On impulses and desires

Are impulses good or bad?

Someone was asking me about impulses. Should I buy this thing that I really want? But I think there’s an underlying question that is worth discussing before I can answer his question.

Are impulses good or bad? The answer is: neither! It depends on what you were feeling before you got the impulse.

Imagine you are having dinner with friends, and one of them brought one of their friends that you don’t particularly like. This person starts a conversation that is going in a negative direction, and because you already don’t like this person you’re already irritated by them and what they are saying; but you don’t say anything because you want to be respectful of your other friends and don’t want to appear like a jerk. So you let them go on, and on, and soon the others start joining in about how awful this person, place or event is, and you just sit there and slowly let it consume you. Before you know it, you’ve been listening to this person, and others, bitch and complain for 20 minutes straight until you have an overwhelming impulse to punch this person’s lights out.

Was the impulse, to punch this person, a bad thing? In this case, yes. But it wasn’t the impulse itself that was bad. You see, when you have a consistent pattern of thought and emotion, it begins to coalesce and you begin to receive inspiration or impulses to do things that will continue the momentum in that same direction. This is how the Law of Attraction works.

Some people believe that the Law of Attraction is something that you have to sit and think about, and that the only way to use it is to just think good thoughts all the time. But that’s only one part of it. You see, we, as humans, are not meant to just sit and think happy thoughts all the time. We are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching mechanisms. We are meant to experience life through these wonderful senses that we have. So once the Law of Attraction gets going on a subject, you will be inspired to take action in the direction of what you’ve been focusing on.

But Mel, I just wanted to know if I should buy that car. 

Ok so here’s the deal. You, impulse buyer, have to ask yourself WHY you want to buy that thing you are feeling the urge to buy.

Why do you want it?

Simple question. Tricky answer.

Everything we want, is because we think we will feel better in the having of it. – Abraham Hicks

Try combining that with another question.

What were you feeling when you got the impulse to buy that thing?

Are you wanting that donut because you feel shitty and eating it will make you feel better? Or were you feeling amazing and then received the impulse to walk into that little bakery and delight in the wonderful flavour of this pastry?

See the difference?

Giving ourselves permission

Another thing that I think is worth discussing here is that sometimes (often) we allow ourselves to desire something – I’ve always wanted to travel and see the beauty and experience the various cultures of the world – but we won’t allow ourselves to receive it. We don’t let ourselves believe that we really CAN have it; that it’s possible to obtain; that we are worthy of having it.

That is a flawed belief that so many of us have; myself included. We have this worthiness problem that is rampant throughout our culture (if not the world). Somewhere along our journey, we let ourselves believe that we are not worthy; not worthy of the amazing person we dream of being with; not worthy of the amazing job we would like to have; not worthy of the houses, the cars, the experiences we would like to have. We’ve told ourselves that it’s nice to dream about these things… but that receiving them is something that happens to other people.

Isn’t it time you remembered how wonderful you are? Isn’t it time you looked at yourself in the mirror and saw how smart, charming, funny and kind you really are?

I won’t say that you deserve that thing you are thinking about buying, because if you think about it, the word “deserve” has a bit of resistance to it. It feels like you’re fighting against something or you’re having to prove someone wrong.

You are WORTHY of it. 

So if you’ve been feeling really good lately, and as you walked around you saw something that you desired in a way that really lights you up inside, and when you asked yourself the question “Why do I want this?”, your answer was “Because it would be fun”… then DO IT.

Life is too short.

Life is too short to not take risks.

Life is too short to not follow the opportunities that are presented to you.

Life is too short to waste time being unhappy.

Life is too short. 

So go ahead and buy it. There really isn’t any risk anyway. If you don’t like it anymore, you can just sell it to someone else. It’s just money. We give money way too much power; as if there wasn’t enough of it to go around. But that’s another flawed belief to be discussed at another time.

Love you always,

– Mel