During a recent email conversation with Life Coach and PHD Annette Colby we were discussing two different schools of thought with regard to how we “receive.” Do we receive in proportion to our contributions, or do we receive in proportion to our capacity to receive? The major difference is that one is conditional and one is not.
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Why does this matter? Let me share with you what I learned when I discovered that my own emotions were wrapped around the idea of receiving in proportion to my contributions. This was true even though, in my mind I knew and accepted the idea of receiving in proportion to my capacity. Are you confused yet?
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Let me walk you through the thinking process that helped me sort this out. As I thought about it, this is what I realized.
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1) If we receive only in proportion to what we give, then some part of us is convinced that we must earn what we get. The subconscious mind reasons something like this, “ I did something, so now I deserve my reward because I earned it.”
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2) If I can only receive what I think I deserve then it’s actually linked to ‘wanting’ approval. How so? Somewhere deep inside of me, I was holding the belief that receiving was my just compensation for doing my part.
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3) This meant that I needed to approve of my own efforts before I would allow myself to receive that compensation.
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This is the mentality of a wage earner, and in the world of employers and employees that’s exactly how it works. The thing is, I am not my own employee and my inner sense of approval should be based on who I am, not on what I do or how much I give. As long as I live in harmony with my true self I will have my own approval and therefore won’t be “wanting” for it. The approval we all want is from within. When we don’t have that then we go searching for an external source.
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Everything in life is a flow, energy flows to us and through us. It doesn’t need our approval, all we need to do is open the gates and get out of the way. But in this case, I was actually in my own way. How? Putting a condition on my ability to receive meant that I was closing the gate and only allowing energy to flow in after I felt that a sufficient amount had flowed out. That’s not how abundance works. When you’re filled to overflowing, the flow continues.
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Every time we internalize any sort of problem in life, we disrupt the energy flow. To restore the flow we need to release the problem. There are two ways to do this, you can either release every little problem that comes along or you can identify and release the emotion behind the problem. Get rid of the unhealthy emotion and you get rid of every single problem attached to it, automatically.
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Taking it one step further, if you can identify the category where that emotion comes from, you can eliminate the unwanted emotions and all the problems that go with them - all at once. So you can clear out one little problem at a time, one small group of problems at a time or you can dump the whole category all at once.
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Every unwanted emotion originates with one of the three ‘wants.’ It’s either a want of approval, a want of security or a want of control. In my case I discovered that it was a want of approval. Who’s approval did I want? My own of course. Once I got rid of the want, what I had left was – approval!
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It’s difficult to explain this concept in such a short article, but I hope I’ve at least piqued your interest.
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There’s one more important point I want to make before closing. Just because I teach advanced life skills, does not mean that my life is without challenges. It’s not about being perfect or living a perfect life. It’s about developing two kinds of skills. The ones that allow you to quickly identify and overcome anything that makes your life less than you want it to be. And simultaneously, the skills that empower you to create the life you truly want, a life of abundance.
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Because Annette is a skilled life coach she was able to pick up on something in my conversation that set me on the path to a personal breakthrough. Never underestimate the benefit of a coach. No matter how much progress we make in developing advanced life skills, the truth is, sometimes we’re the teacher and oftentimes we’re the student. The best part of life is learning, growing and sharing. Don’t be afraid to learn from someone else and don’t hold back from sharing what you learn.
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To your true self, Jonathan
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PS. Visit Dr. Annette Colby at Annette Colby.com
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