Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Abundance for Life, Effortless Success Giving Up

What I am about to say has nothing to do with what you may have associated with the title of this thread. I am continuing to work with the ES course and many of the other success and self-improvement stuff we've been discussing on this forum.

I have decided for one week to abstain from using my computer for anything other than communication (emails and this forum), genuine research (following my curiosity), and work (what I get paid to do). To give you an example, I don't watch TV but I have been an avid and somewhat compulsive sports fan. I particular am prone to following basketball and cycling. Now that Le Tour de France has ended, I want to find out what happens if I stop seeking entertainment via the internet.

I am not sure why I was moved to post this on the forum, but as I contemplated what to title the thread, the words "giving up" came to me straight away. "Giving up" has a bad connotation for most English speakers, but the way I am thinking of it is to give up, as in release, surrender to God (I'm thinking of Margaret Ida's "Heavenly Father".

As many of you may have gathered from reading my previous posts, I am quite fond of questions. I generally find good questions to be far more useful in my own process than assertions about the way things are, how things work, how to do something, etc.

So, the question that is occurring to me right now is this: "What am I willing to give up to be successful?" I've already gotten my first answer - no habit based internet entertainment this week. I wonder what will happen if I keep this question in mind as I continue working with the Law of Attraction?

My invitation to all of you is to ask yourself this question: "What am I willing to give up to be successful (achieve my goals, get what I want)?", post your answer, commit to following through with it, and then report back to us with what you are noticing as you move forward with that commitment.

I commit to doing this and reporting back next week. Any other takers?

Stevers

Go for it, Stevers! I like your way of involving forum members in an accountability partnership. It challenges to action - and not just mental gymnastics.
Your title "giving up" did seem to suggest the thought of 'quitting' (maybe even on the program!). But by the end of your post I was seeing your meaning as more in the manner of 'sacrificing' - or depriving oneself of something pleasurable in order to do something of greater value to you. Unfortunately, this concept still seems to have an underlying negative feeling to it for me.
Somewhere in the middle of you post, however, I started reading it as 'giving UP' and feeling the impact of a new perspective. It reminded me of a story from the LDS scripture, The Book of Mormon, where a king was taught about the joy and hope of the gospel. His response was first a question - "What shall I do that I may have this [thing] of which thou has spoken?" Then an material sacrifice - "I will give up all that I possess, yea, I will forsake my kingdom, that I may receive this great joy." Upon being advised that he must approach God in faith and repent of his sins, he '...cried mightily, saying:...wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will GIVE AWAY all my sins to know thee...' (emphasis added).
I see this as 'giving UP' - where participation in the former activities becomes insignificant in view of the new (higher) goal or purpose that has been opened to you. They are no longer particularly useful and you give them away in order to move up.

Now - my personal application... I have developed a pattern of sitting up at night doing puzzles until I doze off in my chair or writing e-mails until I notice that it is after midnight and I am exhausted. Then I rouse myself just enough to transfer to the bed without doing any particular closure to the day. I often get insufficient rest and feel disorganized and incomplete. I am going to 'give up' late nights and make 10pm a target for closing my day and getting to bed.
Looking forward to follow-up next week! May you create some success in your day!
Margaret Ida

Margaret,

Thanks. Yes, the story you told from The Book of Mormon is just what I mean. Yes, there is a certain pleasure that comes for me with following cycling and basketball online, but something in me knows that behavior really isn't currently aligned with my "my highest good", and I need to give it away.

Incidentally, I am told that "repent" literally means "to turn around". The way I translate it is - to turn around and face whatever I am thinking or doing and see it for what it is, without blame or judgment. Just see it. I have also heard that the word "sin" translates to "miss the mark". When I turn and face these things that I'm doing in my life and recognize that I am somehow missing the mark, I have the opportunity to make a fresh course correction.

"Surrender" and "giving up" get a bad rap in this win at all costs culture of ours. But the more I am able to look through the lens of a larger (spiritual) context, the more it seems that I have a great deal to gain by letting go of the things that I think define me - thoughts, behaviors, possessions, and the like.

As I continue to dance with the Law of Attraction via Jack Canfield, Noah St. John, Joe Vitale, and the rest of the pantheon of money making manifesting maestros, the words of Jesus continually echo in my background thoughts - "Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven, and all else shall be given unto you." Hell yeah, I want to achieve my goals and improve my lot in life, but in many ways I previously felt like I was putting the cart before the horse. At the moment "giving up" feels like an appropriate course of action, the backward step that may naturally give rise to a truly authentic brand of progress.

Thanks for being willing to take me up on the invitation to action. I look forward to hearing what shows up for you.

Stevers

I agree with you Margaret Ida, go for "giving up" Stevers, which ever interpretation suits. I liked how you both explored the different slants on giving up.

Funny, Margaret Ida, that you talk about quitting ES. Well the possiblity of quitting, even raising that spectre makes me feel uneasy.

So I think the aspect of Giving Up that I would like to work on is giving up doubt. It is a secret let-off clause I use: it keeps me at arm's length (a safety net for me) from true commitment. From time to time I indulge in doubts. Will ES work? What happens if it really does? What happens if it doesn't? You can see from the previous questions that doubt really leads to nothing but circular arguments.

The flipside of the doubt coin is TRUST or FAITH. Trust is easier for me to contemplate as I don't really have a religious or spiritual focus. So I have opted to examine what it means to have faith.

I looked up faith in the web-dictionary and it means:
1) allegiance to duty or a person;
2) fidelity to one's promises;
3) sincerity of intentions:
4) belief, trust in and loyalty to ...X...;
5) firm belief in something for which there is no proof;
6) complete trust
7) something that is believed with especially strong conviction.

You know I feel a bit like a closet alcoholic when I read what faith actually means. I try on ES, flatter myself, play with it, but when the going gets challenging, I revert to the old tried-and-trusted routines (that don't work!). Complete trust seems to be elusive. Sincerity of intentions: likewise, how sincere can I be when I go all luke-warm on ES when I should be deepening my relationship to it? My scientific background also expects proof. Proof makes ES valid. I don't want magic or dreams. No, I want ES to be a science. Not much scope for unquestioning faith and complete trust there, is there?

By way of wonderful synchronicity, one of my visiting nieces is a fundamentalist Baptist ( - so extreme in her religious beliefs). Though I do not agree with her religious convictions, she has 100% faith. She trusts God will deliver on his/her promises. You know, whether I like to admit it or not, this young woman lives full-time in the present. She doesn't worry herself with questions, God is there and will stand by her and deliver her to eternal life. So what is there to worry about? She takes everything in her stride. What is, is. She accepts it. She is very balanced and disciplined. I believe this ability to have faith, to know without doubt that God (or ES in my case) will keep his word, is a key ingredient to both serenity and adopting an appropriate stance to ES.

I would like to learn to trust. To have faith. To have absolute faith in myself. It is myself that I don't wholly trust - yet!
Adieu,
French Claire

I was just referred to an interesting set of 3 e-books. You can get them through http://tinyurl.com/ngweez. They talk in terms of quanta - as in quantum physics. I think the one that addresses the belief question - the one called 'The Revolutionary Premises of Your Own Power' - would be of most interest to you, French Claire. It is another way of approaching the idea that it isn't so much 'seeing is believing' as it is 'believing is seeing.'
Complete trust, or faith, does indeed allow for a firm foundation on which to plant one's feet and from which one can exercise great power. You may have heard the expression "power of convictions." Cynicism and doubt are great excuses for holding back from putting everything you are capable of into reaching for your goals. They keep you always testing your balance and never fully committed - in fear of getting hurt or appearing foolish in somebody's eyes (maybe even your own!).

It is a real paradigm shift to give up the excuses. But it is so worth it! Believe me. I know. I've been there. And I still struggle with the old patterns way too often. If you hold my hand, I'll hold yours and together we can strengthen one another and step confidently forward into the realization of our potentials.
May we create some personal power today!
Margaret Ida

Hi Margaret Ida,

the tinyurl link does not work.

In working through ES I feel that the procedures recommended in the course are very logical. Meditating under a tree in the garden everyday and whole day will most unlikely get you delivered free groceries, exemption from bills, etc. It is the combination of actions and goals which will make you succeed. Of course, you need alignment... a dispersive person will waste energies and achieve very little.

The strength of ES is to put together a nice procedure on how to succeed in life all across. You need to have faith in your own actions, which need to be doable. French Claire's niece is doing ES through religion. I find this to turn out to be tricky because sooner or later there will be clashes with science and reality (eg why did the Pope, who is infallible by dogma, oblige Galileo to house arrest for the latter part of his life when the scientist make major discoveries in planetary science without worrying about God?).

Recapping what I have heard so far on this thread: Steve is giving up compulsive Internet monitoring of sports, Margaret Ida is giving up staying up late doing puzzles and/or emails, and French Claire is giving up doubt. Unique Soul, are you going to take action and join in our game, or are you just going to comment on our actions?

French Claire, I'd like to offer a few impressions:

"Doubt" seems me a kind of intellectualized fear. Fear happens in the body. Doubt is something we do in our thinking.

Faith, on the other hand, in my own experience, is neither a thought nor a feeling. It is a knowing based on a deep seeing of the way things actually are. Faith requires a suspension of what we think we know in order to find out what we know deep down, beyond thoughts and feelings. Faith is beyond belief. Faith opens the heart. These are my personal definitions.

I'm not talking about the faith of a religious fundamentalist. In my opinion, this is often iron clad thinking masquerading as faith. Yes it "works" in a certain way, but it works in a way that creates separation and backlash - Us and Them, right vs. wrong. I do not find the heart of a religious fundamentalist to be open.

Something that I am discovering is that the way I think and feel is not actually in my control. That doesn't mean thoughts cannot and do not change. They most certainly do. But they are no controllable, per se. Behaviors appear to be more within the realm of what I can control.

French Claire, I can't help but wonder if attempting to give up doubt is just setting yourself up for failure, because it is based in part in thought and in part in emotion, things that appear, to me at least, to be beyond our direct control. I wonder about the fears underneath the "What if..." thoughts, and I wonder, for example, what would happen for you (and me, I certainly have my doubts about ES and a lot more), were you feel and release (a la Sedona Method or other practice) those fears.

I also wonder if there is a behavior you could give up that indirectly relates to your sense of doubt, something that is more within your direct control. Something that could perceptibly "influence" (different than "control") your relationship to doubt and/or faith? Something measurable (read: scientific), accountable, reportable and potentially celebrate-able?

Incidentally, I have a friend/teacher named Jerry Stocking (a very, very interesting man, if you ask me) who once wrote a book called How to Win by Quitting. Food for thought.

Stevers

Hi Uniquesoul,
I had to smile when I read your post and the reference to my niece (an Ozzie, by the way) and clashes between science and reality. No sir, no clashes here. To give a flavour of what it means to be a fundamentalist: She is 100% commited to her god, and in return she is saved (= life after death). She doesn't need to strap her son into the car with a seat belt because she trusts god implicitly and explicitly - if her son's time is up, it is up, seat belt or not. What is written in the old testament of the Bible is the word of god, so science or anything else for that matter doesn't even enter into the frame.

It doesn't serve to enter into a debate on the validity of her religious indoctrination. I mentioned this because I could not fail to notice that the up-side of 100% faith is absolute serenity. She worries not about the future (for it is assured), she regrets nothing she has done (she has repented), she lives by the word of god (in her view) and she lives entirely in the present. Whether the moderate amongst us want to admit it or not, she lives a rich, contented and serene life. She has FAITH, and believes god's promises without need of proof.

I agree that the procedures Jack has proposed in ES are very logical. I enjoy his straight-forward approach. Think positively always. Set goals - preferably really exciting, rewarding ones, and take action. Ask. Prepare to receive.

Nonetheless I have found there is many a slip twixt the cup and the lip - or easier said than done. While I focused on the positive, created mouthwatering dreams, and I even managed (and continue to manage) to take action, some elements of my old patterning continue to surface. I had assumed that I could step into the ES lifestyle and remain there, practising my daily disciplines etc. and (like my niece) assuredly 'getting there' in the end.

Reality (I don't like my work), my past (which only raised it's torments once I got into ES), my erroneous programs and wonky perceptions about myself and others are still very present. Just as ES is present. Only now I have to deal with both sides of the coin simultaneously.

A few months into the ES challenge, I feel that I am making progress, but I will have to travel the whole journey. My current challenge is to get in touch with my feelings. For almost half a century I have selectively accepted, ignored or dismissed them. For me, at this moment, there are no short cuts to Effortless Success. Being in touch with my feelings is challenging at times (I often don't know how I feel).

Letting go of desperation (and Joe Vitale's Expect Miracles book has made the difference between desperation and effortless anticipation crystal clear)was another personal journey. I had to pinpoint the invisible boundary between faithful anticipation and overzealous desperation.

Stever's and Margaret's playful allusions to 'giving up' wobbled my security a bit too (no point in not being honest). This tested my faith. If a smart guy like Stevers can question it, well do I really want to stand naked and holding the batton? Fortunately this feeling of insecurity was fleeting. Faith rebuilt my motivation.

Faith, unquestioning faith in myself, is a challenge for another day, another bridge to cross on the ES journey. I also need to forgive myself for all the cruelty I have inflicted upon myself - I am far gentler on others than on myself.

Enough said.
I wish you all a magnificent day - and an even better one to come.
Adieu,
French Claire

Hi Stevers,
Neat move there Stevers, putting that challenge to Uniquesoul. It may feel safer to comment from the sidelines but taking part in the action is more rewarding (and sometimes very intense!). I want to grow by doing it, not reading it!

And thank you for your meticulous reflections via a Loving Mirror. Will have to ponder what you say. I have no doubt there is merit in it, just don't know if my need to let go of doubt is so complex in nature (yet!). My doubt is often irrational, a bad habit linked to depression and helplessness.

Here is today's experience in giving up doubt and experiencing trust/faith in its place. I had to laugh! Life really is a comedy sometimes.

My niece is driving up to Paris to collect her Dad for our family reunion. My two (very precious) kids offered to accompany her so as to show her around that magnificent city. Through 'coincidence' I discovered she drives really fast, breaking speed limits (trust in God). I felt worried and hardly slept last night. Why was I entrusting my children to someone who is potentially a dangerous driver? {Stevers: I felt the fear just under my diaphragm.]

At 6 a.m. we saw them off. Requesting the driver to drive within the speed limit if she had our kids on board and telling the kids to take responsibility and watch she did just that. I let them go and turned over doubt.

It worked OK and I have had a peaceful day. All arrived in Paris safely.

But get this: I opened my letter box when I got home and found a SPEEDING FINE. Mine. My first ever. For driving 97 km/hr in a 90 km/hr zone. I was flashed at the end of June apparently by a speed camera that has been installed in mid-June.

As they would say in French, c'est bizarre!
Adieu,
French Claire