You can create a feeling in yourself without the experience. I know it isnвЂ™t easy вЂ“ but when it comes to feelings you do have a choice. On a sub-conscious level people are picking up on your energy and feelings. Often times we say the right things, but the question is HOW ARE YOU REALLY FEELING? We think we can fake it, but we canвЂ™t. So, if you had a bag of marbles for this past week вЂ“ where has your mental energy been? People are always reading your ENERGY more than they are listening to words. I have to practice again and again the choice of awareness and consistently and proactively choose how I want to spend my mental energy. Like I might choose gratitude in the morning, and then someone cuts me off in traffic and I find myself irritated. And of course, sometimes I forget вЂ“ I go unconscious. I get to choose what I want to focus on and where I want to spend my mental energy.

When I start my day with an awareness of mental energy вЂ“ my thoughts, perceptions, beliefs, etc.

Most people just wake up and start reacting to everything that happens to them. Scientists say by the age of 35 we have become a memorized state of being вЂ“ memorized behaviors, memorized emotions, learned perceptions, etc. I believe that most people would not even know how many marbles they used in a day вЂ“ reason beingвЂ¦most people are walking around unconscious вЂ“ unaware of their mental energy. If you had this imaginary fishbowl of marbles that represented your mental energy вЂ“ how many of your marbles would be focused on things like hope, abundance, and clarity? Or how many marbles would be focused on fear, doubt or lack? Or you spend a lot of mental energy on potential what-ifs. And for this exercise you would need a lot of marbles because on average we think 70,000 thoughts per day! Perhaps you spend a lot of mental energy on a big prospect, or you spend mental energy worried that you donвЂ™t have enough time to get it all done. With each thought, you give away one of your marbles. I want you to think about your mental energy and where you are putting that. Of course, we expend energy with physical activities throughout the day, but these are easier to be aware of. Each expendable amount of mental energy becomes a marble and we only have a limited number of marbles to use on any given day. What if I had a handful of marbles and the marbles represented my energy. This also got me thinking about marbles and energy. The story ends with the man removing his last marble saying, вЂњI figure if I make it until next Saturday, then I have been given a little extra time.вЂќ There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight. He found that by watching the marbles diminish, he focused more on the really important things in life. So, he bought 1000 marbles and every Saturday since then, he took out one marble and threw it away. He got to thinking that if he lived to be 75, he only had about a 1000 of them left to enjoy. The man was fifty-five years old and by that time he had lived through over 2800 Saturdays.

He then multiplied 75 times 52 and came up with 3900 which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. The man figured out that the average person lives about seventy-five years. This reminded me of a story I heard about a man who puts marbles in a jar. This was a great way to motivate the children to only speak German all day long вЂ“ even during lunch and recess. The goal was to still have some marbles at the end of the school day. He said that every time you speak English instead of German you lose a marble.

I asked the teacher what the purpose of these marbles was. A few years ago, I was in the classroom volunteering and I noticed all the kids had marbles in their pocket. My children go to a language immersion school and they both speak German fluently.

When u lose your marbles