New Insight!

       I’m reading a book I got a while back, called Belief Works, by Ray Dodd.  I have read it before, but this time it led me to some new insight. There are lots of good books with theory and philosophy, methods and techniques for creating your own reality. Esther Hicks is a channel who writes the words of a being called Abraham. I like her books. They give you a strong shot in the arm of positive thinking. Wayne Dyer is the popular one out there these days with his book called The Power of Intention. I have not read it and actually, I didn’t even know about his book until I googled the name I chose for this blog.
      I like Belief Works because besides telling us to think positive, Dodd explores why we don’t.
He helps the reader discover their own underlying beliefs that may be holding them back. For many years, Ray Dodd was a student of don Miguel Ruiz, who wrote The Four Agreements. Throughout the book, Dodd speaks of the teachings of the Toltecs, an ancient Mexican culture from which don Ruiz is descended. These teachings expose the misconceptions in human thought that cause suffering and prevent people from creating love and joy in their lives.
    Like other proponents of the law of attraction and intention, Dodd says we attract everything around us. We do it through our beliefs. Even the friends and family we with whom we surround ourselves are like characters in the movie of our lives, supporting our beliefs. He says we are already living our dream, in the sense that we are living what we attract and believe, “Recognizing that you are living your dream can be a very powerful thing. Rather than asking, ‘What is the one thing keeping me from living my dreams?’ take a moment and ask yourself:

What have I agreed to and what is it creating?
How is my own unique perspective driving my decisions, actions and reactions?
Does my outlook ever keep me from realizing my deepest desires?
Who are these people in my life and how are they reflecting what I believe?"

       I asked myself these questions tonight when I picked up the book . My answer startled me. What have I been doing and who have I been around for the last four months? I have been working, really hard almost all the time leaving almost no time for fun. Just like my father did all his life. Somehow I thought that would insure success. And who have I been keeping company with most of the time? My mother, a kind and loving person who has plenty of money and serious fears about spending a penny. What am I doing here?
       Do I live by the belief that in order to have money/security one must be focused on nothing other than working to earn it? If anyone were to ask me why I never had much money as my kids were growing up, my honest answer would be because I didn’t want to work that hard. At the time, I did not admit that to myself because I thought it meant I was lazy. What it really meant was that I valued spending time with my children and hiking and skiing more than piling up money in the bank. And that is the way we lived. We worked and played and enjoyed life.  I am proud that I instilled good values into the minds of my kids. Yet, in the back of my mind, I always felt guilty. "I should have that loan paid off. I should have more money in the bank. I should be able to afford the things that they have." I have been living a life, true to myself and my values and feeling guilty about it all along! And not only that, some weird, warped turn of events has put me right in the lap of the origins of all these screwed up ideas about money.
        Ok, so now what do I do with it?  Here I am, one hundred percent focused on work for four months and so far it has cost me about $1800.00 investment and earned me about $500.00. Something is wrong with this picture.
       But something is also very right. I love the work I have been doing - the writing and connecting with others, believing in my dreams and working toward them. I started with the idea that if I follow my bliss, the best will come of it. Now I think it is time for me to let go. I have done the work. I created a good book. I am going to stop wracking my brain to try everything to get people to my site to buy the book. I am going to stop trying to sell it and just let it sell itself. I am going to stop trying to figure out where the money is coming from and just let it come. I’m going to go out and find that fun loving adventurous, person (minus the guilt about not making more and being better) and get back to being me!
        I knew this writing process would unearth some things I needed to see about myself in order to go forward. I am grateful for the new insight. I trust that my awareness is the key to dispensing with deceptive beliefs and embracing the full abundance that is my (and our) birthright.