Imagine it’s your birthday, and someone hands you a gift. Do you reach out and take it or let it fall to the floor? Do you unwrap it or set it aside? Do you smile and say thank you or ignore the giver?
Clearly, you cannot “get” what you don’t receive.
Just as you won’t get the present someone hands to you if you refuse to open your hands and take it, you have received – by thought, action or emotion – every single thing that comprises your life. Starting with life itself.
Let’s define receiving as allowing the possibility of. Before you can “get” something, you allow it to be possible. Probably subconsciously. Almost certainly the acceptance occurs in your emotional patterns before it ever enters your thought processes; nevertheless, at some level you agree it’s possible.
At some point, you allowed the possibility of your current state of health, your current level of abundance, your current relationships, your home, your work, your recreation, your beliefs, your attitudes. Perhaps you didn’t exactly welcome these things, but you received them.
Receiving and Not Receiving
At the same time, you have not received worse health, greater scarcity, relationships with more violence, or death (yet). However, neither have you quite opened up the possibility of better health, a higher income, stronger relationships, a different home, some other forms of work and play, a different belief system, or other attitudes. Perhaps you want something different from what you have, perhaps you even strive for it. However, until you are able to receive whatever you long for, it will continue to elude you.
Many of the exercises I’ve presented in past blog entries are geared toward opening up your willingness and ability to receive what you want. Right from the beginning, the focus has been on shifting your emotional energy from Victim or Interpreter modes – which limit and restrict possibilities – into higher levels of power. See The Power of Emotion.
Notice the difference in what you get/accept/receive when you make that shift. For instance, here are typical results of Interpreter mode:
- If you exist in frustration over your daughter’s nose ring, you basically tell the universe you’re willing to receive conflict, and you “get” struggle with your daughter.
- If you indulge in hostility with your neighbor over his dog, you’re willing to accept combative emotions, and you may “get” loneliness or illness.
- If you desire one thing (such as your career) to the exclusion of something else (such as your family or your health), you are willing to accept the tradeoffs. You may “get” what you strive for; you will certainly not “get” whatever you sacrificed.
Now here are some typical results of Partner mode:
- If you appreciate your daughter’s challenging and creative personality, you become cooperative with her in developing her talents and expanding her personal power. She may become one of your closest, best friends.
- If you extend friendship to both your neighbor and his dog, you express a willingness for community and sharing, and you may “get” a stronger, more cohesive neighborhood.
- If you desire wholeness, to live your wisdom and power in all aspects of your life, you discover no tradeoffs are necessary. You allow the possibility of a fabulously successful career and a strong, loving family.
To inventory what you’re willing to receive, look at what you have. Conversely, if you don’t have it, you haven’t opened your hands to receive. The not-receiving may be an inability to accept the possibility. Or it may be an unwillingness to be in one-ness with what you want.
If you haven’t been mindful of this cause-and-effect of your life, you probably see what is as merely the facts of life rather than choices you can make or unmake.
Now that you’ve worked with intention and choice for a while, truly welcoming the result you want may be the final step.
Receiving Actively
Receiving is not passive. There are action steps involved. Imagine the birthday present again: Hold out your hands. Take hold of the gift. Say thank you – for the thoughtfulness, if nothing else. Unwrap it. Show your delight. Say thank you again. And then, if the present is something you truly want, incorporate it into your life. Using the gift will be the true gratitude.
Let’s look at this act of receiving as it applies to manifestation. Take a moment to review the intention you’re working with:
- You identified what you want.
- You clarified it in terms of value, motivation and cost.
- You purified it by identifying your fears, doubts and false beliefs.
- You pacified your obstacles.
- You amplified it by expanding your possibilities.
Now it’s time to satisfy the intention itself. It’s time to receive.
Hold out your hands. Welcome what you’ve asked for. Your part is finished.
(Well, okay, maybe your part isn’t quite finished. Maybe you’re still producing your product – gaining the skills, taking classes, putting your business plan together, writing the book. Or maybe you’re still indulging in some of those doubts and false beliefs.)
Once you receive a gift, any action involved shifts from the giver to you. Until that moment, the giver chose, planned, prepared, assembled, wrapped, and presented. After that moment, you hold, recognize, appreciate, use, display, honor. Or ignore. Before the exchange, the giver “owned” the present – and all the choices regarding it. After the exchange, you own it – and you own all the choices regarding it.
Shift the Direction
With manifestation, the process flows in the other direction. Before you receive, all the choices belong to you. All necessary action is yours to take. You “own” your intention. In order to receive the results of your intention, however, you must release your ownership and present the intention – like a gift – to the infinite. (Think of the infinite in terms of what’s most comfortable for you: God, The Source, Cosmic Consciousness, The Universe, The Absolute, The Force.) The moment the gift of your intention “changes hands,” the moment you surrender control, the infinite will act. On the cosmic level, this is when the real action begins.
Actually, I doubt this transaction takes place in a flash. I suspect we progress through this shift in awareness the entire time we’re working (or playing) our way through the parts of the process that belong to us.
Working with Emotional Energy
The most important key to manifestation (to creating, building, attracting, etc.) is your emotional involvement. Anything you are involved with at a Victim or Interpreter level feels difficult, challenging, stressful, even impossible. Only as the Observer can you connect with the infinite in a mindful way. Perhaps you’ve already discovered the difference in your results when you shift into the higher levels of emotional involvement. Let’s look at these modes of power from a different angle to get a better idea of their impact on receiving – and of your relationship to the infinite.
First, turn the diamond on it’s side and restructure it into a butterfly shape, so it’s narrowest in the middle and widest at the ends. The original diamond shape represents possibilities. Victim mode is narrow because few possibilities exist. Observer mode is widest because the infinite expanse of possibilities opens up in this mode. The diamond then narrows again as you chisel your way from possibilities to probabilities, and from probabilities to inevitabilities.
The butterfly shape represents emotional results. At the widest part of the wings, both Victim and Creator modes are so intense, they require no action on your part to generate results. None. No action required.
Recall some situation in which you were in Victim mode. Your emotions were everything; your actions were futile. No matter what you did, you couldn’t win. You couldn’t protest loudly enough. You couldn’t fight hard enough. None of your arguments won any points. As long as you let Victim-level emotions have the power, you were helpless. And miserable.
At the other end of the scale, Creator mode emotions are equally powerful, and no action on your part is required for you to enjoin with the infinite in oneness. Be love, joy, enthusiasm, delight, peace, eagerness, etc. and your infinite consciousness unites with the universe to create your best good.
Moving inward from Victim to Interpreter, and from Creator to Partner, the dynamic changes. The emotions may be every bit as strong, but the results of those emotions become narrower.
In these modes, actions play a role as essential as emotions, and of course thoughts jump into the mix – in the form of beliefs, attitudes, ideas, judgments, assumptions, etc. It’s often impossible to identify which comes first. Perhaps events incite emotions, perhaps beliefs inspire you to action, perhaps feelings energize assumptions or ideas. It all jumbles together, and if emotions are laden with judgment, struggle ensues. If emotions are filled with partnership, cooperation expands.
In both Interpreter mode and Partner mode, you generate the emotion. And you receive the resulting struggle or support.
At the center of the model, in Observer mode, you neither generate nor receive. You simply are. You reside in a place of calm, calm mind, calm body and calm heart. You can relax, investigate, admire, explore, bask, hope, forgive, soothe, and accept. Compared to the tension and stress of Interpreter mode, Observer mode feels like a blessing, like a vacation, like an amazingly powerful place.
And it is powerful. When you review the list of representative Observer emotions, you can feel the release from struggle, the freedom from stress, the ease of being. It’s a lovely resting place and many people reside in the contentment of this mode for the better part of their lives.
Becoming A Receiver
No one lives in Observer mode 100% of the time. Consider those times and situations in your life when you are energized, happy, loving, companionable, fond, pleased, trusting, confident. At those times you have shifted into Partner or Creater mode. If you have decided something is currently missing from your life and you want to add it in, use Partner mode emotions to enlist the cooperation of friends, family, mentors, co-workers, your boss – or the universe.
When you are fully and unconditionally ready to receive, then you move into Creator mode. Then you do, you have, you are.
