This edition of how to attract abudance to your life deals with mental health in the form of mental abundance and emotional abundance. Mental abundance deals with how you think and emotional abundance deals with how you feel.

We’re going to focus on both via the mental burdens and emotional burdens that people carry with them. Its’ called…

Mental Burdens Can Weigh You Down – 3 Steps to Lighten the Load

There was a man walking down a busy street. In one hand, he carried a bag of bricks; in the other, a bag of rocks. Attached to his belt were little bags of dirt. Each pocket was full of sharp stones and on his back was a nap sack filled with sand.

A woman watched him walking with his heavy load and asked him, “Why are you carrying that bag of bricks?” The man answered, “I don’t know. I didn’t know that I was carrying it,” and then he dropped the bag of bricks.

As he continued walking, another person stopped him and said, “Why are you lugging that bag of rocks?” To which the man responded, “I’m not sure. I didn’t know that I was lugging it,” and then he dropped the bag of rocks. He noticed he felt a little lighter.

Moments later, another person approached him and asked him why he had bags of dirt tied to his waist. The man paused and said, “I didn’t know that I was carrying them. They certainly have been wearing me down.” Then he released the bags one by one to the ground.

As the man continued his walk, others made him aware of the burden that he was carrying. Eventually, he discarded all of his burdens and became a free man.

The point of this old story is that the rocks, bricks, stones, dirt or sand were not his true burden. His unawareness that he was carrying these needless burdens was his true burden. When he became aware and dropped them, he became a free man.

Think of some of the needless burdens that you carry around: worry, guilt, envy, pride, sarcasm, resentment, cynicism, blaming others, self-doubt, anger, negative thinking.

Why would you carry these burdens, when by dropping them from your mind, you can become free? Work on yourself to find the root cause of your burdens. Consider the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual drain they have had on you. Decide to ease your mental burdens – your emotional burdens by learning how to drop them. Here are 3 steps to help get you started: 

Step #1) Pick a mental burden and decide to be without it for a day. For example: Say you feel worried about something that “may” happen in the future. Decide to not allow any thoughts of that worry to enter your conscious mind for a whole day. Whenever you begin to worry about this “possible” event, brush it aside and immediately begin to concentrate on something else.

Step #2) Fight your ego or “lower self” which maintains that you must think of this worry. That is false. You never have to worry about anything. You choose to worry. Here is a good example of what I mean by choosing to worry. Imagine that you get an invitation to a party that will be held in two weeks. It’s a big party, and you call the hostess to tell her that you will be attending.

During the conversation you find out that someone whom you really don’t like has also been invited. As you hang up, just the mere thought of possibly seeing or – even worse – being forced to interact with this person causes you great concern and nervousness. You can’t seem to stop thinking about this horrible situation. It ties your stomach up in knots.

However, you do stop thinking about this worry when you are watching your favorite television program or when you are reading a book by one of your favorite authors. My question is – where did your worry go? When you were watching television, where was this horrible worry? When you were done watching television, the worry came back – like you were putting on an old sweater; because you chose to worry about it again.

Step #3) At the end of the day, examine how you feel. At first, it may have been a challenge to drop the burden of (in this case) worry – but as the day progressed, it got easier. How do you feel now? Could you do this again tomorrow with the same burden or a new one?

It’s a choice as to whether or not you will honestly look at yourself and analyze how false burdens have created and affected your current life. For your own mental and emotional health, you need to ease these burdens out of your life.

Should you choose to continue to carry these burdens, they will create a chain of misery like the one worn by Jacob Marley in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. “I made it link by link; yard by yard. I girded it on by my own free will and of my own free will I wore it,” said Marley.

Break the chain now. Refuse to carry these burdens by working on yourself, applying self-study and then taking action. No one understands your burdens and why you have them better than you. No person, no teaching, no seminar or book can release these burdens for you. They may give you ideas as to why you carry these burdens, but you will only receive a variety of conflicting opinions. You have to do the work yourself.

It can be done. Imagine the day when one of these burdens appear and you say, “I’m not going to pick you up. I don’t need you anymore.” You can also find other ideas on how to diminish mental burdens, and even ask questions on this and other issues such as creating abundance on my blog http://bobgarneronline.com/blog/ .

The above article was written by Bob Garner and recently appearred in EzineArticles.com. You may find it here: http://ezinearticles.com/?Mental-Burdens-Can-Weigh-You-Down—3-Steps-to-Lighten-the-Load&id=4385981 . Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Additionally, if you would like to learn how to create abundance in your life, whether it is emotional abundance, mental abundance, physical abundance, financial abundance or spiritual abundance, you may want to look at my new audio CD, “Turn Your Faucet On.”

In this attracting abundance blog post, a reader submitted a question on the fear of failure. She was trying to achieve a certain goal at work, but was afraid of what might happen should she fail.

Failure is a label that people attach to an experience in their  life. Usually, this label comes with the added note of “What will others think of me should I fail?” The answer to that is another question, which is “Does it really matter?”

Of course, you might say that it matters to you and your boss. You could get fired if it fails. True, but you could also get fired if it succeeds. Additionally, once you have successfully completed this task another will arise and then you return to your prison of self-doubt and worry.

To escape from this prison, you need to become indifferent to the outcome.(That doesn’t mean that you tell others “I don’t care if this works or not.” By stating this to others you reveal your “fear” and your attachment to other’s opinions. Keep your thoughts to yourself.)

What being “indifferent to the outcome” means is that you know that you are doing your best, what will happen will happen and that you are not attaching any feeling of self-worth to the outcome.

She stated in her email to me that if she succeeds she will be happy and if she fails she will be unhappy.

Yes. In both cases you will feel a certain way for a few moments then move on to something else. How long you hold on to those feelings will dictate your attachment to the issue.

Now, all of this may make you feel uncomfortable. My response is how do you feel now?

If you have  a question on fear, worry or other topics such as creating abundance, submit them by using the form in the upper right hand corner and I will try to answer them in upcoming posts in the Attracting Abundance Blog.

In this post on how to attract abundance, we look at a question emailed to me from a person who is trying to overcome depression.  

For help in depression, I suggested that instead of trying to overcome depression, it’s a good idea to first understand your feelings of depression.

Q: I constantly feel depressed. I don’t always know why, it’s just a feeling
that comes over me. How can I get rid of this feeling?

A: Don’t try to get “rid” of or “overcome” this feeling, try to understand it. Instead of judging this feeling as being “bad,” try to discover the root of your feeling.

You may find that your sense of depression has become a habit. It gives you a sense of comfort – as strange as that may sound – and it gives your restless mind something to do.

Observe your feeling – without judgment. Imagine picking up a magazine and seeing a painting of a snowstorm. This painting has no affect on you – you are just looking at it. Do the same with your feeling of depression. You can sense the heaviness if you like, but then you need to allow that feeling to move through you and out of you. Through repetition of this observation, the sense of depression loses its strength and can never return as strongly as it did before. Eventually, it will dissipate forever.

If you have a question on attracting abundance, overcoming depression, dealing with fear or other issues, submit your questions in the box in the upper right hand corner of this page.

For free spiritual podcasts, make sure you take a listen to http://www.bobgarneraudio.com

Intuition and Facts

Question: “I feel that I should move forward on an idea that I have. However, some of my friends say that I should wait and collect more facts. I think I have enough information and feel good about moving forward, but others say wait. Should I follow my intuition?”

Answer: As mentioned in a previous post, your intuition is akin to your “still, small voice” that, if listened to, will provide you with answers to questions or solutions to problems, before or in place of additional “facts.”

The reason I placed the word “facts” in quotes is because, oftentimes, facts are merely other people’s opinions. These people may be correct, but they also may be incorrect. By listening to your intuition, you allow your inner you to communicate with you and show you the way. One should always collect information, but eventually, you have to make a decision based on how you feel. What is your still, small voice saying to you?

What is Intuition?

Question: “Can you give me an idea of what intuition is?”

Answer: Intuition is often described as a sixth sense, hunch, gut feeling or sudden insight. In essence, intuition is your inner you, your inner spirit speaking to you. This inner spirit loves you and will always guide correctly… if you listen to it.

The More I Get, The More Stress I Get

Question: “It seems that the more things I acquire – money, cars, things – the more stressed out I get. Why do more things that I think will make me happy, actually, make me feel stressed?”

Answer: To find out if an area is safe to cross, the military will send out mine sweepers to locate any mines in the field, in order that a regiment can move safely forward and continue its journey.

Unfortunately, people surround themselves with “mines” and then wonder why their journey in life is filled with so much stress, worry and fear. The “mines” of which I’m speaking are the acquisitions that we feel will make us happy. More money, more power, more position, more stuff, which translates into my money, my power, my position, my house, my credit card, my yard, my friends, my stuff, etc.

What is fascinating about our “mines” is that they cause us to not only seek more, but then also cause us to worry about losing the “more” we have sought. Silly, isn’t it? If you would like your journey through life to include peace of mind, then you may need to employ, from time to time, a mine sweeper. Ask yourself, “How many mines have I placed around me?” Then ask, “Can I remove some of these mines from my life?” If you feel that you can’t, then determine if you can defuse some of the importance that you place on these mines in your life.

Sweep as many mines away as you possibly can. By reducing the number of mines in your life will make your journey more peaceful and relaxed. This simple step of mine sweeping will help you to eventually reach the point where you no longer need so many things and will replace your mines with “thines,” thereby obtaining a more perfect peace.

Am I Negative?

Question: “I think that I am a very positive person, but my husband said I am negative. How can I discover who is correct?”

Answer: Trying to discover “who is correct” is, in itself, somewhat negative. For if you discover that you are correct, what would you do with those results? Perhaps, the best thing to do is to use your desire to discover the possible negativity of your conscious thoughts as a way of learning how to become a more peaceful person. You can do this via a simple exercise. Take a moment to write on a pad of paper any “strong” feelings or thoughts that you have throughout the day such as, “I hate this cold weather,” “That idiot cut me off,” “Look at the beautiful sky,” etc. Review these feelings and see how many are positive or negative.

Of course, the veracity of this exercise will depend on how honest you are with yourself. If, during this exercise, you make a point to say nice and wonderful things when you usually would not, then you may need to enlist the aid of your husband or a close friend to monitor and notate your normal reactions to life. Regardless of the outcome to this experiment, look at what you have learned about yourself and use this information to adjust your reactions to events or people in you life.

Failure and Pain

Question: “When I fail at doing something, I can really be hard on myself. What can I do to ease the pain?”

Answer: You have connected an event or situation to your “identity” and therefore, you believe that if you have failed, you must be a failure. You may desire to have a situation come out a certain way, but you must release that desire’s connection to you. What is success or failure but a label – a label that we apply to an event in direct relationship to how others may interpret the outcome. Look at what it is you wish to do and remove the need for others to note whether you were – in their eyes – successful or not. If no one were to notice whether you were “successful” or whether you had “failed,” you wouldn’t really care about the outcome. Beyond doing the best that you can do, try to eliminate the importance of labeling your results.

Anger and Problem Solving

Question: “I am trying to deal with a problem, but I am so angry. I can’t figure a way out. How do I get out of my situation?”

Answer: A desire to escape a problem is the wrong route to take. It is better to understand the problem. Don’t take the problem personally. Just step back and look at it as an outside observer. This takes the sting out of the problem and allows you to create a more peaceful solution.

Needing Direction

Question: “I have no direction in my life. I feel very insecure about not only my life, but what my future holds. Any ideas on how I could feel more secure?”

Answer: Your idea of security is no doubt attached to some person, thing or condition. You might say, “If only I had that person in my life” or “If only I had that job or more money then I would feel secure.”

This is an illusion. The more you attach yourself to some person, thing or condition the less secure you actually are because that person, thing or condition can change at any moment and no longer be a part of your conditioned world. Then you will be “insecure” again.

The large majority of people strive for security via more money and things, the better job, bigger house or certain people in their lives. Yet, the only thing that they receive from these striving is more insecurity. As Thoreau once said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

What is difficult for many people to understand is that it is okay to be uncertain. It is okay “not to know.” When you can allow yourself to be unsure – not demand security and diminish your attachments – then you release the pressure of having to be secure. Through this release, you gain understanding of what you “truly” desire in life. Your needs diminish and your wants slowly evaporate. When this understanding finally takes root, you step away from the masses, and become secure.