How to Really Create Real Change (hint: not with positive thinking)
January 2011
Much has been said about using positive thinking, affirmation and visualisation to create the changes you want to see in your life. Indeed, it’s an industry all of its own with the movies, cards and action figures to match. I doubt whether this philosophy could have grabbed human consciousness so powerfully if it had no truth to it at all, but here are the reasons why positive thinking on its own isn’t enough to bring real, sustainable change to your life.
Positive Thinking is still just thinking
Arguments about the power of the human mind to influence
circumstances are usually built on the theory of the Law of Attraction.
But the Law of Attraction works on a far more comprehensive basis than
simply matching what you think or affirm with your rational intellect.
You are comprised of a body, feelings, an imagination, a subconscious, a
past, a deep belief system, a pain body, an astral presence and,
undoubtedly, more layers than even that. All of these aspects of you
combined create your field (also known as your electro-magnetic field,
whole self or aura) and it is the vibration of your complete field that
attracts or repels experience. The thoughts you can control - located in
your intellect - are just one part of what ultimately determines your
reality.
This does not mean you have no conscious influence at all on what comes
your way, but it does mean that you need to be aligned on many levels to
do so. It’s never going to work to repeat three times a day ‘I am worthy
of a loving relationship’ while still carrying unhealed pain from the
previous one. Simply because you have a picture of a bikini-clad model
on your vision board does not mean that that body will arrive on your
doorstep, overpowering your low self-worth in the scramble to get there.
Change happens because you inquire honestly and deeply and intimately
into your relationship with what you feel you need. On Embody, for
example, we look at why you want a certain kind of body, what has
happened to your body that you’ve stifled, what associations you are
holding with beauty, ugliness and being physical in general and much
more. Simply imagining how nice it would be to feel beautiful is never
going to cut it.
More importantly, the purpose of life is not success, it is wholeness.
This means that your soul is more driven by your development than by
your ego’s shopping list. Managing to manifest something in your life by
positive thinking is in itself not of great value in the bigger scheme
of your evolution. However, reaching into your deepest well of courage,
brilliance, creativity and truth in order to create your Joy, is very
much what it’s all about and how it works. Fulfilling our desires is
vital as a seduction into growth, but it is not the aim of life (our
becoming is), which is why positive thinking will never be enough.
The Change Cycle is comprised of TWO steps, not one
In order to create change there are two steps required – the first is
Permission and the second is Demonstration of that permission.
The Permission piece is internal. It is about allowing or truly desiring
this change to occur, not only because you want it intellectually, but
because it also aligns with who you are on an emotional and deep belief
level as well. To illustrate this once more: it won’t work to simply say
you’d like to make more money when, on a deeper level, you have some
resistance to wealth - rationally or irrationally. To really give
permission for something new, for example having more love in your life,
means you have to actually be ok with all the implications of this and
carry little ambiguity or resistance. This step is deeply personal and
intimate. No-one (including Divinity) can or will ever be able to give
permission for something on your behalf, no matter how much they may
want it for you. It is in this step of the change cycle that imagining
new realities, dreaming and visualising can assist you to see if you are
really aligned with what you’re desiring and help you to clarify it.
However, if you stop at this step, you are only directing half of the
required energy to complete the change cycle.
The second necessary step to making change happen is actively and
regularly demonstrating the new permission you have given. This is
external i.e. it is action of some kind. Demonstrating a permission
means regularly devoting your resources – time, energy, money and
attention – in that direction.
Most of my clients, at this point, protest that they don’t know how to
demonstrate a new permission. What I have learnt is that willingness is
more important than knowing how. Back to our example, if you feel you
have given real permission for a new relationship with your body then
you must demonstrate that in whichever way your circumstances allow: buy
a new scrub instead of a new book, invite friends over for massages not
movies and spend time engaging with the pain you’ve buried in your body.
You will always have what you need for your one next step – probably not
your tenth next step, but at least the first. The way you ‘put the
universe into gear’ around a desire of yours is to actively and
regularly demonstrate that desire in action – even if it feels silly,
even if you can’t see how this will lead to step 10, even if you’ve
tried it before. This is the second, unavoidable, part of creating
change.
Thank you to the people whose readings have taught me about this empowering and workable approach to change.
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