So, there you are. You’ve raised your vibration; you’ve figured out what you really want; you’ve spent time adding some momentum to your desires. And now, you’re waiting for inspired action. And waiting… and waiting some more. And this little voice in your head (or your family. With a megaphone) begins to ask: aren’t you just being lazy? Shouldn’t you be getting out there and be doing something? Anything? Everyone who does this LOA work goes through this transition, and especially those how are used to pushing themselves to make things happen, can have a bit of a hard time with it. Today’s video should offer some relief for those of you who are getting a wee bit stressed out about not taking enough action. Yeah… you know who you are.
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Awesome S asks:
“Hi Melody, I have a question: How do you become motivated again to work towards your dreams? Before I found the law of attraction, I worked really hard towards the things I wanted, was inspired, and hustled. I made things happen. However, since learning about inspired action and the importance of feeling good, I’ve become very lazy and stopped taking action towards the things I want. I don’t even feel inspired anymore to do much to reach my dreams or live them now. I feel like I’ve become very lazy knowing the law of attraction. I’m really stuck in my life and feel unmotivated to plan to make things better.”
Transcript
Well Awesome S, this is a question I get a lot, and I’m really grateful to get a chance to explore it with you.
When you start to do this work, you often get to a place where you feel unmotivated and it feels like you are just floating and lost, so let me explain that a bit here in this video. In order to do that, I first need to explain to you what the “Spectrum of Empowerment” is. This is like a spectrum of energy, so think about a number line (don’t worry we are not going to do Math here), and it has a zero in the middle of it and it goes off to minus one, minus two and minus three to the one side, and plus one, plus two and plus three over to the other side. The negative numbers are where the negative emotions lie, the positive numbers are where the positive emotions lie, and zero is the middle point – what I call the threshold.
The Spectrum of Empowerment
Most people are living on the negative side of the spectrum; they have negative emotions and a lot of resistance. This is where we are motivated primarily by pain avoidance, or pain minimization. Most of our choices come from which option feels less crappy, which option feels less painful. Most of the time people will do something not because it’s joyful, but because it’s less painful than the other choice that they think they have. This is the negative side of the spectrum.
As you start doing this work and as you start getting more sensitive and you release resistance, as you are becoming more aware of how you feel, you can then make it to the zero point. The zero point is a neutral point, what most people believe is the goal. They think, “If I can just get to the point where there is no pain, then I’m done.” But they are forgetting about the whole other side of the spectrum, the positive side of the spectrum where joy, creativity, and flow are.
The important thing to realize is that your motivation on the positive side of the spectrum does not come from pain minimization, but from pleasure maximization; it’s not pain avoidance. You’re making your decision not longer based on which one is less painful, but rather which one is more pleasurable or more awesome. This is a 180 degree shift and when you get to that zero point it can feel a little bit numb and a little bit lost for a while, and here’s why:
The Void
If you’ve been hitting your thumb with a hammer for a while and then you stop and you caress your thumb with a feather; you won’t feel that feather! It’s far too subtle! Your thumb is throbbing and you are feeling the relief of not hitting it anymore so it will go numb for a while as you recover. Once the nerve endings have recovered, then you will be able to feel that subtle and pleasurable sensation of the feather caressing it.
What you have to remember is: At the upper end of the spectrum, the more positive you get, the more subtle the vibrations get, and the more subtle the energy gets. You can still feel it but you have to let go of banging your head up against the wall or banging your thump with a hammer.
You are going through what I call “The Void” and the Void is the recovery period between your thumb getting numb, then recovering, and then you being able to feel the pleasurable sensations. It is also the 180 degree shift you are making from being motivated by pain to now being motivated by pleasure.
We often don’t trust, especially in the beginning, being motivated by pleasure because what you are looking for is the pressure that you are used to from being negatively motivated by pain. But now that it’s fallen away, you’ve started thinking you are no longer motivated by anything. What you want to look for is the pull of the motivation on the positive side of the spectrum; the pull towards awesomeness, towards pleasure. Yes, it’s more subtle because it’s not painful; it’s pleasurable.
When you are in the Void, you’ll want to go really, really general and just focus on visions, ideas, places, and activities that make you feel good, even if they have nothing to do with making money or pushing you forward in any one of your goals. Just get yourself into the frequency of feeling good and see what good feeling things you are being led to do. You can train yourself to follow the pull of awesome rather than being pushed by pain. It does take a little bit of time to make that switch over, and everybody who does this work goes through that. I did, everyone I know did, and the thousands of people I’ve personally coached went through it as well.
Bottom Line
It works the same for everybody, including you, so don’t despair and don’t start to feel you are doing something wrong because you don’t constantly feel that push or that pressure anymore; let the more subtle motivation of pleasure come through. Remember that when you start beating up on yourself thinking you are doing something wrong, you are heading back into the wrong direction, and you don’t want to do that!
I hope I’ve answered your question to your satisfaction. If you think this content is valuable, why not share it those whom you love (or like, or tolerate)?
Have you made it through the Void? Have you lost and regained motivation? Why not share your experience with your fellow Happy Shiny Puppy Army members below?
Until next time, bye!
Thank you for this video! This is exactly where I’m at. I feel that I have completly lost interest.
This video feels really reassuring! I thought I was the only one dealing with this lack of motivation and inspiration. Good to know that it’s a natural part of the process!
Can you be in the void for months? I was putting so much work into my online business before reading Melody’s amazing book. Now I just go to my job, come home and have been feeling completely uninspired with my business, health and exercise for the past six months. I feel like I’ve been in the void for quite long time. Is this normal? I don’t understand why I’m no longer motivated or inspired to work on my business. One of my biggest lifelong dreams was to be an entrepreneur in the field I’m in. I thought I would be more inspired than ever after a few months, but now I just feel tired a lot and withdrawing from life.
Totally answered my question on what happened?? I have no pressure and don’t seem to care
Awesome post Melody,
What about drawing your mirror about what you want,say in the life you are presently in.
We all want something. But most of us just do not know WHAT we want ! We know it s not money or wealth because we know it does not follow us into the next semester of our growth or expansion if you will.
The frequency of feeling good is such a proper drawing that propels us to the positive direction of our growth dimension.
About our laziness is like you say, stuck in-the- void-period.
Your dreams are the most important aspect of your reality. But your vision is not moving in this direction because of the over-protection of your multi-dimensional BEING
holding you back !
Shelly said it perfectly. Unconditional Love. Not judging yourself and or others, just being in the moment and enjoying the moment.
Thanks for the explanation Melody…
I myself sometimes get confused whether I am just being lazy or waiting for inspired action.
This clears the confusion…
Wow!
Awesome is this post! And for the first time, more than this post, reading all the comments make me feel much better.
Since last one year, I am getting this “inspiration” to Not Do anything and Just Be. Sometimes, I doubt if I am just being lazy because Doing and then Being is so ingrained in us. But now after reading other people experiences, I feel good. We are on right path of creating a new Earth reality where we are actually human BEings.
LOA really does explain everything. I’m not sure if you’re a fan of Dr Phil’s but he says we are motivated to avoid what we don’t like or motivated towards something in which we wish to experience more of. Your message is the same but just from an amazing spiritual perspective.
As I’ve followed your advice over the years, I have found that the push from fear isn’t there as much. I started to feel I was getting lazy (my sister was one of those who wrote about this to you in the comments section).
I realized, however, even before receiving this outstanding video, that I was still achieving my desires at much greater speeds than when I lived in fear (alternating with anger and self pity). I would work so hard back then and hardly manifest what I do now with just thoughts (and a tiny incy bit of inspired action). I realized that everything is just easier, I am not necessarily lazy just working smarter. This is why writing down what you’re grateful for can come in handy, it shows you just how magnificent you are at allowing your desires to come into your reality.
Now i have to challenge myself even further and drop some resistance on a new desire. Only this morning I decided I wanted millions of Australia Dollars (I’m a late bloomer, my desires have been all about everything but $$$ up until this morning). I realize I may have to start small to release some resistance (baby steps have worked for me in the past) and I’ve considered all the many ways it can come and the many more I’m unaware of. I felt excited about it, now I just have to allow it. I know it’s already there. It’s part of the buffet I wish to indulge in and can’t wait to create my own buffet for others to indulge in. Is it OK to enjoy being selfish being selfless? I want others to appreciate and love me for spoiling them with the money I receive.
And finally, because I know you have nothing to read (have you created that sarcasm font yet). Have you got a post on PMS. I’ve been googling it silly on the internet because once a month most of us women despite following all the guidelines to avoiding it, I continue to have a crazy case of PMS which tells me it may be more than just how I feed my body, exercise, take the right vitamins etc. If my maths is correct and I suffer PMS for a week before my period every month, that means I’m vibrating at frequencies that aren’t pleasant for 3 months a year. Does that put us women behind the eightball in terms of manifesting awesomeness compared to men?
What does PMS show us? Is it there to help us release resistance we build up over the month? If so, then why don’t men experience that release? Aren’t they loved as much by the universe (joke).
And finally, can you possibly do a video on what certain circumstances are mirroring to us. One spiritual catalyst, for example, mentioned that tragedies are a result of grief that haven’t been addressed or witnessed.
S&S,
I really enjoyed your comment..I am so curious to see what Melody has to say about PMS. I also would love a map for finding why things manifest and what they mean?? I look forward to responses to your comment, Take care.
Thanks Karen.
Thanks for your message. Melody responds based on how often she is asked a similar question………. are 2 people requesting the same info enough Miss Melody?
PMS – it’s that time of the month again so I’m keeping only blunt objects on my desk.
A map of what’s being reflected may end up being a personal interpretation. I hope not, I hope there is some kind of guidance we can look up like a dream dictionary.
Thanks again
Hey Karen/S&S,
I just saw your comments and remembered that Melody has a post about PMS already in the archives: http://www.deliberateblog.com/2012/03/13/can-i-use-the-law-of-attraction-to-rid-of-pms/. Hope this helps!
OMG, this mirrors something I just did on my BlissBlog and answers the one commenter who just wanted to talk about action, action, action. And one of my favorite teachers has been backsliding into action talk lately, too. It’s not action, but INSPIRED action, and inspired action doesn’t feel like work or vigilance or nose to the grindstone or determination. It feels like FUN. It feels like you have to tear yourself away from it so your family won’t feel ignored. It feels like eating chocolate–impossible to resist. (Maybe that’s just me.)
Nice one, Melody. I’m sharing!
Melody and peeps!
Yes yes yes! This is where I have fallen down A LOT! I would reach that nothingness, and as it went on, I would start to doubt myself, feel like I was failing, and of course start going the other way, back down the number line. I knew about the void, but couldn’t get past the nothingness to feeling the inspiration. No pull, no desires, no nothing. And I couldn’t just let it go. I would start questioning, pushing, go back down, get mad, then go back up, then back down. Viscious circle is putting it mildly!
I will say, I had to do many anger releases. And I found I wasn’t letting it all out, was always filtering, trying to minimize the extent of how mad I was. Which stopped me from getting it all out. Of course I didn’t know this at the time, but when I did let it out, finally, I could tell I had been holding back.
So if you feel stuck, maybe you still have some blocks and the next time something pisses you off, you can really let it flow, as far as it will go. For me, once I did this, the void didn’t feel so off putting. I either had tipped to the positive or could finally let myself be/do nothing and not feel like I was doing something wrong. Once that happened, then things started to happen much differently. Nothing exaggerated, but it was different, and better. Better, better, better!
Don’t fear the anger, and don’t fear the void. If the void leads you backwards, maybe you can get mad, and I mean really mad, and it will release something you aren’t even aware of.
Here’s to the void, and Melody’s awesome posts. May they continue to inspire and teach at such critical points in our lives!
Thank you! As always, your posts are very inspiring. And thank you Melody, for tackling this one.
Thanks for the blog post on this Melody! This is an issue I’ve been working on for a while (as you well know…)
Being self-employed and having built a business out of something I am passionate about has brought this issue to the forefront even more. Over the years, I’ve learnt that when I am passionate about creating, when I’m really enjoying it, my sales go up. When I’m forcing myself to do it, even if I’m creating exactly the same things I would when feeling passionate, they stagnate. Even if I work crazy hours to try to compensate.
I know that the best thing to do, when I’m in “The Void”, is to look for something fun to do, something that brings me joy, even if it’s taking a walk in the park or watching my favourite tv series. The problem is, when sales are running low, lying on the couch watching tv “because I feel like it” feels very counter-intuitive! But honestly, it does work.
I went through a major rut last year, and Melody advised me to set aside a week to do only what I felt like doing. It may not seem like long, but I was really, really struggling with all the “shoulds” and “musts”. I didn’t manage a whole week, but I started becoming better at it. It took a few weeks for things to shift, but shift they did! Now I’m super passionate and motivated again, and all it took was letting myself be ok with being uninspired and lazy for a little while.
So yes, I can definitely identify with the struggle of feeling lazy and unmotivated, but you’re on the right path – now all you need to do is to allow yourself to be that way, guilt-free, and just have as much fun as you can – the passion and motivation will come back 🙂
Fab! I saw this post at the exact time to the second I was thinking um perhaps I should ( yes recognising the language used here ….) go and take this action for my business and thought is this really inspired or something I feel I should me doing? Relax and breathe! Thanks for the reminder Melody and the void explanation makes a lot of sense related to how I’ve been feeling. I actually feel right now that I just want to let my hair down metaphorically so off to do that!
Hey Melody
I loved your answer so much and agree with everything you said. I think this is one of the biggest struggles we have with creating from energy rather than action…the ‘go out and make things happen’ paradigm is pretty deeply ingrained, and it is hard to reconcile that with this idea of energy creating and only taking action from a place of inspiration.
It took me awhile to get more comfortable acting from this space and even now there is sometimes that voice that is like…um, maybe you should be doing something right now. But I have manifested enough ‘evidence’ in my life to allow myself not to act when it doesn’t feel right energetically, and in doing that, the more ‘effective’ actions will reveal themselves.
Motivation is an interesting thing because I have come to realize it is coming from a space of thinking where you are now is wrong or bad in some way, and you need to get jazzed about fixing it, when we are whole and complete as we are now. When we can feel that way more of the time, we will act from a much more relaxed space and not always tying some sort of ‘result’ to any actions we do take…we just do what feels good and create for the sake of creating.
Thanks, Melody! This is just what I needed! I love how stuff shows up to guide me when I need it! I am noticing that this is happening more and more! I feel like I am sort of in “the void”, but I am finding more and more fun things to do; the things seem “little” but I think these little things are part of the process of exploring what I am inspired to do. I do not have to find my inspiration all at one time, or in one step, and there is no time table! As I learn to trust that the inspiration will show up when I am ready, and that there is no reason that I have to be ready at any particular time, I can learn to trust myself. I can learn to just “let go” and know that my inspiration will show up at the appropriate time.
This is so perfect.. in Abraham’s words, being inspired rather than motivated, doing it to move towards what you want, not away from that you don’t want..
Thanks for the awesome video, Melody!
I’m wondering, is it so that you can sort of be both in the void and sometimes being inspired? I suppose you don’t switch from being in the void to being inspired by pleasure constantly in one go? Because I feel I’m in the void quite much of the time, but I can also quite easily get myself into a more positive flow, with quite some momentum. So will I incrementally spend less and less time in the void? 🙂
Thanks Melody, I’ve missed you lovingly slapping me now in January!
Hugs, Sonja