     You know that force is being used when a conversation with your best friend, who always seems to understand you, suddenly derails and you both leave feeling "off." Other symptoms of force include micromanaging, suspicion, and negativity, which I'll describe later in more detail. Clearly, these things feel bad and don't work too well. Knowing this, why don't we always opt for more powerful behaviors? Because force is familiar, and we forget we always have a choice.

The New Way of Being: Power

     Life is not about controlling and forcing things. It's about power, the power to choose how to use your energy. When you're operating in that paradigm of control over others, you experience a low ROE, because it's impossible to control others or their reactions. You may get temporary spurts of high ROE, but ultimately, you'll always land with a low ROE because you can't control outcomes.

When you operate from a place of power, controlling only yourself and your actions, you'll always have a high ROE, because you're staying awake and making good choices. You can control those choices. That's all you can control. When you're in that place of power, you are fully, consciously connected to the Field and will reap its benefits that much faster.

     When you try to control, you get entrenched in right and wrong, do's and don'ts, and ego-based thinking, engaging on a lower-energy level and creating a false sense of power. Your real power lies in your ability to use your energy to connect with other people and the potential that brings. This isn't the same as force.

According to Hawkins, "Power gives life and energy. Force takes these away."7 I always felt justified in hounding Patrick for his reports, and it didn't feel good to either of us. When you make high-energy choices, you are able to move through the heaviness and burden of a situation and access wisdom, no matter how difficult the circumstances. You are able to cope with challenges and get back in balance quickly.

At work, meetings end on time, you reach consensus, and there is a flow of positive feelings. At home, there's more harmony. Making high-energy choices creates an atmosphere of trust and well-being that's contagious and spreads to your personal relationships as well as to your work teams.

There's no space for vengeance or retaliation, making it easier to deal with tough issues. Picture yourself as the eye of the hurricane: you have all sorts of outside pressures frantically whirling around, yet you remain calm. You can begin right now to tap your real power.

playing the field
In what parts of your life are you using force?
In what parts of your life are you using power?

     Playing the Field is not something we master. It is a way of life. I've been playing the Field for most of my life. That doesn't mean the challenges go away. I'm always working on this, and I always will be. Once, on a trip, I met a wonderful man whom I thought was "the one." The connection between us was extraordinary - unlike anything I'd ever experienced.

He was in a long-term relationship that was winding down and indicated he was interested in me as well. He gave me just enough hope to stay connected with him. Two years later, he had not ended the other relationship. When we were together, everyone could see the connection between us.

I was eager to begin the relationship, but when I tried to be charming, or to influence him, or when I thought about why we should be dating, or why his girlfriend wasn't right for him, I lost my connection with my power because I was attempting to control outcomes.

     Because I was making the relationship all about him and what he should do, I felt miserable. It got to a point where the thought of not knowing if we were moving forward held up every other aspect of my life. Suddenly, all decisions and activities were connected to this one question: Will we be together? I'd love to ask him to join me on this vacation, but I'm not going to do it if we're not going to be together, so maybe I'll delay the vacation until I know they've broken up.

This kind of thinking created a ripple in the Field that completely disempowered me because suddenly all my energy was focused on trying to control the how instead of ordering the what. The more time I spent engineering it, the lower ROE I got.

     I revamped. First, I sent out the intention, Hey if he's the right guy, bring him on; if he's not, bring the right one. To reconnect with the Field, I remembered the intention I set before we ever met: to be in relationship with a man whose heart is open and available and to be loved to the depths of my heart, body, mind, soul.

Instead of fixating on trying to help him become that person, I focused on my intention. By operating in the new way, I've been able to move on toward what I want. Now I recognize very quickly when I am operating in force and no longer spend time attempting to force a relationship based on potential. I am also having far more fun. I have freed up a huge amount of energy and am now able to enter into relationships wholeheartedly.

playing the field
Can you think of a time when your choices in a
relationship (personal or professional) were based on force, not power?

M-Fields

     Playing the Field means operating at higher levels. These can look like flashes of genius, brilliant inspirations, or a new perspective that instantly transforms a situation. Biochemist Rupert Sheldrake has coined the term morphogenetic fields (M-Fields) to describe the invisible organizing patterns that act like energy templates. When runner Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile, he created a new M-Field. When the Wright brothers flew, they created a new M-Field.

     Sheldrake contends that it's possible to create increasingly larger and more powerful M-Fields. When Hillary Clinton became the only former First Lady in history to run for Congress, she created a new M-Field. When Oprah Winfrey became the first black female billionaire, she created a new M-Field. Whenever people live a bigger possibility, a new M-Field is born. After that, the possibility for others to do the same increases. If you can learn to play the Field, not only do you make quantum leaps yourself, but you also make it easier for others to take those leaps as well.

playing the field
Have you ever experienced others creating a new
M-Field?
Have you ever created an M-Field for yourself?

The Ten Energetic Choices

     The Field offers us a view of life from a place we're not used to being in because it asks us to change the way we approach everything. The greatest challenge in playing the Field for most people is that it's difficult to apply these hard-to-quantify concepts to everyday life. When you've got to pack the kids' lunches and be out the door in five minutes, how do you stop and contemplate the connectedness of everything?

     I learned to tap the Field and developed some of these principles as a result of suffering from severe, life-threatening asthma as a child. The upside of asthma was that it made me into a warrior. I came in fighting, and I fought it all the way. After surviving those first five years, I knew I could do anything. Because I could read my body better than the doctors could, I learned to rely on myself and believed it was up to me to make things happen. For the next twenty years, I set out to conquer my various worlds: school, sports, career.

     At school, kids called me Windbag because I breathed funny. I fought that with humor and with the determination to show them I could do anything. In third grade I became the first girl patrol captain. I was the first female class president of my high school class. I became the first person in my family to graduate from college and to earn a graduate degree. I lived by slogans like "No pain, no gain" and "Where there's a will, there's a way." Whatever I set out to do, I achieved.

     Always on the fast track, proving I could beat the odds, I took an entry-level position at a large global corporation after college and became their youngest vice president ten years later. By thirty-six, I was running a $100 million operation. The harder I tried and achieved what I wanted, the more force and will I applied.

     My early patterns of setting up goals, relentlessly pursuing them, and forcing them through served me very well, and to this day I am grateful for the asthma because it gave me so much. But along the way, some of those choices that became my blueprint for life stopped working.

     It was a gradual process. The act of succeeding against all odds had become a comfort zone for me, and I unknowingly re-created these situations over and over so I could play in a game where I'd mastered the rules. I knew how to be the underdog. What I didn't know was that staying in a comfort zone led to other choices that kept me from the life I wanted to create.

I looped through the same pattern over and over -only faster - and created huge drama. The more force I applied, the more often I brought about the things I most dreaded. When additional force didn't work, I head tripped, wondering what I could do differently, and then repeated the pattern again.

     I finally noticed that the choices we make in our response styles to the ups and downs of life have either high or low energy. Over time, I refined these into ten distinct behaviors, or energetic choices, and gave them names. These ten choices, which I list below, are specific, easy to follow, and don't re-quire a degree in physics or philosophy to grasp:

   1. comfort zones: Just because something feels familiar does not mean it's the most powerful use of your energy, and it can lead you even lower to:

   2. head trips: Mentally replaying the same scenario and what-ifs over and over wears you down and leads you to make an even lower-energy choice:

   3. loops: Repeating the same patterns and drama from situation to situation, job to job, and relationship to relationship becomes an unconscious template for your life that leads to the lowest-energy choice of all:

   4. magnets: Your negative, fear-based beliefs can actually create what you are most trying to avoid. You are so depleted, this lowest-energy choice sucks you into the Black Hole.

   5. suspend judgment: Letting go of your interpretations of and opinions about others, outcomes, and especially yourself will immediately take you out of the Fear Zone of low-energy choices and expand your possibilities.

   6. lighten up: Lightening Up (especially on yourself) shifts the intensity and opens a new way of operating that catapults you into the Power Zone.

   7. tune in: It's time to unplug from the wired world and get present with the human being in front of you right now. When you connect with someone else, the result is more than twice as powerful than if you don't.

   8. scan: When you Scan, you move into a detached state of observation, using all your senses to take in the physical, emotional, and intuitive information in your environment. More knowledge gives you more options.

   9. tap the truth: You tap your greatest power when you live in integrity with yourself and with everyone else.

   10. believe: What you deeply, authentically Believe, you create. And the power you experience expands your potential. This highest-energy choice propels you into Breakthrough.

Which of these choices do you make?

     Remember, you access the Field by deciding to. By choosing. You choose your intention, and then you choose your next action. Playing the Field is about the hundreds of energetic choices you make every day and what these choices create.

I will show you how to make better decisions, create less stress and drama, find greater meaning, and enjoy a more accountable life - in good times and in bad. We will explore each of these choices in depth throughout this book. The next chapter introduces the Energy Spectrum and provides a big picture of the ten energetic choices.

Chapters 3 through 6 describe the low-energy choices, and chapters 7 through 12 the high-energy ones. Each chapter contains questions to provoke further exploration as well as summaries of all the ideas discussed.

     At the beginning of this chapter, I told you about Timothy, our Guardian Angel who appeared to drop in from nowhere. Let me close with a story of how to use these choices in more mundane situations.

Ordinary Days in the Field

     My friend Jill is a widow and a mom who spends much of her day behind the wheel taking her children to school, sports events, and various lessons. One afternoon she found herself in the unusual position of being all alone in her van with the prospect of one whole discretionary hour.

Traffic was heavy, and a potential traffic jam might limit how much time she actually had. Could she make it to the grocery store and back in time to pick up her children? Get that overdue oil change? Have the car washed, so the fast-food leftovers in the backseat didn't start growing mold? She decided to relax and enjoy the sunny day instead of grousing about the delay or the wasted opportunity.

     Suddenly Jill noticed the new Trader Joe's. One of her closest friends was having a big birthday in two days and was obsessed with a particular wine that only Trader Joe's carries. Jill hadn't had the time, or the inclination, to even figure out where the store was, let alone to deal with the traffic, so she'd completely given up on the idea of getting the wine for her friend. Yet because she chose to enjoy the sunny day, she was later able to delight her friend with that special birthday gift.

     Each choice affects your future. This time you might notice Trader Joe's. Next time you find a good babysitter out of the blue. After that, a job offer comes to you before you even realize you're ready for a change.

     Jill could have chosen to stay in a foul mood because of the traffic and missed Trader Joe's. Later, she might have dismissed a flash of genius about a challenge she was having with one of her kids because everything felt too overwhelming to her.

She then could have met Mr. Right at the gym, only to brush him off because she felt as negative about herself as she did about everything else. Use your energy consciously. When you're moving fast and making decisions on the run, know that each choice counts.

These examples may seem inconsequential, but that's the whole point: though the everyday choices you make can seem quite small, over time you will get better and better at playing the Field, and the results will be-come bigger and bigger. And what could be more exciting than an ever-expanding life?

Summary

     • Everything is energy. We all have a supply. How you choose to connect to it is up to you. Even when you feel depleted and think you have no choice, you always do.

     • We spend much of our energy trying to change and control people and things (force).

     • Playing the Field, a new way of living and working, is a view of life from a place we're not used to being in (power). Because this new way is nonlinear, we can do away with the labor involved in cause-and-effect and if-then thinking.

     • The Field encompasses everything, and in the Field anything is possible.

     • Everything you say or do causes a ripple in the Field, and other people pick up on it, even though it's very subtle. A shift occurs, then sets off a chain reaction.

     • The ten powerful choices available to us determine whether we are using our energy toward a high or low return.

     • By understanding all the ways you're using your energy, you can choose a more efficient and more satisfying way to act when you're feeling unproductive, frustrated, and hopeless. You will evaluate situations more quickly and make an impact, regardless of your personal or professional situation.

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