[impaul99]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

@Paul: I understand what you're saying. For me that mindset was a dead-end. It makes me feel empty, bored, and disconnected instead of inspired and fulfilled. It's simply the wrong polarity for me.

As someone mentioned earlier, this is essentially a darkworker philosophy. Energetically speaking, a side effect of your approach would be that you'd (perhaps unconsciously) have a strong tendency to pull, draw, or drain energy from other people. As a general rule, lightworkers draw their energy from Source, while darkworkers must draw their energy from other souls.

So this would imply that if you're not channeling Source energy (which has a natural tendency to manifest via creative expression), then you'd be draining it from others. Please forgive me for saying this, but this does appear to be true in your case. I often perceive an unusual sensation of pulling/draining when reading your posts, almost like you've come here to feed. In contrast there are many forum members where I feel the light and love flowing through their words (Angela is a prime example).

I disagree. You're missing the point. You're equating what you do as "taking from source" and then "giving that value to the people" and then "the people give you money", and you imply that my soure is to "take from the people".

I do not "drain" from others. In fact for the large part of my life I have been doing what you do which is to work my butt off and to offer my connection from source "to the people" and to work on providing as much value as I possibly can. It does work, and I have been successful at it and have been able to make a six figure income with that way of making money for years now.

However, I am now exploring a different path where I don't act as a conduit for channeling source to people in exchange for money like you do, but instead help people to connect themselves to source directly.

Hmmm...how can I better articulate this. Let's use your wife as an example. She connects to source and gives "readings" and charges $50 (example, I don't know what her rates are now). So essentially her source of money is source, she takes source, channels it, gives that value to a person, and then charges them money for it. The flow goes "Source > Erin > Value > Person > Money > Erin".

So if Erin does 1,000 readings per month she could make $50,000/month in income. What is the real source of her earnings? Her connection to source. Which is fine. It's one way of looking at it.

Now, what if instead she taught those 1,000 people to meditate, connect to source and get the answers they seek themselves and charged them $600 for it. With her training, they would be able to get answers themselves from source and no longer need her as a conduit. Instead of having to spend $50/month for a reading, they now get the benefit of a lifetime of "self-readings" for $600. Of course Erin has to charge more for this because she is essentially training her customers to be self-sufficient, but at $600/each that's $600k which is 1 years worth of earnings at her other rates. THe following year she could start training another group of clients.

The flow now becomes "Source > Client > Value > Money > Erin".

In both scenario's the true "value" comes from source. It always does. Steve, YOU - don't provide any value. Source does. Therefore you get paid by Source.

In all human interaction we're either giving energy or drawing energy. What actually occurs mainly depends on your intentions for the interaction.

You're equating your life with a hero's journey. You think that your job is to be a hero and to rescue people. By "providing value" to people, you feel that you are helping them and as such you feel deserving of the world's love.

What if for one week you didn't TRY to provide value to anyone. What if you didn't try to be a hero. What if you just woke up and did what you love doing at any given moment. And what if that was ENOUGH?

What if you could be a lightworker (love polarized) but you CHOSE to express that love not by GIVING VALUE?

I'm not saying that giving value is wrong or bad or that you can't make money with it. It's fine and it's probably the easiest way to make money in the world. However, just beause it's easy and it's done by almost everyone who makes money, what if there are other ways?

What if there's a way to express love without having to "provide value" so that you can get paid? Like, for example what if you put a "donate" button on your site, and instead of providing value to the person reading you simply tell them that by GIVING TO YOU with that donate button they can participate in the spirit of giving. Essentially RECEIVING a donation from them *IS* the value you provide, in a way. Oh wait! You already do that on your site...Hmmm....

I'm grateful for the interesting contrast in ideas you help create here.

Thanks. I enjoy reading your site because your growth parallels mine. We have different perspectives on things and it provides good contrast for further growth. Even when we disagree, I see a lot of intelligence in your defence of your point of view which helps me to consider things in a new light and to refine my view as well.