[success] Stopping at limits are for those who lack a well-harnessed imagination. ~ Brandon A Treanyour [/success]
Busily driving along the highway to take my beloved, less than a year old mac, to get some tlc because it’s been squirrelly lately, making funny whirring noises and…oh yes…I didn’t want it to blow up in my face…led to a period of contemplation.
Is that the longest sentence in the world? I’m out of breath just writing it. Phew.
Anyhoo, there I am cogitating, contemplating, call it what you will…it’s a long blooming drive to the genius bar and I began to dwell on some of the recent snippets of conversations I’ve been involved in.
If my boss was more reasonable…
If my boss appreciated me more…
If I didn’t have kids to take care of…
If my partner understood me…
If I only knew how… (this is one of mine folks)…just to keep it real…
If life wasn’t so hard…
If I were younger, prettier, stronger, healthier, thinner…pick your own poison…
If I could just get ahead financially….
If I only had more time….
If I had more confidence….
If I lived in a different area, country…
If I had more money…
If I could only do it over again…
If my family had been more supportive…
If people would listen to me…
If I could just do what I want…
If only life weren’t so hard…
And here we all are, part of the ‘if only’ brigade.
What’s really going on here is that we’re using our excuses to keep us trapped in a place of our own making. Take a minute and guess how we feel when we have these thoughts? Great? Good?
Maybe so on the surface, after all they’re our alibis for why something isn’t working for us. So briefly, we can say to ourselves, see that’s the reason why I haven’t, or I can’t. And we’re justified.
You don’t have to drown yourself
Yet what are we really doing? Saying yes to some limitation that we’ve chosen to bestow upon ourselves?
At a deeper level, at the heart and soul level we’re unhappy with what we’re experiencing. We have a sense of being powerless. And that really doesn’t feel good. We feel some things are out of our control, that’s not such a good feeling either. Yet, surely the facts are the facts? This is what’s happening to me isn’t it?
We’re drowning in a sea of facts, we become victimized…not by the facts themselves, but how we see the facts, how we feel about the facts. We could do with a lifeboat here. Take minute and think about what’s happening.
Find the truth
The truth with a capital T doesn’t depend on our current facts, but on our imagination. Every fact is something we’ve imagined into being. We’ve thought about it, had feelings about it and there it is. The facts are simply the fruit of long forgotten acts of imagination, showing our use or misuse of the laws of creation.
Imagination can see and smell a rose where one doesn’t yet exist, it can take us halfway across the world whilst we sit cosily in front of the fire at home. Imagination is our great creative power, the divine at work within us all.
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere. ~ Carl Sagan.
Follow the laws of life
The laws of life are pretty simple and most definitely exact. They never say, oh we know you don’t really see yourself or your world like that, it’s okay we won’t bring a matching experience into your world.
Not on your nelly. It’s more like an okay, this is what you want to experience…well here you are sweet one.
If we’re focused on all the reasons why something is hard, or challenging or how we’d like it to be different that’s exactly what will be manifested. That’s using our imagination for something we don’t want.
You receive what you send
We build and make our life through our imaginative acts. We’re little sending and receiving stations always on transmit, living in an ocean of vibration and by focusing on the ‘if only’ creates a conflict with what it is we truly want. The conflict might be internal, but it manifests in external challenges and obstacles.
Every time I say to myself I don’t know how to…that’s exactly what I get. I’m interested in doing something…but I don’t know how to, so I won’t bother. That’s bananas.
So what’s to be done? As has been said many times before, begin with the end in mind.
Here you are, the vibrant you, the beautiful you, the confident you, living your ideal life in your ideal home with your ideal partner. How do you look? How do you walk and talk? How do you imagine people see you? How do you see yourself?
Wherever we are today, whether it’s if only my partner understood me to if only I had a partner…by working with our imagination, our inner power we’re cultivating the habit, the ability to modify, reinterpret and decide our inner living experience.
Become lost in your best experiences
We begin by dropping all thoughts of if only it were different and instead choose the outcome we desire.
Become lost in the feeling of being or having or doing the thing desired.
Encourage our inner conversations to be focused on what we want and allow ourselves to feel great that we have it.
Rest confidently, safe in the knowledge that we always experience what’s in our consciousness. I would add we only experience what’s in our consciousness. Which can sometimes really suck I know. But we get to modify and change it to our heart’s content.
And best of all, we really don’t have to figure out how to get it, whether we deserve it or not. It doesn’t matter two hoots. The laws of life produce what we feel is true. And we can choose to feel anything we darn well please.
Lastly, don’t begin by taking outer action. Any action you take stems from your current state of consciousness and we’re coming from the state of ‘if only’ here…nothing we do from that state will bring different results. Just the same old same old.
It’s not hard to stay where you are
Question: Do you have to work hard to experience your current ‘if only’? I’ll answer for you. No you don’t. It’s easy because it’s natural to you and your new state of consciousness will be expressed just as easily, if you stick with it. No heavy lifting required.
So I’ll begin, I’m choosing to believe that I do know how to do whatever it is I want to do, safe in the knowledge that if I persist in imagining this, feeling the truth of it and knowing it must be produced in my reality, whatever needed to be done to experience this reality must have been done, because here I am sitting pretty with my chosen new reality.
Perhaps I’ll come up with a new thought. Perhaps someone will show up and point me in the right direction, perhaps…oh who knows. How the thing shows up doesn’t really matter, just that it does, works fine.
Your turn, what if only are you going to turn around? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.
Encourage one another
Love Elle
xoxo
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16 Comments
Love this Elle. ‘If only’ I had thought to write a post like this. Just kidding.
‘Encourage our inner conversations to be focused on what we want and allow ourselves to feel great that we have it.” Very true and a great sentence to remember. Have a great day, Debbie
Hello there Debbie, love your sense of humour and glad you enjoyed the post – I always appreciate your comments. 🙂
Elle,
You and I are on the same mind wavelength or whatever you want to call it. I was just thinking about this exact same thing last night! The “if only” talk just perpetuates the victim mentality and perception. Spot on. I loved this post! You expressed the same thoughts I had, just ever so much better than I would be able to, which is no surprise!
Hi Elle, In spite of all the daily “if onlys” there is a vision or two that keeps persisting in there that I “just know” is going to happen. It’s good to keep that vision because most of the “if onlys” then seem to be temporary little blockades that in the end will be irrelevant. Part of it seems to be keeping the faith and a good attitude in the interim, even if every once in a while we have a day where we just feel low. The low feelings are telling us something after all, and maybe we just need to give ourselves a break once in a while. It’s amazing how technologically challenged I was when I started blogging but now many of those things are old hat…just a matter of saying,”I can, I must, and I will” and maybe asking for a little help in a tiny prayer said with great intensity whilst we’re in the middle of aggravation!
So true Julie, if we keep focused on the vision, the ‘if only’s are deprived of the fuel that keeps them spinning in our orbit. Nicely put. 🙂
In the past, I would express that I never had regrets because I was happy where I was and all of my experiences had delivered me to that point. However, from my current vantage point of many more years, I have begun to feel the stirring to move into a life-philosophy as you are espousing here. And that is to shape my experiences internally to experience them externally . . . to fill myself with happy outcomes in order to experience those happy outcomes . . . to choose to believe that I can attain higher and more fulfilling levels of Joy . . . in other words, another wonderful article. Thank you .
Write on, Elle !
You always have such a nice turn of phrase Joseph ‘shaping my experiences internally to experience them externally’ love it. 🙂
Hi Elle,
It’s great to be at your blog!
Your post was timely because recently I’ve got into some ‘if only’? These are been running pretty unconsciously and I’m glad to bring them to awareness as I can now let them go.
I loved the point you made about becoming lost in the feeling of being or having or doing the thing desired. This is truly powerful. Thank you.
Oh Hiten, thanks for joining us and we’re running those unconscious programmes all the time. Your ability to become aware of them is huge. HUGE I say. And I’m glad some words I wrote resonated for you. It’s always nice to hear when something rings our bell. 🙂
‘If only’ can put a real stop on things, can’t it. Better to live for today and be happy with what is happening now. Why wait for something to change. Thanks for the inspiration! Take care and have a good weekend.
Elle,
Really enjoyed this one! We’re on the same page…I just finished a post that had a few what ifs in it. It’s about fear! I’ll link to this great post when I publish in a little while.
xoxo
Betsy
We’re all part of the same tribe methinks Betsy, can’t wait to read your post and thank you for your loving link. 🙂
I regularly have to let go of the ‘If only’ moments because they take me to dark places that I no longer want to dwell in. This is a great reminder to keep focusing on the here and now. Thankyou Elle!
And thank you Carolyn…it’s so true, we’re always at choice…but first we need awareness, then we get to say yay or nay. Kudos to you kiddo for saying nay to those dark places. I’m with you sweetie. 🙂
Elle –
This past year, I have been practicing ‘ask’ and ‘allow’ ~ I know after living in an ‘if only’ world – in ways that I wasn’t mildly aware of – how difficult it is to peel the layers and continue to catch yourself going into that mode – often mindlessly. The most powerful i’ve found so far is Esther and Jerry Hick’s – Abraham – clear, concise – and activates your imagination and lets your desire fly free . A great article-thanks.:) Fran
Love that Fran. Ask and allow. Yes indeedy…keeping out of our own way is really good advice. 🙂