action or following your bliss?

[learningtogrow]

I just finished reading "Busting Loose from The Money Game" by Robert Scheinfeld. It was an amazing book which just adds one more piece of the puzzle in the "game" of life as he refers to it. His theory is essentially that none of what we perceive to be real is real. Our "expanded self" which I take to be the real me, is laying out our life for us with challenges and events for us to "bust through" each time bringing us closer and closer to peace and a realization that all of it is an illusion. Smoke and mirrors as he likes to say.
My confusion is this and hopefully someone has been through this and shed some light on this issue for me. In the past year or so I've been reading many self help books. Learning all about goal setting, having a plan, the law of attraction, collages with images of what you want, feeling what you want, desiring what you want. Prior to this, I have been an avid outdoors person. My entire 20's and 30's have been spent playing outside and waiting tables at night to "get by" with bills. No real concern for the welfare of others. Just makin myself happy.
Being in my late 30's I've had a shift. Well, mostly my husband had a shift and I've followed suit. We both decided that we finally want more in our lives. We've interpreted that to mean that we want more finances to make our existence easier, but also to donate back to the environment which we cherish so much. We also have made a shift to being more responsible I guess you could say. We want to make a difference.
We've put our recreational lives on hold and spent tons of time learning these "things" that we think will create abundance in our world. I'm learning investing (which isn't really a passion, it's just something I think will help me financially), and my husband is learning graphic design to start a business. We keep saying these are the stepping stones to where we really want to be which is financially free so we can travel and ski and recreate. Now if there weren't any of these obligatory feelings, we might just do that for ourselves. However, we're definitely brainstorming ideas to take our passions (outdoor recreation) and produce value to others. I mean, I get that part. I've always wanted to provide value to others in some way.
However, I think we get frustrated with the path we've chosen sometimes. We sometimes get the message from the books we've read, that things need to be extremely organized. You need to have a plan, desire, and work hard, sacrifice something (Think and Grow Rich) etc.... Brian Tracy's "Maximum Achievement" or even Steve seems to be the planner type A person.
Robert Scheinfeld and Marc Allen (just ordered the cd but haven't heard it yet) seem to have a different approach. Just feel like doing what you love to do and let the rest unfold. I kinda like this idea but think I would feel guilt. From what I understand of Marc Allen he says just visualize what you want and live your life the way you want and "it" will show up. Don't worry about money which ultimately is my bottom line worry if I were to just throw caution to the wind and ski my ass off and not worry about bills. The message I get from Robert Sheinfeld is that's what I should do BECAUSE NOTHING IS REAL including my bank account.
Sorry for the long explanation! I am just wondering which method to take. Should I follow my bliss and not worry about outcomes (play)? Robert Schienfeld and Marc Allen say I can. James Ray says I can't. I "need to take action". I need to be "responsible" and constantly manifest this responsible lifestyle which will produce something of value to others and feel good about that? Sometimes that approach gives me a headache and leaves me feeling frustrated. Help?! There are only so many hours in a day.

[judge45]

Wow, I can't stand to even look at your post let alone try to read it. It hurts my eyes.

Whatever you're trying to convey, please add some line and paragraph breaks.

HTH

Jeff

[Excellent Lodestar]

Hi learningtogrow,
Hey, someone else read Roberts book! As far as your background I can only say yes, "been there" too....
Roberts book is to me now, after following up and reading between the lines, is his unique take on Advaita, which is only like,4000 years old! It's like" advaita for Dummies" and Is about as opposite of the " take action" path as it gets. The thing to realize is that if you raelly get the "busting loose" message; REALLY get it, you'll be coming from such different paradigm that it's laughable...
Busting loose is all about subjective reality of course, and people( the "secret" crowd?) are polarized on this, big time.
At the end of the Day, I say go with waht makes you FEEL good; that is, when you think of the "methods", which energizes you? I don't mean it makes you bounce off the walls, it's usually quite subtle, but there all the same. I got results with the "take action" stuff, no doubt, but for me the subjective reality/Busting Loose?/Adviata path covers LIFE, not just Money. Still, for some, that path makes no sense--it's too big of a leap.
Hope This helps some

[Sunnybayes]

I am just wondering which method to take. Should I follow my bliss and not worry about outcomes (play)?

Everyone has their "own blend" of drive motivation and way to success. That's why there are so many different self help books. There are several different systems and paths. They all say the same thing, but just with different words.

Visualizing is just planning without writing anything down, which is to memorize your plan so much that it becomes part of your subconscious mind, i.e. a habit, basically you have internalize your plan so much that it becomes easy and automatic to make all your decisions along the way.

Visualizing is the top down approach. It is knowing what your destination is, so that along your path to success, as your are forced to make decisions, you recognize that it is a critical decision, and you will make the correct decision to get to your destination, because you know what your destination is.

Also visualization opens your subconscious mind, so that if some opportunity comes up, then you will recognize it as one, whereas if you would not have made a visualization then that opportunity would have been ignored by you. Kinda like the effect of when you get a new car, then you notice that everyone else on the road has that exact same one.

If you are working hard, then that means that you don't know how your current action is linked to your topmost motivational goal, so you have to force yourself to do something that you really don't know why you are doing it.

Whereas if some action is easy, then you know in your mind how it is linked to your top goal, i.e. you have a reason to do it.

Just read them all, take what you like out each of them, and make your own unique system that fits you.

"BECAUSE NOTHING IS REAL " All that means is don't fear anything, don't fear success, don't fear failure. This lessens the stakes to your actions, because nothing is real, so that you will not run into "analysis of paralysis". A barely guided action is better than no action at all.

"Just feel like doing what you love to do and let the rest unfold."
"Doing what you love to do. " That just means the topmost goal in your mind whether you consciously put that in there or not. If you become concious of what your topmost goal is, and you don't like what that is, then you will have to work to define another "love"/topmost goal in your mind, and link all the actions that you do to that goal, so that then you will able to just do what you "love".

But I don't know

"We keep saying these are the stepping stones to where we really want to be which is financially free so we can travel and ski and recreate."

So you want to travel and ski and recreate. So you want to travel somewhere else so that you can enjoy the outdoors there. That just sounds like the "grass is green over there" syndrome.

"Prior to this, I have been an avid outdoors person." You are an outdoors person, and you were able to do that by having a simple life of waiting tables. Now you want to make things all complicated, even though you are happy, just so you can fly somewhere else and enjoy the out doors... ok... but during all the transitions that you are going to have to make, you wont be able to maximize your happiness...sounds like maybe you should make some new friends to make life interesting again.

But that is cool that you want to generate more wealth so that you can help others. You will definably be sacrificing yourself so that you can help others, at least at first it will feel like sacrificing yourself because your are going to have to work hard to burn in new habits into your brain, and all the skills that you are going to have to learn. But then after you have learned all your skills and all your habits, then it will be fun and happy again, but it will take time to get used to thing again.

[BelleEnchanted]

Originally Posted by learningtogrow

Sorry for the long explanation! I am just wondering which method to take. Should I follow my bliss and not worry about outcomes (play)? Robert Schienfeld and Marc Allen say I can. James Ray says I can't. I "need to take action". I need to be "responsible" and constantly manifest this responsible lifestyle which will produce something of value to others and feel good about that? Sometimes that approach gives me a headache and leaves me feeling frustrated. Help?! There are only so many hours in a day.

I've been doing things lately based on Abraham-Hick's concept of "inspired action". It's where you line up your energy with your desires - this is where the visualization and imagining and focusing come into play - and once you're lined up, you take action. And this "post-alignment" action is EASY to take - I've been finding that, once I'm lined up, it's like I'm opening up myself to a ton of opportunities. They just flow in, and from that standpoint, it's easy to take action.

At first it was a bit of a challenge getting to this point. I had all the usual thoughts - am I being lazy? procrastinating? But then I realized that it's not that I have decided not to take action, I'm trusting that the inspiration for my action will come. So these days, I'm finding that it's easy to take action, it feels good and it's definitely not a struggle. Once I let go of the "shoulds", the opportunities to act came up and at times it doesn't even feel like I'm taking action - I'm just doing what feels best in the moment.

[autumn]

Originally Posted by BelleEnchanted

I've been doing things lately based on Abraham-Hick's concept of "inspired action". It's where you line up your energy with your desires - this is where the visualization and imagining and focusing come into play - and once you're lined up, you take action. And this "post-alignment" action is EASY to take - I've been finding that, once I'm lined up, it's like I'm opening up myself to a ton of opportunities. They just flow in, and from that standpoint, it's easy to take action.

At first it was a bit of a challenge getting to this point. I had all the usual thoughts - am I being lazy? procrastinating? But then I realized that it's not that I have decided not to take action, I'm trusting that the inspiration for my action will come. So these days, I'm finding that it's easy to take action, it feels good and it's definitely not a struggle. Once I let go of the "shoulds", the opportunities to act came up and at times it doesn't even feel like I'm taking action - I'm just doing what feels best in the moment.

I second Belle! Part of allowing these things into your life is lining up with them vibrationally which feels good. I also use the Abraham-Hicks concept.

Basically training & rewiring my mind, through constant focus (I spent months just bringing my mind back, bringing my mind back, over & over, to the positive feeling 'focus point' my 'point of attraction') on the thoughts & visualizing end results (like they are already happening) that make me feel good. Trained my conscious mind, which then overlaid into my subconscious mind, so that (especially after several months of sincerely practicing & focusing) joy, gratitude and 'alignment' became the more and more spontaneous natural thought pattern/focus point! Then the action is sooooo much easier.

I also really loved this book (free access below) & I find it does work for me, because I've developed the belief system that allows it to work: The Secret - Treasures - ebooks
(you have to login to access the page).

Hope that helps some!

LOL, I also second Judge45! I did read your whole post carefully, but it's soooo much harder to read stuff online without paragraphs/breaks, kinda painful actually.

Also be sure to ask your *Angels* & *Guides* for help in finding & moving forward on your chosen learnings & path!!!! There is soooooo much help available to us from Spirit & God, but we
have to ask for it, with a joyful & grateful heart (rather then one that is closed off in struggle & lack). Otherwise they won't interfere!

Take Care & Many Blessings!

-----------------------------

[Tempest]

Follow your bliss, and inspired action will follow. I went after my dream job, a career that I was told a million times it was impossible to make it in. After deciding that this is what I wanted to do, I had inspiration after inspiration of action to take, and it led me right where I needed to go to get said position.