Are You Leading Life, or Is Life Leading You?

One of the biggest issues I notice people experiencing is the tendency to allow external events in life to affect them, and thereby influence their manifestations.

We have the tendency to believe more in that which is in our outer reality, than that which we experience in inner reality.

The issue is that when you believe in outer reality, you aren’t in a very good position to influence that reality. You are taking it as fact, and so you can’t shape it to your will.

How do you get around this issue? That’s the subject of today’s blog post.

Inertia: The Enemy of Change

Reality tends to want to stay the same. This is the force that I’ve called inertia. I’ve also called this the principle of homeostasis.

Most people, unfortunately, are perfectly willing to allow reality to pull them along in its current inertia. This is being lead by life.

Reality has two primary tools it uses to make inertia so compelling:

1. Outer Reality

Most people believe in outer reality by default. They think that what is out there is the final word on what is possible.

The issue is that when they believe in outer reality, it limits them.

Imagine the average person who is just trying to make their way through life. They run into difficulties here and there. But, do they think that these difficulties are optional? Do they believe that these difficulties can be bypassed?

No, the average person is going to believe 100% in the difficulties. If they run into success, great. But if they run into failure, or challenge of some kind, there’s not much they believe they can do about it, besides direct action, which often won’t go far, as we all know.

Believing in outer reality means that you believe it is necessary to be as it is. You surrender to it, giving up your own desires. Perhaps you can take some action within the framework that life has set up for you, but again, results will be limited at best.

It’s quite literally life-changing when you realize that these things are, indeed, optional. You don’t have to put up with the challenges of life, at least not to the extent you have. That’s not to say that life can be challenge-free, but you can set the course, not simply allowing life to do so according to chance.

Have you thought about the power of this stance?

• Instead of being stuck at a job you hate, you can create the shortest pathway to a job you’re passionate about.
• Instead of putting up with too little money, you can create a life where money is bountiful.
• Instead of giving in to a life of loneliness, you can discover a loving, fulfilling relationship.

In other words, you get a choice in where you want life to go. This is the essence of walking the left-hand path: having a choice about, indeed being the final authority on, who you are and what your life looks like.

If you look around you, do you really think that’s the norm? Most just take what they are given, without questioning it.

When I first got my job a few weeks ago, I was doing some research on suggestions for how to adapt to a full-time work schedule, or at least to see if others had trouble with it as well. I love what I do but working 8 hours a day is a new concept.

Anyway, I read several accounts of people saying something to the effect of, “Well, work stinks, but you get through it then do what you want with the rest of your time.” I was honestly kind of surprised at the cynicism of many people, and that work was just something to get through. I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be able to do what I do if I didn’t enjoy it thoroughly.

But that’s the reality of far too many people.

Why? We could come up with all sorts of theories about economics, the over-abundance of undergraduate degrees, the scarcity of good jobs, etc. But none of that really matters in the long-run.

What really matters is that people don’t know how to lead their lives, and instead they allow their lives to lead them.

2. The Subconscious Mind

As convincing as outer reality can be, it’s really only the effect—the result—of something playing out much deeper beneath the surface.

That is, of course, the subconscious mind.

Though outer reality might seem to be quite real, it is vital to realize that outer reality is really only a projection of the subconscious mind. There can be nothing in outer reality which contradicts your subconscious mind. Per the hermetic principle, “As within, so without; as above, so below,” reality is a direct mirror of the subconscious.

Imagine your dreams at night. At the time, they seem pretty real. But once waking up, you realize that they were really only reflections of whatever was most active in your brain that day.

Outer reality is the same. But, to make the illusion more convincing, consistency must be kept. You live within a bubble of your own creation, but few people realize this fact, nor how to manipulate that personal bubble of reality.

So let’s look at the subconscious mind. It’s an immensely powerful part of your consciousness, controlling about 90% or more of your behavior.

The subconscious mind is inertia central. It’s all about automation. If this weren’t so, you wouldn’t be capable of even a quarter of the things you do on a daily basis. Even something as simple as walking would require immense concentration.

So the subconscious is a good thing. The problem comes in when you have a program stuck in there that is doing something you don’t want.

This is important to realize: the subconscious is not against you. Reality is not against you. It’s just doing exactly what you’ve told it to do, and it’s doing that very well.

If you have a belief like, “Money is hard to earn,” you told your subconscious mind at some point in the past to hold that belief for you. And not only to hold it, but to make that belief true. You now have the “money is hard” program running at full bore, and reality is faithfully manifesting those results externally.

If you’re driving, and you program your GPS to go to Miami, when you really wanted to go to New York City, is it really the GPS’s fault when you eventually arrive in Miami? No, of course not. It’s user error.

Similarly, inertia is not really a bad thing. In fact, it’s a great thing once you have programmed your subconscious mind to get the results you want to get. In other words, once you realize your error and program your GPS for New York City, then it’s a really great thing to have.

The important thing to realize, as I mentioned above, is that when you don’t like outer reality, it’s not the fault of outer reality. It’s just the effect of a much deeper cause: the programs within your subconscious mind.

The choice you get is whether you will just allow your subconscious mind to take you where it has always taken you, or whether you will chart a new course to a new destination.

Enter in Will

You know about will. We’ve discussed will nearly non-stop since I introduced the idea nearly six months ago.

However, the importance of will cannot be overstated. It is by far the most important element of creation.

And the reason is simple: it is will that overcomes inertia. It is will that reasserts your right to create, and forges a pathway for that creation to become reality.

So the first step in overcoming unwanted inertia is simply to will it.

I know that seems simplistic, and in a way, it is. I’m not saying you’ll overcome all subconscious resistance and inertia through will alone. Though, once you become very good at this, that is indeed very possible.

However, will is a very powerful force. Just by setting your will in the direction you want to move, you set up a bit of structural tension between where you are and where you want to be.

Imagine you’re not making very much money. Your current financial situation is an example of inertia, of course.

As long as you are resigned to this being just how life is for you, there’s no structural tension. It’s just what it is, and it will continue to be much the same.

But now imagine that you say something to yourself like, “No, this is not what I want. I want more. I want money to be easy for me, and I want more of it in my life.”

Just saying this isn’t enough to actually get it, of course, but this simple act of will is enough to create tension.

When there’s tension, the subconscious mind won’t rest until it is resolved, and there are only two ways of resolving tension: by dropping the vision of what you want, or by your current subconscious structures being changed enough to support the new goal, and that goal manifesting in your life.

So once you make that act of will, the only question is who’s more stubborn: you or your subconscious structures. That’s why it takes such a strong act of will for big next level goals.

Just doing this will dredge up a lot of old subconscious beliefs and programs for you to deal with. That is when the next tool I’ll describe will come in handy.

Mindfulness: The Best Tool for Dissolving Resistance

I’ve given many tools for dealing with resistance. However, the most versatile among these is mindfulness. The reason is that mindfulness strikes right at the root of these subconscious programs.

Your subconscious mind follows very simple logic when deciding if something is important or not: if it causes an emotional reaction, then it must be important. It doesn’t even matter if that emotion is positive or negative. The more intense the emotion, the more important your subconscious mind believes it is.

The other indicator is repetition. One emotional event will certainly peg its interest, but if it happens repeatedly, then it’ll take it a lot more seriously.

The proof of this is simple. You probably can’t remember exactly what you did exactly ten years ago, on April 23, 2007. If I asked you, for example, what you had for lunch that day, you likely wouldn’t be able to tell me.

But if you think back to some important event, like the day of your wedding, the birth of a child, or something else important to you, you’ll likely remember exactly what happened, how you felt, and what you were thinking, all in incredible detail.

The reason is that this event made an impression on your subconscious mind, so the neural pathways to remember this event are a lot more practiced than for some other random day.

Let’s take again this belief of, “Money is hard to earn.” At some point in the past, you ran into this belief. It may have been through your parents, as you observed their behaviors and the way they talked about money, or it may be from your own experiences in life.

But either way, the events that created this subconscious program were likely emotionally intense. There may have been fear, insecurity, frustration, and more. That’s more than enough to make an impression on your subconscious mind.

And, if it was a pattern for your parents, or even for you, then it likely happened many times. So not only was there intense emotion, but there was repetition as well, the perfect recipe for a new subconscious program.

So why is mindfulness so useful? It short circuits this whole process.

An emotional reaction requires that you believe the thoughts your subconscious mind is presenting you with. But when you use mindfulness, you step out of that whole frame. You just watch as the thoughts happen, but the part of you that could react with intense emotion isn’t present.

Even if there is initial emotion, it will quickly subside, as you simply allow it without further reaction.

Mindfulness robs your subconscious programs of the one thing they need to continue. In a short period of time, assuming you keep this up, they will weaken and eventually be released altogether.

It’s not easy, I get that. It takes incredible self control to not react to these very convincing thoughts. You’ve believed them all your life, and your subconscious mind is very persuasive.

However, it takes practice. This stuff does take work. But, once you get good at separating yourself from your thoughts, then you will be much more effective at short circuiting these programs.

This tool is simple, but it works. We do discuss another very effective tool, called the reality control room, in our new class, The Art of Reality Creation 2.0.

What Is It You Want?

I want to leave you with a very simple question that can help you to get back on track when you are allowing life to lead you.

I’ve been thinking about the changes that will come to Co-Creation Coaching due to my new schedule. I’ve been very conflicted, and unsure where I want to take things.

However, I realized something I was doing that wasn’t helping at all. I was thinking about what I “should” do, what people want me to do, etc. I didn’t want to disappoint my audience.

The one thing I didn’t ask myself was, “What do I want to do?”

I think we do this a lot in life. We do what everyone else wants. We do what we think we “should” do. But, we don’t actually ask that one vital question: “What is it I want?”

When you’re not thinking about what you want out of life, you’re allowing life to take the lead. It’s a very hard habit to break, because we’re so used to doing exactly this.

But what if you made a habit of asking yourself what you want out of this situation?

• Maybe you’re at a gathering you don’t really enjoy, and you’d like to leave. But, you also don’t want to disappoint others. What would you do if you asked yourself, “What is it I want?”
• Maybe you’ve received a job offer, but the job isn’t really what you wanted. You think you might take it, because at least it’s something. But, what would you do if you asked yourself, “What is it I want?”
• Maybe you’re not making much money. You think, “Well, that’s just how it is.” But what would happen if you asked yourself, “What is it I want?”

This question gets you back on track. It doesn’t matter what seems to be possible. It matters what it is you want. When you focus on that, and choose it, then your subconscious mind will forge the pathway to that goal.

But you must be courageous enough to ask that question, first. “Right now, what is it I want?”

Can you imagine the possibilities if you started asking this simple question, and really believed that you could have what you want? There would be no limits. And that, in fact, is how it is supposed to be. You’re supposed to lead your life—to direct the course of life where you want to go.

How About You?

Now it’s your turn. Are you leading your life, or are you allowing life to lead you? What would happen if you asked yourself, “What is it I want?” Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

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