Do You Deserve What You Want?

If you've been affirming, visualizing and using manifesting techniques for years now and managed to manifest some of the things you've wanted, but still find that there are a few goals that you just can't seem to manifest, why does it seem to work some of the time but not all of the time? Maybe you don't deserve it!
I mean, truthfully, do you deserve what you want? Do you really deserve the dreams and goals that you've set your sights on?
Before you return with a scathing answer and get annoyed at my absurd presumptuous question, let me ask you another one. Did it annoy you at all to be asked, "Do you deserve happiness?" If it did, then I am sad to inform you that you have the non-deserving disease.
The non-deserving disease will slowly erode your belief in your ability to manifest. It will perpetuate the idea that you are the only one in the universe that can't manifest what you want. It will poison your mind against your own unlimited potential. It will cause you to run in circles looking for the next latest and greatest self-growth technique, keep your therapist's pockets nicely lined, and cause you to ignore your own successes.
Proper diagnosis of this disease is tricky because most of the time, although it may be quite obvious to others, we can't see the symptoms. Or, more accurately, we CHOOSE not to see the symptoms.
For example, if I said to you, "You have the ugliest curly hair I've ever seen!" If you have curly hair - this might offend you. If, however, you don't have curly hair then you'd dismiss my words as non-sense.
For curly hair owners, this may have triggered the thoughts you had as a child about NOT wanting curly hair, or reminded you of the embarrassment you felt when you were teased about your curls. Maybe you still have insecure thoughts as you wake up in the morning and look like my daughter, Ashlyn - who arises as the "wild-bed-head-girl" until we saturate her curls with the detangle spray! (I tell her she's beautiful, by the way, and I love her wild-bed-head look!)
If you love your curls, you've never, ever wished for something different, or you have straight hair then my words do not trigger the non-deserving disease. However, if you find yourself reacting defensively to my words then somewhere in the subconscious folds of your being, you have the non-deserving disease.
Now, for those of you who feel left out, "You have the ugliest straight hair, I've ever seen!" Did I miss anyone? Oh, how about, "You have the ugliest bald head I've ever laid eyes on!"
We all have the disease on some level, don't we? The issue becomes what we do with it that matters now. If you aren't getting what you want in life, and you've been trying to manifest it then more than likely your self-esteem needs a boost in order to cure yourself of the non-deserving disease.
I met Jack Canfield, self-esteem expert and famed author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul Series, during the time when his first soup book was hitting the best sellers list. He inspired me to understand my feelings of deservingness as a self-esteem issue, and taught me a tool that I still use today.
He teaches the formula, "E+R=O (Event + Response = Outcome): It is not external events, but one's responses (the R - which 9s changeable) that determine one's level of success or failure, health or illness, fulfillment or frustration."
For example, if you have wanted to attract a mate, and have used my 21-day program, or have been visualizing for months and months and haven't attracted your partner yet, then ask yourself, "Do I deserve a mate? Do I deserve to be in a loving relationship with my Divine Life Partner?"
If you feel defensive about this question, then you know you need to dig deeper, and the more defensive you feel, the bigger the issue.
What judgments do you make about yourself that suggest you don't deserve? Have you ever said, "Maybe, I'm not thin enough; maybe, I'm not fat enough; maybe, I'm not rich enough; maybe, I'm too picky; maybe, I'm not stable enough"?
What judgments do I make about myself that might be leading my sub-conscious mind to believe that I'm not worthy of what I want, or I do not deserve.
It's not enough to just ignore the feelings of unworthiness. You must counter these beliefs with genuine high self-esteem and confidence. The more you believe in your own worth and that you truly deserve to have all that you desire, the easier it will be to intentionally manifest what you want in life.
Try these five steps to increase your self-esteem and treat the non-deserving disease.
1. Monitor your defensiveness.
If you feel defensive (about anything) then you are in that moment taking something personal. Taking something personal is a symptom of the non-deserving disease.
2. Make a decision to NOT take it personal.
The fourth agreement in Don Miguel Ruiz's The Four Agreements is "Don't Take Anything Personally." This is a choice. Remember, it's not the event that creates the outcome, but your response to that event. If you don't take it personally, you are free to feel good about yourself as the fabulous human being that you really are.
3. Accept Your Humanness.
When you do take it personal, acknowledge the feelings of non-deservingness, the core limiting beliefs that you resist that continue to say, "I'm not worthy!" Then, let them be there. Acknowledge the fact that you are human and therefore, you will always be both worthy and unworthy and there's nothing you can do about this. Then, hand your humanness over to Spirit. "God, you handle this issue!"
4. Increase Your Emotional Bank Account
Make deposits into your own emotional deservingness account. Tell yourself you are worthwhile, lovable, and beautiful and accept yourself exactly as you are. Do not wait for outside circumstances, or people to validate your worthiness. Make your own deposits and love yourself.
5. Meditate on the Divine Perfection of Life
One of the greatest symptoms of non-deservingness is making assumptions that what you've just received is NOT right. For example, if you want to attract a mate, and you meet someone who on the surface looks great but then turns out to be a dud. When you suffer from the non-deserving disease, you judge this event as wrong, out of order, not what you were wanting. This only perpetuates and continues to attract the opposite of what you want. However, if you continue to remember that you are always attracting what you want, and somehow this was perfect for your path, and now you are free to attract the next experience that is even more in alignment with your identified desires - then you eradicate the disease and proceed with the knowingness that all is well!
Increasing your self-esteem and ridding your life of the non-deserving disease is an inside job. It's worth the effort because, in the end, what you will receive is the happiness that you truly desire and naturally deserve!

Author: Anisa Aven
Receive Anisa's FREE Conscious Creation 101: a 5-part e-course on the basics of Manifesting by visiting http://www.creatavision.com/creative-manifesting.htm. Read more about manifesting and conscious creation by visiting http://www.creatavision.com/ and http://www.manifestingprosperity.com/.

Zigging and Zagging Your Way to Success

"Living systems require setbacks to flourish."

Bob Pratcher

Do you ever get frustrated with your progress? Do you tell yourself that every time you take three steps forward, you then take two steps backward? Do you identify the backwards steps as setbacks and failures?

What if backwards steps are not failures at all? Would it make a difference in how you feel about your efforts if you knew that the pattern of "three-steps forward and two steps back" has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the way that all living systems work? What if going backwards is not a sign of failure, but is absolutely essential to progress?

This is the claim of Socionomics theory, which turns all kinds of conventional wisdom on its head. For example, socionomics claim that people are not in a bad mood because the stock market is down. Socionomics claims the stock market is down because people are in a bad mood. In other words, human emotions create the motion in the stock market, not the other way around.

According to this theory, "Living systems require setbacks to flourish." If this statement is true, it is a radical reframing of the "three steps forward and two steps back" pattern. It means that your setbacks are not personal failures. When you move three steps forward and two steps back, you are following the essential pattern of the all living systems.

If you read success literature, you will often see setbacks identified as tests of perseverance. The socionomics insight is deeper than this. Your setbacks are not signs of failure, and they don't occur to test your character. They are simply part of the dominating patterns underlying human systems. Instead of treating setbacks as personal failures on your part, what difference would it make for you to see setbacks as essential to your success? What if the secret to success is regular setbacks, not because setbacks strengthen your character to persevere, but because growth requires periodic pulling back?

Consider how often pulling back is necessary to gather strength. The archer with the bow needs to pull the arrow back to give it power to move forward. Muscles work only when they are contracted. The contraction of the muscle is the pullback that gives you strength. Martial arts teach pulling back as a way to gather energy. Using the energy of the pullback is the source of power.

Did you see videos of the devastating Southeast Asian tsunami? Before the tsunami wave hit, the water pulled back. Children ran out to gather exposed fish. And then the water crashed back in an enormous wave, swallowing up everyone in its path. The pullback of the water increased the strength of the wave itself. And so, what if setbacks are not really setbacks?

Socionomics identifies "three steps forward and two steps back" as the recurring pattern of all living systems. Why would you be exempt from experiencing the same zigzag pattern?

Abundance is also part of a pattern. Abundance does not come in straight lines. The root meaning of the word "abundance" refers to an overflowing wave. Just as waves ebb and flow, abundance comes in waves, with steps forward and steps backwards.

What would happen if you renamed your setbacks as pullbacks, and saw them as part of the universal process of gathering strength to propel you forward? Not because the setbacks build your character, but because the pullbacks consolidate your energy and gather strength? What difference would it make for you to recognize that both success and abundance follow a zigzag path?

Copyright (c) 2006 Debt or Alive, Inc

About The Author:
Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D., Publisher of “Abundantly Alive Now! Newsletter.” http://www.abundantlyalivenow.com

kalinda@abundantlyalivenow.com