Creators Circle #3: Stop Pushing Against Life

In this Creators Circle call, we discuss radical acceptance, the need to stop pushing against life, how to change the flow without fighting it, plus more.

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Topics Discussed in This Call

• Radical Acceptance
• Using Attraction instead of Force
• Stress Is Pushing against Life
• Playfulness in Manifesting
• Manifesting Is Subtly Suggesting to the Universe
• Not Having Details Sometimes Helps

Transcript

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Voiceover: The Creators Circle is a weekly call for creators like you to ask your questions about the law of attraction. To get information on how to connect, please go to http://www.darkascent.org/creatorscircle.

Brandon: Welcome to “Creators Circle.” This is call #3. Today’s the first of August. That’s pretty exciting. How’s everyone doing?

Caller #1: Great.

Justin: Good.

Brandon: I’m doing good. Any topics up for discussion? Any questions? Any random thoughts, whatever? Now’s the time.

Radical Acceptance

Caller #2: I’ve been experimenting a lot with radical acceptance. It’s terrifying the first time you do it. I spent so long thinking, “If I allow these thoughts, they’re going to happen.” No, things have gotten so much better. After sitting there thinking, “Nothing bad has happened, and I feel better,” I was bewildered. It kind of blew my world a little bit.

Brandon: Yes, I feel like a lot of law of attraction teachers have this odd thing about negative emotions where you don’t want to admit they exist. You don’t really want to pay attention—obviously you don’t want to give too much attention to them, but you don’t even want to admit that they’re there or deal with them. Who was it during the Order call the other day who was talking about wanting to be always happy and repress? No, it was in the comments. It might have been you, or someone else. Someone said how with Abraham, when you go in the “hot seat” there, they don’t really let you process your stuff. They want you to have the happy emotions now. They don’t really give you the time to process those negative emotions.

Justin: You have to run them through there. Even if you don’t process them all, they have to go through. Sorry, guys. They have to go through.

Caller #2: They brush up against trying to be happy, and no stress. That’s something I realized when I just let myself be upset. It’s like pointing a spotlight at a shadow. It disappears.

Justin: I’ve found it’s okay to be like, “Oh, yeah, I’m mad,” and then somehow you separate it from the actual momentum, and it works. It’s not even exactly mindfulness or radical acceptance. It’s something a little bit different. It’s related. “Okay, I’m mad,” or whatever it is. Somehow it doesn’t slow down the momentum. I don’t know how to explain.

Caller #2: It’s like naming it gives you power over it, but you can’t dwell on it. You can’t be like, “I’m mad because this and this and this.” You have to be like, “I’m mad. Whatever.”

Justin: “I’m mad. Oh, yeah, I’m mad. Who cares?”

Caller #1: Is the phrase “radical acceptance” your phrase, or did you hear that somewhere?

Brandon: That was actually my phrase. I haven’t used it for a while.

Caller #2: I was going through a lot of old posts.

Brandon: That was always my phrase. My terminology has updated over time, but it is the same thing. Did you read today’s post?

Caller #2: I have not, yet.

Christine: It’s awesome.

Brandon: My wife has to say that.

Christine: No, I don’t. 

Caller #2: Hire her to be your PR person. [laughs]

Brandon: “Everything he says is great!” I know you read it because you commented on it.

Justin: I just woke up, so….

Brandon: Not for the day?

Justin: For the day. Just kidding.

Caller #2: The day is almost over, Justin.

Brandon: That’s a total reversal.

Using Attraction instead of Force

Brandon: I want to talk about it, so for those who haven’t read it, be sure to read it as soon as possible. With my post today, basically (I’m not going to describe it in 30 seconds or less) I was talking about the need to create attraction instead of force. That’s what the post was called. You need to create attraction instead. I’m re-releasing my class, “The 10 Essential Keys that Make the Law of Attraction Work for You,” so I pulled out one of those keys. It was key #8. I decided to write a post about it.

That was the eighth key of that class: create attraction instead of force. What it came down to was that a lot of us try to force things. When you meet resistance, you’re like, “I have this resistance. I’m going to force my way through it. I’m going to force through action or through heavy inner work like visualization and beat my way through the resistance.” This is sort of a form of radical acceptance. I haven’t been practicing this a lot today. A lot of times, when I write, I learn a lot from my writing, too. Have you ever had that happen?

Caller #2: Oh, yes.

Brandon: It really clarified things for me, too. I realized I’ve been using force a little bit too much. 

Justin: Not you, Brandon.

Brandon: [laughs] I explained this energy trick in the post, but I’ll do it here, there. You’re good with energy, so you might have tried it. If you’ve ever had someone try to resist you—in David Snyder’s demonstrations of this, he’ll try to physically move someone. They’ll resist him, and he won’t be able to. You can do it with someone pushing their arm or something. If you just try to push them with your own bodily force, it’s a lot of effort. But if you actually go within and attune to your own energy and relax into the decision of what you want to do, they resonate with your energy, and they simply move with you. Have you ever experienced this?

Justin: Yes, I have, in martial arts.

Brandon: Yes, that’s a very martial artist thing to do. I’ve had a lot of practice. I practice on Christine all the time, the energy thing. When I really got mastery over energy was a few years ago. I don’t remember what I was studying at the time. Everyone in my family volunteered, and I would try to make them fall. They were in front of a couch so they wouldn’t fall on the floor. I would use my energy and—did I tell them they were going to fall?

Christine: No. Well, I wasn’t actually there.

Brandon: Yes, you were.

Christine: No, because it was when you were just learning about matrix energetics. You told me about it, but I wasn’t there.

Brandon: Everyone I tried it on, there was one person (I think it was one of my cousins) who was more resistant, but she still did it. It’s not actually pushing. It’s using your energy to make them go where you want them to go. 

Christine: You’re still touching them.

Brandon: You’re still touching them, but it’s using your energy to make them go where you want them to go. I had a lot of experience with that. 

Christine: It’s fun, actually. [laughs]

Brandon: It’s kind of what it is with your goals. I know that’s a weird analogy. When you meet up against resistance, what I said in the post was (I don’t want to summarize the whole post here, because then there’s no point in reading the post) when you’re meeting resistance, what you’re doing is pushing up against your goal and trying to use force to make it go where you want it to go. What you have to do instead is actually relax into the goal and decide where you want to go. Then resistance isn’t even part of the equation anymore, because resistance can only come up when there are two separate systems pushing against each other. When there’s one unified system, it doesn’t have anything to fight against. It all has to work together, and you are the one driving it. Does that make sense?

Caller #2: That makes a lot of sense, because I’m super bullheaded. I noted myself getting stuck in these resistance spirals. I was like, “There shouldn’t be this much resistance.” I know I’ve had a lot of programs that have been triggered, like the reader question you talked about, where suddenly everything gets you. Programs just pop up and you deal with them. But at a certain point when it’s been a lot of random weird stuff—sorry if you can hear people; it’s game night at my house and character design for a campaign.

Justin: It’s D&D.

Brandon: Go on.

Caller #2: I’ve been noticing more. I came to the same conclusion. It’s got to be because I’m pushing up against it too much, and it’s making resistance. Obviously, you always have resistance, but it’s making an issue out of things that don’t need to be standing in my way necessarily.

Brandon: Exactly. I think that’s what radical acceptance does effectively. It helps you to release that push against and actually become united with the goal. As long as you’re pushing against, you’re not part of that goal and that goal is not part of you. But when you let go and stop pushing and decide to move forward, then things will happen very quickly. I’ve been practicing this a lot today. I’ve actually gotten a lot of cool coincidences and signs.

Christine: You didn’t tell me about it.

Brandon: I didn’t tell you about it yet. Sorry.

Stress Is Pushing against Life

Brandon: You can definitely feel the difference. My thing is, you don’t want to be pushing against any goal or life in general. I think a lot of us get into this place of pushing against life. We get up in the morning. We do stuff we don’t really want to do. We’ll be talking about this a lot on the podcast on Friday. I am so excited about the podcast this Friday. This is one of our best topics, I think. I’m really excited about it. It’s really clear and brings a lot of clarity. Anyway, we have a lot of pushing against life. We get used to it. We do it day after day after day. It becomes stress. Stress is that pushing against life. When you have that stress, that’s when you’re pushing against life. It means you and the universe are opposed. You don’t want to be opposed to the universe. [laughs]

When you relax into it—I want to clarify something. That doesn’t mean accepting reality for what it is and just dealing with it and “That’s the way things are.” That’s like what Byron Katie says, and I 100% disagree. “This is what is, and I have to love it. This is just how it’s going to be.” I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is, you can’t change something until you stop fighting it. It’s like that example of moving someone with energy. If you’re physically pushing against them, you’re not going to move them.

Christine: I’ve had that happen to me. [laughs]

Brandon: David Snyder does this technique with people who are bigger and stronger than him, a lot. He’ll purposely use volunteers who are like that so people can see it’s not him doing it. When you go in and attune the energies, it will just happen. It’s effortless.

Christine: Do you think there are people who are resistant to it? I’m just curious.

Brandon: More so, but I can usually resist only if I’m looking out for it and say, “No, I don’t want to do that.” Generally speaking, you’re going to have a lot more success doing it that way. 

Christine: You’re hard.

Brandon: Yes. When you’re pushing against something like that, you’re using raw force. It’s not very efficient. You don’t want to do it. When you just relax into it and you attune the energies, then things will move much more easily. It doesn’t mean coming to grips with what is and just accepting it in a resigned “Well, that’s how things are.” That’s not it at all. That’s letting the universe lead you. You are just becoming united with that and making the choice of where you want to go without pushing.

Playfulness in Manifesting

Caller #1: Can I comment just because I think it might be helpful for someone who’s listening? I know everyone functions in a different way, but for me, what you’re saying with that reminds me of something that’s been essential for me in manifesting the things I want and getting to the place I want to go. Based on what she said, too. It’s the element of play. I feel like the element of play has really been important for me in manifesting things.

For me, if something that I want to get to (it’s not even like a trick), it’s play. It’s playing. I don’t know if people have read this, but as a creative, one of the most influential books I’ve read is The Artist’s Way. A lot of people have read this book. It’s such a great book. She really emphasizes how important it is as artists. I think everyone is creative in some way. We’re all being creative in our own lives. The element of play is essentially taking the pressure, resistance, and force off. It’s really essential. I know for me, when I shift my mind from—I know we all function differently. You use the word “goal” a lot. For me, it’s not necessarily a goal. It’s “this is what I want to see magically happen, and I’m going to play into this.”

For me, it feels light. It feels fun. It feels like I can just play and see if I can get to this. Essentially, because it become passionate, playful, and fun, I get there a lot faster. That’s to comment on the blog post. I don’t want to ruin your post because some people haven’t read it. When I had written to you, Brandon, the way I ended up getting to the things that I brought up to you is to say, “You know what? Let me ‘play around’ and see if I can become these things just for fun.” The more fun and playfulness you bring into what you’re attempting to reach rather than holding onto it so tight or making it about do or die, at least for me, the quicker it comes. The element of play has been really important to me. I don’t know how everybody feels about that.

Brandon: I think it depends. Everyone’s different. I like “goal” for me because it’s very purpose-driven. It’s a reactionary word. A lot of people who use the law of attraction daydream. Daydream isn’t helpful. I’ve talked a lot before about why daydreaming isn’t helpful. The goal for me puts in that purposefulness and intentionality where I’m going to get there. You can sometimes go too far where you’re forcing it. You want something in the middle where yes, you have that intentionality (this is where I’m going, I’m deciding it). I talked a lot last year about making your goal non-negotiable, and I still believe in that. But not in a way where you’re going to force it, and not in a way where you’re going to push your way through. That’s just not going to work.

I think both elements have to be present there. The purposefulness, directionality, and pointed focus—and that play as well. I guess it just depends. If you’re too serious and driven where you’re trying to force your way through it, then adding a little bit of that playful aspect can help. If you’re too unfocused and you’re just feeling good about it and asking, “Why is it not coming?” (which is where a lot of my clients are, so this is why I focus on the goal aspect), you need more of that purposefulness. You need to be driven. This is going to happen, and I’m choosing it. It just depends on where you are on that spectrum. The playful versus the purposeful. It’s both/and, as most things are. It’s not either/or. If you’re more on one side than the other, then you might want to slide toward the other side by using more of that. That’s why I tend to use the word “goal,” but it’s different for everyone. 

Justin: I use the word “goal,” too. I make mine into a dance. Back in martial arts, they always said I was too forceful, anyway, so I started using African dance to shift the mood. That’s what I do. That’s a method I use. I didn’t even realize it until we were talking about it. I dance around with it. That’s a method I use. It’s similar to mindfulness, but what it does is allow me to slide by the energy and go forward anyways.

Brandon: That’s what I’ve been doing. As resistance comes up, I just say, “Okay, look. I have a choice to meet this resistance head-on, argue with it, and fight with it. That’s what most of us do. Or I have the choice to just slide into my goal and how I want life to be.” When it’s about life in general, “goal” is too specific. You say “my preference” or “desire” or “how I want life to look” or “what I want life to feel like.” I can do that. It circumvents the whole thing. You don’t want to force life. That’s what we call stress. People will build up a high tolerance to stress, but you don’t want to do that because you’re not supposed to do that. In Friday’s podcast, we’ll talk about expressing your core essence. You don’t have stress when you’re expressing your core essence. 

Caller #1: Sure.

Brandon: That’s what you don’t want to be pushing against or forcing. I like the word “dance.” I like the word “play.” That all works really well. It’s the very gentle movement. We’ve been talking lately. If there are questions, feel free to interrupt me. I’m just going with the flow today, unless there’s something else. I’ve been talking a lot lately about creating your own flow. You don’t want to go with the flow of the universe. You want to create your own flow. This doesn’t contradict that. It might sound like “if you just relax into it, you’ll go with the flow.” No, you’re not. When you relax into it, you’re making a deliberate decision of what you want to happen, so you move the energy of the universe in that direction. You are creating a new flow, but you have to do it in a way that isn’t forceful or pushing. You can’t convince the universe to do your will by pushing it. How many of you have tried and failed? [laughs]

Christine: Yes.

Brandon: How many of you have tried and succeeded?

Caller #2: No. 

Caller #1: I have.

Justin: I have.

Brandon: Yes, well, you can.

Caller #1: It was rough and bad.

Brandon: It’s tense.

Justin: It’s not worth it. It’s rough to do. The other thing I do that helps me with energy and resistance is pure faith, when I’ve called in my team to help me. We’re going to rise above this, guys. This is okay.

Brandon: You want to make sure when you say “rise above this”—some people will say that while they are really afflicted by stress, anxiety, and forcefulness. You just want to be careful about how you go about doing this.

Justin: Absolutely.

Manifesting Is Subtly Suggesting to the Universe

Brandon: You can’t make the universe do what you want it to do. That’s the thing. I strongly believe we are the gods of our own reality. There are other gods out there. There are deities, but as far as our lives are concerned, we are the gods of our own reality. I’ve said that for a long time.

Justin: Yes, I agree.

Brandon: We create the flow. We’re not these people who say, “Whatever God’s will is. Whatever the universe wants for me,” blah blah blah.

Justin: “It’s God’s will.”

Brandon: We decide what it is. A lot of times, that’s in concert with our guides and higher self and whatnot. We’ll talk a little bit about that Friday. But we decide what our life is going to look like. It has to be that way. But the universe just won’t respond to force. It won’t respond to “Hey, universe! This is how it is!” [laughs] “I want this and this and this, and this is going to happen.” It just won’t do that. It won’t listen to that. What it will listen to is you uniting with the universe, becoming one with the universe, and then driving the universe to where you want to go. Suggesting. I like the word “suggest.” It’s very subtle. Subtly suggesting this is the direction I want things to move in. You are going against the current flow. If you didn’t go against the current flow, you’d never get anything new that you really wanted. 

Justin: Like a river.

Brandon: You are going against the flow, but in a way that’s gentle and is suggesting a new direction. I used to be really into Taoism. I love Taoism, but Taoism is really about going with the flow.

Justin: I love Taoism, too.

Brandon: I’m for that, but when you’re not happy with where the flow is going, you want to subtly change that for yourself. You want to be the Tao, kind of, in a way. You unite with that and say, “Hey! This is where I want to go, so let’s head in that direction.” Your subconscious will fight back. Your subconscious will say, “Yeah, but—but—but what about this and that.” You don’t pay attention to that because that’s the old flow trying to assert itself. You don’t fight it, either, because when you fight it, you give it more reality. You give it existence. You validate it. You don’t fight it. You say, “Fine, that’s where you want to go. I’m going in this direction.”

Caller #2: Inconsequential that you can ignore.

Caller #1: Say that again. What did you say?

Caller #2: It has to be: treat it like it’s so inconsequential to you that you don’t even have to pay attention to it.

Brandon: That’s the kind of thing we do. It’s this subtle suggestion. I really think we can do this in all of life. It doesn’t just have to be with our goals. It can be everywhere. There’s never a reason to push against life. Again, that doesn’t mean accepting life as it is. It means creating your own path in union with the universe. I’m going to say this really quickly because we’re out of time. We talked a lot a few months ago about right-hand path and left-hand path. The left-hand path is opposition, going against the flow. Sometimes I feel like people can go too far in that direction and say, “I’m so opposed to the flow that I’m going to fight it.” But this is a very subtle thing. It’s both, in a way. You’re merging with the flow and then changing it from within.

Not Having Details Sometimes Helps

Justin: I have a really quick observation. Sometimes it’s better to have a goal and not know exactly what it looks like so you’re more open to adapting and moving with the flow. When you have this fixed goal, absolutely crystal clear, that’s good if you know the path there, but if your path changes and you don’t change your crystal-clear image, it blocks you. Sometimes I think it’s better to shift and change. “I don’t know exactly what this is going to look like, but that’s okay. I know what my general feeling is.” I think that’s the way your method really works. You’re creating your pathways and not forcing it and merging. That’s when that really works. That’s what I use.

Brandon: It’s not working against the flow. It’s joining the flow and then changing it from within. I really like that imagery. You’re joining the flow and then changing it from within. You’re not fighting it. You’re not pushing against it. You’re not trying to change it in a violent way. You’re just subtly changing it from within and redirecting into a different path.

Caller #2: Sorry about my cat. 

Christine: We don’t care. We love cats.

Brandon: That is it for me. Anything else before we end? Any thoughts or questions or anything else?

Caller #2: I was thinking about how…

Caller #1: No, go ahead.

Caller #2: I was just going to say, off of what Justin was saying, I have definitely noticed with my goals, the energy has taken on a life of its own and it feels different. That’s exactly where I want to go.

Brandon: Yes, you don’t always know where it’s going to go. What were you going to say?

Caller #1: No, I think it’s to point to what she said and tie it in with what Justin said. Brandon, you and I have always talked about this, too. Sometimes things are inserted into our path that are actually taking us to our goals. If we’re too fixed on how we’re going to get there, we can get in our own way. I think it goes back, for me, and it points to Justin’s faith and what she said. It’s really connecting with yourself and having an inner knowing. How does this feel? How do I feel? Does my inner knowing say this? At least for me, that’s been really important.

Brandon: You’re touching on what we’re going to talk about this Friday a lot. I think you’ll really like that one because it’s exactly what we talk about. That’s exactly what we talked about: your inner knowing and how to know you’re going in the right direction.

Caller #2: I love how we’re all on the exact same page with all this.

Christine: It’s so cool.

Brandon: It’s resonance. That’s what it is. That’s perfect. That was a great discussion. I appreciate everyone joining. I’ll have the call recording up in two days. I was trying to do one day, but that’s too much for me. [laughs] So two days, it will be up on Thursday. The transcript will be sent out to everyone on the list. That will be it. Thank you, everyone, for a wonderful discussion today.

Caller #1: Thanks, guys.

Christine: Thank you.

Brandon: Thank you. I hope you have a great week. Bye, everyone.

[outro music]

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Topics Discussed in This Call

• Radical Acceptance
• Using Attraction instead of Force
• Stress Is Pushing against Life
• Playfulness in Manifesting
• Manifesting Is Subtly Suggesting to the Universe
• Not Having Details Sometimes Helps

Transcript

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Topics Discussed in This Call

• Radical Acceptance
• Using Attraction instead of Force
• Stress Is Pushing against Life
• Playfulness in Manifesting
• Manifesting Is Subtly Suggesting to the Universe
• Not Having Details Sometimes Helps

Transcript

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