Vancancies of the Soul

"Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge." ~ Source unknown





When speaking or writing about the importance of avoiding negative thought and replacing it with positive thought, I often hear people tell me they are “trying” to stay positive in spite of their current situations. This tells me two things about these people. First, they view life as a struggle. Second, and related to the first, they believe outside influences have a powerful effect on their lives.


Now when I think about the first part, that life is a struggle, I imagine two opposing forces at work. This I can relate to as I suffered from this same belief for years. You must understand there is only one force working within you, and that force is your own. Now you might wonder how you could feel struggle when there is only one force at work. Let me give you an analogy.


Your physical body uses muscles to carry out the task of movement. Your muscles can perform only one single task. They contract when activated, and they relax when they deactivate. Think of your arms, for a moment. You have among the many muscles biceps and triceps. These are opposing muscles. You use your biceps to bend your arm at the elbow. Your triceps are used to straighten your arm.


These are opposing muscles, and you can activate them at the same time and create a tension in your arm. In the natural state of a healthy person there is always a certain amount of this bilateral tension. We call it muscle tone. This is a good state to have, and it has no detrimental effect. On the contrary, having good muscle tone is a sign of good health.


Of course you can artificially increase this tension by intentionally flexing both your biceps and triceps simultaneously. How would you feel if you had to remain in this state for any length of time? I would be willing to bet it would become very uncomfortable very quickly.


This is what is happening on a mental level with those who view life as a struggle. When you focus on your opinion of your life, your life circumstances, you see it as being difficult. In receiving the message that your life is difficult, your amazing brain begins at once to seek out confirmation by bringing to your awareness “proof” of just how difficult your life really is. (You gotta love it).


At the same time, however, you are thinking how much you would like to have a perfect life, or at least a better life. You begin on a conscious level to “see” a beautiful life, an easy life, a blessed life, an abundant life, or whatever. Anything but the life you believe you actually do see. Can you see the dissonance created by this way of thinking? You are lying to yourself. You are “trying” to convince yourself to believe something that you sincerely do NOT believe.


In effect, you are setting up two distinct ideas. In this case, you are going to be let down every time, because your belief is what your mind sees as the goal. It pays no heed whatsoever to what you say you want, unless you can back that up with faith that it is real. If you are thinking something to the effect of I wish my life were easy and positive, you will attract more to make you WISH it were as you want it.


This brings us to the second part, believing outside influences have a powerful effect on our lives. I said this is so closely related to the first because it is again based on wrong belief, wrong yes, but a belief nonetheless. If you believe outside circumstances can have a strong effect on you, they can. Now no one lives in a bubble, and I don’t mean to say there is or should be no effect. We are sensitive for a good reason.


Like muscle tone is a good thing, we can’t for very long implement unnatural, excessive tone through actively straining our muscles for any length of time. We want a little struggle in life to make us feel good about what we accomplish. Overcoming challenge is rewarding, it feels good. Being sensitive to our surrounding circumstances gives us necessary feedback as to how we are doing in creating our life. You’re not happy with something about your life? It’s time to change that.


There is no reason to fret and fill yourself with hopeless despair. Simply change your perspective and begin searching for the means to get what you want. If you begin looking with the confidence that it exists, you will find it. Every time you try something, simply believe it will work, and if it doesn’t, so what? You learned that you must continue.


Have you ever watched a child’s first attempts at walking? He or she will get stood up and try to take a step, foot zigzagging before it likely comes back down in the very same position, and then crash! Down on his or her bum! How many times will this happen? Does it ever look like that baby is thinking, there’s no use in trying any more, like it just wasn’t meant to be?


It looks more like that baby is not thinking what ifs at all. It looks more like he or she sees others doing something and he or she has already decided that that is exactly what he or she is going to do. There is no built in failure mechanism, only a success mechanism. This success mechanism runs clean, as there is no contamination yet built up inside of it. There is no looking for someone or something to blame. There exists only determined ambition to do what he or she intends to do.


The child is the master at goal seeking. The same goes with language acquisition. We adults seem to be too worried about not saying something right to say anything at all, when learning a new language. No matter what it is you are trying to learn, Don’t give a second thought to how difficult it is, or that something outside is going to get in your way.


Simply follow the innate ability you have to accomplish what it is you want, even being positive. Forget about the world in seeking your goal. The world has no effect. The effect you feel is of your own making, and YOU can unmake it when you choose, as easily as you choose.



Jeffrey Brandt

Author of Close Your Eyes to Find Your Way: A Guide to Discovering Your Higher Self.





All writings here are copyrighted by Jeffrey Brandt. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.