What was your turning/breaking point?

[Wax Frog]

I apologize if a thread like this already exists. If not, I hope it proves worthy of a "sticky", because this will come about as close to filling a core 'newbie' need as any.

I'd like to see brief accounts of the "aha" moment or series of "aha" moments that represented the transition of IM practitioners from uncertainly or even full-blown doubt to an embracement of the phenomenon as a reality. I am most especially interested in the "conversion" stories of those who saw themselves as rock-ribbed skeptics, where the event(s) were sufficiently unlikely and dramatic to make that part of their psyche squirm. Can you pin down a time or situation when you had any thought along the lines of "Hot damn, this REALLY WORKS!"?

[cylon]

It would take so long. I think we are always testing for ourselves, "is this real?".

I studied IM as a teenager (31 now) when I was on a big quest to answer all the riddles of the universe. I come from a very fundamentalist background, so I was looking for anything that wasn't "religious".

(years go by) what got me here today is the de-conversion process I went through. Once I was able to reject the horrific messages of my past, I just got really into science, evolution, skepticism. For me, there was this whole new world of reason and science and the answers were THERE. My mind opened. For the first time I gave myself permission to think about the universe, consciousness, human development, etc. I just wanted more. I became fascinated with the mind, and why we think and act the way we do. (big gap) Somehow that got me to the Secret (which reminded me of my earlier studies) and it just clicked for me. All of the sudden there were synchronicities all over the place. It wasn't easy to handle, but I'm dealing.

I kept records, and there's too much to go into. Here's the most recent one though. For father's day, my dad dropped the hint that he wanted the Band of Brothers DVD. I went to two stores, and neither had it.

I settled for a gift card at a DVD store, and told him I couldn't find that DVD anywhere. When he went to the store, they had one copy, so they had ordered it obviously. There was a big sale going on, and he said otherwise he couldn't have afforded it. He was able to get that, and a credit, and all together it was $25 less than what I would have spent had I ordered it myself.

So it worked out. ... he got the father's day gift he and I wanted for way less money.
That's relatively "minor", and I did not intend for it. But it happened anyway.

[Wax Frog]

I've edited my OP to make my aim clearer; obviously the accounts of others can never be a substitute for personal experience, but stories of inner skeptics being made to squirm would be VERY inspiring in their own way, I think.

[cylon]

I should add it still freaks me out. Sometimes it gets too much so I go back to the old way of cause and effect. The thing is, when I'm happy, relaxed, and in a good mood, I don't have any issues. It just flows, it makes sense. It really goes beyond explanation. It's like trying to explain color through words. You have to see the colors to know what I'm talking about. Otherwise they are just words pointing to something.

[Wax Frog]

I suppose I'm still too rigid in my thinking. I keep expecting (wanting? needing?) there to be at least one case of a transition from black to white, or at least well-separated shades of gray. If living with IM is a process rather than a state, maybe there can never be any clearly-marked transition...

To borrow from a familiar saying, I'm stuck on the idea that someday I'll find a finger pointing to the moon that is equivalent to the moon.

[cylon]

In the movies people go from one extreme to the next. One day the guy is getting teased and picked on, the next day he's Spider-Man and he's full of courage.

But we're talking y e a r s of conditioning. Your mind (ego) resists change. It wants everything to be black and white. This means there's lots of two steps forward, one step back. You have a new insight or idea. Your previous idea, is challenged. There's a little battle. The dominant thought, eventually, wins.

And that's cool. It really IS the journey. It NEVER STOPS. You're always discovering things, and you always will be. If you learn to have some patience with yourself, you'll give yourself room to learn, to make mistakes, to blunder a little bit. That's where wisdom comes from.

Allow the path you're on, to gently extend before you... maybe you can only see a few steps ahead, but the path goes on forever.

Again I recommend those Abraham books. You'll find a very gentle approach in there to this stuff. But just because it's gentle doesn't mean it's not extremely powerful.

You don't want things to happen that are going to transform your world overnight. That's too jarring. Slow and steady.

[Wax Frog]

I'd more than gladly settle for a "stabilizing" event at this point. I think, more than anything else right now, what I need is reassurance from Beyond, so to speak. I've had a few periods today of profound peace, and a sense everything would work out, but there's always that impatience for "something cool to happen" (flashback to Luke losing focus, letting all the levitated objects, himself and Yoda collapse in a heap).

[cylon]

If you saw some muppet pulling out a huge ship from a swamp with his mind, you couldn't handle it. Your brain would most likely block it out. Too much too soon.

And I bet there HAVE been times in your past where you've had glimpses, but your mind quickly explained it away. It's happened to all of us.

But you can make an intention for this. Just intend that you will see more evidence that you are creating your reality in a relaxed, enjoyable way, and look for it.

Are you REALLY ready to have your concepts and perceptions challenged? You'll know when it happens.

But the best advice I can give is to focus on being relaxed, happy and at peace. This has two benefits:

1. You'll be in a better place and life will feel good.
2. This is where the manifestations come from.

[Wax Frog]

Originally Posted by cylon

And I bet there HAVE been times in your past where you've had glimpses, but your mind quickly explained it away. It's happened to all of us.

The pal who formally introduced me to IM believes this too, even to the point of suspecting it caused some of my more unusual phobias.

But the best advice I can give is to focus on being relaxed, happy and at peace. This has two benefits:

1. You'll be in a better place and life will feel good.
2. This is where the manifestations come from.

OK. Just so long as I know I'm going down a productive path. When I set my mind to stick with something, I stick like glue. I just need some assurance of good adhesion (couldn't resist following the metaphor to it's proper conclusion )

[cylon]

There is nothing more productive than being committed to your own happiness and sense of peace, independent of other people or the world around you.

That's when you start "creating". You have to make sure you're on your own course, not someone else's.

[Wax Frog]

Originally Posted by cylon

You have to make sure you're on your own course, not someone else's.

And that it really is my 'true' course, right?

[cylon]

Yeah, you'll find it. If you're determined even if you get lost you'll find your way back.

[Wax Frog]

I've got nothing to lose I wouldn't otherwise lose in the 'fundamaterialist' version of reality [man, I love that term!]

[moonrambler]

Cylon's right, it's a process more than a sudden turning point. Somehow it always made sense to me, but I had been exploring all sorts of paranormal ideas since I was a kid, including religions, parapsychology, afterlife theories, science fiction and fantasy, etc.

Cylon and I also are alike in that we get coincidences all the time, and to some people they may not seem significant, but they happen so often that it gets really strange sometimes.

I started a thread called 'You Attract What You Fear' on June 3. This was a few days after I had a big whack-upside-the-head moment concerning a big overwhelming debilitating fear I had involving the financial mess I created. I had debunked this theory 'You Attract What You Fear' all along on this forum, and when it got thrown back in my face in my own reality, it felt very profound.

A couple weeks later I made my biggest one-time eBay sale to date, and had my most profitable eBay month to date. Also, a major difficulty I've always had with my resale business is consistency -- if I did really well one month, I would do poorly the next month or two, which always made my income stable rather than increase. The past three months I have had consistent increasing results, which is the first time that has ever happened once I got beyond a certain profit level. And I've been working this business for six years.

I read through this thread and was forming my response in my mind. In the meantime I was thinking about one of my ended eBay auctions which nobody had bid on. I was pondering whether to re-list it or not. When I signed on, there was an e-mail from somebody asking if I would be interested in doing a buy-it-now on that because this person had missed the auction. I wrote back and said sure. Within about 30 seconds, a different auction I have had running for a couple days came through with a buy-it-now. This is not typical at all -- nearly always, buy-it-nows come through within 24 hours of the listing start. Timing coincidence? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

In one of your posts you said something along the lines of, you've been feeling at a point of desperation where this LoA/IM stuff has to be true because you don't know what you'll do if it's not. I wanted to tell you that I was exactly in that place when I first came to this forum in October. I wish I could tell you I had instantaneous results. It took many months and a lot of work and frustration. Last night I was looking through a journal I was keeping last winter, and February was so bleak and dark and scary, that I had to stop reading it. The good news is, it seems like another world I was in back then. I almost can't believe how awful everything was, and how hard it was to keep up a semblance of hope.

This forum, as well as the reading I've done, has been like years of therapy for me. I see things with so much more clarity now. For so long I could not understand why I couldn't get out of financial difficulty . . . now I look back over the past several years and think, "It couldn't have been any other way."

[Nneka]

There is nothing more productive than being committed to your own happiness and sense of peace, independent of other people or the world around you.

That's when you start "creating". You have to make sure you're on your own course, not someone else's.

Here, here.

I've been taught LOA my whole life, but the turning point came for me when I decided that I would be happy no matter what.

I chose happiness over all else, material stuff, fear, grief, and most of all being right. I let loose the way I thought life was and it was free to show me how it really is.

Here are a few examples of what happened. I wanted to live in a particular neighborhood. I wrote a journal entry of the exact type of place down to having a window that opened to a beatiful place and the price tag. 4 days later I found that exact place. It was even better AND it happen serendipitously.

I hosted an Ask and It is Given workgroup and we were working with the processes. I used "Wouldn't It Be Nice If", complete with the Beach Boys song. One day, I was skipping down the street at lunch singing wouldn't it be nice and thinking that it'd be nice if I got 1000 unique visitors. That evening I checked my stats 1023 (from 100 average).

I thought, "Whoa, this is too cool!" So I said, wouldn't it be nice if I got a date. The next day walking around the lake, someone asked me out and I went on a date that night.

That's just 3 of the marvelous manifestations that I've had. I'm really good when I'm having fun and I have a clear intention.

I'm working on financial freedom now.

[cylon]

Wow these are great stories! And I share the experience of having the beginning be extremely dark. Somedays are amazing, some are totally confusing, and the whole time your little brain pathways are firing and missing connections and getting confused and it's a slow process. I think you sort of desensitize yourself over time, and once you feel stronger, things start going your way.

The wouldn't it be nice method is what I'm using. With straight visualization, my mind rejects it but wouldn't it be nice seems to move around the resistance.

[coollikeme]

I am still in the process of Intention-Manifestation. Love to hear the great stories!

[Wax Frog]

In a way I'm glad to hear that bumps and bruises are part of the process (though I wonder how "easy and effortless" fits into that - did my long-time belief in the Life Is Rough philosophy 'manifest' the fact? )

As you might suspect by now, I had plenty of emotional problems as a kid/teen, which led to my being placed in a special program, a combination of regular high school classes with counseling sessions. The reason I bring this up is that there was an Outward Bound-style organization working with the school, which meant I found myself going on lots of rock-climbing and canoeing trips.

On the very first trip, having a water phobia and not knowing how to swim, I was terrified out of my mind of drowning. I literally clung to a rock, while the rest of the group did their best to encourage/persuade me to let go. It took a long time, but when I saw they weren't going to budge, I relented. Sure enough, a short time later, I did in fact end up underwater. It was thoroughly unpleasant, and I came up gasping and flailing, but I was also faced with the fact that I was very much alive.

We did some minor rapids after that, and the day ended with me feeling a profound relief and sense of empowerment.

The program was a godsend, and I often wonder if indeed they spared me eventual institutionalization, but I am still 'stuck' in alot of ways. Part of me is still clinging to that rock, letting the fear rule the wisdom that day offered me.

It's not easy for me to talk about this stuff, but I feel I've reached a point where I have to stop being afraid of airing it out for all the world to see (anonymity helps), and also to face how the whole IM concept, and your descriptions of it, mirror this life event that serves as such a perfect metaphor for my whole existence. I suppose maybe it's a case of 'unconscious IM' too...

[liverpool footballer]

Haha, i'll share this with you.
When i first came across the Silva Method and IM, i used it to attract courage and being a liverpool footballer. And since courage isn't something tangible and a liverpool footballer is something that i'm in the process of reaching...how was i goin to prove it?

If you read steve's article on the "alpha manifestation", that's what i had. I spent at least 5 minutes every night visualizing myself in a liverpool jersey and with the crowd cheering for me. And a few days later, i was in the library walking around when i glanced at a particular bookshelf for no reason and then i saw a book with its cover SCREAMING at me and the book was an autobiography of Steven Gerrard who's the captain of liverpool. What made it even more special was that the book wasn't even in the proper shelf! And i wasn't even looking for that book!

-I randomly walked and randomly glanced and saw THE BOOK
-Out of all the books, THE BOOK screamed at me
-THE BOOK so happened to be in the WRONG SHELF
-This happened a few days after i began visualizing something closely related to THE BOOK

Yes, so it was a pretty convincing moment although EVEN THEN i still had wrinkly doubts here and there that i ironed out over time and practise.

And about my courage, a year later, i looked back and realised that just around 1 month after i intended for more courage, i confessed to the girl i liked. When i confessed, i didn't feel a surge of courage or anything, but looking back, i'm sure it was an increase in courage that allowed me to confess because i had thought about confessing but didn't for the past 5+ years. (she lives near me)

[Wax Frog]

So you're a Liverpudlian? (being a non-Brit, I've always wanted an excuse to say "Liverpudlian" )

Awhile back, working with "The Intention Experiment", I requested a red dragon. The next day I ran across several representations of red dragons, in distinctive and mildly amusing ways. Now if I can just do this again, with substance...

[jawillie]

I am on board with the process theory, too ~ an exciting one at that.

For me, though, I am not sure I am still 100% comfortable calling it IM or LoA..... not sure why. I think because I am focusing more on my BEING than anything else.

I go through spurts and I really want to get more consistent. I am thinking there is a reason for the spurts, though..... something about biting off more than we can chew, maybe??? It's like I am going along just fine with life and then... BAM........ broadsided. For me that means going within. Always, always, always those moments have lead to HUGE "aha" moments for me. Always a bit deeper than the time before. It seems my whole life has been leading to.... god? god-source? what do we call it?? I am still looking for the word that fits.. there is no word.

I am happy that the last few months have been just beyond wonderful for me and not because of outside circumstances. I feel I hit a major breakthrough because for once I am not dependent on outside circumstances for my inner joy. That just feels good.

I just see evidence of this all around me............ I mean, I look at my life and my friend's life and it's like... DUH!!!! It's just that she is sooooo negative. ALL THE TIME. Now, her sister's unborn baby has some deadly disease and her whole family is in turmoil again. I kid you not, they are ALWAYS in turmoil. I mean.... then I look at my life and we were an upbeat, easy-going family. We just had a GOOD life. Things would "just happen" for us all the time~ like that great big sale right before Christmas.. etc. Mom and Dad "thanking the universe." They always did that. I am thankful for that. "It always works out" is the motto I heard growing up and it's always been true.

I don't know. Life is one big AHA moment if you open your heart and see it!!

[Wax Frog]

Against my better judgement I keep reading anti-"magical LoA" posts, but I did benefit by being reminded of one of the reasons I am quite open to, and hopeful for, the idea. I can think of many times in my life where some key event knocked me off the rails of opportunity. Times when I was only too ready and willing to "inspired-act" my backside off, but was thwarted by circumstances beyond my control (as conventionally understood). Only once do I recall a specific action on my part that contributed to the meltdown. To me it defies logic that things would keep going wrong this way in the past, over and over.

I am VERY willing to be convinced this was unconscious "magical" LoA at work; it got to be so predictable that I myself often indulged in a private joke about being hounded by some sadistic "genie"...

Oh, and then there was the time, almost as a joke, that I carried an 8 in my wallet; about a week afterward, a friend of my Dad's asked me to do up a sign for his son, who'd be attending a sports event. Father and son loved it, which led to a series of further 'commissions'. I was well paid, I did a whole bunch more signs, was well paid for those, nearly all made it onto the game telecasts, and once even on a local news segment (though the part about the artist was edited out, grr!) - a good time was had by all.

Then the season ended, and that was that.

[danman85]

I always had the feeling I was flirting with danger when I studied and tried IM. I had a great meditation one day where I talked to my higher self, I was on a big grassy knoll riding a horse, and then in a room that looked Chinese. I felt like I was in China. So I walked away from the experience thinking it was 'just my imagination' and later that night, my friend whips out a zippo lighter with a, and does a trick with it. I asked if I could look at the lighter, and on it was a Chinese warrior on a horse on a grassy knoll. He said his roommate got it from China.

That's the first time I was convinced. I say the first time because I doubt and then become convinced time and time again.

[danman85]

Originally Posted by Wax Frog

So you're a Liverpudlian? (being a non-Brit, I've always wanted an excuse to say "Liverpudlian" )

Hey, check that out, you got your excuse!

[Wax Frog]

Originally Posted by danman85

Hey, check that out, you got your excuse!

Ah, you got me! I really like your story, BTW; it has that nice complete lack of ambiguity that excites my imagination. Is it my turn?

I'm wondering if I just did a bit of minor IM today - events played out in such a way as to allow me to get exactly what I wanted at 1/3 the regular price, a bit of computer/desk furniture that suffered only for being the floor model for a discontinued item, and having a barely-noticeable ding.

[Mindful]

You really have to take a leap of faith.

On one hand, it is definitely a process. At the same time though, I have countless "coincidences" and manifestations under my belt. When I examine them, they undeniably point to the existence of the law of attraction. But my mind keeps asking for more and more proof... At this point, a billion dollars could fall into my lap from the sky after I set out a money intention and I'd still want more proof.

Because LoA is a concept that is outside of society's reality norms, unless you take a leap of faith, even hundreds of evidence in your own personal life will not be enough to make you believe.

Right now, I'm trying to take that leap of faith so I can dedicate and develop my own intention manifestation skills to an even higher level.

[Wax Frog]

Now that I've had time to digest AAIIG a bit, one collection of questions still lingers (perhaps answered by the "Abester" elsewhere?). What is the cause of the amnesia, that I'd need to ask ahead of time to be reminded of who I am? Has something gone wrong with this big simulation we're in, or is it part of the plan? And why are there so many ready avenues available to suppress "Source"? Why couldn't I have held on to at least some of this past childhood, enough so that I didn't have to spend the better part of the last 3 decades and change blundering around in the dark?

[torilink]

Originally Posted by Wax Frog

Now that I've had time to digest AAIIG a bit, one collection of questions still lingers (perhaps answered by the "Abester" elsewhere?). What is the cause of the amnesia, that I'd need to ask ahead of time to be reminded of who I am? Has something gone wrong with this big simulation we're in, or is it part of the plan? And why are there so many ready avenues available to suppress "Source"? Why couldn't I have held on to at least some of this past childhood, enough so that I didn't have to spend the better part of the last 3 decades and change blundering around in the dark?

What causes the amnesia? It is my belief that it is intentional. It isn't so much that you weren't remembering who you are but that you thought you were someone or something that isn't real. In a way it is a disassociation of sorts. We are meant to "forget" or start with a clear slate when born so that choice, beliefs, experience and projection create a self or identity. How else can something that is no-thing and everything at once know what it is to be a separate individual thing that has no knowledge beyond its own limited experiences?

[Wax Frog]

Originally Posted by torilink

How else can something that is no-thing and everything at once know what it is to be a separate individual thing that has no knowledge beyond its own limited experiences?

Well, my Higher Self (or whatever it is) could've darn well picked a less 'doofy' life, at least

Sometimes I wonder if maybe it's in some way necessary that every possible type of life be experienced; if so, then 'somebody' had to draw this assignment...

[Lauxa]

Hey there Wax Frog,

I would say if you can't wrap your belief around Law of Attraction or IM, then just work on Emotional Mastery. Even skeptics believe that Emotional Mastery is a Good Thing, you shouldn't have to adopt any particular belief to work on it, and it will improve your life whether or not LoA is true. Also, Emotional Mastery is a prerequisite for IM. Then, when you have a big breakthrough in Emotional Mastery, take a little time to play around with IM.

So your focus goes from "I am spending all this time on IM which may or may not be true and if it is not then I am just wasting my time" to "I am spending my time working on emotional mastery which will definitely improve my life in a HUGE way and as a bonus once I figure this out then I will get to play with IM and see if there is any truth to it."