IM & The Lack of Joy

[Acting Like Godot]

Today something which I've been IM'ing for, came true. I did not feel particularly excited or happy. I only felt moderately ok. In fact, I felt slightly bored, when the announcement was made and the people around me came to shake my hand and congratulate me for my "achievement".

The problem with IM is that for your desire to come true, you must adopt an attitude of confident expectation. You must deeply believe that the desired thing is indeed going to happen.

I have been so confidently expecting this outcome that its manifestation into reality brought me little joy. I already knew it was going to happen. I had made myself believe it. So there was no surprise at all.

[Dave Kaminski]

The road is better than the inn, as they say!

I fell into the same problem by getting a high sales position for a company with strong core values. It turns out I didn't specify that I wanted the branch to have high core values as well, and I ended up leaving within two weeks because I could tell it wouldn't work out.

Maybe we need to be more specific :P

I also think I need to decide what I want by what I want, and not by what society is trying to convince me to want.

[Athena]

That's okay. Maybe your joy is being channeled now to your first successful project in your new position?

As long as you feel neutral, not negative, then it sounds like you're on even keel, like a big wise sage. Was it fun dreaming up your intention and projecting it? Maybe that's good enough, if you had your excitement ahead of time.. Your mind was already set there, hopefully it was fun to get there, and there was simply nothing new when everything else around you caught up to it.

[Acting Like Godot]

This must be what they mean, by happiness being found in the now. Or as Dave put it, the road being better than the inn.

Chopra talked about having an intention being for the future, but putting your attention in the now. I think I have failed to properly appreciate / understand what he was saying.

I feel strangely cheated. It's like you get what you want, but what you want is not what you really want, because you always knew that you were going to get it. In which case - it seems that you could be satisfied or happy only if you get what you want, but hadn't thought you would actually be able to get it.

Maybe the fun is in the creating, not the creation.

Did God get bored with Earth, after the first 7 days?

[AndrewJ]

I suggest you concentrate on an 'attitude of gratitude' and see what else you can achieve. You mught be on a roll here!

Andrew

[AndyMartin]

I think everybody's got a little bit of it, but there's still a bigger picture missing.

Gratitude is a marker -- it doesn't do anything but remind you. Remind you of what? To count your blessings? No: to have joy in what is.

Expectation has no affect on what is, it cannot take away from what is, and it cannot rob joy from what is.

The reason manifestation works is because some force in the universe -- however you choose to name and describe it -- wants you to experience boundless joy. And it wants you to have joy now.

When you have joy, it responds by giving you more. When you focus intention on what you think will bring you joy, it responds by giving you that. All so you can have joy right now.

The fact alone that the universe delivered is magical. So the thing itself isn't that thrilling. What do you expect from a world where everything is impermanent. Sounds like the universe also taught you something unexpected, which in my opinion is about the best thing it can serve up.

[ReallyGoodIdeas]

There's also the "be careful what you wish for" thought. It's like being a kid in a candy shop, but candy is not food, and not what we really want. Often we want things because of what we think they will achieve for us. Like you may want a fast sports car, because you feel that will make you more attractive to the opposite sex. The sports car isn't really what you want, it's the success with the opposite sex. and that's not really the end-point either. So what do you really want?
Joy to you
Hazel

[Pagoda]

The "ability to have anything you want" is a much more wonderful and enjoyable thing than actually "having everything you want."

For one thing, you will never have everything you want.

But everyone right now, has the "ability to have anything they want". So everyone one right now can enjoy the comfort in that thought.

As per your particular situation, I would not fault I-M. I would instead take the receiving of something you wanted and not finding any joy in it as a message.

Perhaps it is a message that this ultimately isn't the direction you want to be heading.

Or perhaps, there is still a bit of you that feels you have to earn what you get and you feel using I-M isn't earning what you get. This belief can create some negative emotions upon manifesting something.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Today something which I've been IM'ing for, came true. I did not feel particularly excited or happy. I only felt moderately ok. In fact, I felt slightly bored, when the announcement was made and the people around me came to shake my hand and congratulate me for my "achievement".

The problem with IM is that for your desire to come true, you must adopt an attitude of confident expectation. You must deeply believe that the desired thing is indeed going to happen.

I have been so confidently expecting this outcome that its manifestation into reality brought me little joy. I already knew it was going to happen. I had made myself believe it. So there was no surprise at all.

Reminds me of wanting a train set for Xmas and then getting it and then was surprised that I felt empty. It turned out thinking about having it was more enjoyable that having it.

Seems like we always want something else and then to have something is not enough. Does that make sense? It's part of sociateal conditioning in a comsumerism world, I think.

Curious were you asking for joy in your IM? Were you expecting to feel joyous attached to the achievement? I know IM is about generating the feelings that come with the manifestation as if it's already here, so what feelings were you exercising? Dont' mind me too much, I have yet to IM anything specific - have started stating some descition and have to learn to express the intent from only my feelings. Kind of at step one, inother words.

[Acting Like Godot]

There is definitely something I need to learn here.

When I do IM, the feelings I work with are usually not joy, excitement or appreciation. I would say that I usually work with feelings like calm, peace, confidence, empowerment.

In my "deepest" kind of IM, I would say I work with a "sense of design".

An analogy may be helpful here. What I mean by a "sense of design" is like this - think of a kid playing with a huge pile of Lego bricks. The supply of Lego bricks is practically endless and they come in all sorts of different shapes and colours. He can build whatever he wants - houses, towns, parks, castles, spacecraft - absolutely whatever. All he really needs to do is use his imagination and concentrate and keep sticking bricks together.

When he's playing with his bricks, he's not unhappy or anxious or fearful or worried. But he's not really "joyful" or "happy" or "excited" either. He's more like, "absorbed".

Well, I'm that kid, and my future is made of Lego bricks.

But the fun, for the kid, is in the process of building. Building a Lego house is fun. When the house is completed, it's no fun anymore. You may spend a couple of minutes admiring it - then it's time to start building something else.

Maybe that's why I'm not getting much fun when the desired outcome actually happens. It's my completed Lego house. The fun was in building it, not in having it.

Maybe I need to unwind the internal expectation that "achievements" and "desired outcomes" will bring me happiness. And replace it with the new internal expectation that "working towards an achievement" or "creating the desired outcome" will bring me happiness.

Mmmm, then I could be happy every day.

[JJH]

ALG, when I "completed" something out of Lego, I PLAYED with it...

Remember to have fun not only building something, but WITH it as well. If you can't, maybe you're not building the "right" things for you. If you don't want to, just move on and enjoy the process of the next thing.