I had been feeling really happy and confident over the last few days, knowing that I was getting a good handle on being able to create money.  Then, one morning, I woke up in a foul mood.  I didn't even WANT to leave the bed and come to full waking consciousness because the old and very familiar feelings of being trapped and powerless seemed to be waiting for me there.

I had been here before.  In this mood, I'd go about my day only noticing the things that WEREN'T the way I wanted them and feeling like crap - bitch and moan, bitch and moan.  It wasn't how I really liked thinking of myself.  I knew that the mood was a result of me focusing on what I DIDN'T want - choosing thoughts that didn't make me feel good, etc.

Although I already had one foot crossing the threshold, I suddenly found myself absolutely refusing to take the next step!  No - if it was the last thing I did I was going to find SOMETHING to feel good about, something that I didn't have any negative associations with.  Finally I found it.  In the bathroom, I have a large, full bottle of creamy yellow hand lotion - the lotion smelled good, there was a lot of it, the bottle was attractive, and there was nothing BAD I could think about it.

And YES, it seemed goofy to be spending time feeling happy that I had this bottle of hand lotion, but, miracle of miracles, it worked!  I felt like something had shifted, although I didn't know what exactly.  Having centered myself more steadily in my own joy, and perhaps because I had refused to associate with the thoughts that made me feel bad, I was now able to see them more clearly - rather like taking off a necklace and holding it up in front of you for closer inspection.

What had brought about this foul mood?  I had been feeling really good about having some success and confidence with creating money and then - WHUNK... So I started to write in my journal about the thoughts that were going through my head.

It felt like every time I started down this path of feeling good about creating money, I hit a wall.  I had done this many times before but had never really noticed it fully, being more interested, or so it seemed, in acting out the drama of feeling frustrated and angry.  And when I found the thought/belief, it was so obvious I almost laughed.  I believed that "I can't create money."

I had struggled for so long to try and believe that I can create money.  I spent YEARS on this, trying to find the key to turning the tide.  And yet, I could never take more than a half-step across THAT threshold either, without being pulled back.

It wasn't just the idea that I believed I couldn't create money that was the kicker, I had "known" that I didn't believe I could create money for a long time, in a way.  I certainly knew I WASN'T creating money.  But what I hadn't done before is refuse to follow the old cycle of reacting against something that made me feel uncomfortable and powerless.  I wanted to feel anything BUT that, and that's where the effort and struggle came in.

But I refused to struggle this time.  Instead, I just wrote it down, "I am a person who believes that I can create many things, but not money."  This was whom I had believed myself to be all these years!  This was the mental construct that I had created (perhaps by choosing parents who believed it) and who I believed I was in this area.  As much as I had "known" about this belief, it seems I had never before been ready to ACCEPT it or just sit there with it.  Nope - before I ever consciously acknowledged this thought (belief), I was running as fast as I could in the other direction.

The most ridiculous thing about "finding" this belief is that it was there all the time - I just refused to SEE it.

This happened in another area of my life as well.  I had just healed a problem in my lower back that had been very painful and was starting to feel much better. Then one day I was reaching for something and I twisted funny and pulled the muscle that ran down my inner thigh.  Once again it was difficult and painful for me to move, and I had just gotten over the back challenge!

But wait!  I reminded myself to pay attention to what I was thinking and feeling here and not just react.  Okay...  My partner John had offered that if I gave myself the suggestion that my body was just energy, the pain would lessen if not disappear --this had worked for him when he had tried it.  When he said this, I thanked him for the idea, but didn't believe it would work for me.

Belief clues lay everywhere, and so once again I picked up my journal and wrote.  Why didn't I believe the energy suggestion would work?  "Because my body is NOT energy.  It is NOT light.  It is something I've had to lug around with me in order to do ANYTHING in physical reality.  It wasn't just a vehicle, it was a burden."  I looked at the words in a mild sort of shock.  That's EXACTLY what I had felt my entire life.  And it went a long way towards explaining why I'd always been larger and heavier than I wanted to be.  As a kid, being big hadn't bothered me too much, as I had boundless energy to help me overcome this extra "burden", but as I got older I had been unable to lose weight no matter what I "tried".  I had also always known that it had nothing to do with food and exercise, despite all the "experts" with all the answers.  I had always been rather healthy and robust despite the weight, but, especially lately, I had really been FEELING the weight - apparently it was the belief that has been weighing me down, literally.

In both of these cases, I had accepted a limited belief about myself (Seth describes a limited or "mistaken" belief as (paraphrasing) one that does not fit the basic conditions of our inner being.)  As long as I identified myself with these beliefs, that was what I created in my physical experience.  And even though I was frustrated and angry and miserable, I danced around in the drama of what I thought I was until I was ready to accept them.

Now, I had been working on the money thing for a long time, as many of you know, and had seen certain successes with it.  What's interesting though, is that while "I" created more money in my life over the last few months, it came through the vehicle of other people - John working longer hours and getting a tax refund check, for instance.   So while I had been choosing different thoughts as far as how much money we had (and it had worked!), I still hadn't been able to create money "myself" - it always felt rather indirect.

Now, there's no "solution" to this kind of struggle, unless it's just the choice to stop struggling, even if you don't think you know HOW.  Just refuse.  At first, it was a little challenging to just let go of the old thoughts, but soon I had created a space for the NEW money thoughts to come in.  "We have more than enough money to buy what we want and pay bills."  And like I said, it has been working wonderfully.  And with, "I can't create money" - ??? - it was only the acceptance and acknowledgement of that belief that was required.  It's almost as if, once named, the illusory belief dissolves as smoke in a fresh breeze.

So, now I'm no longer struggling against this old belief, and choosing new thoughts and beliefs is just a fun exercise.  Mostly I'm thinking, "I can and DO create money.  LOTS of it."  And it feels good, and I'm not worrying about HOW or anything like that - worrying thoughts are just a part of the old "I can't" thought.  Playing the California State Lottery and the online Lottery games feels a lot lighter to me now!  And I don't even worry if I DON'T play, I just continue to feel good about it.

At the moment, I'm still sniffing around the thought that my body is just energy and can be as light as I want it.  I know I'm going in that direction though, I just seem to want to really SEE myself here before I start creating something new.  A friend once described this as "deciding to decide".  That is - I know what I want to decide, and I'm getting to the point where I will be 100% willing to decide that my body is energy.  I think since this realization is still fresh in my mind, it's still working its way out.  And that's okay - I'm willing to take a little time to do this right.  I don't have the old thoughts anymore; I'm just trying to get a feel for who I REALLY am.  Odd to think that I've always known that I was rich <grin>, but it might take me a little longer to know that my body is slender and strong.  Perhaps this is because I've been focusing on the "rich" vibration for a while now, and haven't put as much conscious energy into really feeling light and slender.

But that's starting to be as much fun as knowing that I can create money. <grin> 

©2000, Kristen Fox. Printed in the June-July 2000 Issue of the online Conscious Creation Journal. http://www.consciouscreation.com/ (Feel free to duplicate this column for personal use - please include this copyright notice.)