The smart 'spiritual' answer is 'you always get what you want'. But that isn't very helpful, because if you can't pay the power bill and you want to be warm, there's clearly a conflict, and you can justifiably say 'I'm not getting what I want.

Unfortunately my life-experience has taught me that the smart answer is almost invariably accurate. But what it doesn't communicate is that some wants are more powerful than others; some wants conflict with others; and some wants you don't even know about, because they are buried deep within your subconscious mind and possibly need a skilled therapist to extract them.

Now, let's just play around with ideas here, just to get a feel for what I mean. Let's say that every wealthy person you've ever met has seemed to you unkind, selfish and self-serving. And let's further say that a wealthy relative treated you shabbily as a child. Let's even further say that your parents just got by financially and you remember them saying things like 'money is the root of all evil' and 'money doesn't grow on trees'. It may be fair to say that you could have been conditioned against wealth. It could be that you see, at a subconscious rather than a conscious level, the possession of money as something that would change you into a person you not only have no desire to be, but also a person you would dislike.

Life may then have taken you to low-paid employment. Life may also have provided you with physical problems, problems with health, and/or psychological problems that made it almost impossible for you to rise to the position in society that your mind would warrant were it free to pursue it's dreams without fear or hindrance.

If these were the background circumstances to the situation in the opening paragraph, I would have no hesitation in saying that you are getting exactly what you want. You don't want to be cold, I agree, but you do want to have as little money as you can get away with and that is a greater need for you because the conditioning runs deeper.

This is just an example of how we sabotage our desires.

Self-sabotage is:
* a subconscious act.
* self-protective.
* created from beliefs about self.
* created from beliefs about the world.
* more powerful than the force of attraction to what we truly desire.
* how we stop ourselves from having to face our own power.
* how we stop ourselves from seeing how incredibly magical life is.

Please note that beliefs are not Truths. Beliefs are just things you believe are true. Beliefs are, more often than not, mistaken ideas, or ideas that are true at one level but not at others.

So how do we get what we want?

A Course in Miracles states that: 'What you need to learn now is that only infinite patience CAN produce immediate effects.'

What this really means is: know deep down within yourself that your desires are yours - without doubt. And know that you have no control over how or when they will manifest. Then let go. Be at peace with what is to come, and it will knock at your door the moment you let go.

And now I'll show you how the self-sabotage even works with this. You take this knowledge about infinite patience and you say to yourself something along the lines of 'right I'll let go of this so I'll get it now'. You don't get it now, and you don't get why you didn't get it now. And your conclusion is that this is more mumbo jumbo that you were a fool to ever be taken in by in the first place. If you truly believed that your desires were simply a spiritual 'notice' of what was to come, then letting go would happen quite naturally. Impatience is what gets in the way. Impatience is not allowing the Universe to bring into your life what is perfect for you at the perfect time for your joy. It may be that in order to maximise your pleasure at the receipt of what you want, you have to learn some stuff first. Learning that stuff is going to take you three years, so The Universe has your desire arranged for three years time. If you keep checking out the window to see if it's arriving, then you won't get to learn the stuff you need to learn and so the Universe will keep your gift on hold until you do. So if it takes you ten years to give up waiting, that's the earliest the Universe can get started on your lessons so it's going to be thirteen years instead of three before what you desire arrives.

Lets say your heart's desire is a partner to love and be loved by; to support and be encouraged by; to share your pleasures with and to learn new ones; someone who isn't jealous and enjoys your independence. But you seem to keep getting caught up in relationships that are about as far away from this as you can get. Once you notice a pattern re-occurring in your life - that's a message that you have an important lesson to learn. Obviously you are being attracted to the wrong type of person. But you feel attracted to who you feel attracted to and you don't seem able to change that and because of this strong desire, each time you meet someone new you believe that this is the one, and a year later you discover it wasn't. But in the meantime you've suffered more heartache and pain and you've had enough and you want to get off this hamster wheel but you don't know how.

This person you desire to be with is waiting, and maybe learning their lessons too.

It always boils down to beliefs and ideas about self. If you have low self-esteem you will be attracted to people who will sooner or later put you down. If you feel you are unattractive, then you will be attracted to people who are never pleased with how you look no matter how much effort you put in. If you feel poor you will be attracted to mean/selfish people. If you are afraid of commitment you will be attracted to people who are in relationships and aren't prepared to make a commitment to you, though they may be happy to enjoy an affair. This is how it works. So what you have to do is find the attribute in you that is a mistaken idea about you: self-esteem level, attractiveness level, fears about wealth, ability to commit and so on and then ask/pray/wish for help and guidance. And once you've done that think about what steps you can take yourself in that direction. You need to take those first steps and then all the power of the Universe will be unleashed to assist you, but there may be levels and levels and levels, like Russian dolls, of mistaken ideas about you that need to be uncovered. But as long as you desire to be free, you will be assisted in your journey towards that which you desire.

And finally, you need to allow the essence of what you want into your life regardless of the packaging. So if you want companionship seek out those, of either sex, who would companion you. If you want conversation, seek out others just to converse with. If you want to be supported, support others. If you want encouragement, encourage others. These steps allow into your life the essence of your desire. And once the essence of your desire is present, its reality is just round the corner.

Michael Hadfield

Michael J. Hadfield is 54 years old, born in Liverpool, England. In 1996, after many years spent in the computer industry, he developed an interest in psychology and trained as a clinical hypnotherapist and has since helped many people to live a normal life again after struggling with psychological problems such as phobias, stress, chronic anxiety, over-eating, smoking, stammering, shyness, low self-esteem and lack of confidence.

Michael also has a well-developed interest in spirituality. This interest led to a connection with an 'inner wisdom' or intuitive sense that has helped and guided him on many occasions and is especially attuned to the needs of clients for therapy.

On the 'fun' side of life Michael has a passion for photography and gardening and a small selection of his photographs can be seen on the pages of his website. He was a regular 'ornamentals' contributor, of both words and pictures, to Organic Gardening magazine for many years, with several of his photographs appearing on the cover of this magazine. His work has also appeared in Amateur Gardening, North West Gardener, and Practical Photography magazines.

He continues to explore his interest in health, healing, and the mind/body connection, with a particular fascination for the psychological causes of physical illness as well as the use of Pyschoneuroimmunological techniques for the healing of physical diseases such as cancer.