Tolerance, Love and Happiness

One of the traps that’s easy to fall into is filling your life with too many incompatibilities — people, places, objects, circumstances, and activities that just don’t mesh with the person you are on the inside. This isn’t love.

When your external reality is out of sync with your inner self, your inner self will resist it. This creates the feeling of wanting to escape your circumstances. You may feel powerless to make big changes, but deep down you’ll still sense a strong desire to “get out” and leave parts of your reality behind. You’ll fantasize about quitting your job, moving out, or ending a relationship.

It’s easy to lose years of your life while surrounded by incompatible energies. This problem is so common that some people just consider it normal. They figure it’s normal to dread going to work or to feel disconnected from the people around them. This may be common, but it certainly isn’t a healthy situation.

When you look at the different parts of your life — your career, health, relationships, spiritual practice, daily habits, and finances — and ask, “Is this really me?” do you hear some no’s? How long have you been tolerating these incompatibilities? Why don’t you simply kick them out of your life, so you can replace them with something more compatible?

Some people think it’s a good thing to tolerate the parts of life they don’t like. That’s dumb. Tolerance isn’t acceptance. Tolerance is resistance. To be more specific, tolerance is resistance to love.

When you fill your life with energies you must tolerate, you prevent yourself from attracting what you really want. The more incompatibilities you tolerate in your life, the fewer compatibility you’ll be able to attract and enjoy. Keep this up for a few years, and you’ll be drowning in a life that feels totally wrong for you.

What bothers you about your life? What are you tolerating right now? I’d like to challenge you to stop tolerating your life. Either fully accept it, and love it as it is. Or kick out the incompatible parts to create the space for a life you’re able to love and accept completely.

When you boot the incompatibilities from your life, you raise your energy and your consciousness because you’re no longer stuck in a state of resistance. Now you feel relief and freedom. This opens the door to attracting and experiencing what you truly want.

Many people, upon quitting an unfulfilling job or leaving a draining relationship, feel a sense of relief. There may be some anxiety and uncertainty about what to do next, but the feeling of relief is very strong. “Wow, I can breathe again! I’m glad that’s finally over! Time to move on to a new chapter of my life!” Relief feels like a heavy weight has been set down.

Some people think they can attract what they want while continuing to tolerate the negative elements from their lives. This is a mistake. Again, tolerance is resistance, and resistance keeps you stuck. When you resist what is, you can’t create and attract what you want. That resistance you feel acts like a delete key on all your best intentions.

The first step in resolving incompatibilities is to stop saying yes to them. Just stop. Accept that you don’t want what you’ve been getting, and realize that it makes no sense to keep saying yes to what you don’t want.

If someone asks you to do something that doesn’t feel right to you, say no. That may feel very uncomfortable at first, but there will also be a twinge of relief each time you do it.

When you get that twinge of relief, it means you’re on the right path. If you decline something you really should have accepted, you’ll feel more guilt and disappointment than relief.

If you know you’re in the wrong business, for example, then stop saying yes to new clients. Stop marketing and promoting the business. Stop pouring your energy into something you know you don’t want. I know — some people will be upset by this. So what? Let them be upset, and do it anyway.

When you know you’re on the wrong path, stop. Just stop. Don’t take any more steps along that path. Just stand still for a while, even if it means your life starts to fall apart a little. You’ll survive.

After you’ve stopped saying yes, your energy will rise to the point where you’re ready to commit to quitting. You may not be ready to say, “I quit,” right this minute, but you know you’ll get there soon. You know it’s inevitable.

You may give yourself a specific deadline to quit, but that isn’t always necessary. The most important element is that you’ve reached the point where quitting is a done deal. Whatever incompatibilities you’re facing must go. Their days are numbered.

Once you’ve stopped saying yes, the death of the old becomes a certainty. It’s only a matter of time before it dies on its own. Once you’ve stopped putting fresh energy into a career, relationship, or activity, it’s on its way out. The only question is how long you’ll remain in this limbo state before you’re able to fully leave.

Quitting is an essential part of transitioning. If trying to “transition” has been keeping you stuck, then focus your energy on quitting instead. Make a commitment to quit the old, even before you’ve figured out what the new will be.

Eventually we must say a firm “I quit” to incompatibilities we’ve been tolerating. It can take a while to build up to this stage, but if we’ve worked through the first two stages, this stage is inevitable. In fact, this step is often a non-event.

It may still take some courage to get yourself to finally say, “I quit” to what you know you don’t want, but by this point it has become a necessity. The desire to quit has probably been building for quite a while. When you finally cross the line, there’s a great feeling of relief and a sense of new possibilities.

Don’t let fear stop you from extricating yourself from what you don’t want. If you know you don’t want it, you’re going to have to quit. The longer you remain stuck, the worse it is for you. Your inner self will keep nagging at you. You’ll be stuck dealing with a lot of negative emotions until you summon the courage to kick the incompatibilities out of your life.

Don’t get so attached to your status and your stuff that you can’t quit what you’ve been tolerating for too long. Your job title, money, and possessions won’t give you much comfort. Better to lose all of that than suffer through a phony life that just isn’t you. If you can’t make money authentically and without lowering your consciousness, it’s better to be broke for a while.

If you ever get tempted to lower your consciousness (by tolerating parts of your life instead of loving them) in exchange for more money, security, or comfort, realize you’re about to step foot through the gates of hell. It’s a trap that can see you wallowing in negativity for years to come.

When you quit something you’ve been tolerating, whether it be a job, a relationship, a bad habit, or an unhealthy diet, you raise your energy and your consciousness. This enables you to imagine, intend, attract, and receive what you really do want.

You won’t be able to attract what you want while you’re still tolerating what you don’t want. You have to say “I quit” first. This is life’s test of courage. If you can’t summon the courage to quit what you know you don’t want, you certainly won’t have the strength to receive and hold onto what you do want. So you have to pass through this qualification test first. I know it sucks to have to go through it, but it’s there for a good reason.

When you ask for what you want, you can expect some resistance to come up. You may have a financial setback or a health problem that makes you want to run back to what you know, even if it isn’t what you want. If you do that, however, you’re proving you aren’t ready to receive what you want. You can’t hold onto what you want if you’re going to run back to what you don’t want every time life throws a little obstacle your way.

The real test is whether you will choose to resonate with courage or fear. If you choose fear, you aren’t ready to have what you want. If you choose courage, you demonstrate your readiness. Courage is the ability to choose love rather than fear, regardless of circumstances. When you’re able to choose love no matter what, then you’re finally ready to receive what you’re asking for.

Another word for tolerance is cowardice. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s fairly accurate. If you’re experiencing what you don’t want, it’s because you’re allowing it. You remain free to choose something else. The question is whether you’ll step up and claim it… or chicken out and tell yourself it’s too big or that you aren’t ready or that you can’t possibly make it happen. That’s cowardice.

If your life isn’t filled with what you love, who chose that? Who’s choosing it right now? Who’s free to say no at any time? Who’s responsible for fixing it? If you can’t say no to what you don’t want, then how are you supposed to experience what you do want? If you want to travel the right path for you, then isn’t it reasonable to stop taking steps along the wrong path first?

If you’re experiencing what you don’t want, then stop choosing to experience it. Quit. Leave. Stop. Enjoy the sense of relief that comes from releasing what you don’t want. This is much better than dying a slow death on a path you don’t even want to pursue.

If you don’t want it, let it go. Say goodbye to the old with love, so you can say hello to the new with love.

If you take this simple advice and follow it for a period of years, you’ll soon find that your life is filled with what you love instead of what you tolerate. But eventually you’ll be guided in yet another direction, and it will be time for another round of releasing. This process never ends because it’s necessary for us to grow. We can’t grow if we keep repeating the same experiences over and over. We must continue to engage new energies that bring us fresh growth experiences.