I Should Not Have Sold my Apartment is it True? (Session Two)

I should not have sold my apartment is it true?

Errrrrr…I don’t know.

But can I absolutely say for certain that is true -- that I should not have sold my apartment?

No.

Who Am I When I Believe this Thought?

It’s as if with one hand I’m holding onto guilt, fear and anger; while with the other hand, I am rummaging around for the right principles and formulas that are going to resolve the issue. This desperate search for principles and formulas can cause me to buy all the latest Christian and self-help books that promise to change my life. These books provide all sorts of do’s and don’ts, backed-up by horror stories, chicken-soup-for-the-soul stories and out-this-world promises.

The guilt comes in the form of an unwillingness to forgive myself; a sense of I got it wrong and now I’ve got to pay the price; it is a sense of worthlessness and inadequacy.

The fear is a sense of profound dread; a sense of trepidation of what the future might hold; it is a fear of the unknown; it is a feeling that I am going to be trapped in the same disappointing and frustrating circumstances all of my life – with no light at the end of the tunnel and no glimpse of hope whatsoever.

I feel a sense of anger towards the government, estate agents and buy-to-let investors in the U.K. who jacked-up the house prices to an unsustainable level. These bastards knew precisely what they were doing. It’s all about economics; there are financial whiz-kids out there who know exactly what to do in order to engineer a particular result – a result that suits them. It does not matter to these people if there are going to be people who get hurt and miss out on what ought to be theirs. I remember reading once on the internet that house prices in the U.K. are a key driver of the economy: people tend to spend more when they feel richer – and they feel richer when the value of their property rises. A quick search on Google reveals one such article here – which states near the end, “house prices – a key driver of consumption growth in the UK”. I am appalled by these kind of statements – it is selfish, greedy and wicked!

But I have to admit that no-one put a gun to my head when I sold my place. I admit to being somewhat wooed by my own sense of greed as I rather foolishly anticipated the U.K. housing bubble to burst in spectacular fashion almost as soon as it had inflated to record levels. I was naive and confused; if I was confident, secure, stable, and intuitive and dare I say it, happy – I would not have made the decision to sell. I’ve only got myself to blame.

In the Bible we hear of people who profited while everyone else around them suffered: In Genesis 26:1 we read that Isaac went to Gerar in Philistia and in Genesis 26:12 that Isaac sowed in the land and reaped a hundredfold and the Lord blessed him. We also have the story of Joseph who learned of a forthcoming famine in Egypt and stored extra grain so that he could sell to other people at a profit when the famine struck.

Who Would I Be Without This Thought?

Without this thought I would be free of contraction: I would not be holding onto guilt, fear and anger with one hand, while I’m searching for the right principles and formulas with the other. In actual fact, that search for principles and formulas constitutes lust: I am trying to control the circumstances of my life while holding onto specific expectations. That’s what the Law of Attraction does: it encourages people to hold onto their own fantasies, their own take on what should and should not happen in their life.

There had been a lot written about surrender in Christian literature. One of the more notable books on this subject has been the classic Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray. Surely, surrender to God has a lot more to do with letting of any kind of contraction to a thought and expectation – rather than trying to conjure-up your own idea of what should and should not happen in your life. Surrender is being free of your own beliefs – not creating new ones to counteract the things you don’t want.

What I want in life, more than anything, is recovery. I desperately want to recover from the poor decisions I’ve made and the opportunities that I have allowed to pass me by. But this recovery will not come to me when I am anxiously trying to force my own way and write my own life script. Only God knows what is right for me. I might convince myself that financial recovery for me can only come in the form of house prices crashing. But God might have planned for me to marry a woman with her own house or invest my money properly – who knows?

Without the thought that I should not have sold my apartment, I would be open-minded to the next step that God has for me – rather than being highly opinionated. The recovery I want to see is just round the corner – as long as I first attain clarity of mind and freedom from contracting around certain thoughts.

So Let's Turn it Around…

I should have sold my apartment. Perhaps this seemingly awful mistake I have made is the bombshell that I need to set me free from my own selfishness and fear? If it was not this, selling my apartment and losing money, perhaps it would have been something else: an acrimonious divorce, bereavement, a potentially terminal illness – who knows?

What I Liken Progress With Releasing and Inquiry To

In a previous, rather long blog entry entitled Rating Progress, I attempted to make sense of how I could rate my progress with releasing and inquiry.  Recently, I came up with a rather simple analogy that I felt helped me to come to terms with my rate of progress in this area.  I have posted this to an updated version of Rating Progress – but I thought I would post this snippet here, in a separate entry.  Firstly, because the original post was such a long blog entry, and secondly, it is in the past.  So, without further a-do – here it is…

I think the best analogy I can provide in relation to progress with releasing and inquiry is that of the game Kerplunk. The plastic cylinder could be likened to the mind. The plastic rods called straws are like the thoughts that criss-cross through our minds. The marbles are like the “orbs” of negative emotional energy, which are held in place in the mind by the web created by the complexes of negative thoughts in our minds. If you’ve ever played Kerplunk before, you will no doubt be aware of what makes the game so much fun: you could withdraw one of the straws, expecting everything to come tumbling down – but nothing happens! Conversely, you could expect nothing to happen when you pull out one of the straws – to find that a whole lot of marbles come tumbling down into one of the four trays at the bottom of the cylinder. You could work on a particular thought with the expectation that when you are done with it, your entire life will change – but nothing happens! You could reach the point of question one “no” – only to discover a profound shift in your mental and emotion state.

Kerplunk image derived from the photo P1020279 courtesy of Jeff Sandquist.

My Job is my Only Source of Income…Is It True?

My Job is my Only Source of Income - Is It True?

Yes, it is true because it’s been my experience and it's not just my life that proves it – I’ve seen it in the lives of many other people as well. I find that a person's salary is what ultimately determines their prosperity. Sure, some people do make money through investments or the lottery – but on the whole, it tends to be a person’s job that determines their quality of life from a financial perspective. In my experience, people tend not to win the lottery or have people give them large sums of money or big-ticket items as a gift.

Can I Absolutely Know for Certain it’s True?

No.

Who Am I With This Thought?

With this thought that my job is my only source of income, I become cornered and trapped by that thought. I allow my job title and salary figure to determine God's willingness and ability to bless me and meet my needs. If I think that my job title and salary figure at this very moment in time is a measure of my ability to prosper in the future -- I could descend into a state of despair if I don't feel that I measure-up.

Worry about my job title and salary figure and the desire to get promoted at work, is simply distrust in God's ability as a Father to meet my needs. If I truly trusted in God then I would not worry about my performance in the workplace. What is happening is that I am reacting to other people's performance-driven attitude that one has to work hard and achieve much in order to prosper in this life. I find that people's outlook on life tends to be very self-centred and performance related. It is for this reason why the Gospel of Christ is so hard for people to relate to.

The true Gospel, apart from man-made religion, is a message of God's acceptance of you and willingness to bless you - just the way you are. So why don't Christians get blessed like the Bible, and preachers, seem to say they should? I believe it all comes down to unbelief, or in other words, a tendency to worry. As soon as we look to what we have, what other people say about us, what we did in the past and so on, to define us, we are living in unbelief. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of thing unseen. We walk by faith, not by sight.

It is an obsession with titles, labels, ability, possessions and the like - that keeps us enslaved to those things. This obsession with what is seen ultimately leads to a sense of inadequacy, because there is always someone better than ourselves who has more than we have.

There are also those people who adamantly cling on to their perception of their own ability in order to determine their ability to live a good quality of life. But this performance-driven mentality is very exclusive: only those who seem to have what it takes and who are able to meet the standards, which will qualify them to reap the rewards of life. In this performance-driven world that we live in, it seems that those people who do not have the ability to meet the standards imposed upon them by others, simply fall by the wayside, deprived of the good things of life (including the approval of others).

The message of the gospel is the message of equality: it is a message of God's acceptance regardless of our behaviour and ability. Some people do not like that because their pride causes them to want to merit the rewards of life and the approval of others, according to their ability. The parable of the workers in the vineyard and the parable of the prodigal son, show us the love of the Father towards us. Even though we don't have the ability to deserve things according to our own efforts and ability -- we can always look to God as our loving heavenly Father who will meet our needs.

The truth of the matter is that nobody has what it takes in order to merit the favour and blessing of God according to their efforts. The Bible tells us that no one can be justified by the law: the keeping of rules. The Bible also tells us that the only thing that we have that pleases God is our faith. It is ridiculous for me to believe that God will not meet my needs and prosper me, unless I achieve certain standards in the workplace. I know for certain that God can give me simple ideas, such as investments, that would make me rich relatively quickly. Am I to believe that God will not give me the knowledge to invest my money properly, until I am working my butt off at the office and meriting the approval of my managers? God is a Father to me -- He is not a schoolteacher who is looking for good grades.

When I believe that my job is my only source of income -- it frightens me. It makes me question God's love for me and his willingness and ability to meet my needs and to provide for me a good quality of life. Self-help teaching and the prosperity branch of Christianity, have led me to believe that there is something that I can do by my own efforts in order to influence God's ability to bless me. These efforts in the past have simply exhausted and frustrated me. The truth of the matter is that the only thing that I can do in order to live the good quality of life and get my needs met -- is to simply trust in God. When I believe that my job is my only source of income, it makes me believe that God will not care for me.

The most likely way that I will prosper in life he is through good investments. If I simply made the right investments in the stock market -- I really would not have to worry one little bit about my job title or salary figure. I could easily remain at the same grade I am now, but with good investments, I could earn more money than CEO of my company. But when I believe that my job title and salary figure control my ability to prosper -- I limit my ability to hear from God and to invest my money properly. Thinking the thought that my job is my only source of income, blocks any inspiration and guidance from God which would enable me to invest my money properly.

Ultimately, what determines my ability to prosper in life from a financial perspective is the ability to make good decisions. I could get promoted three times and be earning twice as much as what I'm earning now; but if I make poor decisions with my money, I could lose everything that I have been made bankrupt. I know people who earn a lot more money than me in their job, but they have made poor decisions with their money and missed important opportunities. If a person is frustrated and unhappy, they are likely to spend a lot of their money of things they don't need, which they believe will make them happy. I know of people with wonderful job titles and salary figures, and yet, they are paying a small fortune to live in a small flat on a busy road in a crowded and rather unpleasant area. God could spare me all of this struggle if I simply rested my mind in his love for me and stopped worrying about money.

I see people in the workplace who seem to derive a sense of purpose and identity through their job title, salary figure and performance. This can become a real sense of pride for some people, and to be honest with you -- it sickens me! A lot of these people go around thinking that they are better than everybody else and they deserve the blessings of life and the approval of others more than the next person. It is this kind of pride that can keep people out of God's blessing and favour. Just because someone does well in his job - it doesn't mean that they are right with God and that they are blessed. I know of people who could be called "rich" and yet their marriage is falling apart and they're suffering from depression.

What would it be like if I didn't think this thought?

If I didn't worry about money I certainly wouldn't worry about my job and my ability to perform in the workplace. If I made a mistake in the workplace, perhaps got something wrong or forgot to do something, it wouldn't bother me, as long as I did not think the thought that my job was my only source of income.

The truth of the matter is that God is my source of income. The Bible says in the book of Deuteronomy, "You shall remember the Lord thy God for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth." We often do forget that it is God who gives us the power to get wealth and to prosper in life. I believe that the way that God moves in our lives is, more often than not, in ways that are natural and inconspicuous - I call this the "everyday supernatural". We are conditioned from a very early age to believe that we are rewarded according to our efforts. At the sports day at school, it is always the winners who come away with the prizes. But our God is not like that: He cares for us and provides for us, not because of what we do for Him, but because of what He has already done for us through Christ.

If I knew that God would provide for me, regardless of my performance in the workplace, I would not be so eager to climb the corporate ladder at any cost. Sure, it is quite possible that God wants to promote certain people in the workplace, myself included perhaps, but I can never look to getting promoted in the workplace as the only means by which I can prosper financially in this life. Freedom from this limiting thought would give me a childlike trust in the Almighty. I would be open to new and different ways for God to move in my life and to meet my needs. I would be free of this concept of effort-and-reward that just brings so much misery to mankind.

Let's turn it around...

My job is not my only source of income -- God is my source of income.

I Need to Prove to Other People That I am Right…Is It True?

I need to prove to other people that I am right - is it true?

Yes.

Can I absolutely know for certain that that is true?

No.

Who am I with that thought?

When I hold onto the thought that I need to be right, I become very proud. I find that when I am trying to prove that I am right to someone else, and they do not believe in what I say, I find myself getting angry. This anger can manifest itself subtly in the form of sarcasm and in resentment; or this anger can manifest itself explicitly in the form of rage, bitterness and accusation. If I hold on to the thought that I need to be right, I will be more inclined to spend time and energy arguing my case with someone. When I try to argue my case with someone in my own strength, I am more likely to be resentful towards the other person. In fact, if I try to get someone's will agree with me outside of love, I am actually likely to despise the other person.

Love never needs to employ bitterness, resentment and anger towards a person in order to prove a point. I find that love would rather walk away, even when you know for certain that you're right and the other person is wrong, just for the sake of maintaining peace. The very fact that a person has to employ anger and bitterness in order to carry their points across -- shows me that the other person is not ready to receive what I have to say.

I have to also consider the motive for me arguing my point: it's possible that I want the other person to agree with me because I want their approval. Love only seeks to gain the approval or agreement of someone else if it will also benefit the other person, and most certainly, if it is according to God's will. More often than not, my intention is to change and control the person, to look good in front of them and to gain a sense of victory - this is pride. My motive for wanting to correct a person and to change the way they think, should always be motivated out of a sincere desire to help the other person and to benefit their life in some way.

It is perfectly possible that when I try to get another person to agree with me on something -- I could merely be expressing my opinion about something; or I could even be totally wrong. If something is merely an opinion or preference, then perhaps there is no right or wrong answer, as such. Whatever the case may be, a feeling will always let me know if I am moving beyond the boundaries of love. If I am within the confines of love, I will experience peace; if I am moving beyond the boundaries of love I will experience anger, pride or even hatred. When I try to convince someone of something outside of love it always hurts - not only does it hurt me but it usually irritates the other person is well. I tend to find that when I talk to someone from a heart of love, whatever it is that I'm talking about, it is usually well received - even if what I am saying is incorrect or is just a preference.

I have also found that I tend to be naturally drawn to those people who themselves have a heart of love. I find that a person who has a heart of love is someone who is genuine, honest, humble and respectful. There are people who say that they have a heart of love when they don't; such people go to great lengths to prove that they have a heart of love, typically by doing acts of charity and following moral principles. People in the world can just detect false acts of love a mile off.

I would say that people who are determined to force their opinions and beliefs on other people are usually insecure. It is people who are secure in who they are, who are more likely to be humble and keep their beliefs to themselves. Otherwise, if I believe that I need people to agree with me when they don't -- I am likely to take offence to their disagreement. It might be right for that person to disagree with me in that moment. Even if I am right in what I am saying -- it might not be the right time for that person to come into alignment with my beliefs or opinions.

Who would I be without that thought?

I would be calm, humble, and secure in who I am and secure in my own beliefs and preferences. Without the thought that I need other people to agree with me -- I would be respecting the beliefs of other people. Even if somebody does disagree with me, without the thought that they should agree with me, I would just feel okay about it. I would be free from all the typical anxieties and feelings of rejection, which can arise when someone else disagrees with me or expresses a different preference or opinion. Furthermore, if I am not obsessive about getting people to align themselves with my beliefs, I would experience better relationships with other people.

Let's turn it around...

I don't need to prove to other people that I am right.

I Should Not Have Sold my Apartment…Is It True? (Session One)

I Should Not Have Sold my Apartment is it True?

Yes I believe that it is true I shouldn't have sold my apartment. Selling my apartment has caused me to lose a lot of money.

But Can I Absolutely Say for Certain That is True -- That I Should Not Have Sold my Apartment?

No, I can't absolutely say for certain that that is true.

Who Am I When I Believe this Thought?

I feel terribly insecure. I feel as if my life is over. I feel decimated from a financial perspective. When I believe the thought that I should not have sold my apartment I am arguing with reality, because guess what? I did sell my apartment. When I sold my apartment I was feeling rather depressed and confused. I did not have a great deal of peace about what I was doing -- but to be really honest -- I didn't have peace about anything in my life because I was feeling so anxious about everything. My anxiety in the past has made it difficult for me to make any decisions and to know what to do next. But I’ll be honest and say that there wasn’t anything telling me that I shouldn’t sell it either.

I believe that if my mind would have been at rest and I would have had love in my life -- then I believe I would not have sold my apartment. My one bedroom apartment was just right for me at the time. I would have been able to get it paid off by now; I could have been living rent free; but now I’ve got to continue to pay rent every week – and it’s not cheap!

The lesson to be learned from this is that I should pursue peace above all other things in my life. When I am in a state of peace I am mentally present, I am sane, and I am in a position whereby God can lead me in the right direction.

I must learn to see that this thought, that I should not have sold my apartment, is just a thought. This is a thought that arises in my subconscious mind in reflection of something which I did in the past. No wonder regret is such a powerful force because it is founded upon solid facts. I cannot for the life of me refute the fact that I did sell my apartment and that it was more than likely not the best decision I could have made at that time.

With the thought that I should not have sold my apartment, I become a prisoner to the past; as if my entire life and livelihood depends on making perfect decisions all the time. I have become accustomed to dreading making decisions, even small decisions. After selling my apartment and losing money – I wonder if I’ll ever be fit to make big decisions, especially financial decisions, ever again.

But I think it helps to realise that no-one is perfect: everyone makes mistakes – even big mistakes. The fact that I made this particular mistake should not be a sign that I’m hopeless, doomed, cursed or whatever. I should just accept what has happened in my life thus far, and live my life from here. The more contracted I am around the past, the more the past enslaves me and prevents me from taking risks and just living my life. The more I try to analyse past events in order to distil principles from it so that I won’t make any more mistakes – the more confused and anxious I become.

Who Would I Be Without This Thought?

Without this thought I believe I would have peace. It is only when this thought comes to me that I feel a sense of regret, hurt, rejection, frustration, confusion and despair. Without that thought I would not experience these things. Without that thought I would not experience that awful cocktail of negative emotions. Without this thought I would experience a sense of freedom and liberty. I would be free to make decisions, to take risks – even if I end-up getting it wrong, it is still better than being paralysed with fear. I believe that eventually, I can be free of worry and be in a position in which I am less likely to get things wrong, as I did in the past.

God is not expecting me to come up all sorts of buzzwords, principles or clever faith formulas. When it comes to applying the Word of God in my life, all I really need to do is to reach a state of mental clarity and peace of mind in an assurance of God’s love for me.

When I have peace, which is an absence of my own anxious thoughts, God is allowed to flow freely in my life. The only thing that stops God from moving in my life is my anxious mind. Without those anxious thoughts, I would be able to pursue the life plan that God has for me.

God is not waiting for me to say the “magic word”. God is not waiting for me answer some sort of riddle -- as if God is a Sphinx or something like that. God is not waiting for me to say “Open Sesame” or something like that.

When it comes to the expression of faith: this is not something that is of the imagination, it is not something that I need to struggle with and conjure-up. Faith is a conviction of spirit that comes to me from God. Otherwise, faith would be something that is independent of God; it would just be nothing more than the product of imagination and human reasoning.

The Bible says that we have already been blessed with every spiritual blessing. The Bible says that we have already been given favour heaped upon favour blessing piled up on blessing. Without this thought that I should not have sold my apartment - I would experience lasting peace and a sense of hope that all will go well for me, as well as an unshakable trust in God. My life experiences might not match my own preferences and expectations – but they don’t have to – isn’t that what faith is all about? Without this anxious thought I would be able to experience God's plan for my life without the interference of my own worrying.

So Let's Turn it Around…

I should have sold my apartment. I should have sold my apartment because I did. Just because I sold it does not mean that God hates me. God loves me and He will meet all of my needs – including a home of my own.