Let’s take the life theme, “Nothing ever works out for me.” Lots of people have this theme, and lots of people have challenging experiences. But this theme almost ensures that you’ll never have anything work out — including your labor. A subtle change to that theme, for instance, “I rise to my life’s challenges,” is way more empowering. It’s easy to have a negative life theme. But in looking for small, positive things, I’m finding it’s easier to bounce back from negative ones.

A nice example came courtesy of the University of Illinois Extension. I need to expand my garden and would like to remediate or enrich the existing soil, but since we live in the city on an older plot, I’m worried about lead. It’s been a pain to figure out where to test, so I turned to the Extension. I found the Chicago Urban Gardening blog managed by Ron Wolford. An email to Mr. Wolford was soon answered. He told me where to get my soil tested and to call his assistant for a kit. His assistant was totally helpful and now I’m waiting for the kit to show up.

Now, that’s a positive experience that I can use to shape my life theme! And I don’t care what goofball, hippie-sounding thing I have to do in order to gain a more positive outlook and have a pleasant birth.

Wouldn’t you?