Appreciate IT 3: I Don't Want Anymore

I was thinking a lot this week about this word that I want to get rid of.

The word want.

In our society we're taught,

We're motivated,

We're influenced to have more more more.

I want more.

Anybody ever think that in their mind?

You don't have to answer out loud.

More,

More,

More.

We live in this consumerist kind of society and we're practically forced to buy stuff all the time.

We got to have the new this,

The better that,

The ultimate them.

And some people even use it as a kind of an addiction,

Have an addiction.

We spend to forget.

We spend to ignore what's going on in our lives.

We spend to turn away from our problems.

And I'm not saying that that's a horrible thing actually,

Because sometimes doing that helps us step into all this stuff again.

It's like a first step to return.

But we also know that that doesn't solve our problems,

Doing that.

Now like I said,

I have nothing against spending the money,

Your money,

The way you want to spend your money.

Just like I have nothing against you thinking any way that you think.

Now I'd like to have a little influence on how you think.

But what you think,

That's your life.

But does it bring you a sense of joy,

What you think?

Now you all have probably heard of the KonMari method.

And what it basically is saying,

What is the difference between the emotional memory of this thing that you have,

And that could be ideas too,

It doesn't have to be a thing,

It doesn't have to be a book or whatever.

Versus the spark of joy that it gives you right now,

Right in this minute.

If I pick this up,

Is there a spark of joy?

Yes,

Because there's so much riches in this book,

I do not want to lose it.

In fact,

It reminds me recently when I,

I think it was last December,

When I finally got all my stuff out of this old apartment that I had had for 20 something years,

And I wasn't even living there for the last five or six years.

But I had stuff there and I was kind of subletting the apartment,

And then that ended,

And then I had some stuff in boxes in one of my ex-neighbors garage,

And just got to the point was like,

Get out of there,

Or live there.

But we had already decided we weren't going to live there.

So most of what I have acquired over my life,

Other than the usual necessities,

A car and all that kind of stuff,

A couple of clothes,

Is books.

Hundreds of books,

Maybe even a thousand books.

I had plays,

Hundreds of plays,

All this kind of stuff,

And I was like,

What am I gonna do with this stuff?

So I actually did this.

What brings me joy?

And most of the stuff were stuff like this,

And I have a whole huge bookcase of stuff like this,

And maybe just a couple other boxes of other books as well.

So I did this.

What sparks joy in you?

What ideas?

What stuff?

And if they don't anymore,

Then you get rid of them.

Okay,

Back to what this talk is really about,

And that is this word,

Want.

The first thing I'd like us to do is rid ourselves with this word,

Want.

Do not want anymore.

I want to take that word out of our vocabulary.

Here is a great quote by Andy Warhol.

Get this,

As soon as you stop wanting something,

You get it.

Who knew Andy Warhol was spiritual?

Thought he just likes soup cans and going to Studio 54.

As soon as you stop wanting something,

You get it.

So let's go to dictionary definitions,

And I went to the Oxford Dictionary,

And it says,

As a verb,

The word want is to have a desire to possess something,

Wish for something.

Now you all know how I feel about that word,

Wish.

Another word to lose or have for merely a second in your mouth and mind.

The second verb definition is ought,

Should,

Or need to do something.

So when you want something,

It's something you need.

You don't want to need,

Do you?

Now here's,

As a noun,

Want is a noun as well.

Want as a noun is described as this,

A lack,

Absence,

Non-existence,

Or deficiency of something.

A dearth,

Inadequacy,

Paucity,

Shortage,

Or scarcity of something.

So an example would be my Victorian house is in want of repair.

It's not necessarily going to get repaired,

It just wants it.

There's no action here,

There's no doing here,

There's no having here.

The second definition,

As far as a noun goes,

Is,

Here's that word again,

It is a wish,

Longing,

Or yearning for something.

A wish for something,

Not to enjoy something.

A longing for something,

Not an expected reception of something.

To yearn for it,

Not possess it.

And why do I do this?

Why am I saying these things?

It's because words matter.

In a huge scheme of things,

Some words may not matter,

And you know,

Part of the four agreements is,

You know,

Don't let words matter to you,

What you think of me is none of my business kind of thing.

But the words you say in your head,

Which are the words the universe hears,

Those are the important ones.

Because those words,

Those terms,

Turn into the big W word,

Where you reveal the divinity in you,

Where you have the frequency,

The vibration,

Where you're telling the universe,

This is my word,

This is my decision.

That's the words that are important.

In wanting,

There's usually no sign of abundance or a presence of reception.

It has a lack of quality,

That word want.

We're telling the universe,

When we say I want this,

We're telling it,

That's what we want,

We want want.

And so the universe goes,

Oh,

Okay,

Well,

I'll give you more of that not possessing thing,

Because that's what you're saying.

I want this.

Okay,

Well,

I'll give you more want,

Because that's what you want.

No problem.

Here you go.

So the not having of the new car is what's going to show up,

Or the fresh perspective on a relationship,

Or the decluttered closet,

For God's sakes,

Or peace in our community.

I want peace in our community.

What does that mean?

Let me take a second and saying like I have with wish,

If you start there for five seconds,

Cool.

But you got to get out of there.

You got to get out of wish,

And you got to get out of want as quickly as you can in your mind.

Like attracts like,

Can't say that enough.

Like attracts like.

Here's a great quote from Florence Scovel Shinn,

Love her.

She wrote,

The game of life is a game of boomerangs.

Our thoughts,

Deeds and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy.

You throw this I want it comes back you want.

You throw this I have X,

Y,

Z,

It comes back.

Oh,

Here's X,

Y,

Z.

Because you've declared it.

You've allowed yourself to reveal it into your life.

So of course,

What is best,

What I'm saying is to not use this word at all.

This word want.

Because it's a confusing word.

It confuses us.

It confuses.

Well,

It doesn't confuse the universe because the universe is not going to be confused.

It's just going to say,

Okay,

That's what you want.

But it's confusing to your manifestation work,

Whatever modality you want to use.

We want to stop thinking this low quality words and stop saying this ambiguous word and stop taking that word out to lunch.

Want must be gone.

Stop wanting and start having.

Joe Dispenza reminds us you are not doomed by your genes and hardwired to be a certain way for the rest of your life.

So I know it's going to take some time just like it probably did to get wish out of I say it sometimes myself,

I have I correct myself pretty immediately.

But you know,

It's a habit to say that I want an apple.

Of course I want an apple.

So what do I do when I want an apple,

I go to the bowl,

Pull an apple or out of the refrigerator,

I go to the store and get an apple.

Let's rewire our emotional and mental circuitry.

We're talking about appreciation this whole month.

Start with appreciation.

Appreciate this teaching that you enjoy that you come to hear that you read about in different ways.

Appreciate the talents you already have,

Whether they're practiced,

Whether they're realized,

Whether they're progressing.

You have these talents appreciate and cherish.

Remember that word cherish from last week that what you have decided is coming home to your life.

I want to tell you a little story.

There's a story about trappers,

And they would,

You know,

They want to capture monkeys and sell these monkeys to zoos.

And so monkeys,

They're all swinging through the rainforest as they do,

And they're having a good time.

And what the trappers would do,

And they may still do it,

Is they would hollow out this coconut,

Depending on where they are in the world,

Or some sort of gourd,

They would hollow that out.

And they're about a football size,

These things are not little ones,

They're the big ones.

And they would leave a hole in it,

Or drill a hole in it and take out whatever's in there.

And they would put something in there like a green banana or something that the monkeys really want.

Now the hole is small,

The hole is only big enough for them to put their hand in.

Right.

So then they,

They take this gourd and they tie it with a string or a chain to a tree.

So the monkeys can't just,

You know,

Take the gourd and take off,

It's attached to a tree.

So inside the hollowed out gourd,

Like I said,

They put this delicious green banana or whatever the monkeys like.

Green banana,

Evidently,

Is a favorite food of the monkeys.

Personally,

It would have to be french fries or pumpkin pie for me,

But that's okay.

So as the monkeys swing around in the jungle,

They,

You know,

They catch a whiff of this.

The trappers would smartly,

Around this gourd they've tied to the tree,

They put a few bananas.

But now,

You know,

You're getting a dozen monkeys are coming at the same time.

They pick off those freebies like that.

And then they're like,

But I still smell something.

And so eventually one would be attracted to this piece that's in this gourd and they would put their hand in there and then they would grab it.

And it was too small for them to hold on with the fist and get their hand out.

Now all they had to do,

Of course,

Was let go and boom,

Their hand would come out.

But no,

No,

No,

No.

They want to grasp on to this.

They want to keep this.

They want this.

And in the wanting,

In the knowledge of not having the lack of it,

They're not thinking smartly to figure out a different way,

Like taking the gourd and doing that until it falls out.

No,

They don't think of that.

So the monkeys try to pull it out and they can't and they struggle and they struggle and they get tired and they get wounded and usually they just kind of pass out.

The others run away and in the morning the trappers have a monkey.

Monkeys aren't dumb.

Monkeys are pretty smart.

They're,

Some of them are smarter than us.

But they're acting out of instinct,

Right?

They're acting out of habit like we do,

The habit of wanting and not thinking of anything else,

Of any alternatives to this idea of wanting.

So wanting then is a trap.

It's a snare.

It's a cage of sorts.

There's too much not having in wanting.

And a lot of why I bring this up is because it's come up for me in the last couple weeks.

Not anymore.

Because in the wanting,

I'm not having.

I'm not having the consciousness of having.

Wanting and wishing are like,

They're simpatico,

Those two words.

Like clinging,

Like fear,

Like lack,

Like limitation,

Like neediness.

It scars us,

This word wanting.

So we should remove it from our vocabulary and you might ask how and I have just a few ways of how.

And first,

Of course,

Is recognize when you're wanting and either change that right away,

Change the word,

Change the idea to having or some version of having,

Declaring,

Revealing,

However you want to put it.

But when you recognize you're wanting,

Not only is that word in there and maybe the word doesn't show up,

But the feeling shows up,

The emotion shows up.

And that's,

You can tell that even if you don't hear the word,

You can tell that because you can feel like you're clinging to this idea and not in a good way.

In a,

Oh my gosh,

If I don't have this,

The world will end in some way,

Like the monkeys did or like,

You know,

When you hold a bar of soap and you hold it and it's wet and you hold it too much and you're clinging,

What happens to the soap?

That's what,

That's another thing that happens when we want so much,

We grip it and it just flies off,

It flies away.

Our power just goes away.

We give it away.

We feel desperate.

Number two,

Step back and breathe.

That's all.

That's so common.

I'm going to say that almost every time I come up with a list,

Just step back and breathe.

Take a second,

Concentrate on something else.

Distract yourself with things you're grateful for,

Breathing,

Whatever.

Change your state,

Change your state of mind,

Your state of being.

Number three,

Identify your true sources of happiness.

You know,

If it gets to that point,

Like it has for me sometimes,

Then write down things that give you joy.

Write them down with your hand.

Don't type them,

Write them.

It's a different connection between your hand and your brain and your consciousness than typing.

Number four,

Celebrate what's meaningful.

This is different than the list.

What's meaningful?

What's meaningful to you now?

Is it meaningful for you to do family stuff or to go out partying like you did when you were 20?

Not that there's anything wrong with that at all.

But at any point of your life,

Even at 25 maybe,

You know,

I just still want to stay up all night and scream and yell.

And,

You know,

Every weekend,

Maybe once every few months,

If I go to a Doobie Brothers concert,

You want to scream and have a few somethings and have a good time.

But not every weekend anymore.

I'd rather hang out with my friends or my family,

Have a barbecue,

Watch a movie,

Talk about this,

That,

Come to a club.

Overindulging.

Kind of a similar thing.

Do I want to overindulge in this,

That or the other?

Or do I want to know how to have a fun and healthy lifestyle at the same time?

Because you can,

Absolutely can.

Do I want to celebrate and cherish every moment,

Moment by moment,

Or just live life in a frenzied bit of excitement everywhere?

Everything has to be exciting.

I go from excitement to excitement to excitement,

But I never cherish,

I never really experience these exciting things because as soon as it's done,

I got to go to the next one.

Is that how you want to live your life?

With no memories,

With no enjoying of the moment?

You get the picture.

Step away from the word want,

The word wish,

Et cetera,

Et cetera,

And step into the paths and the reveals and the declares.

We all want some version of these six things.

Certainty.

Significance.

Significance that our life has been is significant in some way.

Doesn't have to be a big deal.

You don't have to become president.

You don't have to find a cure for this,

That or the other.

Variety.

We all want a little variety.

We all want love and connection,

Whatever that means to you.

We all want to grow in some way,

Shape or form.

And we all want to contribute,

Which is a little bit about significance and contribution can be similar.

But we all want to contribute.

We want to share.

We want to give.

And we all want those six things in one way or another.

Sometimes more of this,

Sometimes more of that.

That's a whole other talk that I can get to another time.

And of course,

We all want expensive chocolate.

And like I said before,

French fries.

But the more we have a tight grip on that wanting,

It's like if I drive by a place and I decide I want French fries,

I have to make the decision to have it because it'll be fun.

And it's a treat.

Or do I want to go through the whole idea?

Well,

It's fried food and potatoes do this to,

You know,

Your glucose count and all these things,

All these words.

If I think all those things and then I go get the fries,

Am I going to enjoy those fries?

No.

Now,

If I find myself doing that several days a week,

That's another question.

That's another thing.

And now,

Of course,

A quote from Dr.

Ernest Holmes from our favorite book,

This Thing Called You.

Spirit withholds nothing from you to believe that God refuses the good you desire is to deny the goodness of God or the universe or the divine.

The law still is that it is done unto you as you believe,

No matter how subtle the thoughts of lack,

Fear,

Uncertainty or loneliness may be.

They do not belong to you.

Your affirmation can erase them,

Become master of your thinking,

Hence master of your fate.

As one of our teachers used to say,

I'm not sure where he got this.

Maybe he made it up.

You are the believer,

Not the belief.

We got to remember that.

We're the power,

We're the composer,

We're the sculptor,

We're the playwright,

We're the novelist,

We're the decider,

The revealer,

The declarer and the creator of our thoughts,

Feelings and belief.

So remove any wanting,

Just remove that from your vocabulary and believe in your having fabulousness.