Written by Jason Demakis, Expanded Consciousness, February 19, 2015
7. You Assume Thoughts Create Your Reality
The Myth: Thoughts create our reality. All you have to do is think about something, and it will manifest into your life effortlessly!
The Truth: Your thoughts don’t create your reality. Your actions do.
Thought merely mitigates the process, and begins the series of causal steps leading to taking action, and then that action itself is what catalyzes the results you receive in life.
Your cake doesn’t just mix all of its own ingredients at the right ratio, set the oven, bake itself, cut a slice of itself, put itself on a plate, and then float on over to the table in front of you.
The initial choice and decision to bake the cake started in your mind, but unless you prepare the cake by taking physical action and opening the box, setting the oven, etc – it will remain nothing but an idea indefinitely.
If you trace the causal chain backwards from your result, you’ll see it looking something like this:
Result > Action > Decision/Choice/Emotional Inclination to Act
In our cake example above, it looks like this:
Cake (result) > Baking in Oven (action) > Mixing Ingredients (action) > Choosing to Make a Cake (thought)
Choice is always the first step; the choice to think and feel positive and constructive about a situation or task. Then, action is what bridges the gap between the information in your mind, and the concrete results you experience in the world.
So while it’s technically correct that your thought or choice is the first step in this chain, it’s incredibly oversimplified (and deceptive) to claim that said thought is what manifested the cake.
This single mis-belief is what causes all sorts of aggravation when people don’t see cakes just popping into existence left and right.
6. (You Believe) Either it’s Effortless, or You’re Going the Wrong Way/Doing it Wrong
The Myth: Life is effortless when you’re on your passion path. When you come to resistance, that’s a sign that you’re going about your path incorrectly and/or not to proceed in that direction!
The Truth: “There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious” – Carl Jung
Resistance is the cornerstone of growth and progress.
Our muscles grow stronger because they work through the resistance placed in front of them.
They don’t complain about it.
They don’t throw ad hominem remarks in its direction.
They adapt and overcome.
While it’s true that you should know when any particular endeavor is an inefficient use of time, energy, and resources – if you’re still new to personal development, everything is a learning lesson.
It takes a highly-refined level of consciousness and discernment to know when the resistance is wrong, too much, or if said obstacle is even truly worth it. This level of conscious awareness comes from years of experience with testing, experimenting, and refining yourself; something many New Age-ers lack, because they insist on remaining inactive from the start.
The only time you’re “not on your path” is when you stop taking action toward a goal.
Your path only really stalls when you stop getting real-world results and feedback from the world around you.
The only way to stop getting results in life is to stop taking action.
Lack of strategic, direct personal action is the equivalent of metaphysical death.
5. (You Think) Money is The Root of All Evil
The Myth: Money is not required to be spiritual, and you should seek to minimize the influence of money in your life as much as possible. Wealthy people are only wealthy because they are greedy, don’t mind taking advantage of others, and throw spirituality out the window.
The Truth: Money is an entirely passive tool, which can be leveraged to create the very freedom and abundance you desire most. It’s the individual’s perception and understanding of how money works that dictates their individual success with it.
It’s ironic that most of the people who complain about a lack of money, the economy, lack of jobs, etc are always the people who don’t understand how business or economics truly work. Those who know and can – DO. Those who don’t know (but can learn) and can’t (but again, can learn how to)– COMPLAIN about it.
They like to cast out all sorts of assumptions about the people doing the business, without ever once cracking open a book or loading up a google search to learn about the incredible amount of organization, discipline, and perseverance that goes into starting even a small local business.
Little do they know, it’s not their lack of business understanding that’s hurting them – it’s their lack of will to self-educate themselves on the areas in their life which are giving them the most resistance.
For most people, their biggest resistance in life is that of money.
The less you understand about money, how it works, how value is created and translated into money, asset allocation, investing, etc – the more money is going to control your life.
Money is going to behave objectively and do what it does best whether you adapt and catch on or not. It’s in your best interest (no pun intended) to adapt and overcome this barrier so you can begin putting money to work for you and your ideas and goals, rather than simply working in circles to fund them.
You’re completely free to choose to advance your relationship with money, or continue on as you are.
If you choose to stay put, don’t go around insisting that you’re more spiritual because you don’t want to approach money in a more constructive way. That’s anything but spiritual in the long run, and it’s certainly not intelligent.
This is the blunt truth, and there’s absolutely no way around this dilemma until you educate yourself and create an individual strategy for gaining control over money once and for all.
New Age belief systems advocate removing money entirely from one’s life, making one a slave to scarcity, poverty, and limited resources.
Consciousness development systems advocate that you transcend your pre-conditioned ignorance/relationship to the idea of money, how it works, etc, and thus remove money’s control over your life.
Ironically, those who foolishly reject money end up serving as slaves to poverty in the very same way those who don’t understand money think they need to work five day jobs to become rich.
Ignorance on both sides of the equation breeds noting but contempt for both information and individuals that display a more intelligent approach to living.
At the end of the day, did you increase your understanding of how money works, or did you spend your afternoon online making assumptions about wealthy people you’ve never even met?
4. You Believe The Law of Attraction is a Substitute for Hard Work and Serious Personal Effort
The Myth: To get what you want out of life, all you have to do is hold the intention, and eventually it will manifest. Don’t worry about taking lots of action; simply focus on what you want, sit back, relax, and wait for it to arrive!
The Truth: Nothing happens until you make it happen. The Law of Attraction is a tool that facilitates, compliments, and strengthens your probability of succeeding – but only after you’re already heavily in motion!
This one’s a favorite of the New Age community, because it perfectly follows their hiding-in-plain-site axiom of “try to manifest as much as possible while taking the least amount of action possible!”.
You can read a focused, in-depth analysis on this very subject in my popular article 5 Reasons Why The Law of Attraction isn’t Working for You.
The truth is most New Age ideology is nothing more than romanticized, entry-level metaphysical thinking mired in scarcity. You should be wanting to expand you relationship to things like career, money, relationships, health etc – not shirk from them. The idea that you can manifest everything by just focusing hard enough is the pinnacle of New Age delusion.
Seriously. Go read that article in the link above if you haven’t yet.
3. You Don’t Acknowledge Negativity as Being Valid
The Myth: Avoid negativity in all forms at all costs! Do whatever you must to suppress your negative thoughts and feelings.
The Truth: Negativity is a stepping stone of personal growth. Negative emotions show us precisely where the weak spots in our perception and beliefs lie, and thus exactly which areas we need to work on next.
Fear, worry, and doubt act like compasses pointing us directly to where we need to go next in order to grow.
Afraid to fail? Go out and fail as fast as you can, so you can overcome that irrational fear.
95% of fear is entirely irrational. Unless you’re being chased by a lion through the jungle, you have no reason to be afraid of most of what occurs in modern 21st century Western living. “Oh no, my internet connection is slow! What if I can’t download Game of Thrones later on?!”
This one kind of ties in with the one on resistance up above. If you merely assume all negative emotions are signs that you’re going the wrong way, you’re going to live a very self-limiting life. Unfortunately, that’s precisely what most people do.
Stay in that comfy job because it’s too risky to start your own business and make an abundant living doing something you actually enjoy.
Stay in that boring, unfulfilling relationship because unhappiness is better than uncertainty.
Keep telling yourself that you’re making intelligent choices based on rational thinking and reasoning, when the reality is the exact opposite.
How has this pattern worked for you over the last five years? Is it unreasonable to predict that your next five will look very similar…?
2. You Believe You’re Already Perfect/Complete
The Myth: You don’t need to get involved with personal development and self-evolution, because you’re already perfect and complete. Just “be”, and let the rest take care of itself.
The Truth: You’re already perfect in the sense that your potential exists to be fulfilled – and the fulfillment of said potential is your entire reason for being here. To avoid accepting the responsibility to educate yourself, experiment, and grow through these challenges is to circumvent your very life’s purpose.
Using the logic that you’re already a complete divine being who simply broke off from source to come to Earth, and do things such as argue with other humans about the legalization of plants, animal rights, and solar energy at the expense of doing some serious hard self-work is a HUGE beginner’s trap.
The truth is you don’t have time for the trappings of this life…until you’re finally living on purpose and expressing your true self to the world. Until you reach that point, you’re just wasting your finite, precious life.
So many New Age advocates believe the only work that needs to be done is via solving all of the problems out there in the world.
Little do they know, everything out there is as it is because too many people aren’t paying attention to what’s going on within themselves.
We are all responsible for the mess the world has become, and it’s not for the obvious, popular, or comfortable reasons.
Humanity is in a state that can only be described as a full-on crisis of consciousness. Until more people begin waking up to the power within themselves, and how their decisions and spending are what impact the world the most, things will continue to spiral further and further.
In order to correct said chaos, we need more people who are dedicated to growing into their fullest potential, and guiding others to do the same. There’s no more time for institutionalized, compartmentalized education. Take the reigns yourself and learn what you need to get yourself to where you want to be.
Those who doubt that last bit and find it unreasonable, this last one’s for you:
1. Just Go with The Flow, Man!
The Myth: Everything you need will show up right when you need it. Don’t fret over making things happen; let the universe do all the work! Just sit back, focus on what you want, and wait for it to show up.
The Truth: Having conscious discernment tailored through experience is the true secret to success and growth. Sitting around meditating, wishing, and intending for things to appear without meeting the universe halfway by taking action in said direction is like an incomplete circuit/taking the batteries out of something. It doesn’t work!
Ah, the pinnacle of New Age foolishness!
Going with the flow is an excuse for the abdication of personal effort and action.
That’s really the common denominator in all of these points.
New Age thinking condones the fear-consciousness so many find themselves in.
It offers easy solutions to very hard problems. Unfortunately, New Age solutions only address the symptoms to the root problems we find within ourselves.
Unless your life is already on course because you’ve been busting your ass toward a focused goal that aligns with your values and expresses your true self, you’re wasting your time. Not in the sense that your efforts are worthless in the long run, but in the literal sense that you’re running out the clock.
You’re wasting your time because you’re neglecting potential within yourself.
This potential could be refined and cultivated to eventually provide the rest of humanity with a very valuable service that could assist in the mass-raising of consciousness that’s so desperately needed at this point in history.
You are actively denying other people of your value because you refuse to do the hard work required to fulfill your own potential.
Still, many would rather hop on X-Box Live for hours on end and neglect the fact that they despise their job, chose the wrong college major (if they went), hate their relationship/marriage, etc.
This makes New Age (dis)information all the more tempting and palatable for such people, because it conveniently fills in the cracks where serious effort and action are required.
Information – even the most accurate and valuable – is never a substitute for direct personal application of said information.
That’s the main difference between successful people, and New Age follow-alongs. One understands that constant action is what produces the types of results that will free them from the constrains that the New Age crowd would rather go online and complain about with each other than intelligently solve.
One understand that progressive knowledge coupled with high-frequency action is the recipe for success.
The other foolishly believes just having the information is all you need to become a millionaire.
I wonder which group will become more successful?
Conclusion: What’s The Solution?
The solution to the issues presented in all of the above is to accept the responsibility of the reality that nobody is going to change or improve your life for you.
You have to do it.
You and you alone have to accept where you are, realize it’s not what you want, and stop rationalizing why you can’t begin moving in a new direction.
Every time you avoid courage, you embrace and strengthen your own cowardice.
This is a serious character flaw, and one that poisons so many high-potential individuals, it’s not even funny.
The serious solution to all of these issues is to:
- Educate yourself on the topics which currently act as blocks for you.
- Start actively applying what you’re learning.
- Refine and adapt your application of this information through time.
This process requires the cultivation of both willpower and courage, but it also works very, very reliably.
If you only retained one thing from this entire article, let it be this: your first step is to begin educating yourself on the topics which are currently acting as blocks for you.
If that doesn’t get you moving, go back and re-read 5 Reasons Why The Law of Attraction isn’t Working for You until it motivates you to start making serious changes to your attitude and behavior.
About the author:
Jason Demakis a frequent Expanded Consciousness contributing writer. Read more of Jason’s articles HERE. Jason is best known for his writings of consciousness and meditation, and has profound knowledge in each.
Website: http://www.jasondemakis.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jasondemakis
Email: JasonDemakis@Gmail.com
Read more at http://expandedconsciousness.com/2015/02/15/making-7-new-age-mistakes/#DRvS0YgEblz2qygo.99
Openhearted Rebellion 