Soul of Prosperity (eBook)

Wisdom, Insights And Practices To Increase Your Good

Rev. Jim Webb (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021 | 1. Auflage
266 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-3621-9 (ISBN)

Infos

Prosperity is something we aspire to achieve. However, it often seems just out of reach. Perhaps you've tried in so many ways to improve your life and even had halting, limited success, which has made you feel even more frustrated. The deep, lasting prosperity we desire eludes us because we have let others define it for us, because we've searched for it in the wrong places, and because we haven't had the tools to attain it. This inspiring, practical book provides the framework and powerful exercises that you can use to define prosperity on your own terms, create your personal 'road-map' to attain it, chart your progress and manage your journey to your good.

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Prosperity is something we aspire to achieve. However, it often seems just out of reach. Perhaps you've tried in so many ways to improve your life and even had halting, limited success, which has made you feel even more frustrated. The deep, lasting prosperity we desire eludes us because we have let others define it for us, because we've searched for it in the wrong places, and because we haven't had the tools to attain it. This inspiring, practical book provides the framework that you can use to define prosperity on your own terms. "e;The Soul of Prosperity"e; enables you to: Learn how to define prosperity in your own terms and avoid the "e;fool's gold"e; of a prosperity mirage. Learn how to use disappointment as a powerful springboard to a new, more successful approach. Understand and remove the subconscious blockages to forward movement. Combine practical motivation techniques with powerful spiritual practices for optimal results. Develop your personalized roadmap to prosperity. You will recognize yourself in these pages and understand fulfillment is more effortless than you've ever imagined. This book will inspire and encourage you in ways that will make your journey to your good easy and joyful.

Textauszug

CHAPTER 2

WHY HAS PROSPERITY ELUDED US?

Often, we have let Wall Street, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, or a combination of the three, define our prosperity.

We have let Wall Street define our prosperity when we believe that prosperity is only available on the condition that we attain a certain level of monetary and material wealth.

We have let Hollywood define our prosperity when we believe that the images projected by Hollywood―which are illusions created by make-up, stringent preparation, planning, a cast of thousands and a budget of millions―depict a perfect lifestyle. In Hollywood, solutions to challenges are resolved neatly within an hour or two, and we assume that all the good guys will live happily ever after.

We have let Madison Avenue (the advertising world) further define our prosperity by believing that if we buy the products that they sell, we will have the fantasy life depicted by Hollywood and we will be worthy of love.

The problem with external definitions of prosperity is that they invite us to strive for unrealistic, non-existent illusions based on unattainable standards of perfection. These illusions guarantee constant dissatisfaction.

Note that when we defined the dimensions of prosperity, there were no absolutes that indicated when we were or were not experiencing prosperity. There were just general feelings of prosperity or the lack thereof. In other words, we can define prosperity any way we choose. The reason that we often do not experience prosperity is because we have let others define it for us, and we believe that we must attain their standards in order to prosper.

Why Prosperity Has Eluded Us

Prosperity has eluded us for any of three reasons:

We do not know that there is a set of principles and laws that create prosperity―When we understand that our inner awareness (our conscious and subconscious minds working in harmony) creates our prosperity, we have our first clue as to why prosperity has eluded some of us. We haven’t realized that the true engine of prosperity is our own subconscious mind.

We do not know that we can use these principles and laws to create our prosperity―Prosperity may have eluded us because we haven’t realized that it is available to us. We have been conditioned to believe that prosperity is something outside of us, beyond our control and unavailable to us.

We haven’t integrated these laws into our personal life practices―We may not have been aware of many of the tools and techniques that can create prosperity. Even someone who may have been aware of these techniques may not have regularly applied them so they can integrate them into their lives.

We Let Others Define Our Prosperity

We have become very skilled at letting others define every aspect of our happiness. This happens very gradually as we respond to feedback that we receive from others and from the world. Each time we receive positive feedback, we repeat the actions that we have taken to elicit it. When we receive negative feedback, we avoid the behaviors that have drawn it to us because we subconsciously fear that we will not get what we need to survive. Unfortunately, this behavior pattern keeps us from being the person we want to be and forces us into being someone we are not.

To demonstrate this, a group of students in a large lecture hall decided to play a joke on a professor who had a habit of pacing the floor of the auditorium. Each time the professor moved to the right of the podium, the students became inattentive. They talked among themselves, rattled papers, and otherwise created commotion. When the professor moved to the left of the podium, the students became silent and stared in awe at the professor. By the end of the lecture, the students had driven the professor to the far-left corner of the room, where he cowered and shouted at the top of his lungs!

The professor was amazed to find himself withering in a far corner of the cavernous lecture hall, driven there by the feedback he received from his students. He was not conscious of his drift, but subconsciously he told himself, If I react by moving to the left, the students will show me the respect and attention that I desire. Subconsciously, the professor equated this respect and attention with the core human need for love. He then responded to the feedback he equated with love, and let himself be driven into a corner of the room.

We Let Our Environment Define Our Prosperity

Since birth, we have received feedback from the world in the same way the professor received it from his class. This feedback drives our behavior.

The feedback that we receive is conditional feedback. That is, if we meet certain conditions, we receive positive rewards: love, positive attention, and admiration. If we don’t meet those conditions, we receive negative rewards: criticism, punishment, and shame-inducing responses.

I’m sure you can think of examples of how you have modified your behavior to please others. In most cases, these reactions have been subtle and innocuous. In other cases, our people-pleasing behaviors may have caused us to betray our true essence.

We Concoct Stories Based on This Feedback

When we are children, our parents and families truly hold the keys to our survival, because they provide us with our food, shelter and protection. When they withhold love and approval from us, we subconsciously fear that they will withhold the means for our survival, because love and approval are core needs. We subconsciously perceive that we are in mortal danger, and we respond to this danger by modifying our behavior according to their wishes. Our parents learned to control our behavior by withholding, or threatening to withhold love and approval when we behaved in ways that did not meet their standards.

Since everyone is trained from birth to understand this dynamic, others also use this dynamic to elicit the behavior they want from us. By giving positive feedback for desirable behavior, and either withholding positive feedback or giving negative feedback when we exhibit behavior they want to discourage, they manage our behavior, our perceptions of ourselves, and our sense of well-being. Just as the professor was forced into one corner of the room, we are forced into a way of thinking and behaving that may not reflect our true nature but, instead, reflects someone else’s desires for us based on their world view, their fears, their desires, Subconsciously, we believe the stories that this feedback creates.

Our Stories Limit Our Prosperity

There are many ways that our stories can limit our prosperity. For example, a parent who feels inadequate because he or she didn’t have the educational opportunities that are available to you may have stressed education to you. Their emphasis on education may have been so pronounced that their love for you may seem to be conditional based on your academic performance, regardless of your native abilities, aptitudes, or interests. You may have wanted to be a carpenter, but your parents wanted you to be a doctor. Their way of showing love for you was to push you, judge you, scold you, or shame you if you didn’t meet their standard of perfection based on what they wanted for you. Your self-esteem may have suffered because you believed that your worth was dependent on meeting their criteria for perfection.

In another example, your parents or parental images may have an idea of which body type and physical characteristics are lovable. They may have grown up in an era where survival and self-worth were dependent on being loved by someone, and being loved by someone was dependent on having certain physical and social characteristics. Out of love, they may have wanted to mold you into a person who has such characteristics so you would survive and have the love that they desired for you. Consciously or subconsciously, they shamed you into believing that you had to look a certain way and be of a certain weight in order to get the love that they wanted you to have.

This conditional love may have had the short-term effect of controlling your behavior, but it also had a pernicious long-term effect of planting stories in your mind that compromised your self-worth and your ability to experience prosperity. The effect that these stories have had is quite evident in many of the people I have counseled.

One such client is Judy, the middle child in her family, who felt she was not seen, heard or valued because she didn’t receive the attention that the oldest child received, and felt she was ignored when her younger sibling was born. Judy is left-handed and always felt different and flawed. In her heart, she has collected a whole catalog of slights. Anytime something unpleasant happens to her, she believes that it is because she is a left-handed middle child, because this is the story that she tells herself.

Another client, Joe, has received constant criticism from perfectionist parents who want him to be all that he can be. This criticism implies that he is not good enough just as he is. In his heart, he has told himself the story that he is not good enough, and he can’t finish projects for fear of withering criticism. The story that he subconsciously tells himself is that If he doesn’t finish, he won’t get criticized. This has had negative effects on his life and career. He is disappointed by a lack of fulfillment, and his heart is breaking.

A third client, Chris, received attention from her parents when she was sick, and she perceived this attention as love. In her heart, Chris associates being ill...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 31.8.2021
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Lebenshilfe / Lebensführung
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Psychologie
• ISBN-10: 1-0983-3621-6 / 1098336216
• ISBN-13: 978-1-0983-3621-9 / 9781098336219