Contributor: Elle Corazon

I've just spent the last 20 minutes or so catching Rubus, my 8-year-old husky, in the act of lying down. I click, then throw him a treat that he's learned follows the click and then when he stops searching for more treats and eventually lies down the process starts over again. Soon he'll figure out he's being rewarded for lying down and then I'll start putting a verbal command with it. At first I'll click and reward for the slightest movement downward, any sign that he gets what I'm asking him to do. I'll expect more and more from him as time goes on but I'll be patient, unafraid to back up to where he's already successful. In this manner I'll be paying exquisite attention to what I want him to do and get more and more of the behavior I'm looking for.

If you've got a pet or love animals you've probably noticed the clicker craze of positive reinforcement training that's sweeping the nation right now. It includes very cool clickers and brightly colored manuals for dogs, cats, birds, horses, rabbits, and most importantly a philosophy of positive reinforcement that can't be beat. Yes, you've probably guessed that I too am a clicker trainer in training and Aditi Terpstra, owner of Urbane Animal in Winona MN, is my wise teacher. She is a great help in bringing the philosophy to practice. And it was her that gave me the homework above that led me to the following insights.

The practice Aditi gave me to follow with Rubus is very similar to one I often give my coaching clients minus the actual clicker. One of the daily habits necessary to manifest more of what you want and less of what you don't is to give what you'd like to see attention and ignore the rest--like you would a misbehaving dog that wants your attention. Subtle shifts in habits of thought make a profound difference in the world around us. If we are manifesting abundance and we find a penny and welcome it as a sign of good tidings this has a much different effect than seeing a penny and thinking, "this is not enough". Our thoughts are co-creating the world around us in surprisingly literal ways. Do we want to create signs of prosperity or do we want to create "not enough?" The positive frequency of gratitude is much more conducive to manifesting our desires than a mindset of disappointment.

From the time we start our education, if not before, we are taught to pay attention to what we do wrong. And we're taught to be cynical and to be on the look out for how things are not going to work. We learn that the smart thing to do is to expect the worst. It's easy to pay attention to what hurts, to tell the news of our diseases rather than our wellness, and to talk about the drama of what unfortunate incident we're dealing with now. And a commiserating friend can be awfully tempting. It takes discipline to pay attention to what's working, to the positive, to the signs the universe offers up that your vision is coming true. And it takes strength and wisdom to hold onto our dreams and encourage them into being despite any evidence we see to the contrary.

The practice though is very simple. FireHeart teaches us to look for power signs, anything that shows us we are on the right path. We don't look for them only to make ourselves feel good though this is too is of the utmost importance. We look for them to encourage them to come.

So Rubus, while not the only master in my life, but certainly the fuzziest, is once again teaching me how easy things can be if I let them. I'm looking for him to lie down. When he's not lying down I'm not upset because I know he'll eventually get bored or tired and sink to the earth. I know he can pick up on this kind of communication; I'm not worried and I'm not upset I'm just patient and following a process that's known to work. While co-creating with the universe is not exactly like clicker training Rubus there are a couple of important things that are essential to both.

Instructions for clicker training your universe

1. Be focused on what you're looking for and consistent with positive reinforcement.
2. Be excited over each small and big success.
3. Be patient and trust that the next success is just around the corner.