Everyone has their ‘Yeah… buts’. Most people consider their ‘Yeah… buts’ as FACTS, immovable objects on the path to what they want. There’s no way around them. These ‘Yeah… buts’, however, are just representations of our limiting beliefs.
Here’s the thing: when you engage with and validate your ‘Yeah… buts’ at this stage, when you accept them as TRUE, you are arguing against an idea, a concept, a thought. At no point so far have you taken any action. No one has said that you should quit your job, buy that house, or go on that holiday RIGHT NOW. These are thoughts, ideas and visions. You’re simply using your imagination, and when you argue with your imagination you are, quite frankly, shitting all over what you want. In fact, this is how and why most people shut their imaginations down, as they grow older. As kids, we have no problem playing pretend. We can simply imagine something for the fun of it, we can let it be a representation of fun, without needing it specifically to come true or be ‘realistic’. But as adults, we have all these reasons for why we can’t get what we want, and it’s not enough that we apply these reasons to our physical reality. We have to apply them even to the realm of make-believe!
Imagine being a kid again and you’ve decided that you are, in this moment, an astronaut, floating in space. Now, an adult comes along and says to you, ‘You are not in space. You are in the living room. That is not a space ship; it’s a couch. And you are not wearing a space suit. Those are your pyjamas.’ The adult’s inability to suspend reality (what is real to them) would shut the game down.
Or, let’s say that the adult would try to play. So, they accept that you are an astronaut. But as you play, you decide that you will visit the sun! The adult jumps in and begins to argue that you can’t visit the sun, because you’d be incinerated on contact. What a dick!
When you engage with your ‘Yeah… buts’, you are being that dick – you’re shutting down your own imagination, the tool that allows you to connect with and therefore receive the reality you actually want. But, why would you do that? Why would you insist on holding on to the rules of a reality that you don’t actually want? Well, generally speaking, it’s because you’ve been taught to buy into the Crappy Core Beliefs from Chapter 6 (that there is only one truth, you can’t get what you want, beliefs are not a choice and you have to see it to believe it). There is, however, another issue: your mind has also been trained to think that it has to take responsibility for creating the reality you want (trying to figure out the HOW).
When those ‘Yeah… buts’ come up, recognize them for what they are – representations of your resistance, NOT actual, immovable obstacles. Remember that you can get what you want and limiting beliefs can be changed. In fact, doing so is actually quite simple. When those representations of your resistance pop up, you can just pluck them out, one by one, and dissect them. You are literally giving voice to your resistance. You’re giving yourself a huge clue as to what your limiting belief is.
By saying, ‘I’d love to get a better job! Yeah… but, the economy is in the toilet right now,’ you’re saying several things:
You can’t get what you want (Crappy Core Belief #2)
Your ability to manifest what you want is conditional upon something else; in this case, the economy. First the economy has to get better (something you can’t control), and only THEN will you be able to get a better job. Of course, you can’t control the economy, so this belief is a showstopper. And even if the economy does get better, you’ll still have plenty of other excuses left for why you can’t actually get what you want. You see the economy is simply a representation of your belief. It’s not actually an obstacle. These types of conditions are an indicator that you’re focusing on the HOW instead of the WHAT. In this example, you need the economy to get better so that you’ll get a job, and then you’ll need to get a better job in order to get what you really want – to feel free, and validated, and so on.
You have a ‘mystery belief’ (any other personal belief that you inherited or adopted during childhood but in either case is based on faulty or limited data).
Since I’ve already covered numbers one and two extensively, let’s dig into number three…
The mystery belief
Keep in mind that wanted manifestations can, and usually do, have more than one limiting belief blocking them. This simply means that you may need to repeat the releasing process a few times.
First, remind yourself and accept that you can have what you want (reread Chapter 6 if you need to), and ONLY your vibration determines what you manifest. Even the economy is simply a mirror to your energy. This won’t generally clear the belief (although it sometimes can), but it will open you up to the next step.
Next, isolate the ‘Yeah… but’ part of the statement – ‘the economy is in the toilet’, along with the implication that this is an actual obstacle to you getting what you want. In this case, we’re looking at a fairly simple belief: ‘I can’t find a great-feeling job until and unless the economy improves.’ Notice that your belief is not about the economy, but rather about how the economy affects you personally. The easiest way to release such a belief is simply to contradict it. This works well with relatively simple beliefs. In order to demonstrate how to do this, here’s a recap on the Five Basic Steps to Changing Any Belief and Releasing Resistance from Chapter 6:
You can change any belief by:
Recognizing that your current belief is based on an incomplete set of data.
Opening your mind up to the idea that more data, much of which will NOT support your current perspective, exists.
Deciding which perspective you’d like to adopt (or just how you want that perspective to feel).
Looking for the evidence to support that new, wanted perspective.
Gathering enough of that supporting data so that you can accept this new perspective as ‘truth’.
Let me restate those steps to fit our example:
Recognize that your belief is FALSE – you understand, at least intellectually, that your ability to find a job is not tied to the economy. Notice that at this point, you will not BELIEVE this statement completely. You don’t have to, but you do have to be open to exploring it.
Open your mind to the idea that there are jobs out there right now, which would feel great to you, even if you have no idea where they are or how to find them.
Choose to believe that you can manifest a wonderful, great-feeling job.
Allow yourself to daydream about this wonderful-feeling job. Focus on this feeling until ‘evidence’ that supports it manifests (you may be positively inspired to check a job board, for example), although DO NOT take action until you’re positively inspired to do so. You want to gather evidence that matches your wanted manifestation, not evidence that supports your resistance.
When you do find this type of evidence, and it will manifest as long as you focus on the good feeling to the best of your ability, accept it as valid. Choose to believe it. When you’ve gathered enough evidence to ‘prove’ to yourself that a good-feeling job scenario is possible, your belief will shift.
Keep in mind that this five-step process can take anywhere from a few seconds to several weeks, depending on how open to change you are and how ingrained your resistance to it is.
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Case study: The ‘yeah… but’ in action
In my coaching practice, the process often looks like this (after I have gotten the client to focus in a good-feeling way and the ‘Yeah… buts’ have popped up):
Client: ‘I can’t get a job because of the economy.’
Me: ‘Really? So, no one out there is getting a job?’
Client: ‘Well, no. I guess some people are getting jobs.’ (Recognition that the belief is false.)
Me: ‘Are any of these jobs good ones?’
Client: ‘Yeah, I guess some of them are.’ (Opening the mind to the idea that what the client wants exists.)
Me: ‘Can you imagine yourself in a good-feeling job? Can you choose to believe that you
can get a great job, even if you have no idea how that might happen?’
Client: ‘Yes. Yes, I can.’ (Choosing to focus on the good-feeling job.)
Me: ‘Imagine this great job. What’s so great about it?’
Client: ‘Well, the boss is amazing. He listens to me. And the co-workers are all incredible. It’s like a family. We do awesome work. I can see us celebrating!’ (Opening up to evidence.)
Me: ‘Have you ever heard of anyone that has a job that feels this way?’
Client: ‘Yes! I have! My old colleague from my old company loves his job. And my uncle works for a great company…’ (Gathering evidence.)
Me: ‘So, do you think you could maybe find a job like that?’
Client: ‘OMG, yes I do! I’m not yet sure how, but of course, if they can do it, so can I!’ (Acceptance of the new belief.)
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This is, of course, a simplified version of real events, but the basic steps are there. This type of conversation might take five to ten minutes, providing the client is open to feeling better and doesn’t throw up a bunch more ‘Yeah… buts’ in the process. If more contradictions come up, we simply repeat the process until they’re all gone.
There are a few key elements I want to point out here. First, we will already have figured out how the client really feels and how they want to feel, as well as having activated that frequency. This is, actually, what brings up the ‘Yeah… buts’ in the first place. Second, when the client imagines the great-feeling job, we allow the specifics of that job (the awesome boss and co-workers) to manifest naturally. You cannot just say positive-sounding stuff and expect it to work. If the words don’t actually feel good, go back a step and focus on the feeling for a couple of minutes before trying again. And third, if you are a coach, you can help your client by presenting them with evidence that supports their positive belief, but only once you get to step 4 (daydreaming about the new scenario), and only once they have enough momentum going. If you do this too early, your client will only argue with you. Keep in mind that the client still has to accept this evidence as valid for them. If you are working by yourself, make sure that you don’t look for evidence before you’re inspired to (or you’ll find the wrong kind of evidence). Once you manifest even one supporting example, stay with it and others will follow. Always use the Progression of a Manifestation by focusing on what you want to get more of and allowing the Law of Attraction to bring you more of it.
I’ve found this very simple process of simply contradicting ‘Yeah… buts’ to be incredibly effective, as long as the Progression is respected and all the steps are followed. But, while I’ve had great success with this technique, no tool is 100 per cent effective, 100 per cent of the time. It doesn’t, for example, work well with deeply ingrained beliefs. Try it out for yourself and see what happens.
Using the tool of visualization to find your limiting beliefs
While resistance often shows up in the form of contradictory thoughts and statements in stage 3 of the Progression of a Manifestation, it can also manifest as images in your mind. When this happens, we can use visualization. Now, you’ve almost certainly been introduced to the concept of visualizing what you want. You’ve probably tried it. You’ve probably also failed (at least when it came to the really important stuff). I’m not here to diss anyone, but in my opinion, teachers that tell you simply to visualize what you want only to have it magically appear are missing a huge chunk of the story. It’s the same when you chant affirmations with no regard for the emotions the words evoke in you. You’re holding the tool responsible for doing the job, like thinking you can build a whole house with nothing but a hammer (unless you are MacGyver, in which case, respect). It’s always best to determine what you want to do and then choose the tools that fit the job. Visualization is a tool. It’s a really cool tool. But used incorrectly, mainly as a way to create your reality, it’s pretty useless.
At this point, it should be pretty clear that visualizing something does not create it. Remember that everything you want is created the second you have the experience that spawns the desire for it. Your job is simply to allow that creation into your physical reality – the receiving. Visualizing something doesn’t cause you to receive it, either, but it does help you to figure out why you’re not receiving something, as well as make it possible for you to shift your vibration so that you can receive it. In this way, visualization goes a step beyond the ‘Yeah…but’ technique and can be used to shift more ingrained beliefs.
Here’s what visualization actually does: When your brain translates a non-physical frequency into an image (or set of images, like a movie), that’s visualization. When you imagine a scenario and you can actually ‘see’ it play out in your mind’s eye, when you can play through the scenario like a film, that’s visualization. When you visualize something, you are translating energy, specifically your energy, into something you can perceive. The really, really cool part is that as soon as you can perceive energy, you can engage with it, and I’ve never found a better tool for engaging with and shifting energy in a conscious way than visualization. When used correctly, that is.
You can use visualization in two ways:
To help you figure out where your vibration is at before it has to manifest to a larger and more obvious degree (keep it in the thoughts, ideas and memories stage and clear it there).
To actually shift the belief.
Let’s continue with the example of you hating your job and wanting to manifest a new one. There you are, having identified what you don’t like about your job, acknowledged how that truly feels and determined how you’d like to feel instead. You’ve focused on that wanted feeling to the best of your ability. You’re not exactly sure what you’re feeling, so you allow yourself to slip into stage 3.
First, allow your mind free reign – let your imagination run wild. Imagine having a new job, with a new boss and new colleagues. There’s no reason to think they’ll be just like your current idiot colleagues, right? Only, as you allow your imagination to create the visualization, it will represent your actual vibration, not just what you want. In other words, you’ll begin to visualize the good right along with the bad. You’ll ‘see’ your boss getting grumpy for no reason. You’ll see your new co-workers slack off just as much as your current ones. You may even see them being mean to you, bullying you, making you run off to the bathroom crying. Why in Gawd’s name would you choose to visualize that? Well, you wouldn’t, not consciously anyway. What you are doing is showing yourself what’s actually been stuck in your vibration, by allowing your vibration to create your visualization, but in a form that you can more easily make changes to. You can’t force your co-workers to be more competent. You can’t cajole your boss into being nicer. You can’t pick and choose your clients by no longer answering the phone. You can’t change your physical reality through physical means (at least not very much). But you can attract a new reality that mirrors back a different vibration.
By allowing your visualization to create itself, you are essentially creating a non-physical representation that matches your current vibration, one that you can interact with in any way you like (the rules of your current reality do not apply); in other words, one that you can easily change. This change will be effortless, of course (you’re just using your imagination to create a different scenario), unless your resistance gets in the way. Always, ALWAYS try it the easy way first. You’d be surprised at how often this works, meaning no further work is necessary. Always start with the easy techniques and only get more complicated if you need to.
You’ve now let your imagination run wild, and the vision of your new job has turned ugly. The first thing you’ll want to do is to take each aspect that you don’t like (idiot co-workers, for example), and contradict them with a new visualization. Do not try to change the entire visualization at once, just work with one component at a time. Imagine awesome co-workers. Now, a lot of people fail at this point, not because they’re not doing it right, but becaus
e they quit too soon. Remember that it’s a Progression – you have to wait for it to build up enough for you to perceive it. In my experience, most people with busy minds quit this exercise at around 15–20 seconds. That seems like a long time and, they figure, if it hasn’t worked by then it’s not going to work. If, however, you’re willing to give it one to two minutes, which can seem like an eternity (you’ll want to give yourself at least as much time as it takes to microwave a burrito…), you may well find that you’ll begin to feel a lot better. And it’s this feeling that you’re after. If you’re not sure if you’re feeling better (due to extreme insensitivity), you can watch for the next stage in the Progression – you’ll get access to more thoughts, ideas and memories that match this new vibration. It will become easier and more natural to visualize the scenario you want. It will also become totally unattractive to you to see it the old way. When this happens, you’ll know that you’ve actually just released some resistance and shifted your energy.
I know that this seems like an incredibly simple technique. And, you may be asking yourself, ‘Isn’t this just visualizing what I want?’ Yes, it is simple (and yet incredibly effective), and no, it’s not just visualizing unless you don’t take the time first to line up with the frequency of what you want. If you simply picture a scenario that looks positive without actually shifting your perspective (and therefore how you feel), you’ll simply be looking at pretty pictures in your mind. It’s not the visualizing that makes all the difference; it’s how you use it. This is real change and it will be reflected back to you in your physical reality.
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Case study: Visualization in action
Just to give you an idea of how effective this work can be, and how quickly you can shift your physical reality, let me tell you a little story from my life. I was working in a corporate job, as head of a department. My counterparts in other countries were all much more senior, with many of them having worked for the company for over 30 years. They were all from the old school of management: dictatorial, treating their employees more like soldiers or prisoners than human beings of value. I, as you can imagine, had a very different style, one that didn’t sit well with these guys and they let me know it at every possible opportunity. When we had to collaborate on a large project, they insisted that I do things their way, including treating my staff in ways that were actually illegal in that country. I refused, which didn’t go down too well. They proceeded to harass me by subjecting me to daily screaming matches on the phone, ganging up on me in meetings, not providing information I needed and just being all-round jerks.
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