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Little Known Secret that Will Change the Way You Think About Freedom

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Most of us think that what we really want is freedom.

But is that what we really want?

Have you ever thought or said to yourself that what you really want is total freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want?

I know I have!

I’ve heard many personal development gurus using that kind of language as well, encouraging you to become financially wealthy so that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want.

When I do coaching with people, and I ask them what they want to manifest in their lives, they will often say something along those lines as well.

At first glance “total freedom” sounds like a cool dream / goal to have, but here’s the truth that I realized about total freedom.

Chasing Total Freedom Is a Fantasy That Will Destroy Your Life

The truth is that so called “total freedom” is impossible for us as human beings.

The moment we as free spirits decide to incarnate on this earth, we give up “total freedom” in exchange for a chance to experience life as a human being who doesn’t have total freedom.

I mean ask yourself… can you REALLY ever have this so-called “total freedom” to “do anything you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want”?

Is there anyone on this planet who has this so-called “total freedom“?

No – there isn’t.

Yes there are people who have MORE freedoms than others – that is absolutely true, but there’s a HUGE difference between wanting to have more freedoms in your life, and trying to just have “freedom” in general.

Let me explain…

Some Freedoms That I’ve Manifested

Way back in 1996, shortly after graduating from high-school I got a job at a tech company that was located about 45 minutes away from where I lived.

Every morning I would wake up and either drive or car-pool for 45 minutes to get to work.  After work, it would take me another 45 minutes to get home.

That was a total of 1.5 hours of driving in traffic, every single morning, 5 days a week.

After a while, I just started to really hate having to deal with spending 1.5 hours every single day in traffic, so one of the FREEDOMS that I decided to pursue in my life was to find some way to NOT have to spend so much time in traffic every day.

Fast forward to 2003, and I was living in a house that was literally less than a block away from my work.

I could walk to work in about 2-3 minutes or roll down the hill in my car and be there in about 30 seconds.

Manifesting this very specific freedom from spending such a big part of my life in traffic was important to me, and so I manifested it.

Today I work from home so I don’t have to even spend one SECOND in traffic on a typical work-day.

Here’s another one of the FREEDOMS that I’ve manifested for myself.

I used to have to wake up to an alarm clock to get to work at a certain time.

For someone like myself, who is a night-owl, waking up early is the equivalent of torture to me, and absolutely hate it.

So about 5 years ago I decided that another one of the freedoms I’d love to manifest was the freedom of NOT having to wake up before 9am.

Today, I have that freedom.

On a typical day I can wake up at 9am, 9;30am, 10:00am or even later – just depending on when I went to sleep the night before.

Most of the people I know who have jobs, they don’t have that specific freedom – because it’s not something they specifically got clear on and pursued.

Specific Freedoms vs Total Freedom

Now you might be wondering, what’s the difference between these two freedoms I mentioned and “total freedom”?

Aren’t the two examples I gave just two examples of having total freedom?

If we pursue total freedom, aren’t we going to get all these other freedoms automatically anyways?

No.

From my experience, when people say that they want total freedom, or the freedom to do whatever they want, whenever they want, with whomever they want, what they’re really saying is that they don’t know WHAT they want.

They are undecided.  They are uncommitted to manifesting ANY kind of freedom.

They are deluding themselves by saying that they want this concept of “total freedom” but in reality they know damn well that they will NEVER achieve such a thing, and so they don’t even bother trying.

You see, the way our minds work is that our minds are AMAZING goal seeking / goal achieving machines.

If you give your mind a SPECIFIC goal to go after that it believes you can achieve, it WILL activate all the faculties of the mind – conscious, subconscious and superconscious – to help you achieve it.

But if you give your mind a VAGUE goal that it DOES NOT it can ever achieve – it will do NOTHING.

This is why I say that chasing total freedom will destroy your life, because by telling your mind you want total freedom, you are essentially setting yourself up to never achieve ANY of the wonderful freedoms that you COULD have in your life.

In other words – the main reason for the lack of specific freedoms in your life that you DO want and that you COULD have already achieved by now is that you’ve been chasing TOTAL FREEDOM – which is a flawed / impossible concept.

Why is Total Freedom Impossible?

Now I know some of you might be thinking that I’m being negative or pessimistic by saying that total freedom is not possible.

Let me explain why I’m simply pointing out the truth.

Let’s say that you tell your mind that you want “Total Freedom”… okay…fine…your mind gets the message and it tries to manifest “total freedom” in your life…

… okay, the next morning you wake up and you have the idea that you’d like to manifest a new car to replace your current car, and you’ve decided that you want that new car to be a BMW.

… okay, so a part of your mind is now being told that what you want is to manifest a specific car – a BMW – yet another part of your mind is still trying to manifest “total freedom”.

Now, think about this for a second… total freedom would mean that you have the freedom to choose to drive ANY car, at ANY time… but if your mind helps you to manifest a BMW, which is ONE type of car, then it’s also going to be cutting you off from the freedom of having a different car – such as for example a Mercedes.

In other words, by helping you manifest ONE car, such as a specific BMW, your mind is also taking away one of your freedoms (the freedom to choose a different car).

Also, if buying the new car means that you’ll be having to make monthly payments for 5 years to pay the car off, that also takes away some of your financial freedom as well, which your mind will not like, so it will fight you on it.

Here’s another example…

Let’s say you want to manifest a wonderful relationship with someone that you can see yourself marrying.

Well, by getting into a relationship with one person and marrying them, you are also cutting yourself away from the “freedom” to marry someone else, right?

No matter how you look at it, every time you gain one type of freedom, you are giving up another type of freedom.

If you manifest the freedom of driving a Ferrari, you are also potentially giving up the freedom of being able to park your car anywhere you want without having to worry about someone stealing it.

I mean if right now you drive a piece of crap car, one of the freedoms you DO have that a Ferrari owner doesn’t have is the freedom of not really worrying about someone stealing the car. 🙂

Let’s say you decide to join a gym and work out every day because you want to have a buff body…okay, but isn’t that giving up the freedom to NOT go to the gym and instead to just sit and watch TV?

See, every freedom we manifest and gain in our lives, carries with it some other freedom that we are giving up.

This is why “Total Freedom” is IMPOSSIBLE.

There’s always a trade off.  You give up one freedom to gain another.

What’s Exciting About This

Now at first you might be thinking that the realization that you’ll never achieve “total freedom” as a human being on this earth sounds a bit depressing…

…but in reality it’s actually VERY LIBERATING and exciting… here’s why.

See, the second you realize that chasing “total freedom” is MENTAL TRAP that paralyzes your mind and accomplishes NOTHING,  you can begin to ask yourself which FREEDOMS are important to YOU (not someone else) and activate your mind to help you achieve those specific freedoms.

You see, a mind that is instructed to go out and create very specific freedoms in your life that are important to YOU is a very powerful mind.

But a mind that is just generally told to pursue “freedom” as a whole concept is a very weak mind.

You MUST get specific with the freedoms that you want.

Here’s a quick exercise you can follow to help you gain some clarity on this:

  1. Write Down a List of Freedoms – Get a pen and paper and write down a list of very specific freedoms that you’d like to manifest in your life.  Be specific.  The more specific you get, the better it will be.  Instead of writing down “I want the freedom to always wake up whenever I want.” it’s better to say “I want the freedom to sleep in until at least 9am most days”.   Instead of writing down “I want to never worry about money ever again.” it’s better to write down “I want the freedom of having at least $25,000 cash in my emergency fund, and a net worth of at least $5 million dollars.”Concepts like “Never have to worry about money again” are too generic, too hypothetical, too confusing as to what you really mean by it.  I mean are you asking your mind to help you manifest a specific amount of money, or are you asking your mind to figure out a way to get you to stop worrying about money?  I mean technically speaking, your could get into a car accident and hit your head and go into a coma and never wake up and never have to worry about ANYTHING ever again, right?  But is that what you want?  Probably not right?  So you have to be specific.Try to start with some simple freedoms that are more easily believable and achievable for your mind.
  2. Prioritize Your List of Freedoms – Next what you’ll want to do is to go through your list and get clear on which freedoms are most important to you right now in your life.  You’ll want to give priority to the most important things, but also to the things that are most easily achievable as well which can take you towards more important freedoms.For example, before I manifested the freedom to not spend ANY time in traffic (by working from home), I manifested the freedom to NOT spend 45 minutes in traffic, instead cutting that down to about 25 mins in traffic (by changing jobs), followed by manifesting the freedom to only spend about 1-2 minutes getting to work (by buying a house literally a block away from my office), to finally manifesting the ability to work from home full time.The idea here is not to necessarily pick which specific freedom you’re going to focus on first, but more to just help you gain more clarity as to which freedoms mean more to you than others, and which freedoms might be more achievable more quickly.
  3. Track and Recognize Your Current Freedoms – Another important aspect to this process is to become aware of the freedoms you have already manifested in your life and to express a feeling of gratitude towards them.  The truth is that most of us have SO MANY more freedoms than others on this planet, but we take those freedoms for granted and never feel any gratitude for them.For example, do you have a drivers license?  Do you drive a car?  Can you get into your car and drive somewhere if you wanted to?  Then that is a freedom you manifested already in your life that other people may not have.  They might not have a driver’s license or a car, and might be stuck taking the bus everywhere.  See my point?You already have MANY freedoms right now, that other people may not have.  That doesn’t mean you should feel bad for other people who don’t have the same freedoms you have.  That is not the point.  The point here is to simply become aware of the fact that you’ve already manifested a whole bunch of freedoms in your life, and if you did it for THOSE freedoms, then your belief will go up that you can manifest the NEW freedoms your currently working on.

Don’t underestimate the power of this key distinction between trying to manifest FREEDOM vs trying to manifest SPECIFIC FREEDOMS.

Trying to manifest FREEDOM is a fools errand…

… you’ll never manifest TRUE FREEDOM as a human being…it’s impossible, and that’s not why we are here on this planet.

We are here to DECIDE and CHOOSE which SPECIFIC FREEDOMS are most important to us and then to pursue manifesting those freedoms and then to enjoy them!

I remember the day when I stopped chasing FREEDOM as a whole, and realized that I’ve been trying to manifest this massive, impossible fantasy…

… it felt like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders…

… not having to pursue this concept of FREEDOM anymore…

… and instead to just pick specific freedoms that are important to me now, in my current life, and in comparison to ‘Total Freedom” , those individual, specific freedoms seem so much more achievable and believable!

NOT chasing FREEDOM is one of the most freeing and liberating experiences you will ever experience in your life.

Try it out…you’ll see what I mean.

Give yourself permission, right now, to STOP chasing this stupid illusion of “total freedom” that NOBODY in the history of humanity has ever achieved.

You’ll see how liberating and fun it is to instead decide which freedoms you want to go after and to then go after and achieve those freedoms!

How to Literally Add and Remove Gray Matter From Your Brain With This Simple Exercise

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There’s an exercise that I’ve been doing for about 19 years now, and more actively in the last 10 years or so that a recent Harvard study has shown to correlate with an INCREASE and DECREASE in brain gray matter in certain areas of the brain.

Participants in this study performed a simple exercise for an average of just 27 minutes a day for a period of 8 weeks.

At the end of the study the participants reported reductions in stress, and their responses to a mindfulness questionnaire indicated significant improvements compared to pre-participation responses.

Skeptics may argue, however, that such indicators are somewhat subjective so the Harvard research team went a step further and took pre and post MR images of the participant’s brains so that they could scientifically and objectively analyze if there was any changes to the actual brain.

What they discovered was rather amazing.

Participants who performed this exercise showed increased gray-matter density in the hippocampus, the area of the brain known to be important for learning and memory and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection.

Furthermore, participants who performed this exercise showed decreased gray-matter density in the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that plays an important role in anxiety and stress.

Let me rephrase this in a different way, because sometimes when researchers start throwing weird names like hippocampus and amygdala around, our minds literally shut off and stop listening because we don’t understand the jargon used.

Here’s the much more simplified version of what this study shows in plain English…

Basically… there’s a simple exercise you can do, that can LITERALLY get your body to strengthen the parts of your brain you want to have more “brains” in, like the part of the brain that helps you LEARN and REMEMBER STUFF…. while simultaneously decreasing the strength of the part of your brain that makes you feel ANXIOUS and STRESSED OUT.

Think of it like going to the gym and lifting weights to strengthen your muscles, except with this exercise you strengthen your BRAIN not your muscles.

Have you ever seen that movie called Limitless?

In the movie, the protagonist gets his hands on a new drug that changes his brain and allows him to LEARN FASTER, REMEMBER BETTER and it gives him MORE CONFIDENCE (ie. less stress and anxiety).

Remember that?

Do you remember how awesome that dude become after taking that drug?

He went from being broke, depressed and miserable to being rich, confident and fulfilled.

Now… as far as we know, there’s no such drug out there.  (Although I’m sure someone is working on it. :) )

But follow along for a second here…

… because what I’m trying to explain to you is that you don’t need a drug.

Harvard has proven that we already have the ability to RESHAPE our brains and make them able to learn things faster and to remember better, while simultaneously removing stress and anxiety so that we are more confident.

What Harvard won’t tell us – however – is what this secret exercise is!

I’m just kidding… they reveal the exercise.

It’s something so simple, and so easy, and so common that the majority of people will completely ignore it.

Skeptics may even make fun of you for thinking that this exercise actually does something.

But science doesn’t lie.

The exercise that Harvard got those participants to do was meditation.

Yup… meditation.

Crazy, eh?

I have an incredibly good memory when it comes to remembering things and I’m one of the fastest learners I know.

I’ve also been doing meditation at least a few times a week for 19 years, and almost on a daily basis for the last 10 years.

I journal, and I meditate all the time.

Do you?

Would you like to learn how I do my meditations?

Comment below and let me know.

(Source: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/ )

Dr. Bernstein Diet – Day 1

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In yesterday’s weight loss challenge update post, I promised that today I would reveal my new diet.

So here we go…

The diet I started today is the Dr. Bernstein diet.

The Bernstein diet is essentially a combination of the following:

  • A calorie reduced diet based on tracking portions of proteins, vegetables, breads and fruits
  • An accountability system with 3x/week visits to the clinic
  • Monitoring of your progress by a doctor to customize the diet to your specific needs / situation
  • A 2-phase diet approach with a short-term “weight loss diet” followed by a long term “maintenance diet”
  • A support system to help you stay on track

The first time I heard about the Bernstein diet was when a co-worker of mine went on it years ago and lost a lot of weight in a very short period of time.

Back then I was just getting started on my advanced nutrition diploma studies so I didn’t really look into this diet in any great depth since I figured that I would just put together my own diet after completing my studies.

Also, I heard from someone that this diet requires you to go into a doctor’s office three times a week to get some kind of injection, which sounded like some kind of pharmaceutical approach to me which I have no interest in.

I actually have heard of a few other people getting really good results on this diet since then, but my unconscious mind just filtered it out as a possible diet to look at – most probably due to the whole injection thing.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, it was actually my intuition that made me re-consider this diet.

Last week I asked my intuition to show me the diet that it would “green light” for me to go on.

Shortly thereafter I found myself stopped at an intersection, waiting for the red light to turn green.  As soon as the light turned green I looked across the intersection where a bus had just pulled up in front of me.

On the back of that bus was a giant ad for Dr. Bernstein’s Diet & Health Clinic.  As soon as I saw the sign I knew this was my answer.

I was rather surprised by this though, because I had previously misjudged this diet as “crap” without really knowing anything about it.

My intuition was basically saying, “Yup, this is it” while my rational mind was thinking “What?  Really?!  This thing?  Seriously?”

So I went home and started doing a whole bunch of research on it – honestly, more than anything to find something wrong with it. 🙂

But after almost a week of research I found nothing wrong.  In fact, quite the opposite.  I really like this diet!

Dr. Bernstein Diet Costs

During my research, one of the main downsides that people talked about in respect to this diet is the costs associated with going on it.

The cost to go on this diet are approximately $600/month (not including food).

When people first hear about this, they freak out.  I know I was a bit shocked at first as well.

However, there are two main things to consider with this.

Firstly, you can’t just look at the cost of the diet alone.  We must consider how it will affect your food costs as those two things are interlinked.

For example, previous to going on this diet, my typical expenditures for food might look something like this:

  • Breakfast – Skipped
  • Lunch – McDonald’s Big Mac Combo & 4 piece Nuggets – $10 (all $ values are approx)
  • Afternoon Snack – Small Bag of Chips & Pop – $3
  • Dinner – Restaurant Meal & Pop + Tip – $23
  • Late Night Snack – $4

That adds up to $40/day.  Now I don’t eat like this every day, but more often than not I’d be snacking and eating all the time trying to keep up with my cravings.

Junk food is NOT cheap.  Even if my daily food costs aren’t $40/day every day, I do know that sometimes it’s even more than that and other days it might be $30.

Let’s say that it’s $35/day average.  That’s approx $1,000/month for food, soft drinks etc.

Now, when you stop eating crap like that, and  you start cooking your meals at home, things get a lot less expensive.

After briefly looking at the Bernstein diet menu, I would estimate that it will cost me less than $10/day for food.

So really, I will be saving approximately $25/day in food costs, which comes out to $750/month.

What that means is that if my estimates above are correct, I will actually be saving $150/month by going on this diet.

Secondly, even if you’re not spending $35/day on food (even though I think a lot of people do but are in denial about it), we also have to consider the fact that this diet is NOT a long term diet.

The $600/m costs are only there during the “weight loss” phase of the diet, which may only last a few months.

The average weight loss that people experience on this diet is around 0.75lbs/day.  That means that you can lose around 20lbs in one month.

If you’re 40lbs overweight, that means you could potentially lose that weight in just 2 months.

And here’s the thing.  Once you lose the weight, and go on the “maintenance” phase of the diet, your costs for the diet drop but your savings continue – hopefully for the rest of your life.

So the way I see it, for anyone who is currently eating crap food at home, or at restaurants, this diet will not cost you anything.  In fact it will save you money.  Short term you’ll probably break even on your total food/diet costs.  But long term you’ll probably save a LOT of money.

What About the Injections?

As I mentioned above, when I first heard about this diet I was turned off by the idea that you have to go in and get injections 3x/week.

The reason for this is because I thought this was some kind of drug or hormone or some other unnatural thing they were using to promote the rapid weight loss.

After I did some research though I found out that it’s nothing more than Vitamins B6 & B12.

The program promotes supplementing your diet with multivitamins and minerals.  Most of the vitamins you can take in a capsule form.  However, for the B6 & B12 vitamins which are especially beneficial for the body during weight loss – it is much more efficient to administer them as an injection, instead of orally.  That’s all.

I haven’t done enough research yet on just how much more efficient Vitamin B is as an injection versus taken orally, but either way I’m sure there’s some benefit to it.

So while on this diet, as you go into the clinic three times per week to do your weigh-ins and to go over your meal plans and urine tests, they do the Vitamin B6/B12 injection as well.  It takes 3 seconds and is relatively painless.  No biggie.

My First Appointment

For now I’m not going to bother diving into how the diet works, or the theories behind it or how it compares to other diets.

Instead I’d rather describe what it’s like to get started on this diet for anyone who decides to try it out.

The diet starts with a 1.5 hour consultation.  The consultation was split into three parts.

When I first got there with my pre-filled “New Patient Forms” (they send them to you before), the lady entered all my information into their computer systems to create my account.

The initial 1.5 hour consultation is $315, which pays for your “Starter Kit” and your first week’s worth of visits & injections.  As part of going onto this diet, once you reach your target weight loss goal, you will be placed onto the “Maintenance Diet”.  As part of your initial fee, you also receive one month free of the “Maintenance Diet” (including visits and injections).

After this initial consultation, it costs approximately $150/week for your three visits, injections and doctor’s consults.

From my understanding, some extended health plans do cover a portion of this diet.

After creating my account in their system, the first part of the consultation is you basically reviewing your medical history with the nurse.

Since mine was relatively simple, this was a short visit.  Some people do bring in a whole bunch of medications they are currently taking, so I’m sure those might be discussed during this time.

The nurse takes your blood pressure and asks some specific questions related to your weight, diet, previous weight loss attempts etc.

Once that is done, you then go into a room where there is a group session with the nurse.

During mine there were three other people besides me joining the program that day.

The group session basically goes over everything in your “Starter Kit”, teaches you the basics of the diet, what to eat, what to drink and gives you the opportunity to ask any specific questions you might have.

Since I did a whole bunch of research on the diet ahead of time, a lot of what was covered was pretty basic for me, but I can see how this part of the session would be very helpful to those who know nothing about the diet going in.

Once the group session is over, you once again have a private consult with the nurse where you have an opportunity to ask any questions you didn’t ask during the group session and you are then given your first Vitamin B6/B12 injection.

The other thing they do while you’re there is take your starting weight, height and set a two-week goal for you.

My starting weight today was 213.8 lbs (with clothes, but no shoes) and my two-week goal is between 203.8 lbs – 206.8 lbs which is basically a weight loss of 7-10lbs in 2 weeks.

We’ll have to wait and see what happens.

The Diet Itself

The diet itself is pretty simple to follow, compared to other diets I’ve followed in the past.

The “Starter Kit” comes with a recipe book full of recipes you can eat on the diet.

dr bernstein diet

Your available food choices are broken down into proteins, vegetables, fruit and bread alternatives.

You eat 2 servings from each group.  However, the servings for each food group are different.

For example, 1 serving of protein is 3.5 oz (100g) but 1 serving of vegetables is 8oz (230g).  So even though you’re eating 2 servings of each, you’re eating more than double the amount of vegetables.

There are so many different ways to put together diets.  Some diets use calories to track things, others portions, and others create a “points” system.

I kind of like how this diet just tells you what a serving size is for each food group and then you just eat 2 servings.  It’s pretty simple.

Also, I’ve been on other diets before where pretty much all fruit was “banned” off the diets.

With this diet you get 2 servings of fruit per day, which I think is pretty cool.

The Sugar Monster

I’ve done enough diets now to know all about the “Sugar Monster”.

What is the “Sugar Monster” you ask?  Well, it’s pretty simple.

We’re all addicted to sugar / simple carbs.

Unless you’ve specifically gone through and eliminated your sugar / simple carb addiction, then you’re addicted.

Sugar is more addictive than cocaine.

Nobody believes me the first time I tell them that, but it’s true.

When you stop eating sugar for just a few hours, you begin to exhibit sugar withdrawl symptoms.

A lot of us associate those symptoms with being hungry, but that is not the case.  When you go through sugar withdrawl, you aren’t hungry – you’re going through withdrawl.

Your stomach can be completely full of non-sugar food, and you’ll still feel what you might associate as “hunger”.

Sugar cravings kick in within a few hours of your last sugar fix.

They progressively get worse and usually peak around the 30-48 hour mark.

If you can survive those first two days without any sugar, you beat your addiction.

Most people can’t though… because when you first go through it, it feels like you’re going to freak out and die.

I remember the first time I confronted my Sugar Monster.  After about 10 hours of eating no sugar I started to freak out.  My stomach was full because I had just eaten some soup, but I felt “hungry”.

It wasn’t real hunger though, it was the Sugar Monster.

People laugh when I tell them this, but only until they try to do it themselves.

The tricky thing with getting past the Sugar Monster is that the best and fastest way to win is to stop eating all sugar.

The worst thing you can do is to start the process and then to give in and eat some sugar after a day or so.  That just restarts the whole process.

Anyway, with any diet I go on nowadays I pretty much expect that the first two days of eating no sugar are going to be hell and then after that things get easier.

Today was my first day and even though the Sugar Monster did show up, I didn’t let him beat me.

I know these sugar cravings will only last a few days, but the benefits of losing this weight will be with me forever.

Where to From Here

Since it’s my first day on the diet I don’t have much to report except my experience from Day 1.

I did a full set of body measurements and took some pictures so that I can track my before/after results on this diet.

I’ll add them to my body transformation page and I’ll probably do weekly updates on my weight there – in addition to my weight loss challenge updates.

Who else has been on this diet?  Anyone else thinking about going on it?

How to Get Out of Debt Using Law of Attraction

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Two days ago I woke up in the morning with an unusual thought.

“What is debt?”

I really have no idea where this thought came from, especially being my first thought upon awakening, but I just lay there for a few minutes and let things flow.

“What is debt, from an energy point of view?”

“What is the real feeling / vibration behind debt?”

“What vibration / feeling do we put out to the universe at the levels of pure energy to manifest debt in the physical form in our lives?”

I was able to refine the question to be more specific and clear, as I know clarity is very important.

“Non-Deservingness.”

That’s the answer I got.

I lay there thinking about this for a minute and it was very clear to me.

We manifest debt in our lives when we are feeling un-deserving at the deepest levels.

It’s almost as if our subconscious mind keeps a tally of everything we’ve GOTTEN from the world, and everything we’ve GIVEN to the world, and if we feel like we’ve GOTTEN more than we’ve GIVEN, then we feel un-deserving.

For example, let’s say that you’ve been working at a job for some time and over time you’ve become somewhat lazy at work, just barely putting in enough work not to get fired.

Really the challenge is that you’re no longer inspired to be doing that kind of work, but you’re too lazy to figure out what you are inspired to do or to make any effort towards doing it.  So you make your daily trip to work to put in your hours, but really you don’t want to be there, so your work reflects that.

Your subconscious begins to catch on to the fact that you’ve been playing Minesweeper instead of working when the boss isn’t looking so it begins to eat away at your self esteem.

Every time you receive a paycheck your subconscious is saying “We don’t deserve this!  We’ve been slackin!” while your conscious mind is saying “If they only paid me what I should be getting paid by now, then I would work way harder.”

You justify your mediocre performance with complaints about your pay, but your subconscious mind isn’t buying it.

Deep down, your feelings of undeservingness begin to grow, even though you’d never admit it to anyone.

As you project that vibration / energy / feeling of underservingness to the universe, it begins to manifest itself in your physical world as increased debt.

You try to drown your feelings by going to the electronics store to look at the newest big screen TV’s they have on sale this week.  As you stand there in the store, you know you can’t afford the TV.  Maybe if you got a raise at work you could afford it, but that bastard boss of yours hasn’t given you a raise in a long time.  So, you decide to treat yourself and end up buying a big screen TV, a Blueray DVD player and a Surround Sound System on your credit card.

While you’re in the store, the adrenaline kicks in, your dopamine receptors are in overdrive and you start to feel euphoria.  Your conscious mind screams “Why not?  I deserve this dammit!” while your subconscious mind is silently repeating “We don’t deserve this.  We don’t deserve this.  We don’t deserve this.”

The next day you wake up feeling crappy, wondering why in the world you blew all that money on your new home theater package when you clearly know you can’t afford it right now.

In a panic, you storm into your bosses office and demand a raise because it’s been over 6 months since your last raise.  Reluctantly he agrees, but points out that your performance hasn’t been exactly the greatest lately.  You agree to improve.

Of course as soon as you leave his office, your subconscious is once again screaming “We don’t deserve this raise!” while your conscious mind tries to justify things with promises of improved performance.

Improved performance lasts about a week, but it quickly diminishes as your stress at home keeps growing along with your debts.  Just days after your home theater purchase, your car all of a sudden had engine trouble which ended up costing $900 to fix, you got a speeding ticket for $300 and your latest credit card statement came in with hundreds of dollars in charges you totally forgot you made.  Your debts just skyrocketed.

This is the cycle of continuous “undeservingness.”

You can’t out-earn this cycle.  The more money you try to make with the same efforts, the more debt you get into because your subconscious screams “I don’t deserve this!” louder and louder.

Retail therapy (aka shopping) doesn’t help either.  It feels good for a few moments as your adrenaline kicks in for doing something “bad” and triggers a dopamine release in the brain, but it’s short lived and now you’re left with more debt.  No amount of shoes, purses, clothing, shiny toys, cars, electronics, trips, or romantic evenings at a restaurant will make you feel any better.  In fact, the more you try to solve this problem using these methods the worst it gets!

You can’t cheat your subconscious mind this way, no more than you can convince it to allow you to hold your breath indefinitely.

The Solution

The only way to stop attracting more debt into your life is to stop your subconscious mind from broadcasting the energy of “I don’t deserve what I have in life!”

To do that you need to get to be bottom of what’s making you feel undeserving.

Here are three examples in which feeling undeserving may appear in your life:

  1. Feelings of depression in one area of your life caused you to seek out shopping as a way to temporarily feel happy and fill the void.  Shopping for things you can’t afford on credit increases your feelings of undeservingness.  Debts increase as a result.
  2. Your job situation or work conditions improve.  You get a raise, change career paths, or even find the job of your dreams.  You are now making more money than ever before in your life, and you enjoy the work you do, however your beliefs growing up were that making money is hard and work should be hard, so subconsciously you’re feeling guilty and undeserving of your new-found career path and income level.  Debts increase as a result.
  3. You get laid off.  Economic conditions force your boss to lay you off.  Your Ego takes it personally and labels you as a loser that “didn’t make the cut“.  Deep down you start feeling like you don’t deserve the job you had, or the money you were making.  This makes it harder to find another job, as you now believe that you don’t even deserve any job.  Debts increase as a result.

As you can see “undeservingness” can manifest itself as a results of events we would label as “positive” (getting a raise for example), just as easily as a result of events that we would label as “negative” (getting laid off for example).  It’s not the event itself that dictates whether we feel more undeserving – it’s our interpretation of the event.

Even if you can’t pin-point exactly where and why you’re feeling undeserving, just be aware that all feelings of “undeservingness” are a result of your subconscious mind believing that you’ve GOTTEN more than you’ve GIVEN.

There are several ways to change this:

  1. Change your subconscious perceptions of how much you’ve GIVEN.
  2. Change your subconscious perceptions of how much you’ve GOTTEN.
  3. Change your subconscious programming on how much value what you GIVE is worth.
  4. Change your subconscious programming on how much you deserve to GET for what you GIVE.
  5. Begin immediately GIVING more.
  6. Begin immediately GETTING less .
  7. Combinations of any / all of the above.

Changing Your Subconscious Perceptions of How Much You’ve Given

Most people are conditioned to count certain things they do in life as being valuable, while other things as not being valuable.  For example, one person would not count playing three hours of video games as being valuable to the world.  Meaning, after a three hour gaming session they don’t get out of their chair and think to themselves “I just gave three hours worth of value to the world.”

However, a person who is a game tester or a game reviewer does consider that valuable.  They play a game for three hours and then demand to get paid for it!  It’s all just perceptions.

The trick is to look at all you do in life and re-classify things.  Most of us take things that come easy to us for granted and don’t count them as “giving”.

That alone can totally kill your plans to make money doing what you love.  If you don’t consider any work that you enjoy doing as “real work”, then every time you engage in such work you’ll consider it as not valuable.

This is why it’s so hard for most people to do what they love.  It’s not because it’s so hard to make money doing the thing that they enjoy doing.  It’s because they themselves don’t value their own work because it’s so easy for them and so much fun.

A person who enjoys cooking for example, will often discount preparing a delicious meal as an act of “Giving”.  In most cases they won’t even accept praise from the people who enjoyed the meal.  They’ll say something like “Oh, it was nothing.” When someone suggests that they should start their own catering business, or do cooking classes, they never take the suggestions seriously because they don’t believe anyone would actually pay them for cooking, since it’s so easy and fun for them.

After all, we all know that we shouldn’t get paid for things that are easy and fun, right?

Come on, look around.  How many people do you know in your life that are amazing at doing something, yet they work at a job doing something else.  Their excuse is that they can’t make money doing what they love, yet another person in the same town is making a killing doing just that.  Of course that person isn’t even that good at doing that thing, his real passion lies somewhere else. :)

Start to question your perceptions of what you’ve given.  Think about all the times you’ve lent a helping hand, or helped a friend move.  What about all the times you’ve made someone smile or offered some sage advice to someone in need.  Re-evaluable your perceptions.

Changing Your Subconscious Perceptions of How Much You’ve Gotten

A lot of times at the same time as we discount our own efforts, we condition our subconscious minds to believe that we’ve already gotten so much out of life.

We say things like “Oh, that person saved my life!” or “If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know what I would have done!”, how do we expect our subconscious mind to interpret that?

If someone lends you $50 and you tell your subsconscious mind “He saved my life!“, it’s going to count that as a huge debt you can never repay.

I’m not saying not to be grateful.  What I’m saying is to stop over exaggerating when you GET something and ignoring whenever you GIVE something.

The universe always preserves equilibrium.  If someone gives you a gift, you may feel that they’ve given you something but you haven’t given them anything back.  That is incorrect.  You accepting the gift may have made them feel happy.  It may have relieved some guilt they had from the past.  The satisfaction of seeing you smile may have brightened their day.

When I go to the store and buy my puppy Zoe a bone, and I bring it home and give it to her, she goes nuts.  She starts wagging her tail, she’s all excited and parades around the house with it.  Can you not see that by giving her the bone I get something back in return from seeing her all excited and happy?  It’s an equal transaction.  Stop assuming that money is the only form of value exchange.

Once again I’m not saying not to be grateful or to feel like you should always be “getting” without every giving anything in return.  All I’m pointing out is that most people have a slanted perception here.  They value others time more than they value their own.  They value getting love from someone (in whichever form) more than they value giving their own love (in whichever form).

Changing Your Subconscious Programming on How Much Value What You GIVE is Worth

Does a $700/hour lawyer work twice as hard as a $350/hour lawyer?

Does a $150/hour web designer work 10x as hard as a $15/hour web designer?

Is a smile or a hug from you worth less than a smile from Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt?

Who decides these things?  Do you really think the Universe values your love less than someone else’s just because they’re famous?  Get real.

There is only one person that determines the value of what you give is worth.  You see them staring back at you in the mirror all the time.

Change your subconscious programming on how much you deserve to GET for what you GIVE

Sometimes we encounter people who do so much and ask for so little.  At first this feels good because we feel like we’ve finally found a person that genuinely cares about what they do.

However, pretty soon we start to feel guilty, especially when they refuse to accept our appreciation.  Ever try to pay someone for a job well done and they refuse to take your money?

Ever try to compliment someone and they refuse to accept it?  They leave and you feeling miserable and rejected.  You feel like there’s this debt you owe them.

Pretty soon you end up finding someone else to work with because you don’t want to feel like that anymore.  And the person wonders why you no longer want their services.  They conclude that they didn’t do enough, so they work even harder for the next person they encounter, and accept even less, and the cycle continues.

Fair Exchange

The above four examples all revolve around one thing.  The concept of “Fair Exchange”.

Fair exchange simply means not trying to GET more than you GIVE, or trying to GIVE more than you GET.

Of course there is no universal law of what things are worth, so the only real way we can assume “fair exchange” has taken place is to charge and pay market prices.

In other words, charge what the market will bear.  It doesn’t matter if the service you’re providing is fun for you to do.  Undercharging screws everything up, as does overcharging.

At the same time, pay what the market demands.  Don’t try to drive harsh bargains at every turn.  I’m not saying not to negotiate, but also don’t try to thrive on the feeling of thinking you just GOT more than you paid for.  What energy / feeling / vibration do you feel that results in?  More undeservingness!

You save $200 by driving a harsh bargain with someone who is already undercharging for their services, and magically your debts increase by $500 the same week.

Begin immediately GIVING more.

Assuming you’re not undervaluing or overvaluing what you’re GIVING or GETTING, the obvious next step to increasing your subconscious level of “Deservingness” is to start GIVING more to the world!

Stop feeling depressed and sorry for yourself and your growing debt situation, and start GIVING!

Find your inspiration and express it.

Sometimes when we’re hurting for money we get stuck in this rut of trying to figure out what we can do to make more money, and we ignore all the opportunities that present themselves to us just because we don’t think those opportunities will result in a paycheck.

For example, you’re an amazing artist and someone at work asks you if you know anyone who can draw a portrait for them.  You know you could do it, but you’re too scared to ask for money for doing what you love, so you tell them you don’t know anyone while you desperately try to find some “paid work”.

Just start giving.  Giving in the way that inspires you the most is usually the most potent.  You just have to make sure you value what you give.  Pay attention to how people react when you give to them.  Once you see the joy you bring into people’s lives, your feelings of undeservingness will begin to melt away, and so will your debts.

Begin immediately GETTING less .

At the same time, stop buying crap you don’t need!  You’re not going to prove to your subconscious mind that you deserve that shiny new toy that you don’t even need by buying it on credit.  Rebelling against yourself can give you a temporary adrenaline rush, followed by a dopamine fix, but it’s temporary and in the end you’re left with a house full of crap you don’t need and a crapload of debts that just keep growing.

If the first 37 pairs of shoes didn’t make you happy, trust me, the next 40 pairs won’t either.

Once again, I’m not saying that we don’t deserve to have nice things.  I’m just saying to be aware of the real intention behind the purchase.  Are you buying something because you really want it and really need it, or are you just trying to buy something/anything to try change how you feel in this moment.

Combinations of any / all of the above.

Want the fast-pass to deb freedom?  Get rid of your feelings of undeservingness by combining all of the above.  Change your perceptions, then give more and stop buying useless crap.  Your debts will melt away faster than you ever though possible.

Tracking Your Progress

Nothing inspires people more than seeing progress being made towards a goal.

I’ve taken a popular method of eliminating debts often called “DEBT STACKING”, combined it with an affirmation/ process taught by Abraham/Hicks (Ask and It Is Give – Process #19 – Releasing Resistance to Become Free of Debt) and the insights I’ve taught above and put it all into a spreadsheet which combines all three of these powerful and extremely effective debt elimination strategies.

Here’s what the sheet looks like:

 

Here’s how it works:

(1) Download the spreadsheet here: Excel 2007 Format or Excel 97 – 2003 Format ( Click Save As on Each Link to Save To Your Computer )

(2) Open up the spreadsheet.  List your debts in order, from largest to smallest.  So if you own your own home and have a mortgage, and that is your largest debt, then place that in the first row of debts.  Change the name from “Debt #1″ to “Home Mortgage” for example.  Change the dollar amount to the outstanding balance of your mortgage.  If you don’t know the exact amount, it’s time to find out.  You need to stop hiding from your debts, and this spreadsheet will help you track and eliminate your debts.

Lets say that your next biggest debt is a student loan you have for $40,000.  Change “Debt #2″ to “Student Loan” and enter in the amount you owe in the “Total Balance” column.

Do this for all of your outstanding debts, listing them from largest to smallest.  Don’t miss anything.  If you owe $40 on your last cell phone bill, put that in.  If you owe $10 to someone for lunch, put that in.

Once you’ve listed all of your debts from largest to smallest, enter in any debts that you have outstanding amounts on.  For example if you have a credit card with $2,000 on it, and your minimum payment is $150, but you missed your payment last month, enter in $150 under “Overdue Balance” and $300 under “Minimum Payment”.

Once you’ve done that, enter in the date that your next payment is due for each debt.  For mortgages, enter in the date of your next mortgage payment, etc.

Now you have a clear picture of all of your debts, from largest to smallest.

You also now have a total of all of your debts, outstanding balances and your minimum monthly payments.

Whatever that “Minimum Monthly Payments” column says is the minimum you’re paying monthly on your debts right now.  Take note of this amount.  In the example above it’s $3,813.00/month.

(3) Now here’s what you do.  You look at your smallest debt.  In the example above the smallest debt is “Debt #17″ which is a debt for $54.  Let’s assume this is a $54 balance you have on your cell phone bill.  When it comes time to pay this bill, pay double the minimum payment or pay off the debt completely, whichever is less.

In the example above, the debt is $54 and the minimum monthly payment is also $54 so there is no need to pay double the minimum payment since the total debt is only $54.  In this case you would just pay the $54 and clear the debt.

Now, here’s the trick.  Since you’ve just paid off that $54 debt, your next month’s “Minimum Payment Due” (assuming you don’t add on any more debt) will be $54 less than it was before, right?

So instead of $3,813 for example it may  now be $3,759.  Most people would now take that extra $54/m they have after paying off that debt and spend it on something else the following month.  You don’t want to do that.

Instead, keep your minimum monthly payment at $3,813 (or more if you wish of course), and just apply the extra $54 you now have towards your next debt.

Let’s fast forward a few months to illustrate how this works.  Lets say that in the example above we’ve paid off Debts #17, #16, #15, and #14.  They weren’t huge debts and the minimum monthly payments paid them off in just a few months.

Well, now we have an extra $54 + $54 + $85 + $50 = $243/month in our debt reduction budget while still only paying $3,813/m total.  What you do then is you take that $243 and apply it to the next biggest debt.  In our case that would probably pay off Debt #13 completely as well as put a dent in Debt #12.  Once you pay off Debt #12, you add yet another $40/m you used to pay towards it to your next debt.  Now you’re accelerating your debts by an extra $243 + $40 = $283/month.

If you keep going this way you’ll pay off your debts a LOT quicker.  You could get to the point where you’re actually doubling up on your mortgage payments (if you wish) and getting that paid down faster.

(4) At the end of each month, take the total # of debts you have and the total debt amount and record it in the “Track Record” table.  This will show you a month-to-month track record of how much you’re paying off on your debts.  A lot of times we pay our debts every month but because we never really add them up, we don’t realize just how much (or how little) we’re paying off each month.  We make all these payments but see no progress because our monthly cash flow situation doesn’t improve, so we get depressed.

If you track your debts accurately, you may be surprised just how much you’re paying off each month.  It may just be enough inspiration to get you to stop spending more money and to accelerate your debt payments.

Don’t underestimate the motivational power of progress tracking.

(By the way.  The “Difference” column calculates the difference from month to month.  As you enter in each months total, copy and paste the cell above in the difference column to get an automatic calculation.  You can also select the last months cell in the difference column as well as this months cell and click “CTRL-D” to copy down.)

(5) As your bills come in every month, add them into your tracker immediately.  As you pay your bills, update your tracker as well.  This will give you much greater awareness of your situation.  Don’t be afraid to call your creditors and ask them what your exact balance is right now for any debts you have that don’t give you regular statements.

(6) Read the affirmations at the top and bottom of the spreadsheet every time you go in there to update a bill.  As you pay off your bills from smallest to largest, your subconscious mind will start to broadcast a totally different frequency which will help you make more money and pay off your debts even faster.

I know it may seem like a good idea to try to pay your biggest, highest interest debts first, and that is what everyone tries to do, but it doesn’t work.  Pay the smallest debts off first as that will build momentum for you.  Once you pay off some of your smaller debts you’ll start to feel better.  That will attract more money to you and the cycle of success continues.

Final Words

I know this is a long post.  I spent over four hours writing it and creating the Excel spreadsheet.  If you’re in debt, I would highly encourage you to read the post in its entirety and apply the techniques I described along with the spreadsheet.

Even if you don’t believe in some of the more “woo woo” stuff I talked about above in terms of Law of Attraction and energy and vibration, the strategy used in the spreadsheet will work anyways.

However, if you are one of those skeptical people who labels things like the Law of Attraction as “woo woo” stuff, ask yourself – How is your current strategy working for you?

If the state of most people’s growing debts is any indication, probably not too good right?

Why not just try it?

How to Make a Scorpio Happy

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Just for fun, today I decided to write a quick little post on how to make a Scorpio happy.  I’m not really an expert in astrology or anything like that, but I am a Scorpio and I know what makes me happy so I think that automatically qualifies me as an expert.  🙂

Firstly, Scorpio’s pride themselves in being sexy and determined, and those are our favorite compliments we like to hear.  We’re not stubborn, we’re “determined”.  There’s a difference there, and if you want to make a Scorpio happy, compliment them on their determination and perseverance.  Don’t bother arguing with us, since we’re determined to win the fight so you’re in for a long battle.  Plus you’ll lose, and then neither of us will be happy.

The second thing you need to know about Scorpio’s is that when we want to tell you something about ourselves, we’ll share it with you openly.  However, if we don’t want to talk about something we are masters of being aloof and not disclosing any information that we don’t want you to know so don’t bother trying to pry as that just annoys us.  You won’t get anything out of us anyways, so don’t waste your time – or ours.  To make us happy, listen when we’re trying to tell you something and don’t pry when we don’t want to talk about it.

Scorpio’s have a cool outer shell that can sometimes be mistaken by others as being uncaring.  That is simply not true.  Inside, Scorpio’s are very fiery and passionate and we deeply care for those who we love, and we expect the same back.  We are very demanding of ourselves and others, so if you want to make a Scorpio happy, always do your best.  We don’t expect you to be perfect, but at least try your best.  We can smell a half-assed effort a mile away.

We are very loyal in our loving relationships, and we expect you to be loyal as well so keep that in mind when getting into a relationship with us.  We are the strong, silent types with magnetic personalities and have no problems making friends.  Scorpio’s will make friends wherever they go, if they decide to open up and let their energy be known.  Don’t be jealous of us, we’re master hypnotists and we can make people love us quite easily.  You have your gifts, we have ours.

Never try to push a Scorpio to do anything.  We are not the type that can be pushed around. We will not back down, and if you push too hard be prepared to feel the sting of the Scorpio.  Don’t mistake our silent, cool nature for weakness as when provoked we will turn it into a battle and you will lose in body, mind and spirit. If you want to get a Scorpio to happily do something for you, present it us as an opportunity and clearly state how it’s in our best interest to do so.  In other words, you’ll have to bribe us.  🙂

Scorpio’s are hard workers, so if you really want to make us happy find a way to help us with our work.  Scorpio’s are very aware of their dark and light side, and aren’t afraid of their dark side.  Our work keeps us out of trouble and often focused on the light side, so if you think you’re going to get a Scorpio to slow down and stop working for a while – be prepared to see our dark side.

Finally, Scorpio’s are very capable of handling a lot of challenges in life simultaneously so we will often seek that out in life.  Don’t freak out – we usually have everything under control.  Trust that we will get everything done in its perfect time.  Once in a while, however, we will overload ourselves and that’s when the bomb drops.  If you see us running and yelling “RUN!”, please don’t ask why – just run!

For gifts we like money, women like precious shiny things and guys like electronic shiny things usually with blue lights.  Also, for some reason we all seem to like the color red.  Blood red to be exact.

Follow these tips and you’ll make the Scorpio in your life very happy.