How Much Joy Do You Experience?
In the mid 1990s I began to equate my success with the amount of things I had.
I believed my success was less than it could be because of the amount of things I had (or rather did not have).
Only after getting to a very low point in my life in the mid 1990s did I look deeply at the way I identified success.
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Today I realize that for many years up to that period in the mid 1990s I focused on joy and that is what I experienced.
The more I focused on feeling joy — the more my life went extremely well. I met the right people, I was able to travel, and the trappings of success — the money and stuff came to me easily. I KNEW that the world was a good place.
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During the low point in my life in the mid 1990s I was no longer satisfied with living only a joyful life and taking the good feeling things that came to me. I began to feel entitled to more.
I had read numerous self-help books. I knew that my thoughts were things. At that time I wanted particular trappings of success — I wanted money and stuff — I wanted more.
The more I wanted money and stuff
— the more these trappings of success began to elude me.
The more I struggled with wanting more
— the more I achieved that.
The more I entertained doubt and disappointment
— the more I manifested that.
The more I focused on what was wrong and felt bad with my thoughts
— the more I experienced that.
During all those years, I continued to read and study inspirational books. I meditated and I worked to be the best person I could be. However, my focus was on the forms rather than the feelings.
During the following five year period, I got many of the forms that I felt I desired only to discover that they did not provide the feelings I imagined they would.
In 1999-2000, After much thought and reflection, I wrote my first book:
I AM Creating My Own Experience
In that book, one of the main concepts was a chapter entitled: I AM the Feelings not the Forms.
That concept transformed my life.
Today I focus on the Feelings over the forms.
I love good feeling relationships.
I love good feeling cash flow.
I love good feeling homes.
I love good feeling cars.
I love good feeling friends.
I love good feeling conversations.
I love good feeling thoughts.
I love good feeling trips.
I love good feeling ________________.
I love the feelings over the forms.
I love particular forms.
I desire particular forms.
Mostly I desire good feelings in-forming everything in my life.
How much joy do you experience?
Do you think a particular form is going to give it to you?
Do you know that you can feel joy right now without anything but your thoughts?
The standard of success in life isn’t the things. It isn’t the money or the stuff. It is absolutely the amount of joy that you feel.
— Abraham
Excerpted from the workshop in Lincroft, NJ on Tuesday, October 15th, 1996 #484
Joy is present or not because of the direction of your thoughts.
Pain is felt when you look at something you desire and you decide it is not coming to you, even when you have no evidence to prove that.
Joy is felt when you look at something you desire and you decide that it is coming to you, even when you have no evidence to prove that, even when you do not know how you will get that.
Imagine more Joy.
Imagine things working out — without knowing how from where you are.
Imagine that Joy is the best standard that identifies success.
Blessings,
Barry
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