A place of joy, abundance, charity and endless giving

“It is with your thoughts then, that we must work, if your perception of the world is to be changed.”–A Course in Miracles

Depending on who you talk to, Tinder is either:

a) The world’s most popular dating app

b) An uber-easy scheme for hooking up

c) A surefire recipe for rejection

I’ve never tried it, but if I understand it correctly, Tinder is an app where you view pictures of available humanoids and, if you like the way they look, you swipe right. If not, you swipe left. I’ve worked harder at putting on eyeliner.

But either way, the direction you swipe is 100 percent up to you.

So you’re probably asking, what in the hen’s coop does this have to do with Course in Miracles? So I’ll tell you.

Like Tinder, we get to choose which feelings and thoughts to hook up with. We decide whether to embrace or reject the circumstances of our lives.

Most of us, I’m sorry to report, usually swipe left. We pick out the “pictures” we don’t like—the problems, the issues, the yucky stuff—and we spend our precious time with them.

ACIM Lesson 249 encourages us to swipe right, to pick the pictures that actually make us happy, the pictures we’d actually like to “date.”

As an example, here are three right-swiping thoughts that have really blessed my life:

1. I am the Bill Gates of free time and flexibility. (Swiping left would report I’m unemployed.) I’m a freelance writer so there’s no boss expecting me to clock in. I can travel whenever I want to. I can attend get-togethers in the middle of the day—like my spiritual entrepreneurs group—or lunch with a dear friend as I did yesterday for two and a half hours. Some people would panic without a regular job. I prefer to see it as having an abundance of time and a whole wagonload of opportunities to create new things.

2. I enjoy an unlimited supply of creative capital. (Swiping left would report not having a job for 20 years) I have so many ideas I want to write about, so many books and TV series and articles I want to produce. And to my way of thinking, creative capital trumps the other kind of capital because mine is capable of producing the other kind of capital and is lots more fun.

3. I have fun no matter what. (Swiping left would say, “But what about that time your back went out?) As a travel writer, I get to do a lot of cool things—meet South Pacific medicine men, hang with wealthy people at five-star resorts, eat every meal beside the ocean—but it doesn’t take that for me to have fun.

I’ve often shared the story of my trip to Belize where I was invited to write about the “end of the Mayan calendar” at Caracol, a jungle Mayan city still being excavated.

The night I was supposed to pack for my 6 a.m. flight, my back went out. I wasn’t able to go….at that time. So I lay in bed that first day in what some might describe as excruciating physical pain. I could barely get up to pee. But I, because of my commitment to fun and joy, actually had a stellar day. I was so happy–really!!! I decided to have fun anyway. I look back at that day as very important to my spiritual growth because I realized this:

My thoughts are the only thing that separate me from having every single thing I could ever want.

So up to you? Are you gonna swipe right? Or left?

Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her latest book, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.