When you are in the experience of love, you are happy, alive and free. You see life clearly and are very effective. Solutions and opportunity present themselves. You have a very positive attitude and great things happen around you.
The opposite state is one of fear and upset. When you are in this state, you close down inside. You lose your ability to see clearly and become very negative. You also get tunnel vision. This tunnel vision does two very destructive things. It destroys your ability to find solutions and it forces you to fight, resist, hang on and withdraw. Instead of resolving the problem, you magnify it.
Any area of life that isn’t working is an area where this tunnel vision is present. Once you remove the tunnel vision, you restore your ability to see clearly. You see what needs to be done and this area of life clears up.
The state of mind that we have at any moment seems to be the result of what happens around us, but it’s not. It’s the result of how we relate to what happens. A good way to see this is to look at the nature of upsets.
Upsets are not caused by what happens.
Upsets seem to be caused by what happens, but this is an illusion. Upsets are not caused by what happens. They are caused by fighting and resisting what happens.
To see this in your life, select a recent upset. Now notice what would happen to the upset if, somehow, you were at peace with what happened. There would be no upset. There would be no upset, because the upset wasn't caused by what happened. The upset was caused by fighting and resisting what happened. The moment you take away the fighting and resisting, the upset disappears. You restore both your peace of mind and your effectiveness.
Now notice what would happen if someone spilled a glass of water on you. You would be wet whether you liked it or not. If you were at peace with being wet, there would be no upset. You would have peace of mind. If you fought being wet, you would be upset, and the more you fought being wet, the more upset you would be.
Upsets are not caused by what happens. They can only exist if you fight and resist what happens. Nothing has the power to make you upset. Only you can do that.
Resisting makes your situation worse.
The moment you get upset, you close down inside. You get tunnelvision and lose your ability to see clearly. All you can do is fight, resist, hang on and withdraw. This, in turn, destroys love and creates opposition and resistance against yourself. Almost anything you do in this state makes your situation worse. Resisting doesn’t make your situation clear up.
Resisting magnifies the problem.
Imagine four yellow balloons on the ceiling above you. Now, whatever you do, don’t think of them. You just thought about them. Don’t do that. Stop. Notice what happens when you resist the yellow balloons. You keep thinking about them. In fact, you can hardly think of anything else.
Resisting the thought of yellow balloons gives the thought power and keeps it alive. The same thing happens with anything you resist. By your resisting, you magnify and give power to whatever you are resisting.
Let's say that you are married and that you have a fear of losing your spouse. The more you resist losing your spouse, the more you hang on and the more you push your spouse away. Find a characteristic that you resisted in someone. What happened to that characteristic when you resisted it? It grew. It grew in your perception and it actually showed up more in the world around you.
Look at any area of your life that isn’t working. This will be an area where you are resisting.
The Law of Cause and Effect
At any moment, you are totally, 100% at the effect of the world around you. No matter what happens around you, you will react accordingly. At the same time, the world around you is totally 100% at the effect of you. Whatever you do, or don’t do, the world around you will react to you. This makes you the cause.
You are totally at the effect of everything around you. You are also the cause. You are both at the same time. You react to the world around you and the world reacts to you. Although you are both at the same time, you only experience yourself as one or the other.
When you experience yourself as being “at the effect,” you become a victim of your circumstances. You have no power. Your confidence drops. Your energy drops and your negativity grows. You lose your ability to see clearly and you become very ineffective. Any time you are upset or have an area of life that isn’t working, you are “at the effect.” Being “at the effect” is a painful state. It’s also something that we create. We put ourselves “at the effect” by fighting and resisting the truth of the way our circumstances are.
We resist the truth. We go through life fighting and resisting, but what we fight is the truth.
At any moment, the people in your life are exactly the way that they are. You are the way that you are and your life is exactly the way that it is. This is true no matter how you feel about it. Look at the areas of your life that work great. These are areas where you can flow with whatever happens. Now look at the areas of your life that don’t work. These are areas of life where you are fighting the truth of something.
You may fight the way someone is or what the person does. You may fight certain aspects of your job or an unexpected bill. But no matter what you fight and resist, that aspect of your life is still the way that it is. Your feelings about it are totally irrelevant.
Effective action can resolve a situation, but resisting won’t. Fighting the truth will only make your situation worse. Any area of your life that isn’t working is an area where you are resisting.
Take a few moments now and look over your life. What do you resist? What are the areas of your life that don’t work? Where can’t you flow? Where do you get upset? Be specific. Use the next page to write down everything that you resist.
When you have finished, make a list of all your fears. A fear is created by resisting a future event. What future events are you avoiding and resisting? What are your fears? List them all.
While you are making your lists, notice how irrelevant your feelings are. Notice that what you are resisting is the truth.
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