The information that follows forms a little-known foundation, or basic orientation, along which life unfolds. Taking it into account is likely to change the way you look at what you know about achieving your goal, because a key factor that is supposed to accelerate results is actually holding back a positive outcome.
It is a widely held and popular belief today that a strong desire, supported by visualisation and intense emotion, will accelerate events in the desired direction.
In everyday life, or in achieving goals, this approach is best exemplified by the “American way of motivation”, which means “I can achieve anything if I try hard enough”.
This means that in order to achieve results, we should first be very clear about what we want. Then we need to imagine the goal or perceive it as already achieved through as many senses as possible – i.e. seeing it in our mind’s eye … hearing the sounds it would make … smelling it, etc. At the same time, we should express a strong, intense and emotionally charged desire for this denouement.
Solomon’s lesson on planting tomatoes
Paul Solomon was an American healer who had the ability to contact the Source, or “higher intelligence”, in a special sleeping state, a dream or trance. (This was similar to the work of the much more famous Edgar Cacye, also known as the “sleeping prophet”.) He was usually asked questions about health or diagnosis and treatment, and sometimes other questions.
In one of the trances, the Source told Solomon that all those who wanted to be healers should buy two tomato plants. They should plant them and care for both equally, but love one and hate the other. They will find that the first one will grow beautifully and the second one will begin to wilt.
When they start to see visible changes in the other, hated seedling, they should start to love it and take loving care of it. If they manage to bring it back to life, it will mean that they can awaken the healing power within themselves and also send it out; these people are fit to be healers.
Five enthusiasts, including Paul, decided to experiment with tomatoes. They bought seedlings and planted them at Solomon’s house. They watered them regularly, loved some and hated others… until they all dried up.
They went back to the shop and bought new ones. They thought they must have done something wrong, so they asked how to look after the seedlings – where to put them, how much and when to water them, etc.
They repeated the experiment. This time they fertilised them, watered them just right, exposed them to the sun for exactly the optimum amount of time – but all the seedlings dried up again.
Three of them decided not to be healers …
The other two, Paul and a friend, went back to the shop and bought four new seedlings and planted them.
Paul suspected that the energy of hatred might somehow be transferred from one seedling to another, so he decided to love all four just in case.
The result? All the seedlings withered …
He didn’t understand how such a thing could happen. He thought of his father, who had grown tomatoes for many years and never loved or hated them, but they still grew like crazy… So where was the problem?
He decided to try again, but not with tomatoes; they were clearly too much (yet). He chose something easier to take care of – cacti. He bought over 20 of them, so he wouldn’t take it too hard if one dried up. He displayed them all over the house, making it look like a miniature desert.
Now he has decided to neither love nor hate them, because he is obviously cross with these energies… He prefers to stay away from them, so as not to be influenced by them.
But he couldn’t help but gaze at their beauty day after day.
He soon realised that he liked some specimens better than others. So he began to recognise the energy of loving care… and it “clicked”: he realised that he had never really liked tomatoes, but had just been experimenting.
He cared about passing the test with flying colours, but not about what was really happening to the seedlings – he cared only about himself and his success.
As a result, he literally suffocated the seedlings with his energy, forcing them to serve as a tool of proof and validation.
He asked himself whether this pattern might not be repeated with people: ‘Do I even like people … or am I just focused on my success around them , or am I using them to my advantage? After all, do I love myself at all, or am I just demanding results from myself?”
Questions to make you think …
The information that our desire can literally kill a life is powerful. Almost all people believe that a strong desire accelerates events in the desired direction. But Solomon’s experiment shows the surprising fact that it is in fact the other way around.
The question is also in order: if a strong desire, backed by intense “positive” emotions, can actually kill life… doesn’t it work the same way in situations where we want to speed up the development of any other event, not only in plants? So that by our own intensity we literally stifle the result?
The answer is – undoubtedly yes. A strong desire and intense emotion allow a breakthrough to move forward from a state of stuckness or inertia. It’s like having to push hard in winter when your car is stuck on ice and the wheels are spinning “flat”, because just pushing harder on the accelerator doesn’t help. That’s when we need another lever.
However, it does not occur to us to keep pushing or jostling the car after we have pushed it back on the road. No, then we return to normal driving. (If we hadn’t stopped, or if we had kept pushing with the same force we used to push the car out of the critical situation, it would probably have ended up in the snow on the other side of the road…)
The secret to an optimal mental and emotional attitude to achieve your goals
The same applies to achieving targets. At the beginning, we need some leverage to start thinking and acting outside the box. To this end, it is useful to awaken intense emotions and the ability to experience the goal in a virtual way: we imagine in ourselves that we have already achieved it. What would the circumstances look like? What would we feel? How would we behave then?
We must therefore perceive the situation as if it has already happened. If we actually manage to do this – which means that we truly believe that we are capable of achieving the goal – our view of the situation, and with it our emotions, will change completely.
Namely, when we are truly, beyond a shadow of a doubt, convinced of a positive outcome in the desired direction, a strong desire turns into a state of gratitude or even into an energy of complacency, in the sense of “Achieving this goal is nothing special… I have already achieved so many similar achievements that this goal is nothing new or unattainable for me. I just need time …”
And this is the energy that delivers results.
If we persist in strong desire or intense emotions like “I really want to” or even “I believe I will achieve my goal”, we are actually expressing the energy of not having confidence in achieving the goal. Because if we did, this strong charge would dissipate by itself.
And if we don’t believe in the goal, we will see it as something unattainable … and make choices accordingly.
Once we truly believe in the development of an event, our approach will be clear, active and consistent. So the desire will turn into an activity, and we will never again think along the lines of “What if this doesn’t work…”.
This state of complete belief in the result or self-evidence is perhaps best described by Martin Kojc in his excellent book “The Textbook of Life”. He compares this state of confidence to watching a match for which we know the result in advance.
For example, imagine we missed a sports derby of our favourite team, but found out that our team won in the end. When we watch the replay, our feelings are completely different than if we had not known the outcome. In the latter case, they would tremble at every action and express a strong desire for specific developments.
Now that we know the result, our internal state is completely different. Knowing that our team will win allows us to have fun and feel good with every action. Even when the opponents are ahead by a large margin, we are not filled with fear and doubt. In fact, we can perceive it as a dynamic or an enlivenment to the encounter, rather than as “drama on the pitch”, as we might have done if we had not known the final result.
Do we trust in “winning” the game of life?
Of course, everything is clear when it comes to watching the game or even planting tomatoes. But how does it all apply to our outlook on life? Do we tremble when the “enemy” (unpleasant or unforeseen events) wins? Are we, on the other hand, always sure of the final victory?
Are we constantly expressing a strong desire to succeed… or are we in a state of complacency, or a complete belief that life will go in the right direction?
These procedures can also be used in reverse. Our emotional state or state of mind when we think about developments – in health, finances, family, business, etc. – indicate how much we actually believe in the outcome.
A strong desire for certain developments shows doubt and mistrust …
P.S. If you want to become a healer …
What conclusions did Paul Solomon draw from the example of planting tomatoes?
He realised that the first thing to do is to learn to truly love yourself, freeing yourself from expectations and the need to be loved by others.
Then choose a technique that serves as a bridge so that you can gather the energy of Love in a specific time and place and direct it to another.
This article is based on the book “The Big Ugly Crisis”, by Boris Vene and Nikola Grubiša.