Book of the Law

What is the "Book of the Law" that you carry with you?  How do you use it?

Each of us has a "Book of the Law", even those who appear to be pretty lawless.  And most of us, unfortunately, use it in completely the wrong way.  Do you have a vision of Sylvester Stallone wielding his Book of the Law in the film "Judge Dredd"?  If so, that is probably a good image to retain while thinking about this topic.

Let's first look at what I mean by the "Book of the Law".  It is a complete moral and ethical code that determines exactly what you should be doing, what you should be thinking, and what you should be feeling every minute of every day.  Does that sound rather extreme and repressive?  Good!  It should!  None of us should be so totally controlled as this - but most of us are!

If you are religious you may well say that your Book of the Law is the book that is the basis of your religion.  The Bible.  The Holy Quran.  The Torah and the Talmud.  The Book of Mormon.  The Bhagavad Gita.  The Tripitakas.  Guru Granth Sahib.  Kitáb-i-Aqdas.  The Book of Rites.  The Agamas.  Or whatever holy book contains the rules you try to follow.  Even if you are not religious you may still take something from a sacred text and try to live by it as your Book of Law - for example "the 10 commandments".

Maybe you don't identify with any of the above.  You may think you don't have a Book of Law.  But I can guarantee you do.

For those who believe their Book of Law is a particular sacred text, I am now going to say something that may shock you.  Although that text may be a part of your Book of Law it is not the whole of that book, nor even is it the main content of that book.

As I have said, your Book of Law is a complete statement of everything you should be doing, everything you should not be doing, everything you should be thinking, everything you should not be thinking, everything you should be feeling, and everything you should not be feeling.  It may be largely based on a sacred text, but it is certainly not just that text.  For a start, no sacred text, no matter how detailed, can be so complete that it covers everything.  And also, nobody is so insulated from every outside influence that they are only influenced by one sacred text and nothing else.

We each begin "writing" our Book of Law from soon after we are born.  Mummy says "Don't do that!  It's not nice!" and that goes right in the Book.  Daddy says "That's naughty!" and that goes in the Book too.  Big brother says "Stop it!" and that goes in.  Teacher says "No, you are wrong!" and you write that in your book.  You are told to read a sacred text, and everything you read there is copied into your Book.

So far I have mainly covered the negatives.  But all the positive strokes go in there too.  For example your partner says "Yes, that is so good!" and that gets written in your Book.

I have also mainly covered things said to and aimed at you.  But everything you see, hear and feel gets interpreted and is added to your Book.  You see good things happening to friends, and your unconscious tries to work out what actions led to this and then adds a new rule to your Book.  You see bad things happening to friends, and your unconscious tries to work out what actions led to this and then adds another new rule to your Book.  Sometimes this can be a good thing.  Especially if you have ensured you associate with good, successful people.  But it will not always be good, as your unconscious mind does not always interpret cause and effect correctly, and some quite irrational rules can be added as a result.

As you watch your favourite drama on television, and something good or bad happens to one of the characters, you will unconsciously be assessing what actions led up to that good or bad result and then that gets added to your Book too.  The same with films you watch and novels you read.  Perhaps you need to take a little more care over what you expose yourself to - or at least be aware of what is happening here and try to counteract it.

Nothing written in your Book of Law is ever erased unless you take great trouble to erase it.  So when your partner says "Yes, that is so good!" that stays even if you change partners and whatever it was is not enjoyed by your new partner!

How do you use your Book of Law?

Well, obviously one way you use it is to decide what is good and what is bad.  If you are strongly religious you are more likely to modify this if it conflicts in any way with what you have learned from your sacred text.  But the fact that you are first led one way and then have to consciously counteract this can create issues for you.  It would probably make life more comfortable for you if you had some way of finding out what some of those "false" rules in your Book are and then neutralizing them.

But that is not the only way you use it.  You also use it rather like Judge Dredd in the famous comic series and movie.  You judge yourself for having broken one of the laws - perhaps only by fleetingly having thought how nice it might be to do something which is shown in your Book as inappropriate.  Having judged yourself, you then punish yourself.  Unfortunately that is not an end to it.  Every time you remember that you broke this law, your Judge rises again and punishes you again.  This can happen many, many times for just one lapse (or even something that isn't a lapse but that conflicts with your Book).

What is even worse is that you will find there are many conflicting laws in your Book.  There are bound to be lots of cases where something you were told or you worked out was good, there is later something that seems to illustrate it was bad.  Rather than one rule replacing the other, you end up with both rules in your Book.  So you are "damned if you do and damned if you don't".

What should by now be clear to you is that it would be good to have some way of removing all these superfluous, and often completely wrong, rules in your Book of Law.  Fortunately there are a number of tools you can use and a number of coaches who specialize in this area.  Look for terms such as "Limiting Beliefs", "Abundance Blocks", or simply "Blocks".

One coach I have found who is very good at removing unwanted rules from your Book of Law is Christie Marie Sheldon.  She runs a free Masterclass on this called "Unblock Your Abundance".  Check it out at http://mval.li/?a=84&c=1762&p=r&s1=

Abundance Blocks

If you have been studying personal development for a while you have probably come across the term "abundance block".  But what exactly is it, and why is it important?

Your unconscious mind is very much like a computer.  Program it in the right way and it will give you the right answer.  But the term "gigo" (garbage in - garbage out) very much applies here.  It has no good way of testing the truth or otherwise of what it is told.  Again, just like a computer.  If you write a program instructing your computer to do certain things, and if you use the right syntax to write the program instructions, it will do exactly what you say.  It doesn't care whether or not there is any logic in what it is being told to do, even though it is an entirely logical machine.  It just does it because it has been told to do it.

On being told this, some people think all they need to do is give the right instructions to their unconscious mind and all will be well.  They prepare the right "affirmations", recite them every day, and then expect their unconscious mind to start creating opportunities which will lead them to their goal.  In theory this should work.  In practice it often doesn't, and it is then tempting to say "affirmations don't achieve anything - they are a complete waste of time and effort!"  But the reason it doesn't work is because there is some deep seated underlying "programming" which is taking us in a very different direction.  This underlying programming creates "abundance blocks".

Abundance blocks can be created at any time, but many of the more powerful blocks were created many years ago, often during very early childhood.

There are many different kinds of abundance blocks.  The way in which they block us differs, but the end result is the same.

A very common abundance block is the belief that we do not deserve abundance.  That abundance may be wealth, and it often is.  But it may be, for example, good relationships, a satisfying career, etc, etc.  Anything, in fact, that we would like to achieve.

So your unconscious mind may have been programmed to believe you do not deserve to be wealthy, or do not deserve to have love, or do not deserve to have a good job.  Often, it is so deeply buried that you don't even realize it is there.  You try to become wealthier, but your unconscious mind "knows" that you do not deserve to be wealthy, as that it what it was programmed to believe many years ago.  And so it refuses to let you become wealthy.  Or allows you to become wealthy for a brief period and then lose it all.

Or it may have been programmed to believe that whatever it is you want is evil.  Typically this will be wealth, although again it may be anything that you would regard as signalling success.  Perhaps it believes you cannot be spiritual if you are aiming for success in one way or another.  There is no conflict between a good, happy relationship and spirituality.  There is no conflict between a satisfying career and spirituality.  There is no conflict between being wealthy and being spiritual.  Did you react at all when you read any of those statements?  Did you feel some resistance inside you?  Perhaps when I said there is no conflict between being wealthy and being spiritual?  Did your unconscious mind feed you some phrases along the lines of "money is the root of all evil"?  This is a very common unconscious belief (sometimes a conscious belief too), which is completely untrue but which has created an abundance block that will prevent you becoming or remaining wealthy.

Sometimes these abundance blocks have arisen from a direct comment.  Perhaps your parents told you when you were a child that money is the root of all evil.  Or they may have told you that if you want to be successful you have to work hard.  On the surface that sounds a reasonable thing to say.  It is certainly good to work for success, to do things likely to lead you to success.  But if your unconscious believes you can only be successful if you work hard, then all the time you are not working hard (because, for example, you are getting the sleep you need, or eating the food you need to eat to stay alive!) it will decide you cannot become successful because you are not working hard.  It has a very simple program equating success with working hard and cannot recognize that sometimes you have to do something else.

Sometimes the abundance blocks have arisen indirectly.  For example, as a young child you may have heard your parents arguing about money.  Maybe not a very bitter, long argument, just the kind of "spat" most of us have from time to time.  But to your young child's mind there is now an association between money and unhappiness.  That will create a powerful abundance block.

Abundance blocks like these are usually buried very deep.  It may take some time to identify them.  One way to recognize you have them is to see how you react to words like "wealth", "money", "love", "success" etc.  Any feeling other than great joy and happiness suggests you have an abundance block you have to remove before you can receive the abundance the Universe wants you to receive.

Although it is possible to identify and remove these abundance blocks yourself, it is a lot easier to enlist help to do so.  Use a coach who specializes in this area.  Personally I have taken programs run by the excellent coach Christie Marie Sheldon.  You can attend one of her webinars free to identify and remove one of your abundance blocks, and then consider following one of her programs to deal with the many other blocks you almost certainly have.

How to Expand your Sphere of Availability

In my last article I outlined the concept of the Law of the Sphere of Availability, which came as quite a shock to a number of readers.  Some Law of Attraction gurus view it as a kind of heresy.  If we have the power of the Universe behind us, then how can there be any limits on what we can achieve?  And if there are no limits, then surely the Sphere of Availability is infinite!  If you really want something, then it is available to you right now as long as you use the Law of Attraction properly.

Those who read my article carefully will know that I did state quite clearly that there are no limits on what the Universe can bring us, and that the reason we do not achieve all that we wish to achieve is because of limits we create ourselves.  But just because we have created those limits ourselves, it does not make them any the less real or penetrable.  I am a firm believer in the infinite power of the Universe, and am a great optimist, but I also know that I, for one, cannot simply suddenly decide I want my bank account to expand by a factor of a million, affirm and visualize properly for it, and then expect that to happen overnight.  As has been said many times (and accredited to many different people) "the difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer!"  So be ready to accomplish difficult challenges but don't immediately expect the impossible!

So, is there anything we can do to expand our Sphere of Availability, and expand it rapidly and substantially?

As I have already said in the earlier article, begin expanding your Sphere of Availability by taking full advantage of it, and manifesting the things you desire from within it rather than initially trying for things well outside it.  You could imagine the Sphere as something a bit like the horizon.  If you simply stay where you are, it does not move, but it expands as you move towards it.  Don't sit there saying there is no point in trying to move forward because you can see the limit ahead of you and what you want is beyond that limit.  Start moving towards your goal and watch the Sphere of Availability move and embrace that goal.

Do not underestimate the power of doing this.  Maybe start in a small way until you get used to it.  Even a few steps forward moves the horizon a few steps further forward.  After just those few steps you are unlikely to notice the effect, but believe me it is there!  Get into the habit of congratulating yourself for your small successes, and thanking the Universe for granting them to you.  This will encourage you and you will find you can make larger steps.  And as you make those larger steps the expansion of your Sphere of Availability becomes more and more obvious.

What else can you do?

Going back to the horizon metaphor, if you really want to see it expand more quickly, then ride a bicycle rather than walk, ride a car rather than cycle, fly an airplane rather than drive.  In other words, use the right tools.  If you don't yet have an airplane, use a car, and if you cannot afford a car get a bicycle.  This, too, is using the Law of the Sphere of Availability - use what is available to you now rather than sitting down in the middle of the road crying because you don't have something better and faster.  If you keep your eyes open you will see many tools available to you.  Some are very effective but maybe cost more than you can afford right now.  Some are completely free, but are more like bicycles than airplanes!  Use what you can now, but remain alert and "upgrade" your tools once you are in a position to do so.  Such tools include the use of a personal coach, webinars, courses, blog articles etc.

As well as moving towards your goal and seeing the Sphere expand, start trying to find about about your self-created limits.  What are they?  Why are they there?  How can you remove them?

Some of those limiting beliefs were created in you when you were a small child.  Some you picked up later in life when you fell at a hurdle and came to belief that it is impossible ever to jump over a hurdle.  They are reinforced by you and also often by the people surrounding you.  Initially just try to become aware of what they are and then try to find what is continuing to feed them and keep them strong.

Most of these "Abundance Blocks" are hidden deep inside you, so it can often be very difficult even to find them, let alone to get rid of them.  There is a free masterclass on finding and ridding yourself of abundance blocks which you can study online at a date and time convenient to you.  This is called "Unblock Your Abundance", and it is run by the world-renowned expert on removing Abundance Blocks, Christie Marie Sheldon.   Regard taking that masterclass as riding a bicycle rather than walking.  You can find that masterclass here:

http://mval.li/?a=84&c=1762&p=r&s1=

When you have completed the class you will find there are options for you to upgrade your bicycle to a car or a plane if you are ready and willing to do so.  Or just keep cycling for free - it is certainly a lot better than walking or, even worse, standing still and just moaning that the horizon hasn't moved!