The moment you compromise on your joy the direct “affirmation” you are making to your subconscious mind, and thus to the universe, is that – “I don’t deserve a good life” – it doesn’t matter how many positive affirmations you spell out every morning in front of your mirror, they won’t make any real difference if your actions through the day are towards compromising your joy in the hope that your struggle will bring you a good life. Your actions always speak louder than words as far as communicating with the universe is concerned. You can see people starting their day with some positive affirmation like – “I believe I am abundant in all areas of my life”, and then they go around taking actions which reek of struggle, their excuse being that “I can only live a behavior of abundance when I actually have some abundance in my life, till then I obviously have to keep struggling”. This mindset is the core reason why a lot of people fail to make a positive change in their reality in-spite of all their know-how.
The action of being relaxed, or moving from a place of joy or inspiration, is a strong affirmation of your sense of abundance. The energy behind your actions always give away your true “vibe” in the moment. It doesn’t matter what your life situation is right now, you have the choice to align with a sense of abundance or with a sense of lack – you may say that the only reason you are thinking/behaving along the lines of lack is because your external reality at present is so lackful, but the truth is that it’s this very behavior of lack-oriented thinking that got you to this reality in the first place. Of course you can have many valid reasons for why your thinking is lack-oriented, but the reasons don’t really matter, the only question is do you want make a change towards abundance, now.
The test of where your alignment lies will come up during a challenge where you would have a choice of aligning with struggle or aligning with your joy, and if you make the choice of compromising on your joy it means you are not really aligned with abundance yet and hence have no reason to blame the universe for not bringing you a reality of abundance.
What’s your attitude towards life?
There are just two core attitudes that are present in humans 1. An attitude of struggle 2. An attitude of joy. The attitude of struggle attracts struggle, and it can give you a sense of being “heroic” or dramatic, but the bottom-line is that you will keep attracting struggle. The attitude of joy will ensure a drama free life and it always seems to attract realities that amplify your sense of ease/joy (attracting compatible and helpful resources all the time). Of course, some people unconsciously develop the attitude of joy, and they may not even know why their reality is so aligned with abundance, they may even start feeling guilty about their ease-orientation when they see other struggle-oriented folks fighting it out in life. This can cause an unconsciously joy-oriented person to take to “struggle-orientation” influenced by the outside. So unless one aligns “consciously”, one can always misaligned by outside influence.
Here are some essential behaviors that you may see in yourself if you have an attitude of struggle
– You are constantly trying to fix your life by working harder without ever bothering to take the time to sort out the lack-based beliefs in your mind
– You are always talking/thinking about the unfairness of life and carry a lot of resentment
– You feel guilty of being relaxed, or of enjoying yourself
– You are always talking about “hard work” as the secret to success, without realizing that your personal effort/work is only a small aspect of how your desire unfolds, the major influence is the way you think and the way you allow life to work for you. (A good example would be people who keep trying for years to lose weight through their efforts, without taking the time to let go of their negative thinking)
– You have a sense of “competing” with the outside to get your share of abundance
– You believe that joy is at the end of an achievement and you constantly compromise on your joy in your journey towards that achievement.
– You define success on what you achieve externally rather than what you feel internally. One can have all the trappings of riches while feeling deeply disconnected within.
Of course, external success is inevitable when you are internally aligned, but when your whole focus is on external success you always ignore your inner state of being causing you to never really feel at peace.
Actually it’s far easier to get into mindless action than to bring awareness, to your mind, to sort out the negative beliefs and the limiting/lack-based thought patterns you are holding on to. In many cases, we use our actions to compensate for certain limiting beliefs we hold – for example, your belief may be that it takes a lot of hard work (hard work being a label for joyless work) to make money, and instead of changing this belief, you end up doing a lot of hard work in order to meet this belief – you will achieve some results for sure, but it’s far too mediocre, and far less efficient, to use actions to compensate for misaligned/limiting beliefs, instead of working with the beliefs directly. Imagine the amount of leverage you will get the moment you are able to align with the belief/knowing that abundance can come in without any struggle – your whole reality changes its patterns as you change your beliefs. The beliefs that you hold will always attract your personal reality – this is because you can only see your reality from the lens of your beliefs, in fact your beliefs define your attitude towards life.
What’s the energy behind your actions?
Two people taking the same action may get totally different results based on the energy that prompted that action in them. A person who gets inspired into a certain action because it aligns with his/her joy would get a highly positive result in comparison to a person who took that same action from a place of forced struggle. For example, one person takes the time to align with himself and then gets inspired into following an exercise routine, while another person just imposes an exercise routine on himself as a matter of “discipline” – both these people would seem to be doing the same thing, but the reality they manifest/get would be totally different, the former went into the action from a place of alignment whereas the latter is trying to use action to sort out his lack of alignment.
You don’t have to compromise on your joy at all, life never asks that of you – it’s just a choice you start making out of your own beliefs or fears. If you notice, the only reason you are doing things that you don’t like is because you made a choice at some point to compromise on your joy – and no matter what your reasons were to make that choice, the bottom line is that you made a choice to go against your joy, and hence made a clear affirmation (though unconsciously) that you don’t deserve a good life, and that’s exactly the affirmation that you live by everyday you keep compromising on your joy. The life force focused on your body is always moving you towards joy and well-being, but your mind has the capacity to oppose this pull by forcing itself into struggle due to its misaligned beliefs (by “your mind” I just mean you as this person).
Letting go of the mindset of sacrifice
If you are asking – “isn’t sacrifice a noble quality?” you are indirectly asking if compromising your joy is a noble quality, and basically it may seem “noble” but it’s not what aligns you with your well-being. Others may consider you noble for sacrificing yourself, but your life will always reflect a lot struggle and lack. You would have heard people saying – “I am such a good person but I always seem to attract negativity”, it’s because their notion of goodness is to sacrifice their joy and of course such a notion is a direct prescription for attract lack. Sacrifice is not what brings well-being, and if you are doing something with the mindset of “sacrifice” you will always keep feeling like a victim, holding onto suppressed resentment/anger, which directly keeps attracting realities of struggle.
The only reason you should do something is because it feels like an “inspiration” for you to do so, or it makes you feel good, and by inspiration I mean it’s truly coming from a place of inner guidance/joy. When you are moving from a place of inspiration you are always moving from a place of joy. Of course, your actions may seem like a “sacrifice” to the outside (people can interpret it any way they want) but you don’t find it to be a sacrifice because it’s just a movement of inspiration for you – for example, taking care of someone you feel connected to, is not an act of sacrifice, it’s an act of joy for you, but it may seem like a sacrifice to the outside. Another example is working on a project that you feel passionate about to which you devote your time/energy, it may seem like a sacrifice to the outside but for you it’s just a movement of inspiration/joy. It doesn’t matter what the outside is thinking, or how it’s interpreting you, what matters is how you feel about what you are doing – do you feel like you are sacrificing yourself or do you feel like you are living your joy? That’s the only question that matters.
Sen why is it that over analyzation of our own personal thoughts and feelings bring so much suffering and so much negative energies along with it.. I have noticed that as soon as i start trying to figure things out and go to deeply into my own thoughts and feelings i get caught up into so much negativity…
Abet, just stay allowing even of the fact that you get caught up in the mind momentum – don’t try to impose a discipline on yourself. It’s fine if you get caught up in the mind momentum now and then, it’s not a big deal – the release continues anyway, so eventually you will come to a stability. A lot of people get too hung up on trying to get this process over with as soon as possible, and try to be a perfectionist at releasing – all of this only causes you to get more frustrated. Instead just let go of being hard on yourself, and focus more on the state of ease, as your inner resistance keeps ebbing away you will be moved towards your expression effortlessly.
I understand the teachings and they all make sense. But sometimes i seriously feel like i am completely lost in confusion. Like i am in this never ending chase for this state of mind which I am never going to reach..
Rossana, if you become hung up on reaching some end state, you will always feel frustrated with this present phase of release. Of course, it’s very normal to feel what you are feeling, but this is just a temporary phase and soon enough when the momentum of past negativity dies away you see that this process was taking care of itself, that your chasing the end state does not make any difference to the pace of this process. The best thing to do right now is to relax and let it happen – let go of the mindset of getting to an end state of perfection. When you come to an inner wholeness, or inner stability, it will be highly ordinary, it’s not some state of extended bliss that your mind imagines it to be – it’s more akin to an inner calm that allows a seamless expression of your potential.
Sometimes Sen, for example, people sacrifice their joy for their children, and that feels like a normal thing to do – it doesn’t feel like misalignment. Maybe give up a lucrative job offer for kids sake. Is that sacrifice? Please help by sharing your thoughts about this situation
Ritu, in life we will always keep coming to cross-roads, where we have to choose one path over the other, where we have to make a choice on which path will give us more joy – that’s how a conscious person makes a choice. So, when you “consciously” decide to have kids you also understand the commitment which goes with it, and you find that it feels inspiring to you to take on this commitment because you are finding more joy in this commitment than the joy of the things you know you will have to leave. So basically you are consciously making a choice towards what gives you more joy. Such a person would not feel like they are “sacrificing joy” but would rather know that they made a conscious decision to have kids and raise them with personal attention because they wanted to explore the joy in this new experience in their life. That’s how a conscious person lives his/her life.
But if you were unconscious of the commitments that are needed, and then after having kids you feel like you are sacrificing your joy to take care of them, it can create a lot of negativity within. Hence, one needs to be conscious enough to see what really feels like an inspiration within. Not everyone is ready to have kids neither is it a natural inspiration for many, such people when they are disconnected with their natural preference may end up with the responsibility of taking care of kids without any desire in them to do so, which creates a feeling of being imprisoned into an unwanted reality. Of course, they arrive at such a situation because they were never really conscious of what their preference was.
sen would you say we have reached a place of total allowing once we have given up all effort of trying to solve our problems or of analyzing each problem with our mind
Rafael, when you are open enough to allow your mind to have its problems without trying to figure it out through rigorous active thinking, you are really in a place of allowing. The mind can think, but you don’t have to struggle with thoughts, just stay as awareness and the understanding/solution needed will come forth at the right time.
Thanks Sen, for making time for all of us. And sharing your power-packed articles. I have some decisions to make, and I patiently await the inspiration to arise
– You are always talking/thinking about the unfairness of life and carry a lot of resentment
Dear Sen: I am still struggling about this belief. How can I change my belief?
Paddy, the thought of resentment being rooted in the vibration of hatred cannot really bring forth a real solution, neither can it bring any healing or happiness to you or to your outside reality. When you realize this truth deeply, you will be able to let go of this pattern of thinking from the perspective of unfairness or bitterness, no matter how many excuses/argument the mind throws up.
Regarding, ” You are always talking/thinking about the unfairness of life and carry a lot of resentment”
I do tend to think abt some kind of unfairness, that exist in the world. For example, we obviously see lot of unfairness, like war, cruel genocide, tortures, abuse etc.
(a) So if we say that thinking or talking abt this is ‘alligning with struggle’, then as a member of the society, what is my duty?
(b) if such thoughts of resistance is not there in the society, obviously will there not be exploitation?
Sk, the assumption you are stating is that you need to be rooted in suffering in order to heal suffering. But the way reality works, a person who is rooted in suffering can only perpetuate more suffering, he/she cannot really be a healer of suffering – you can’t give this world what you don’t have yourself. So when you are rooted in thoughts of fear/unfairness/resentment/hatred towards the negativity that you perceive around you, you indirectly become a part of the negativity yourself and hence you can’t really bring any real/lasting solution. It’s normal to feel sensitive towards the suffering in you, and the suffering outside you, but there also needs to be a space which is not lost in being identified with the suffering, this space is what allows for solutions to come through, this space is what connects you with the wisdom of your life-stream – in the absence of this space you just become a reactive human being who acts out from a place of negativity.
I am sure you realize that terrorists are not people who have mindless hatred, the reason they kill is because they perceive unfairness and they are trying to solve this unfairness using their violence. This is a good example of how a mind rooted in the idea of unfairness can easily turn into a channel of hatred, and bring forth more suffering into this world and its personal reality.
yeah : )
thank you sen!
SEN….thank you for your writing i have been reading your words everyday for im not sure how long LOL i think a two to three months.Your words have truly helped me through a VERY difficult time in my life.My mind was running wild every second of the day with my struggle til about a month and a half ago.Thats when i really connected with relaxing and being very aware of my minds thoughts.Before when i would give my attention to these horrible thoughts i would kind of yell stop and try to think of something else only to be haunted by the thoughts later at out of the blue times constantly eating away my being.Now i listen to my heart, thoughts still enter my mind but now i choose not to pay any attention it really works for me i just simply choose not to believe my mind.Twice in the past month i got caught up in listening to my mind and getting all worked up in the negative thinking snowball effect what a mistake that was.I have now proven IT to myself.My true Happiness and Joy is and always has been beating within my heart. I am now very AWARE of what my mind is capable of .PS i still have i would call them quick flashback thoughts almost daily but i am amazed how they just quickly go away on there own.It,s as you say exactly don,t give the thoughts your attention and before long your noticing they the negative thoughts are so weak now they just don,t get to me anymore .
Yes!
Wow – this really gave me an ah-ha moment: “the major influence is the way you think and the way you allow life to work for you. (A good example would be people who keep trying for years to lose weight through their efforts, without taking the time to let go of their negative thinking)”
Until a couple years keeping my weight stable was a constant effort. Counting calories, limiting certain types of foods. Then, for reasons unknown, I just stopped trying. Not because I no longer cared about being overweight, but because my body seemed to know what it was doing without the minds input.
So on a much larger scale, it seems only logical that life will sense what needs to be done. My mind will say things like “What’s going to happen with work, family, money, health? – this is much to big for life to handle alone”, but it’s easier to see through thoughts like that when I can actually see how it works on a smaller scale with my physical body.
If anything can understand, comprehend and manage life, it’s got to be life itself. I hope someday to be able to trust in life completely and fully.
I forgot to add the important point that since I stopped making an effort to lose weight, my weight has remained stable and healthy. No effort – no problem.
Sen:
I don’t know how to just observe my thoughts, i get wrapped up in a battle with them and i have endless, or what seems like it, arguing in my mind, some voices pulling one way, some the other, how can i obtain the feeling of detachment and truly be an observer and not get involved in all the bickering that takes place inside my mind. Also, how can i focus on what i want?….if i don’t know what i want…..i feel like i’m in limbo…just existing….not truly living. Feeling quite desperate and confused.
Susan, you can find insights, relating to your queries, in the recent post – connection with your inner being
Sen, I have a habit of playing out or scripting in my mind the future/anticipated actions such as, what I will be saying in a meeting or how I will convey my ideas or how my participation in a game plays out, etc. Even though most of these “future thoughts” are positive, I find that they are interrupting my efficiency and enjoyment of the current state or whatever I am doing. I am aware that these thoughts are only coming up because I place importance on them so then I give attention to them, but I feel that if I don’t give attention to them then I won’t perform well in that future event. For example, if I am going into a work meeting in the afternoon, I have the tendency to play out or script what I will be saying or how I will say it which takes away my productivity up until the meeting which I could be spend working on something else. I guess what’s happening is that my mind does not trust my inner being (heart/life force) enough to succeed on its own in this future situation that it constantly feels the need to intervene and come up with a “plan” or “script”. I guess thinking about this further would indicate that these are fear-based thoughts which is that the mind is afraid of being embarrassed of a slip up in the meeting scenario that it feels the need to take control. I am really struggling to find some peace in this respect and would appreciate it if you can help me get some clarity on this. Thank you in advance Sen.
Fel, what you are dealing with is a sense of “meekness”, where you are constantly trying to be “good enough” for others to approve of you. Meekness is mostly an imbalance in your light nature where you are not only over-sensitive but also over-concerned about the outside’s approval of you to the point where you are not at ease with expressing your individuality the way it is. It’s simply a call for you to get more in touch with your dark nature and integrate it in your being. I’ve talked about it in this recent post – Integrating your light and dark nature.
So theres no way to by-pass fierce grace. Sen I have such an extreme fear of vomiting. It comforts me to think about how I did it as an infant and it was the most natural thing. I cannot tell you how I became so fearful but I suspect Im linking it with my fear of death. So fierce grace puts you through events that allow the chance to release imbalances, if so, is this force going to put me through the event? Because I understand from your readings that life wouldnt harm my well being, and vomiting damages the teeth and esophagus. and as for my fear of death, am I going to die or have a near death experience? Like how fierce is this fierce grace? Cant I transmute the fears or have nightmares where I allow and wake up totally fine but changed?
Sen,
How does one know if the inspiration is coming from a place of inner guidance/joy?
My concern/fear is that druggies do drugs to feel good?..or same for any matter where one does actions that are purely based on your desires or temporary benefits? How can one tell the difference?
Vrajesh
6 days of continuous allowing is equivalent to 8 months of 30 minute sessions. From that you can conclude I love fast results and am now asking can this be done? Im hoping your answer is going to be ‘yes’ simply because law says “believe it to see it”. Cleary I havent fully subscribed to that belief system yet.
What are your thoughts Sen?
Carl, once you have an understanding of the pointer of the state of allowing, it’s up to you as to how you use this understanding – it’s your personal journey of working on the release of past-momentum, and each person experiences this journey in his/her own unique way. I talk about “30 minute” a day deal, purely as a starting point for people who ask for some specific instructions on how to go about it, however, once you get a hang of what the state of allowing implies after that it’s no longer a “practice” it just becomes your second nature.
Vrajesh,
There is a difference between motivation and inspiration. As beings we have many different kinds of motivations – some are fear-based, others are necessity-based and yet others are based in joy or curiosity. Inspiration is rarely need or fear based. It is almost exclusively curiosity or joy/love based. One may feel inspired to paint a piece of artwork (based on their joy of painting), to study a course in quantum mechanics (based on their curiosity about the quantum world) or devote themselves to taking care of the ill and dying (based on their love/compassion for people) – these are all examples of motivations that are “inspired”. If you have been inspired by something, you will know it without a doubt. Also, inspiration never saps your energy, it fills you up with it and makes you feel more expansive and energetic (even if temporarily).
Your question about druggies being “inspired” to do drugs is not really an example of inspiration. By “druggie” I assume you mean an addict. An addict’s addiction is fear-based and over time becomes a necessity-based motivation. They “need” the drug in order to feel ‘normal’- just like you need to eat lunch in order to feel normal and not starving. Just as you cannot say that you feel ‘inspired’ to eat a sandwich, a drug addict isn’t inspired to take their drug. The opposite however, might be true. An addict may feel suddenly “inspired” to break their addiction by joining a support group or rehab. Inspiration always moves in the direction of reclaiming your own personal power, never depleting it.
On the other hand, someone who has never tried drugs may feel inspired to try them out purely out of curiosity. In the 60’s and 70’s there was a huge movement to experiment with psychedelic drugs in order to explore and expand our understanding of human consciousness. Even psychiatrists did controlled experiments and therapy using drugs like MDMA and psylocybin (magic mushrooms).
So it ultimately depends on the individual’s own state of mind. It is pointless to paint all drug users with the same brush.
Sen,
Spirituality and recognizing my true self as unconditioned silent awareness makes sense to me, but something doesn’t want to let go and commit to the process of release. I compete with this voice and it offers some convincing arguments but I suspect deep down this voice is rooted in unworthiness.
Our dialogue would go…
> I am pure positive awareness, as an infant I knew nothing but joy.
but when I “woke up” all objects seemed to have blended together, everything was different, something must really be going on.
But people have been doing this for centuries. Adyashanti talked about heightened sensitivity, and everything does seem enhanced and more vivid.
So if all I am doing is identifying and focusing into a different lens, then why not commit? This stuff is empowering!
I’ve incarnated knowing this would be my reality.
< SHOW ME EVIDENCE!!
I just really want your thoughts.