I will forever credit a new friend of mine with introducing me to this concept of “poverty consciousness”. A notion of which I had no previous knowledge. All I needed to do was hear the term and I knew that it somehow explained everything about my old story. The following excerpt – taken from a random website (http://www.cdnbizwomen.com/articles/marshall1.html) absolutely confirms what I instinctively knew from the first moment I heard these words used together. Jeanie Marshall explains this new-to-me term:
“By “poverty consciousness” I mean the set of attitudes and beliefs and feelings and values associated with material lack or fear of material lack. Poverty consciousness equals a belief in limitation, and almost always includes fear. Poverty consciousness is not directly related to the amount of money one has. Rather, it is the relationship to that money or to material possessions. If you worry about not having enough money, you are in poverty consciousness. If you believe there is not enough for everyone in the world, you operate from poverty consciousness. One can live in conditions of poverty without necessarily living in poverty consciousness, which is a state of mind and heart. The amount of money or other material possessions is a matter of fact. One’s relationship to that amount is a matter of thoughts and feelings.”
Well, shit! Prior to reading this I was thinking this belief pattern simply ran strong on both sides of my family, hence my immense burden of it. But, our entire world economic system is operating with this as our underlying assumption. No flippin’ wonder everything is so crazy out there. Every single government, with the exception of perhaps that of Bhutan’s, is operating with the belief of limited EVERYTHING. No country believes there is enough for everyone in the world. If we did, we wouldn’t be fighting wars for resources.
I don’t want to focus on the world’s poverty consciousness, however. I only want to focus on what I have control over – my own. That is what was in part, triggered by my writings discussing the shortcomings of our present paradigm’s economic model. I want to jump in and write about some of my old beliefs about money, wealth, employment, finances, and economics, which are all very closely related.
I also would ask that as you read, pay attention to the behaviors & emotions that became intricately tied to my beliefs about everything having to do with money. At 35, my entire life had become a reflection of my beliefs – i.e my practiced thoughts. Today, I can honestly say that my beliefs about money defined my entire existence more than ALL of my other beliefs put together. And I had practiced my negative thoughts of money – EVERY aspect of money – for 30 years. As you will see with the following story, there was very rarely a positive emotion tied to anything pertaining to money. I had no chance of creating a life anywhere near happy, let alone one of my dreams. No chance because all of my energy – my thoughts, emotions, actions, & words – was focused and directed on the negative.
Follow me here…keep this in your mind as you read all of the entries to follow… there is an extremely important, ALWAYS present relationship going on in the world that affects us ALL! Whether you are ready to see and accept this or not, what I am about to explain is how ALL of our individual realities are created. So take a note here – this is the MOST important relationship in your life. The relationship between your beliefs/thoughts, the emotions you feel as you think these thoughts, and the behaviors you then take as a result of how you feel. These behaviors include actions, words, and more thoughts. And the cycle repeats…all day, every day in every single human being walking this earth.
Generally speaking, actions and words define our entire world. All of us individuals acting and saying things out here – that’s it! That has created our present world & it continues to create our new world. Well, I just laid out logically and factually (according to universal laws) how our actions and words can ALL be traced back to our beliefs/thoughts. This will become more clear when I tell this first of many stories of my belief history pertaining to the topic of money.
So…to answer the question that I’m sure many of you have asked as you’ve read my previous posts and/or my always intense, excited Facebook updates…’How, Alyson, do you believe you are actually going to change the world?’
The answer has two primary components. There are two, main channels of operation. The second, is forthcoming. The first, follows here.
I believe I can teach anyone (who is honestly interested & ready to learn) how to do the same thing I did with respect to their own life. Which is to say – to finally make peace with, appreciate, & embrace my past; to understand what & how much control (a TON!) I have in creating my own reality (via the power of my thoughts); and as such, finally saying the words and taking the actions that result in living the life of my dreams.
I am about to begin to live up to my full potential in this life. I believe THAT is our only responsibility in this world. Not to necessarily ever reach our full potential, for I believe that is an ongoing, beautiful process. However, I do believe that is the aspiration alive & kicking inside each of us. And the further we are from living our potential, the more unhappy we are. In the amazing world of technological advancement in which we live, we have greater opportunities to truly create innovative, amazing, new ways in which we can live. We have more tools than ever to reach our potential! We have minds and hearts with desires like mine to make big changes in this world. We have solutions to very big issues facing our world. But for one thing…the systems in which we are living – the ones that we are trying to hang on to for dear life (mostly because we don’t see any other options) are stiffling us!
We’ve each been born into unique circumstances, into unique bodies, with unique minds, and with unique interests, skills, and desires. There are INFINITE combinations. Yes, we are similar because we all inhabit a human body. And we share many common life experiences & resulting emotions. But all 7 billion of us have a very, special unique gift to contribute to this world. It is time we create an environment that allows those amazing gifts to be developed, honed & created. For when we do this…when we live up to our full potential, which is only to say, following our hearts’ desires in our lives…we are INFINITELY more powerful to everyone & everything around us. The work that is performed and created from this pursuit is world-changing – there is no doubt about it!! That is living in the light and it is time for us all to shine!
MUCH more to come today & this week…
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The Bible reference of the title may lead you to believe that I am tackling the religion/spirituality topic this morning. Nope. Not yet.
Two weeks ago, during my annual viewing, I was inspired as I watched Elf. The scene towards the end, in Central Park. Off in the distance, mounted on four horses, Santa spots the Central Park Rangers. And it hit me. The perfect metaphor.
Anxiety. Guilt. Worry. Fear. These four emotions could absolutely be considered the real 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse. No…I don’t believe the world is coming to an end. However, a prevalent, powerful, mainstream paradigm is coming to an end. There is no doubt about it.
We are shifting and evolving into something brand new and WE get to decide how the transition between the old and the new plays out. It does NOT have to be violent. WE get to decide if we can step it up and experience this evolution without having a destructive revolution. I have written before that we are living at an extremely beautiful time in our world. Greater numbers of individuals are awakening every day to this reality. However, these four emotions have the capacity to cripple those who are otherwise awake & prepared.
As I allow myself to share with you the very honest, authentic beliefs I used to hold and what thoughts were thus associated with them, you must know what role these four emotions play in the story. Again, it was only as a result of my healing time in MI that I was able to see the massive, limiting power of these feelings & to what degree they were present in my thoughts. I think I am still shocked at the realization I made during this time – that 99% of my thoughts produced or centered around one or more of these emotions. No freakin’ wonder I was miserable and not at all close to living the life I desired. I was unconsciously sabotaging myself for decades.
Thanks to Mike Dooley, one of the most influential teachers to whom I’ve been introduced in the past two years, (http://www.tut.com/about/mikedooley/) I was able to put it all together. The main theme running through his spiritual leadership work is the following phrase – ‘Thoughts Become Things – Choose Good Ones’. Once I began reading his material in May of 2011, everything made perfect sense.
Taking the new “truths” I gained from Dooley and combining it with all I learned about myself & my journey while home in MI, I was able to make substantial changes in the way my mind processed everything. As a result of changing my beliefs, my entire outer world changed too. What manifests as our personal realities on the outside simply reflects our inner world. And our inner world is more or less, our mind. Change your mind and you will change your world – it is that simple!
To this day, I feel like I have access to some secret code to living. And it has been insane to see how it works. INSANE! Dooley has a program called, Infinite Possibilities. It is awesome! Bottom line…if you don’t believe in a world that holds infinite possibilities, you are selling yourself short. I can say with a great deal of confidence that even those of you out there feeling as if you are living pretty happy, decent lives have a ton of room to expand your capabilities in this life. Your happiness, your dreams, your desires…I can almost guarantee that our world has conditioned you to the point where you have capped yourself unnecessarily on what you think is possible. We have placed our own limits are ourselves by believing in these arbitrary ceilings of what we can create and do in this world. Just imagine – for argument’s sake – what a world could look like if all of a sudden millions of people began to truly believe in infinite possibilities and live their lives according to this belief?
Living with 99% of my thoughts centering around the 4 horsemen, I was still able to achieve quite a bit in my life. Definitely more than “average” but not at all near what I knew I was capable of accomplishing. Do you have any idea what I am going to do now that I’ve defeated the real enemy?!!! I don’t think even my parents are aware of how much I am now free to achieve without all those limiting beliefs holding back my potential.
I’ve begun, but just barely, to demonstrate what we are all capable of creating. In 6 months time, there will be much more on the outside for people to witness as proof. The Universe knows I don’t require any more proof than what my life has been these past two years. However, I am well aware that for others to begin to really hear me, they are going to need to see it to believe it. No problem! I cannot WAIT to show you what I’ve now only been trying to say with words.
And have you figured out yet why I haven’t been able to contain my excitement? Why it is a tad challenging for me to continue to be patient? Why I use all the caps and !!!! in all of my writings?! Has anyone been able to put it together yet?
Do you know how many high-achieving, bad-ass, incredibly intelligent, kind-hearted, hard-working people I have in my life? I am talking HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS and through their connections, THOUSANDS! And again, with a GREAT deal of confidence I can say that the majority of these folks still spend TONS of their energy on a daily basis dealing with one or more of these horsemen. What will all of these lives look like with just a reduction of these 4 horsemen energies in their lives? Let alone, if you are interested in trying to eliminate them completely from your world as I have done.
It is time to unleash ALL of our human potential. And it all begins with the annihilation of ANXIETY, GUILT, WORRY, and FEAR! If you want to blame someone or be angry at something….direct your emotions at these guys!! Collectively, these “4 Horsemen” are the enemy. If you desire change in the world, begin by examining the role of these emotions in your life. How much is your life being limited?
You are more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Allow yourself the chance to see this within. The world is our playground and it’s time for a new game!
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[Click to read “Whoa! Hold the Horses! Part 1]
Today I am dealing with the realization of the continued presence, albeit minimal, of some old, nasty belief patterns I thought were gone. As it turns out, however, this is exactly what I was meant to deal with today. I was triggered (ironically, by my own blog entry) to the energy of my old story, which is VERY negative. I hadn’t felt this particular part of my old story this strongly in almost 2 years. Of course, as I work through this, I could expect to automatically reflect on how drastically different my energy is today. The difference is so stark that even a whiff of this old energy throws me out of the zone of my new, bad-ass, positive story.
My life completely changed as a direct result of my personal choice to change many of my old beliefs. Due to Eckhart Tolle’s influence, as well as many others’, I learned that in order to really change my life, I had to change my beliefs of my old story. And I mean to REALLY change my life. When I was back home in MI I knew that was my chance. It wouldn’t be my last if I had missed it, but did I really want to miss yet another opportunity to look at my situation anew? I had to ask myself if I truly wanted to tell the new story I claimed I wanted to live. The answer, though, wasn’t what needed to change. The answer was always a resounding, ‘YES!’ ‘God…please help me change my story!’ I was begging for it. What I didn’t become aware of until my healing time in MI – until I stopped running – was the power I had within me to change it all on my own – to answer my own prayer.
Through my head first dive into the reading of approximately 35-40 spiritual books spanning the gamut of the subject I learned, among many other things, the undeniable truth of the power of our thoughts – our beliefs. Upon gaining all this new information I had to finally admit that I was banging my head against a wall as long as I maintained certain beliefs. So…I faced my beliefs head-on for the first time in my life. I was 34 1/2 years old and for the first time ceased the madness long enough to ask myself what I actually believed about EVERYTHING.
What did I believe about the world, society, money, food, music, dance, love, security, having dreams, family, friends, marriage, dating, employment, government, politics, global warming, sports, work, play, etc.? Most importantly, I had to ask what I believed about myself. At my core. Want to talk about perspective? Want to talk about change? Want to talk about facing yourself & your life like never before? This was the most incredible experience I think a person could go through and it launched all of what I am doing now.
I wasn’t exactly aware of this need to change beliefs when I finally made the decision to give myself the space to do it beginning in July 2010. I just knew I had hit another low. I had to stop being so flippin’ stubborn and admit that I needed a drastically new approach. What I discovered was that the new approach of changing beliefs resulted in new perspectives, which led to new thoughts, which led to new behaviors, which led to new outcomes. And BAM! I was living the life of my dreams and it has continued to progress as such every single day since.
Because we tend to believe that everyone’s dream life looks the same, you may or may not believe me when I say this. But I’m telling you…just because it doesn’t at all resemble your dream life doesn’t make it an untrue statement. My life has almost become the pinnacle of my “old” dream in less than 2 years. The progression will result in more observable things VERY soon but for now, what I need to communicate is that it ALL comes down to my beliefs.
If you desire change in your life, you must change your beliefs! I know this sounds terrifying but it really isn’t. All a belief is is a practiced thought. If you think the same thought over and over and over again it will become a belief. Our belief patterns determine everything else in our life! EVERY decision we make. Every action we take, every word we say can be traced back to our beliefs. My old beliefs were making me miserable but I never knew they were the culprit of my misery! I had no clue that my own mind was the cause of me not living the life of my dreams. I did the only logical thing – I began changing my beliefs – immediately!!
I changed every single negative belief I could identify I held. Any part of any belief that caused me to feel anything but positive…I changed. But as it turns out, that meant pretty much going against every belief pattern that had been ingrained in me since I came out of the womb. No small task to rewire it all in less than 2 years. It took every day of the past 24 months to work through all the emotional habits within me. My recent Seattle trip and these past two days are evidence that the habits aren’t completely broken yet. The old beliefs ran deep and they were really, really dark. You can’t flip a switch like that overnight. But I’ve stuck to it. No matter how foolish it has made me look to others. No matter how it continues to make me appear to others.
I have created a new belief system that reflects what I’ve always wanted my world to be. However, the new combination of beliefs I now claim for myself is both VERY new & VERY different than those portrayed by the mainstream world. The foundational beliefs are very different and the wiring has been altered too. The wiring is no longer centered in my brain. The brain is obviously still involved but it is no longer the hub within my body. The new organ hub is my heart – everything starts and stops with the heart. Consequently, I’ve learned how to read my emotions in a much more complete, honest, manner. The fact that these old negative emotions have been triggered simply means the belief pattern is still active. I don’t even want it present, let alone active, so I need to work through it. No habitual burying techniques. Nope. Let’s do this!
Here goes nothin’. I am going to attempt to write through an example of how I worked to change my beliefs. I am going to use this issue of economic value to demonstrate this & I have no idea how the hell it is going to end up being written. It may be similar to a viewing of “Being John Malkovich”. Ahhh…John Cusack. If I had to choose between him and George Clooney….??? Sorry…see? The journey into Alyson’s mind has already begun. Get ready!
In the next entry, (which may post as soon as tonight) we delve into my old belief patterns surrounding money, wealth, employment, finances, economics, and competition. It isn’t pretty. It isn’t positive. It isn’t Alyson living in the light. I am still a bit surprised that this is what clarity hit me this morning but it does make perfect sense. Probably not perfect sense to you, for you haven’t yet been allowed VIP access to my mind. If you had, however, already been granted such access, you would know that this approach does indeed make perfect sense.
This is either going to be terribly boring, incredibly fascinating, or completely confusing. Chances are good that it will be some combination of the three.
To be continued…again…very soon
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[ Click here for Finances & Economic Value – Part 2 ]
Holy crap! My webmaster/amazing friend will be the only one able to attest to this…actually, she is going to be the only one able to affirm about a million crazy things from this adventure of mine…but I did not feel good about yesterday’s post. Strangely, I felt awesome as I finished it and for the following hour after posting it. Then, a new perception walloped me! All of a sudden I had a feeling of no confidence in what I had written. This didn’t make any sense to me – something was off. No way I could be THAT confident & pleased with what I had written and then shift to such an opposite extreme so quickly. I texted my friend & expressed these thoughts.
She asked if I was basing this feeling on the fact that thus far, there had been very little traffic. I texted back the honest truth…no…I truly felt like it was more than that…different. It ate at me all night. I couldn’t shake it so I went to my bedroom early & tried to pick a book to read. After beginning 2 others, I settled on my 3rd choice of the night –“The Power of Passion – Achieve Your Own Everests”. I only read about 35 pages before falling asleep. However, having the words of this particular book, with its talk of chasing wild dreams, as the final things in my brain before falling asleep seems to have absolutely cleared the clouds.
As I sat down to begin the writing of today’s post I knew I had to read yesterday’s in preparation. My own hesitancy to re-read it was not exactly the feeling I wanted to have this morning. But, as I opened my computer, I still felt it. Crap. Well, I had to re-read the damn thing in order to continue with Part 3 so I only hesitated for seconds and began. When I finished it a few minutes later…everything shifted and became clear. I still kinda can’t believe it! Wow!
After re-reading, it was so obvious to me. It still got me & thus my writing yesterday. I wasn’t yet able to consciously evade it – that feeling – that tone of competition. It got me again, damn it! That energy of separateness, groupings and categories of people – “us” vs. “them”. It is truly unbelievable how prevalent and how powerful this is in our society & thus in our individual psyches. Competition. We turn everything into a competition, which inherently has sides. Couple this with the underlying assumption of limited resources & you see why our present world is operating as it is. Shit! No wonder I had that disgusting gut feeling all night. This is the exact tone I never want to use, have, imply, or convey – EVER!
My blog entry created a perception of sides – of competition. But not reflecting my new beliefs about competition, which have changed dramatically from what I held for the first 35 years of my life. I don’t want to expand on those changes today. Suffice to say, I no longer believe in competition as we see it played out in our world at present. At least that is my goal via having & acting on a more complete, powerful, new belief in cooperation. I thought I was there. I thought I had trained myself enough in the past 19 months. Working through all of my old story belief patterns, to get to the point where this tone of competition could never again come through unconsciously. Yesterday’s post, however, proves to me beyond doubt that I am not yet there. At least part of my response to the topic of finances & economics was automatic with the negative energy of competition.
You see, all of our actions & words are based on thoughts and our thoughts are based on our belief patterns. A great number of these belief patterns are automatic – deeply ingrained and/or practiced a great deal via mental messages we repeat to ourselves over and over and over again. And the belief patterns that most define us will hang on for dear life if you make the decision that it is a belief that is no longer serving you well. My old story belief patterns surrounding finances, economics, AND competition (along with many others), I decided were big reasons I was not leading a very happy life. These three, therefore, are all hanging on very tightly for their continued existence in my world. And seeing as my ENTIRE identity was wrapped up in some form of competition until only 2 years ago, it shouldn’t be at all surprising that this guy is still hanging out in my psyche despite my desire for his complete demise.
My hanging-on, old belief patterns surrounding money, wealth, employment, corporations, value, competition – they were all triggered yesterday! The only way to do what it is I am trying to do with these beliefs – which is to completely eliminate their old, damaging, limiting, ugly patterns from my life – is to begin by seeing & acknowledging what is right in front of me. But you only see what is right there when you are ready to be 100% honest and willing to see your own role in your reality.
If this is still coming out of me…this attitude that definitely has reared its head in both financial posts, it is most certainly happening for a reason. And when I reflect on some of the interactions I had with certain people back in Seattle and certain communications since…I have to admit the obvious…I am absolutely still operating with at least some minimal belief in my old story’s view of all of these topics. I am unconsciously putting out some of those vibes and therefore, attracting them right back into my world.
It makes me feel like garbage because the attitude from my old story isn’t one of which I am proud. It is angry. It is judgmental. It blames. It labels. It generalizes. It does nothing but limit my potential in this life. This energy dominated me for decades and now that I’ve been away from it for the better part of 2 years, when it comes back, I literally feel it. The energy I’ve managed to re-ignite in myself is packed with an extra punch too for the ugliest part of my past is back as well. The beliefs’ leader. Their hero…my old story ego.
Often we associate superiority and pride with the word ego. Ego, however, is way more than this. It is identification with our body and mind. In my old story, I was 100%, entirely ego-centered – again, an enormous reason I was miserable. I will forever attribute my ability to understand & thus move beyond my ego (save for days like this, which are still happening more often than I desire), to Eckhart Tolle. Of all the spiritual teachers I’ve read thus far, in my opinion, he does the best job explaining ego. This is just a taste of his work – http://minso.hubpages.com/hub/eckhart-tolle-ego.
So, in addition to triggering many old, limiting belief patterns, I discovered my post yesterday also activated my old story habit of possessing extreme identification with my ego. Great! The ego, which does NOTHING but hold me back from my potential, is also still alive & kickin’ inside. Again, not so much in the traditional ways we view ego. The old story is one of very, very low self-worth so this is not an arrogance, better-than-thou energy that has been tripped. It is the chip-on-my-shoulder, angry comparison portion of ego that has been awoken. I couldn’t escape this jerk to save my life – quite literally, in fact, until 2 years ago. No way I am giving any of this energy an opportunity to gain momentum. This isn’t getting buried. I cannot proceed until I face this now admitted, honest realization of the presence of these negative emotions.
To be continued (very shortly)
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