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Three Steps to Significant, Intentional Change
by Phil Laut - Author of
Money Is My
Friend
and
Wealth without a Job-- The Entrepreneur's
Guide to Freedom and Security beyond the 9 to 5 Lifestyle
This is Part 2 of 3: Acceptance
Part 1 of 3 covered Awareness
UPCOMING
Part 3 of 3 covers Action
Change starts on the inside. For many years I have been
teaching what I refer to as "Money Psychology." For more in-depth
treatment of this topic, please refer to my best-selling book, "Money Is
My Friend."
Available as an eBook with a 60 day money back guarantee
HERE
Money Psychology is the study of how a person's thinking
affects financial results. Financial success is not taught in Government
schools and it is very unlikely that you learned the principles of
financial success from 20,000 meals with people who did not have the right
information about money.
Acceptance
Acceptance of
anything doesn't mean you like it, it doesn't mean you would consciously
choose it, it doesn't mean you would order it in a restaurant. It just
means it is OK. The alternative to acceptance is condemning it and then
trying to change it from that position of condemnation. The primary
disadvantage of such condemnation is that your mind tends to create
situations to justify your condemnation. Additionally such condemnation
wastes energy.
Perhaps a good way to describe what I mean by acceptance is to describe
some examples of lack of acceptance.
If you do not accept yourself as you are then there may be a tendency
to gain temporary self-acceptance by destructive means such as addictions,
people pleasing, workaholism or trying to control things over which you
have no control.
You may know some people with a very high degree of awareness about how
their thinking, attitudes and personal history affect them, but who allow
themselves to be victimized by their past so that each setback or disaster
serves only to confirm their thinking that they are hopeless. (This may be
an exaggeration but I am doing it to make the point.)
If you do not accept your feelings, there is the tendency to allow your
fears, past resentments or guilt feelings to hold you back from your
desires. Feelings are energy. Your body naturally provides you with this
energy to deal with the challenges you face.
Acceptance includes accepting responsibility. Responsibility for your
income, success and satisfaction, without reliance on outside sources for
these. Responsibility is not about blame. Accepting responsibility
empowers you to change. The acceptance of even situations that are
intolerable, empowers you to change them, if in no other way than removing
yourself. This is because fighting against them and struggling to change
others usually is fruitless; instead accept them as they are, recognize it
is unlikely they will change and move on.
Acceptance does not mean you don't care. It means that you acknowledge
that there are things you cannot change.
From acceptance you can exercise preference.
Disapproval and desire
for revenge are perhaps the two most important psychological dynamics that
stand in the way of acceptance.
If you did something your parents didn't like, they certainly
experienced disapproval about this. Expressing this disapproval then
became a convenient way for them to motivate you not to do it any more.
For some people there is the fear that if they accept themselves and stop
disapproving of themselves then will have no motivation whatever.
Motivation comes naturally from a person's values. Everyone is naturally
motivated to express his values, whether the values be consciously chosen
or unconsciously adopted from past conditioning. So, you will not have to
worry about having no motivation if you accept yourself. The declaration
of a noble purpose provides a framework for you to express your most
important values. There are specific instructions about how to do this in
Chapter 4
Money Is My Friend eBook
or in
Money Is My Friend
or in Chapter 6 Wealth without a Job
[That’s right, purpose is so important, I include it in all my books.]
Wanting revenge for past hurts
and upsets also holds people back. If you had an abusive childhood or
adult relationships, it is likely that you still experience a degree of
justified resentment about the events or the people involved. Unconsciously
failing to get even is a common example of this. In the "Failing to Get
Even" syndrome, the person fails as an adult in order to unconsciously
keep himself in a position where his parents must continue to support him
or else feel guilty for not doing so. Unfortunately, this resentment can
be carried along for decades robbing a person not only of enjoyment of
life but also prevent receiving of his desires.
Only you can accept yourself. No amount of acceptance from the
outside can make up for self-criticism. The part of your mind that
is criticizing you tends to discount any approval from
the outside and perhaps even resents the people who give it to you.
Accepting yourself is an arbitrary shift in perspective.
Remember-you are the one who makes up, or agrees to the very standards
that justify the condemnation.
Celebrity suicides illustrate the point that approval from
external sources cannot make up for self-criticism.
In most cases, celebrities are people who receive a great deal of
acceptance, approval, admiration and even adoration from others,
yet they seem to end their own lives more frequently than ordinary folks.
Forgiveness is the path
out of the lack caused by resentment. Forgiveness
means giving up the right to administer
punishment--whether the punishment is directed
toward yourself or toward another person. Forgiveness frees you from the
grasp of the resentment, which keeps you dragging along the unpleasant
aspects of your past into your present life.
Interactive affirmations, which are the effective affirmations method
that I teach, employed with such language as:
"I forgive my mother completely."
Or
"I forgive my father
completely."
can quickly free you from the control of past incidents that are
holding you back.
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