OptimaLife Coaching

In my last newsletter, I explained why becoming resonant with your intentions and desires before they have shown up is a powerful approach to accelerating the manifestation or attraction process. You can read last month’s article here.

This month, I’d like to focus in on one specific aspect of the resonance process. Here is a bit of what I wrote about last month:

"When you are not fully aligned and resonant with an intention or desire, there are inner conflicts present (often unconscious) which are causing a lack of resonance within you. The inner conflicts are things like: fear, doubt, conflicting beliefs, and conflicting habitual thought patterns. In general, the inner conflicts are the resistance to moving forward -- that seemingly invisible force field that can stop you in your tracks.

"When you are fully resonant with an intention or desire, there are zero inner conflicts present. Getting people fully resonant with their intentions and desires is what I specialize in. This process can produce fast, stunning results and can greatly accelerate the manifestation of anything you want to be, do or have."

This month, I’d like to focus on what is arguably the most powerful factor within you that is determining nearly everything about who and what shows up in your life, what life experiences you have and your quality of life in all respects.

This internal factor is the beliefs that you hold. All of us are holding many beliefs about a wide range of topics. We believe things about ourselves, about other people (people in general, specific people,) about how the world is, about how life works, about what is best for us, etc. We all have quite a large number of beliefs on a vast number of topics.

One way to describe what a belief is, is to say that it is simply a practiced or habitual thought. It’s a thought that you have thought many times. The more you think the thought, the stronger the thought becomes until eventually, it is “true” for you. Then it is a belief.

Your unconscious mind is constantly looking to gather more evidence and support for your beliefs (kind of like a search engine scanning the web.) This process is going on 24/7, with your unconscious mind scanning the present moment for anything that will support your currently held beliefs. When some new supportive information is detected, your conscious mind is alerted and your attention is drawn to this information so that you can take notice of it. This new evidence then adds power and strength to your belief because once again, you conclude that your belief must be true, since you continue to find more and more evidence to support it.

We all have beliefs that serve us, moving us forward toward the life we’d like to live, helping us create the relationships, events and circumstances that we desire. This is the upside of what beliefs can do for us.

However, we also have beliefs that do not serve us, that hold us back, that limit us, that keep us from living our true potential or ideal life. In these latter cases, beliefs act as “boxes” which confine or limit us. It feels very uncomfortable to think, speak or act in ways that are “outside of the box” of the belief. This is where beliefs have the power to significantly interfere and get in the way. Often the resistance you feel about moving forward toward a goal or intention is simply the uncomfortable feeling of pushing up against the walls of the “box” of some conflicting belief.

Let’s look at an example and see how this works. In my sessions with clients, I frequently run across the limiting belief, “I’m not worthy or deserving of _______” (you can fill in this blank with things like money, a good relationship, happiness, and so on)” This is an extremely common belief. It usually gets “installed” at some point during childhood, and over time it gains strength and then eventually goes completely unconscious. Once a belief goes unconscious (much the same way any habit goes unconscious,) we generally lose track of it and don’t notice that it’s even in there. But, just because we don’t notice it, doesn’t mean the belief is not activated. It is definitely active and our unconscious mind is seeking to constantly strengthen and validate the belief.

So, a person who has this type of underlying belief is likely going to get in their own way whenever they try to improve in whatever area(s) that the belief is active. Basically, the belief acts like an internal saboteur.

Let’s say this person is trying to start a business or create financial prosperity, and their belief says they don’t deserve to have that. The result is that they’ll likely start having thoughts like, “Maybe I’m not worthy or deserving of this level of financial success – what am I thinking?! I need to go back to my old job and stop trying to be more than what I am.” What usually follows is a series of conscious or unconscious actions that will impede or prevent them from achieving the level of financial success that they dreamed of. This is the “invisible force field” effect.

When they try to have a relationship with someone who exhibits all of the qualities that they desire in an ideal partner, but the belief states they don’t deserve to have that, then conflicting thoughts will soon be playing in their head. “What am I thinking? I must be nuts! I can’t be with someone this great! This person is way out of my league and I know it. I need to go back to the last guy/girl I was with, even though they didn’t respect me or treat me well, because that’s what I really deserve and that’s the best I’m ever going to get.” Ouch!

When they try to lose a few pounds and get their body into great shape, the belief will be there again with it’s usual diatribe, “Who do I think I am?! I can’t compete with the other fit bodies out there. I’ll never get anywhere with this. I’ve been overweight for years, and I can’t change this now. I need to just give it up already. It’s not worth the effort. I don’t deserve to look that great!”

Those are examples of how just one limiting belief can get in the way. This can happen with every one of your limiting beliefs. However, most often, this process is much less obvious than what these examples suggest. A limiting belief can exert powerful control over you in subtle and insidious ways, causing you to think, say and do things that are in perfect alignment with the belief but in direct conflict with who you really are or what you’d like to do or have in your life.

I hope you’re beginning to understand how this process works and gaining some insight into why certain aspects of your life have been derailed in the past despite your best efforts. Can you see how the presence of conflicting beliefs can totally undermine you?

Several months ago, I came across a great quote by Mike Dooley, speaker, author and owner of www.tut.com

“If you want to live your dreams, simply align your beliefs with your dreams.”

When I first heard that idea, I thought, “Wow, could it really be that easy?” The experience I’ve had of working with this idea over the past several months has proven to me that it does work. In fact, it works extremely well.

This quote points to why I call beliefs the “cruise controls of your life.” Imagine for a moment what your life would be like if you held only those beliefs that totally served you and that were constantly pulling you toward your intentions and desires. Your life would become a lot more easy and effortless, much the same way driving your car becomes more easy and effortless when you use the cruise control setting.

Remember, beliefs are acting 24/7 with your unconscious mind constantly searching for evidence to support your beliefs and bringing your conscious attention to anything that fits that criteria and adds further strength and power to your beliefs. Imagine how great it would be if you had this unconscious process working completely to your advantage, all the time!

I have dozens of beliefs that I am resonant with that continually pull me toward my goals and desires. Here are a few examples:

“I have an ever-increasing flow of wealth, prosperity and abundance.”
“I frequently receive large sums of money from known and unknown sources.”
“I always feel connected to God’s love and flowing energy.”
“I am always easily at peace with everyone and everything in my experience.”
“I easily and effortlessly attract a steady flow of ideal clients.”
“I always thoroughly enjoy the time I spend with my children.”
“I always easily see the perfection in everyone and everything.”
“I make decisions from inner knowing and total clarity.”

All of these statements are true for me. In other words, I am 100% resonant with every statement on that list and there are zero barriers or obstacles present. On a daily basis, my conscious attention gets drawn to the evidence of these beliefs (and about 200 others that I’m resonant with) unfolding and manifesting into my experience. These statements are actually becoming more and more true for me as I live into them each day. It’s a beautiful thing to behold!

Just in case you’re wondering, it’s not even necessary to read these statements every day. That process is used with affirmations, but affirmations are very different from resonance statements. Affirmations are statements that are used to over-ride the barriers and obstacles in an attempt to become fully resonant. The reason affirmations have to be repeated so much is that the internal resistance (conflicting beliefs, fears, doubts) to the affirmation is still present and must be overcome in order for the subject of the affirmation to begin to manifest.

In my own experience, I found that affirmations were very hit or miss. They often didn’t seem to work, or they took a very long time to work. In contrast, the resonance approach works very fast. I can typically get anyone resonant with an intention statement in one session. Clients that have worked with me for awhile are able to get resonant with several statements in one session.

Once you are fully resonant with your intention, it is a good idea to remind yourself of the intention. I recommend to clients that they write down the statements they have become resonant with and look at them before going to bed and/or first thing when they get up. I keep a stack of blue index cards with the statements that I have become resonant with and am in the process of “living into” on my nightstand and I look at them a couple times a week. After awhile, I can feel that the new way of being is solidly in place and that I no longer need to remind myself of it. When that happens, I remove that card from the stack and throw it away.

When you get fully resonant with a statement, it’s like you have just installed a new belief. In order to effectively install the new belief, you need to also delete the old conflicting belief.

This is very similar to installing new software on your computer. You un-install the old software and install the new software and then your computer can do new and exciting things.

When I work with clients and help them identify and resolve the barriers to their intentions and desires, it’s like we are un-installing the limiting beliefs, fears, doubts, and habits and installing a brand new way of being. The client is then able to “live into” this new way of being and literally BE in ways that are new to them, and easily BE in alignment with their intentions and desires.

From the Being flows the Speaking and the Doing, which are also automatically in alignment with their intentions and desires. And, the greatest part of this process is that this all occurs very easily and naturally, without the need for trying, motivating, pushing or working hard. The positive beliefs and the unconscious “cruise control” mechanism do most of the work! You do need to “live into” your new ways of being, and take action in the direction of your intentions and desires. However, I find that just a little action can cause dramatic results. When you are totally aligned, everything gets easier!

If something about this article intrigues you and you’d like to take a closer look at how your life might be impacted by applying this approach, I encourage you to call or email me to set a time to do that. Just having some intellectual understanding of this is sometimes not enough for you to actually “know” if this is something that would benefit you or not. You may also need to have an “experiential” awareness of this in order to be fully clear. Refer to this article for more on that topic.

I invite you to schedule a free "Accelerate Your Success" intro session which can be done over the phone or in person.

Written by Paul Rarick with www.optimalifecoach.com. Distribution of this article is authorized provided author's name and contact information are included.