Hi Kelli, I want to be a youtuber, but it’s kind of scary and overwhelming in many ways so I’m having a hard time motivating myself to take an action. Yesterday I thought about getting a traditional job and since the idea horrified me, for the first time in a while I felt really motivated to give Youtube a try. Can I use what I don’t want as a motivator and still manifest what I want? I feel like I’d be focusing on the negative and I’m wondering how that would affect my vibrations. Thank you very much
If by ‘positive’ result, you mean the specific thing your mind wants…sure. If by ‘positive’ result you mean something that will feel good…no. And that is what you are ultimately after so I wouldn’t recommend this approach.
The Role of Contrast in the Creation Process
One of the best ways to figure out what we want to do, be and have is knowing what we don’t want to do, be and have. That negative feeling alerts us to what we would prefer instead.
While I certainly can’t know for sure the motivations of every person pulled to the path of personal growth, and conscious creation in particular, it is a pretty safe bet negativity in some form was the catalyst. I highly doubt there are many whose life was going swimmingly already and just wanted to try and kick things up a notch.
Being stressed about your bills feels badly so it makes you want to manifest more money. Being single feels badly to many so it makes you want to manifest a relationship. Being sick feels badly so it makes you want to manifest physical healing. Being in a job that you don’t enjoy feels badly so it makes you want to manifest a better opportunity.
Struggling with your business and making consistent income feels badly so it makes you want to manifest more sales of your products and services. Not feeling comfortable in your body feels badly so it makes you want to lose weight.
It’s okay to have these preferences (which is what we ultimately want to view them as, not white hot burning needs). There is no reason to go without any of these things. There is no reason you wouldn’t be able to receive them in your own life.
But beyond serving as some sort of springboard that leads us in the direction in which we want to go, this contrast absolutely cannot be what drives us. It brings us to the journey but we can’t let it fuel it. We can’t let our resistance to what is now, our resistance to potential outcomes our mind wants to avoid at all costs, be the driver.
LOA 101: What we focus on expands, and the more we let this sort of energy drive us, the harder it will be to allow these manifestations in. Letting the contrast rule our energy, and influence all we do to achieve these different goals, will be a very painful journey.
And even if you manage to squeeze out some stuff here and there, it will be hard won and likely inconsistent. You won’t be happy anyway because changing the outside was never the solution.
Letting our resistance to ‘what is,’ our attachments to certain outcomes, attachments to certain channels we believe will deliver the ‘goods,’ rule the day is a recipe for disaster energetically-speaking.
Again, you may still be able to get somewhere–people do it all the time. But it’s not the best approach, and especially for those well-versed in energy, vibes, and various other sorts of spiritual/personal growth wisdom, doing it this way will be even more painful for you than for those who are living more unconsciously, and have no idea about any of this stuff.
You know it doesn’t have to be this way, you are more acutely aware of the pain, but your mind will convince you to keep doing things the old way. This will create a very unpleasant mix of feelings that again, you will be very tuned into.
If we are pursuing something because we think will make a positive contribution to our life, we enjoy whatever it is we are doing, making it all about trying to avoid something we don’t want, being motivated by all that–it won’t be very enjoyable and then what is the point? Even if you succeed in the venture, even if you managed to head off the unwanted alternative, the emotional payoff you are probably expecting will be glaringly absent.
Contrast gives us clarity and that is very powerful from an energetic-perspective. Use that clarity about what DO want to keep you on the path, to keep you moving towards your goals, to help you get through the rough patches.
Contrast is valuable as a tool to discover what we would like in our life, who we would like to be, but it will do us no favors once we set out on the road to effect these changes in our life and ourselves.
One of the Many Things Your Mind Doesn’t Get
One of the reasons all this work is so challenging is because our mind fights us at every turn. It has no idea how energy works, the role it plays in influencing our circumstances. We basically have to do everything the complete opposite of how we have been our whole lives.
And since the mind doesn’t get any of it, it puts up a huge amount of resistance to these changes in behavior, thought, emotional responses and perspectives . Your mind thinks all its bullshit serves a purpose, that it is helpful.
Before we became aware of this whole law of attraction thing, we were operating under the assumption action was the true level of ‘cause.’ We didn’t know it was a manifestation of energy, that it is one of the many ‘effects’ of our dominant vibration, our dominant frame of mind.
And when we don’t know about energy, manifesting stuff we want is usually a lot harder because we’re not in alignment with it. We are taking actions from a crappy-feeling space, and our results are often just as crappy.
Or we may get a whole lot of stuff, a whole lot of success but it comes at the expense of our well-being. We never actually enjoy what shows up because it was never the answer to what we are really seeking. No manifestation, no ‘milestone’ is ever good enough for the mind and it just wants more and more.
We are in a lot of pain and this pain motivates the action. Taking bad-feeling action, struggling, toiling, working ‘hard’ all seems worth it if it means we’ll get what we want and feel better. Trying to get rid of pain is the only thing that would make us willing to put up with more of it.
So if this whole time your mind was banking on your pain to light a fire under your ass and try to get all the ‘stuff’ it wants, this whole idea of giving up the pain, giving up the attachment, no longer being negatively motivated just does not sit well.
It worries you aren’t going to do all the stuff it believes you need to do to get what it wants. It worries you may abandon the desire completely. And this is the case sometimes but it’s not a big deal because if you truly decide you didn’t want something anymore, you would be okay giving up the pursuit of it, you wouldn’t care if it never came.
Your mind can’t fathom the idea of you merely wanting something, of having a preference for something. It believes that painful ‘need’ must be attached or all bets are off.
This resistance is something you are going to come up against a lot and you need to be vigilant about ‘rejecting’ this particular line of thinking. You don’t need your pain, it doesn’t serve you.
It may be a good motivator in the paradigm where we try to achieve all our results through action alone, but when it comes to aligning with results on an energetic level, not so much.
Dissecting the ‘Ick’
The first step in not letting your various forms of resistance dominate your energy and efforts is getting a handle on where it is coming from.
In the situation of the person who asked the question, she would want to get a better sense of why she is averse to having to work a regular job. What would that mean? What unwanted elements are contained within this experience?
What is fueling the desire to work independently in general? Does she feel any particular attachment to the specific line of work she prefers?
This is easier said than done. We don’t like exploring this stuff. We would rather just figure out the various hacks and tricks that will guarantee we get the stuff we want, then we’ll feel better and we won’t need to bother with the feelings because this will make them go away.
When you see what is really motivating all of this, that the ‘stuff’ or lack thereof really isn’t the issue, it is easier to manifest these things because you remove one of the biggest barriers to receiving them–the attachment.
You approach everything from a more relaxed space. Sure you’re human and this might not be an immediate process. You’ll probably still have your moments. Unless we decide to totally give up the worldly life and all that come with it, we are probably going to fall prey to our mind junk at times–this will only be a problem if we continue to let all that dominate our emotional world, be the main motivator for all we do.
Which Journey Will You Choose?
This is another idea your mind really doesn’t get. There are two energetic paths to every goal, and even though both are hoping to get to the same end point, the journeys will be very, very different.
Eating well, exercising, tending to your mental and emotional well-being to promote health, nurture your body, and show it love and respect, is a very different journey than doing all these things out of fear of illness and decline.
Moving towards something you want is a very different journey than running away from something you don’t.
Trying to manifest something into your life because you will believe it will enhance it in some way, help you maximize your self-expression, maximize well-being, help you live your purpose, help amplify energies that you have already cultivated for the sake of it, is a very different journey than trying to get all these things to make emotional pain go away, to ‘disprove’ negative things you or other people may think about you, to feed your ego.
The journey of doing all our inner work merely to get something on the outside is a very different journey than prioritizing inner transformation, KNOWING this is the key to what we really seek, KNOWING these ego needs/wants –that it is OKAY you still care about–will be natural byproducts.
Everything we want is because we think it will produce positive emotion. At the root of every desire is the same thing–we just want to be happy, we want to feel peace, we want to feel a sense of overall-well being.
Everything we do should be motivated by trying to enhance these feelings in our life, not avoid the bad ones–again, two very different journeys.
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If you would like to further explore the idea of wanting without needing, of how to pursue our goals from a more energetically-friendly space, check out my audio course Wanting Without Needing: How Sweet It Is. One of my most popular!
Links of Interest
Hi, not sure if my comment is truly pertinent to the topic at hand, but I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to bring it up with somebody. Lately I have been revisiting and trying once again to understand the book “Think and Grow Rich”, which has been endlessly promoted by most, including Bob Proctor, as the Bible for prosperity. I’ve always thought something was wrong with me for not enjoying or being able to apply the concepts. What always lost me was its pervasive message to maintain and focus upon a BURNING DESIRE, along with instructions to outline a definite goal and to follow instructions **exactly**, which I have always somehow found to be emotionally exhausting (read loser). Your emphasis of having preferences instead of “white hot burning needs” resonates with me but how come Napoleon Hill’s driven approach seems to work for so many generations of people? Trying to understand the nature of drive and motivation vs. inspiration and just how to apply it to my life. (And, realizing I’ve always been kind of ASHAMED for not loving the book 😉)
Hi DZ
Thank you for your comment and I totally get it…I feel the same way about this book and similar ones. I think part of it is this book and even Bob Proctor’s stuff too to some degree is…can’t think of the exact way to describe it…old school, less developed perhaps? It still sees results primarily rooted in action and our mindset isn’t the true level of cause so much as some sort of ‘tool’ to support physical effort. I don’t necessarily disagree with these ideas and I think that people certainly get results because there is a positive expectation they will. There is power in where we focus our attention and if people are really attached to a goal, and driven to achieve it, they can get somewhere. Some people will just remain more externally focused and this sort of knowledge can help their cause better I suppose. But for people who are more concerned with inner transformation–understanding this helps the outside automatically–these sorts of approaches wouldn’t probably feel as good.
I imagine that intense a focus on anything comes with a high level of attachment and that really isn’t ever pleasant. But in my opinion, any approach where we are super attached to an outcome, where everything we do is about achieving some outside result, especially when it is arbitrary, isn’t going to bring the sort of emotional payoff we ultimately seek. We get caught in the trap of constantly trying to do more, be more and not from a space of naturally wanting to expand but from a space of trying to fill that void, trying to finally get that feeling that where we are is enough, good enough.
I think it is best to let the cultivation of positive emotion as the end goal guide our actions rather than trying to make something outside of us happen, seeing that as the key to creating the good feelings. This approach doesn’t always automatically translate to less action–we may do lots of things but the energy motivating it, the reasons we are doing it, are very different. In business for example, we do it because we want to be of service and help people, not just make money. There may be some ego ‘stuff’ that still is there for most of us but it doesn’t dominate.
Hi Kelli.
I was reading the “Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin recently. A lovely book that did resonate with me. She spoke about the children’s tale….the blue bird of happiness. Often you can spend so long searching
all over the country side for happiness, but find that happiness can be where you started all along. That resonated with me.
But I delved / googled more and suddenly, out of the blue, thought of Maori symbols. The Maori people are indigenous to New Zealand (globally a country about 2 1/2 hours by plane from Sydney, Australia). I had this intense urge to research Maori symbols and settled on the Koru (representing new life, growth and new beginnings). The Koru symbol really resonated.
I have no idea why I became so obsessed (even buying jewellery with the Koru symbol). But, perhaps with gut feelings and LOA, there’s a reason somewhere…I just don’t know now and that’s OK. It’s moving within a want mindset not a need mindset and simply following intuition is a way to go.
The burning desire idea just makes me super anxious….and ends up blocking my ability to LOA. Once I stop stressing over “getting something”, opportunities come more readily and smoothly.
Hi Joanne
Thank you for your comment and sharing your experience. That nudge to look up that information is a great example of how we are always led to information, people and other resources that are perfect for the moment, that give us clarity, that validate a decison, that give us some sort of solution or guidance. The mind just doesn’t get how the clinging actually works against us and it doesn’t let us give it up so easily! But as long as we remember it doesnt understand the process and therefor how little sense it makes to let it guide us, it gets easier to move away.
Thank you Kelly for your reply it really validates what I have always experienced with these various teachings. I get the sense that everything is so forced and mechanical instead of organic and spontaneous. And like Joanne, I just end up feeling anxious and drained. The real breakthroughs and successes I’ve experienced throughout my life never resulted from that approach but rather through surrender, meaning not apathy but more of a sense of release just as you always describe. Caring but not caring is a very fine line to walk and the problem is trying to reproduce that phenomenon when something in life really needs my attention. Good stuff, as always. I love the way you go deeper and although I love many other LOA authors some can seem a bit airy-fairy in the face of some of the heavy blows that life can toss at us at times. Thanks again and blessings to you and yours.