PDF Summary:Reality Transurfing Steps I-V, by Vadim Zeland

Many people feel like they have no control over what happens in their lives. According to best-selling author Vadim Zeland, they feel like this because they’re not conscious of how their thoughts and emotions create their reality.

In Reality Transurfing Steps I–V, Zeland redefines reality, arguing that we live in a world of consciousness in which infinite versions of reality exist simultaneously—and what you identify as reality is just one version of it. The way you think and feel about your life experiences determines which one of these infinite versions of reality exists for you. Therefore, consciously choosing the way you think and feel allows you to control which version of reality you live in.

This guide explores Zeland’s thoughts on the nature of reality, your role in shaping it, and what you can do to take control of it. Additionally, we’ll expand upon each of his key points with research, advice, and actionable ideas from other authors and self-improvement practitioners.

(continued)...

According to Shetty, your unique needs, or what you need to be happy, can be summed up by your values: the core beliefs that you choose to live by. They determine who you want to be and how you treat yourself and others.

However, the need for external validation causes you to adopt values that make other people happy. Shetty explains that, as a child, you learned to adapt your behaviors according to what others expected from you. When you conformed to their expectations, they validated and reinforced your behavior by rewarding you—and this made you feel happy. On the other hand, when you went against their expectations, they invalidated and discouraged your behavior by punishing you—and this made you feel unhappy. From these experiences, you unconsciously concluded that your happiness depends on pleasing others.

This conclusion leads you to accumulate other people’s values and pursue things that you think will make you happy–without considering if these values align with your own. The downside to this is that your preoccupation with pleasing others distracts you from thinking about how you feel, what your unique needs are, and what makes you happy.

As a result, instead of focusing your energy on what you want to experience, you allow others’ expectations to direct your energy—which, according to Zeland, is why you waste energy perpetuating realities that don’t reflect what you want.

Part 2: Control Which Version of Reality You Live In

We’ve just discussed how you’re continually transmitting emotional energy at a frequency that sustains your version of reality. We’ll now explore Zeland’s advice for controlling which version of reality you live in. We’ll cover his advice in two steps:

• Step #1: Reclaim your emotional energy.
• Step #2: Redirect your emotional energy.

Step #1: Reclaim Your Emotional Energy

The first step toward changing your version of reality is to reclaim your emotional energy. This involves withdrawing your attention from unwanted aspects of your current reality so that you have more energy to direct toward your ideal version of reality.

According to Zeland, the only reason you might want to change your version of reality is that you’re facing circumstances that you don’t want to experience. You believe that a different version of reality won’t include these unwanted things. However, he explains, all unwanted circumstances result from a reality’s attempts to siphon your emotional energy—by creating problems and concerns that justify strong emotional reactions to them. As previously discussed, each time you direct your attention to such circumstances, you waste your emotional energy sustaining these unwanted parts of reality.

For example, you don’t want to feel frustrated with your children. However, your version of reality keeps creating unwanted circumstances that justify your perpetual frustration with them (for instance, your children repeatedly lie to you or don’t do their homework) so that it can siphon your emotional energy and remain in physical form.

On the other hand, when you intentionally ignore unwanted circumstances, you starve them of sustenance, weaken their influence over you, and reclaim the emotional energy that they’ve been siphoning from you.

• For example, each time your children don’t do their homework, you choose not to give in to frustration. This starves these unwanted circumstances of the emotional energy they need to manifest in your reality.

(Shortform note: Many self-help practitioners mirror Zeland’s claim that ignoring unwanted circumstances helps you reclaim and redirect energy toward creating what you want—for example, Rhonda Byrne (The Secret), Deepak Chopra (The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success), and Norman Vincent Peale (The Power of Positive Thinking). Like Zeland, all of these authors imply that unwanted circumstances don’t benefit you. However, some psychologists suggest that unwanted experiences can actually help you approach life more positively. This is because, without engaging in what you don’t want, you wouldn’t be able to distinguish among your experiences, recognize what satisfies you, and consciously move toward what you do want.)

How can you intentionally ignore unwanted circumstances? Zeland claims that observing your thoughts and emotions helps you weaken unwanted circumstances and reclaim your emotional energy in two ways. First, it helps you understand why you’re experiencing your version of reality instead of the version of reality that you want. Second, it breaks the feedback loop that perpetuates your current version of reality.

Let’s further explore the two benefits of observing your thoughts and emotions.

Benefit #1: Observing Yourself Helps You Understand Your Reality

According to Zeland, the first benefit of observing your thoughts and emotions is that it helps you understand why you’re experiencing your version of reality. It does this by revealing how participating in your version of reality creates a feedback loop that perpetuates this reality. For example:

1. An experience occurs in your version of reality that draws your attention (for example, you receive a job rejection).
2. Because you’re thinking about what’s happening, you transmit emotional energy that matches this specific experience (you think about how unfair life is and feel like a failure).
3. This emotional energy is reflected back to you in the form of similar experiences. (Since self-pity dominates your frequency, your version of reality creates more self-pitying experiences—for example, you lose your keys and receive additional job rejections.)
4. You then think about these similar experiences, and so on.

How Unconscious Biases Reinforce Feedback Loops

Psychological research expands upon how feedback loops perpetuate similar experiences by explaining that your habitual thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced and reinforced by cognitive biases. Cognitive biases are the result of your brain’s attempt to make quick judgments based on your past experiences, and they shape the way you think about, perceive, and react to everything that happens.

There are many different types of cognitive biases, and each of them influences your perception in different ways. Two common cognitive biases are 1) confirmation bias, the tendency to pay more attention to information that confirms and reinforces your opinion; and 2) negativity bias, the tendency to notice and dwell on the negative aspects of your experiences.

The example in the four-step process above demonstrates how both of these biases reinforce how you think and feel—causing you to continually transmit emotional energy that creates unfair experiences. Your confirmation bias influences you to only notice and interpret experiences that reinforce your feelings of self-pity. Likewise, your negativity bias keeps you focused on what you dislike or fear about your experiences. As a result, both biases keep you mired in feelings of failure—which, according to Zeland, ensures that you’ll continue to experience, participate in, and perpetuate circumstances that make you feel like a failure.

Benefit #2: Observing Yourself Breaks the Feedback Loop

Zeland argues that the second benefit of observing your thoughts and emotions is that it helps you remain emotionally detached from unwanted circumstances. This breaks the feedback loop that perpetuates this reality and makes you less susceptible to wasting your energy on what you don’t want. For example:

1. You receive a job rejection.
2. You remain detached, simply observing your thoughts and feelings about the rejection.
3. Because you don’t get emotionally involved in the rejection, you preserve your energy and prevent your emotional energy from perpetuating similar experiences.

(Shortform note: According to Grant Cardone (The 10X Rule), observing yourself offers another advantage: It encourages you to take responsibility for all your circumstances and empowers you to view unwanted experiences as opportunities for growth. As a result, you proactively seek ways to amend your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to prevent unwanted experiences from reoccurring—which frees up energy to focus on getting what you want. On the other hand, remaining unaware of how you create your circumstances encourages a victim mentality: Instead of taking responsibility for unwanted experiences, you waste energy blaming others, feel powerless to move forward, and stay focused on what you don’t want.)

Step #2: Redirect Your Emotional Energy

Once you’ve practiced reclaiming your emotional energy from unwanted circumstances, practice the second step toward changing your version of reality: Redirect your emotional energy to feed your ideal version of reality.

Zeland argues that since your version of reality simply reflects your emotional energy, you can control which version of reality gets reflected back to you by matching your emotional energy with that reality. He suggests three methods for redirecting your emotional energy to achieve this:

1. Identify what you want.
2. Practice living in your ideal version of reality.
3. Transmit only positive emotional energy.

Let’s explore each of these three methods in detail.

Method #1: Identify What You Want

The first method for redirecting your emotional energy involves identifying what you want to experience. This will help you create a clear vision of your ideal version of reality.

Zeland offers advice for identifying what you want to experience: Focus only on what brings you joy or inspires you. Don’t allow other people’s opinions to influence you or make you worry about how plausible your desires are.

(Shortform note: Like Zeland, Wallace D. Wattles (The Science of Getting Rich), argues that you shouldn’t worry about how plausible your desires are. Instead, just expect everything to work out in your favor. Wattles suggests that imagining your desired end result and practicing gratitude in advance of achieving it provide two benefits. First, it sends a clear message to the universe. Second, it keeps you from becoming dissatisfied with your current life experiences. This is because when you imagine feeling grateful for something you don’t yet have, you feel positive regardless of what’s actually happening. The more positive you feel, the more likely you are to transmit positive emotional energy and adopt behaviors that move you closer to what you want.)

Zeland explains that when you focus only on experiences that bring you joy, you transmit a purely joyful frequency, untainted by negative emotions. For example, you want to be an entrepreneur because you feel inspired to work on your business idea. Even though you’re not sure exactly how or when you’ll achieve your goal, you feel satisfied each time you make progress. As a result, you consistently transmit emotional energy that aligns with the frequency of what you want—thus feeding your ideal version of reality.

On the other hand, when you allow other people to influence you or worry about how you’ll achieve what you want, you pollute your frequency with contradictory emotions. These feed the very circumstances that you don’t want. For example, you want to be a wealthy entrepreneur only because it will make you appear successful and impress others. However, this goal doesn’t inspire you intrinsically—working toward it feels laborious and dissatisfying. As a result, you consistently transmit mixed emotional energy that feeds versions of reality that you don’t want.

Intrinsic Motivation Helps You Maintain a Positive State of Mind and Achieve Success

Many psychologists and self-improvement authors mirror Zeland’s argument that focusing on what brings you joy is key to maintaining a positive attitude and achieving success. Some notable proponents of this theory include Jay Shetty (Think Like a Monk), Neil Pasricha (The Happiness Equation), Maxwell Maltz (Psycho-Cybernetics), and Deepak Chopra (The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success). One idea underlies this argument: That all behavior is driven by the need to fulfill one of two motivation types—intrinsic or extrinsic.

Intrinsic motivation comes from within: You accept your needs and feel comfortable expressing them by engaging in activities that make you happy. For example, you want to be an entrepreneur because you enjoy your work and aren’t worried about how others judge you. Because doing this work fulfills your inner needs, you find it easy to maintain a positive attitude and achieve success (which helps you continually transmit positive emotional energy).

Extrinsic motivation comes from your environment: You ignore your needs in favor of seeking acceptance from others by engaging in activities that encourage external rewards. For example, you want to be an entrepreneur because you think it will garner admiration and positive feedback. However, because doing this work doesn’t fulfill your inner needs, you struggle to maintain focus or make progress on what you’ve set out to do, and find it difficult to maintain a positive attitude (which prevents you from transmitting positive emotional energy).

Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, the authors of Minimalism, expand on the topic with additional advice to help you assess your motivations and identify what intrinsically motivates you. They claim that there are four obstructions holding you back from recognizing and pursuing intrinsically motivated goals: identity, status, certainty, and money. For example, you may focus on career aspirations that drain your energy rather than pursuing work that aligns with your interests because your financial security and sense of identity are tied up with your career status.

Become aware of how these obstructions influence you, and distinguish between the goals and activities that satisfy you (intrinsically motivated) and the ones that don’t (extrinsically motivated), by tracking all of the activities you take part in over the next few weeks. Next, reflect on each activity by asking yourself the following questions:

• Is this something I want to do, or am I fulfilling external expectations?

• Do I enjoy this? If so, what’s the most enjoyable aspect of it?

• Does this make me feel energized or drained? Motivated or unmotivated?

• How can I create opportunities to engage more in the activities that I enjoy?

Method #2: Practice Living in Your Ideal Version of Reality

Once you’ve identified what you want, practice Zeland’s second method for redirecting your emotional energy: Live in your ideal version of reality.

As previously discussed, your reality is simply a reflection of your emotional frequency. This means that the only way to experience the version of reality that you want is to consistently transmit a frequency that matches what you want.

Zeland explains that the most effective way to attune your frequency to what you want is to imagine how you would think, feel, and behave if you were already living in your ideal version of reality. Consider the type of person you’d have to become and how your lifestyle would need to change to fit in with this ideal version of reality. Then practice thinking, feeling, and behaving like this vision of yourself now.

For example, in your ideal version of reality, your body is sleek and toned. You imagine that you feel proud of your appearance and have adopted specific habits that energize you and help you maintain your figure. Therefore, you choose to focus on feeling proud of your appearance and adopting those specific habits now.

Visualizing Your Ideal Life

Like Zeland, Maxwell Maltz (Psycho-Cybernetics), argues that the more you imagine or practice thinking, feeling, and behaving as if you already have what you want, the more likely your desires are to come true. However, while Zeland claims that this method works by aligning your emotional energy with what you want to experience, Maltz claims that this method works by aligning your self-image with what you want to experience.

Maltz explains that your subconscious mind—the part of your brain that dominates the majority of your unconscious thoughts and emotions—learns from your habitual, conscious thoughts and feelings to create your self-image. Your subconscious mind then influences you to think and behave in ways that reflect this self-image, and it actively discourages you from thinking or behaving in ways that are inconsistent with your self-image. Maltz goes so far as to say that your subconscious mind sabotages your conscious attempts to change your habitual thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

For example, if you habitually think that you’re out of shape and need to exercise more, you’ve trained your subconscious mind to include being unfit as part of your self-image. As a result, your subconscious mind influences you to automatically think and act in ways that keep you from exercising. It might influence you to think thoughts that make you feel powerless to adopt a healthier lifestyle or it might encourage you to remain sedentary. Additionally, it may sabotage any attempt you make to become fitter—for example, influencing you to procrastinate about joining a gym.

For this reason, Maltz argues that you can’t change your experiences unless you consciously change your self-image and retrain your subconscious mind. He suggests that you can achieve this by regularly visualizing yourself behaving in ways that align with what you want and who you want to be. This is because your subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between imagination and reality—it can only react (by creating changes in your self-image) to what you imagine to be true.

According to Maltz, visualizing what you want is the most effective way to overcome the self-sabotaging influence of the parts of your self-image that prevent you from living your ideal life. As such, this practice will train your subconscious mind to become more comfortable with the feeling of who you want to be—which will help you practice living your ideal life, as Zeland suggests.

Method #3: Transmit Unconditional Positive Emotional Energy

The more you practice living in your ideal version of reality, the more your emotional energy will feed the materialization of what you want. Zeland claims that his third method—transmitting unconditional positive emotional energy—will accelerate this materialization process and help smooth your transition into your ideal version of reality.

Zeland explains that you’re always choosing how you interpret all of your experiences. When you choose to interpret something as positive, you transmit positive emotional energy that feeds a positive version of reality. On the other hand, when you choose to interpret something as negative, you transmit negative emotional energy that feeds a negative version of reality. Therefore, choosing to interpret all your experiences as positive ensures that only positive versions of reality can get reflected back to you.

He suggests that you can train yourself to continually transmit positive emotional energy by focusing only on what you want to experience and appreciating all of the good things in your life.

Train Yourself to Transmit Unconditional Positive Energy

Like Zeland, Pasricha (The Happiness Equation) argues that you can always choose to feel positive, regardless of what’s happening in your life. According to him, there’s no such thing as a negative experience—it’s only your thoughts about your experiences that make you interpret them that way.

He claims that you can train yourself to continually feel positive (which will ensure you continually transmit positive emotional energy) by practicing six methods:

• Get active: Exercising for 30 minutes three times a week increases your ability to feel positive and reduces symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression.

• Do good deeds: Deliberately performing spontaneous acts of kindness makes you feel good about yourself. An added benefit is that others show more appreciation to you, too.

• Switch off: Taking time off from your to-do lists and distractions allows your brain to rest and recharge—giving you more energy to maintain a positive focus.

• Engage fully: Being fully engaged in your tasks and activities deters distractions because your brain is occupied with accessing all of your knowledge and skills. This makes you feel more positive and also increases your productivity.

• Practice meditation: Adopting a daily mindfulness ritual, such as meditation, builds your self-awareness, encourages feelings of compassion toward yourself and others, and decreases feelings of stress and anxiety.

• Be thankful: Taking time to write about experiences you’re thankful for keeps you focused on what you like about your life and how lucky you are.