Doubting One’s Experience.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
I have a day job, a career to be precise, which pays my bills and demands much of my time and energy. I have two children who are just coming up to university age and a wife who works also. I also write as a hobby, mainly fiction, but some non-fiction as well.
My intention is to work full time with words, as an author, and to achieve this goal, I have tried to follow the advice of Dr Wayne Dyer, Sonia Choquette and you. I constantly try to picture my perfect future and immerse myself in literary thoughts. However, as many other people probably say to you, I feel afraid to dedicate myself to my perfect future, at the expense of my current career.
Although I regularly submit short stories to literary competitions and the occasional fact based article to various publications, I am still not a published / paid writer. The problem is not my general level of competence or that I lack the ability to hook and interest an audience, when writing creative fiction pieces: many colleagues and at least one professional journalist / published author has attributed to that. To find out if my life purpose was, as I am starting to believe, related to the written word, I asked the universe a question. I tried to keep my question as specific as possible, set a timeframe for an answer, and asked that the answer would arrive in a format that left no room for confusion in my own mind.
And you know what happened – the answer came in an unequivocal form, in the timeframe I quoted – I felt uplifted, to say the least.
But now, a few weeks on, I’m starting to doubt myself again. Is it my miniscule and simplistic view of time as a linear concept that is holding me back, or perhaps the answer I thought I received from the Universe wasn’t the thing I thought it was?
I am confused; a little embarrassed to admit such a thing, and would be interested to hear any thoughts you might have on my dilemma.
Response:
When one sincerely asks a question of the universe and then gets an unequivocal answer, as you did, it’s helpful to remember the context and the state of mind in which all that unfolded. Most likely it occurred in a kind of sacred time and space where the awareness was lifted above the confusing and competing viewpoints of the limited mind. This level of simple, unified vision is intended to give a vision of the goal, but unfortunately the state of consciousness is often not sustainable. So weeks later, embedded once again in the context of the limited mind, it is easy to doubt and second-guess your answer. But when you were in that state of connection with your higher self, there was no doubt. Doubting is what the conditioned mind does, it doesn’t provide guidance, insight or answers. Let that part of you doubt if it must, but don’t take it seriously, or look to it to accurately convey your purpose and direction in life. For that you can trust the experience from your higher self.
Love,
Deepak
I could have asked this question myself. Thank you for posting it & thank you Deepak for an insightful & eloquent response. I appreciate your shared wisdom, as it sparked a slew of inspired ideas! I have many times questioned spiritually rooted unequivocal messages, concluding they were mirages of my lightning imagination in response to my misdirected superficial desires. If a given message were truly in alignment with my higher self, I'd ponder, "Why have I not already taken action? I must not really want it, it's not really my higher purpose, or it's not meant to be." The older I get, the less I question! ;-) For me, doubt surfaces partially because I "falsely" believe it would take too much of an extra effort—time, energy, financial—to set a new direction in motion, especially because it has yet to be proven that I would commit to it. So doubting takes the pressure off, makes it easier. Ah, but does it really? Doubting could be a form of resistance fueled by an underlying fear of failure. "I'd be devastated if I could not realize my most coveted dream." What a risk! Yet, a meaningful risk. For Yogi's yet to be: If we consider the skewed ratio of time & energy spent in our higher self state vs. our conditioned mind state, we could conclude that all the "shoulds" of the conscious mind will certainly mask the infinite possibilities of an unencumbered free spirit. Hence our mirky conflictual state. I am currently a non-paid singer-songwriter/composer. Yet, I AM a darn good one! Do I need someone to assure me of that with some type of measured approval? No. In fact, the more anxiously I focus on a desired outcome, the less I create from my freely wonderous spirit. And the less I create, period. Would I love to be compensated for my music? Sure...bring it on baby! I am learning, it is my love of creating song that fulfills me, not the "dream" to do so. And I believe my higher purpose will naturally unfold. All I need to do is to be true to myself...enjoy the "NOW of CREATION!" TM Godspeed dear author...
I could have asked this question myself. Thank you for posting it & thank you Deepak for an insightful & eloquent response. I appreciate your shared wisdom, as it sparked a slew of inspired ideas! I have many times questioned spiritually rooted unequivocal messages, concluding they were mirages of my lightning imagination in response to my misdirected superficial desires. If a given message were truly in alignment with my higher self, I'd ponder, "Why have I not already taken action? I must not really want it, it's not really my higher purpose, or it's not meant to be." The older I get, the less I question! ;-) For me, doubt surfaces partially because I "falsely" believe it would take too much of an extra effort—time, energy, financial—to set a new direction in motion, especially because it has yet to be proven that I would commit to it. So doubting takes the pressure off, makes it easier. Ah, but does it really? Doubting could be a form of resistance fueled by an underlying fear of failure. "I'd be devastated if I could not realize my most coveted dream." What a risk! Yet, a meaningful risk. For Yogi's yet to be: If we consider the skewed ratio of time & energy spent in our higher self state vs. our conditioned mind state, we could conclude that all the "shoulds" of the conscious mind will certainly mask the infinite possibilities of an unencumbered free spirit. Hence our mirky conflictual state. I am currently a non-paid singer-songwriter/composer. Yet, I AM a darn good one! Do I need someone to assure me of that with some type of measured approval? No. In fact, the more anxiously I focus on a desired outcome, the less I create from my freely wonderous spirit. And the less I create, period. Would I love to be compensated for my music? Sure...bring it on baby! I am learning, it is my love of creating song that fulfills me, not the "dream" to do so. And I believe my higher purpose will naturally unfold. All I need to do is to be true to myself...enjoy the "NOW of CREATION!" TM Godspeed dear author...
I could have asked this question myself. Thank you for posting it & thank you Deepak for an insightful & eloquent response. I appreciate your shared wisdom, as it sparked a slew of inspired ideas! I have many times questioned spiritually rooted unequivocal messages, concluding they were mirages of my lightning imagination in response to my misdirected superficial desires. If a given message were truly in alignment with my higher self, I'd ponder, "Why have I not already taken action? I must not really want it, it's not really my higher purpose, or it's not meant to be." The older I get, the less I question! ;-) For me, doubt surfaces partially because I "falsely" believe it would take too much of an extra effort—time, energy, financial—to set a new direction in motion, especially because it has yet to be proven that I would commit to it. So doubting takes the pressure off, makes it easier. Ah, but does it really? Doubting could be a form of resistance fueled by an underlying fear of failure. "I'd be devastated if I could not realize my most coveted dream." What a risk! Yet, a meaningful risk. For Yogi's yet to be: If we consider the skewed ratio of time & energy spent in our higher self state vs. our conditioned mind state, we could conclude that all the "shoulds" of the conscious mind will certainly mask the infinite possibilities of an unencumbered free spirit. Hence our mirky conflictual state. I am currently a non-paid singer-songwriter/composer. Yet, I AM a darn good one! Do I need someone to assure me of that with some type of measured approval? No. In fact, the more anxiously I focus on a desired outcome, the less I create from my freely wonderous spirit. And the less I create, period. Would I love to be compensated for my music? Sure...bring it on baby! I am learning, it is my love of creating song that fulfills me, not the "dream" to do so. And I believe my higher purpose will naturally unfold. All I need to do is to be true to myself...enjoy the "NOW of CREATION!" TM Godspeed dear author...