Chapter Six“I am in the rhythm and flow of ever-changing life.”
Awareness Is the First Step in Healing or Changing
When we have some pattern buried deeply within us, we must become aware of it in order to heal the condition. Perhaps we begin to mention the condition, to complain about it or to see it in other people. It rises to the surface of our attention in some way, and we begin to relate to it. We often attract a teacher, a friend, a class or workshop, or a book to ourselves that begins to awaken new ways to approach the dissolving of the problem.
My awakening began with a chance remark of a friend who had been told about a meeting. My friend did not go, but something within me responded, and I went. That little meeting was the first step on my pathway of unfoldment. I didn’t recognize the significance of it until sometime later.
Often, our reaction to this first stage is to think the approach is silly, or that it doesn’t make sense. Perhaps it seems too easy, or unacceptable to our thinking. We don’t want to do it. Our resistance comes up very strong. We may even feel angry about the thought of doing it.
Such a reaction is very good, if we can understand that it is the first step in our healing process.
I tell people that any reaction they may feel is there to show them they are already in the process of healing even though the total healing is not yet completed. The truth is that the process begins the moment we begin to think about making a change.
Impatience is only another form of resistance. It is resistance to learning and to changing. When we demand that it be done right now, completed at once, then we don’t give ourselves time to learn the lesson involved with the problem we have created.
If you want to move to another room, you have to get up and move step by step in that direction. Just sitting in your chair and demanding that you be in the other room will not work. It’s the same thing. We all want our problem to be over with, but we don’t want to do the small things that will add up to the solution.
Now is the time to acknowledge our responsibility in having created the situation or condition. I’m not talking about having guilt, nor about being a “bad person” for being where you are. I am saying to acknowledge the “power within you” that transforms our every thought into experience. In the past we unknowingly used this power to create things we did not want to experience. We were not aware of what we were doing. Now, by acknowledging our responsibility, we become aware and learn to use this power consciously in positive ways for our benefit.
Often when I suggest a solution to the client—a new way to approach a matter or forgiving the person involved—I will see the jaw begin to clench and jut out, and arms cross tightly over the chest. Maybe even fists will form. Resistance is coming to the fore, and I know we have hit upon exactly what needs to be done.
We all have lessons to learn. The things that are so difficult for us are only the lessons we have chosen for ourselves. If things are easy for us, then they are not lessons, but are things we already know.
Lessons Can Be Learned Through Awareness
If you think of the hardest thing for you to do and how much you resist it, then you’re looking at your greatest lesson at the moment. Surrendering, giving up the resistance, and allowing yourself to learn what you need to learn, will make the next step even easier. Don’t let your resistance stop you from making the changes. We can work on two levels: 1) Looking at the resistance, and 2) Still making the mental changes. Observe yourself, watch how you resist, and then go ahead anyway.
Nonverbal Clues
Our actions often show our resistance. For instance:
Changing the subject
Leaving the room
Going to the bathroom
Being late
Getting sick
Procrastinating by:
doing something else
doing busy work
wasting time
Looking away, or out the window
Flipping through a magazine
Refusing to pay attention
Eating, drinking, or smoking
Creating or ending a relationship
Creating breakdowns; cars, appliances, plumbing, etc.
Assumptions
We often assume things about others to justify our resistance. We make statements such as:
It wouldn’t do any good anyway.
My husband/wife won’t understand.
I would have to change my whole personality.
Only crazy people go to therapists.
They couldn’t help me with my problem.
They couldn’t handle my anger.
My case is different.
I don’t want to bother them.
It will work itself out.
Nobody else does it.
Beliefs
We grow up with beliefs that become our resistance to changing. Some of our limiting ideas are:
It’s not done.
It’s just not right.
It’s not right for me to do that.
That wouldn’t be spiritual.
Spiritual people don’t get angry.
Men/women just don’t do that.
My family never did that.
Love is not for me.
It’s too far to drive.
It’s too much work.
It’s too expensive.
It will take too long.
I don’t believe in it.
I’m not that kind of person.
Them
We give our power to others and use that excuse as our resistance to changing. We have ideas like:
God doesn’t approve.
I’m waiting for the stars to say it’s okay.
This isn’t the right environment.
They won’t let me change.
I don’t have the right teacher/book/class/tools.
My doctor doesn’t want me to.
I can’t get time off work.
I don’t want to be under their spell.
It’s all their fault.
They have to change first.
As soon as I get _________________, I’ll do it.
You/they don’t understand.
I don’t want to hurt them.
It’s against my upbringing, religion, philosophy.
Self Concepts
We have ideas about ourselves that we use as limitations or resistance to changing. We are:
Too old.
Too young.
Too fat.
Too thin.
Too short.
Too tall.
Too lazy.
Too strong.
Too weak.
Too dumb.
Too smart.
Too poor.
Too worthless.
Too frivolous.
Too serious.
Too stuck.
Maybe it’s just all too much.
Delaying Tactics
Our resistance often expresses itself as delaying tactics. We use excuses like:
I’ll do it later.
I can’t think right now.
I don’t have the time right now.
It would take too much time away from my work.
Yes, that’s a good idea; I’ll do it some other time.
I have too many other things to do.
I’ll think about it tomorrow.
As soon as I get through with _________________.
As soon as I get back from this trip.
The time isn’t right.
It’s too late, or too soon.
Denial
This form of resistance shows up in denial of the need to do any changing. Things like:
There is nothing wrong with me.
I can’t do anything about this problem.
I was all right last time.
What good would it do to change?
If I ignore it, maybe the problem will go away.
Fear
By far the biggest category of resistance is fear—fear of the unknown. Listen to these:
I’m not ready yet.
I might fail.
They might reject me.
What would the neighbors think?
I’m afraid to tell my husband/wife.
I might get hurt.
I may have to change.
It might cost me money.
I would rather die first, or get a divorce first.
I don’t want anyone to know I have a problem.
I’m afraid to express my feelings.
I don’t want to talk about it.
I don’t have the energy.
Who knows where I might end up?
I may lose my freedom.
It’s too hard to do.
I don’t have enough money now.
I might hurt my back.
I wouldn’t be perfect.
I might lose my friends.
I don’t trust anyone.
It might hurt my image.
I’m not good enough.
And on and on the list goes. Do you recognize some of these as the ways you resist? Look for the resistance in these examples:
A client came to me because she was in a lot of pain. She had broken her back, her neck, and her knee in three separate auto accidents. Yet she was late, got lost, and then was stuck in traffic.
It was easy for her to tell me all her problems, but the minute I said, “Let me talk for a moment,” all sorts of turmoil began. Her contact lenses began to bother her. She wanted to sit in another chair. She had to go to the bathroom. Then her lenses had to come out. I could not keep her attention for the rest of the session.
It was all resistance. She wasn’t ready to let go and be healed. I discovered her sister also had broken her back twice, and so had her mother.
Another client was an actor, a mime, a street performer, and quite good at it. He bragged about how clever he was at cheating others, especially institutions. He knew how to get away with almost anything, and yet he got away with nothing. He was always broke, at least a month behind in the rent, often without a telephone. His clothes were tacky, work was very sporadic, he had a lot of pains in his body, and his love life was zilch.
His theory was that he couldn’t stop cheating until some good came into his life. Of course, with what he was giving out, no good could come into his life. He had to stop cheating first.
His resistance was that he was not ready to let go of the old ways.
Leave Your Friends Alone
Too often instead of working on our own changes, we decide which of our friends needs to change. This, too, is resistance.
In the early days of my work, I had a client who would send me to all her friends in the hospital. Instead of sending them flowers, she would have me go to fix up their problems. I would arrive with my tape recorder in hand, usually finding someone in bed who didn’t know why I was there or understand what I was doing. This was before I learned never to work with anyone unless he or she requested it.
Sometimes clients come to me because a friend has given them a session as a present. This usually doesn’t work too well, and they seldom come back for further work.
When something works well for us, we often want to share it with others. But they may not be ready to make a change at that point in time and space. It’s hard enough to make changes when we want to, but to try to make someone else change when he or she doesn’t want to is impossible, and it can ruin a good friendship. I push my clients because they come to me. I leave my friends alone.
Mirror Work
Mirrors reflect back to us our feelings about ourselves. They show us clearly the areas to be changed if we want to have a joyous, fulfilling life.
I ask people to look in their eyes and say something positive about themselves every time they pass a mirror. The most powerful way to do affirmations is to look in a mirror and say them out loud. You are immediately aware of the resistance and can move through it quicker. It’s good to have a mirror with you as you read this book. Use it often for affirmations and to check where you are resisting and where you are open and flowing.
Now, look in a mirror and say to yourself, “I am willing to change.”
Notice how you feel. If you are hesitant, resistant, or just don’t want to change, ask yourself why. What old belief are you holding on to? This is not a time to scold yourself. Just notice what is going on and what belief rises to the surface. That is the one that has been causing you a lot of trouble. Can you recognize where it came from?
When we do our affirmations and they don’t feel right or nothing seems to happen, it’s so easy to say, “Oh, affirmations don’t work.” It’s not that the affirmations don’t work, it’s that we need to do another step before we begin affirmations.
Repeated Patterns Show Us Our Needs
For every habit we have, for every experience we go through over and over, for every pattern we repeat, there is a NEED WITHIN US for it. The need corresponds to some belief we have. If there were not a need, we wouldn’t have it, do it, or be it. There is something within us that needs the fat, the poor relationships, the failures, the cigarettes, the anger, the poverty, the abuse, or whatever there is that’s a problem for us.
How many times have we said, “I won’t ever do that again!”? Then, before the day is up, we have the piece of cake, smoke the cigarettes, say hateful things to the ones we love, and so on. Then we compound the whole problem by angrily saying to ourselves, “Oh, you have no willpower, no discipline. You’re just weak.” This only adds to the load of guilt we already carry.
It Has Nothing to Do with Willpower or Discipline
Whatever we are trying to release in our lives is just a symptom, an outer effect. Trying to eliminate the symptom without working on dissolving the cause is useless. The moment we release our willpower or discipline, the symptom crops up again.
Willingness to Release the Need
I say to clients, “There must be a need in you for this condition, or you wouldn’t have it. Let’s go back a step and work on the WILLINGNESS TO RELEASE THE NEED. When the need is gone, you will have no desire for the cigarette or the overeating or the negative pattern.”
One of the first affirmations to use is: “I am willing to release the NEED for the resistance, or the headache, or the constipation, or the excess weight, or the lack of money or whatever.” Say: “I am willing to release the need for…” If you are resisting at this point, then your other affirmations cannot work.
The webs we create around ourselves need to be unwound. If you have ever untangled a ball of string, you know that yanking and pulling only makes it worse. You need to very gently and patiently unravel the knots. Be gentle and patient with yourself as you untangle your own mental knots. Get help if you need it. Above all, love yourself in the process. The willingness to let go of the old is the key. That is the secret.
When I say “needing the problem,” I mean that according to our particular set of thought patterns, we “need” to have certain outer effects or experiences. Every outer effect is the natural expression of an inner thought pattern. To battle only the outer effect or symptom is wasted energy and often increases the problem.
“I Am Unworthy” Creates Procrastination
If one of my inner belief systems or thought patterns is, “I am unworthy,” then one of my outer effects will probably be procrastination. After all, procrastination is one way to keep us from getting where we say we want to go. Most people who procrastinate will spend a lot of time and energy berating themselves for procrastinating. They will call themselves lazy and generally will make themselves out to feel they are “bad persons.”
Resentment of Another’s Good
I had a client who loved attention and usually came to class late so he could create a stir. He had been the baby of 18 children, and he came last on the list of getting. As a child he watched everyone else “have” while he just longed for his own. Even now when someone had good fortune, he would not rejoice with them. Instead he would say, “Oh, I wish I had that,” or “Oh, why don’t I ever get that?”
His resentment of their good was a barrier to his own growth and change.
Self-Worth Opens Many Doors
A client who was 79 came to me. She taught singing, and several of her students were making television commercials. She wanted to do this, too, but was afraid. I supported her totally and explained, “There is nobody like you. Just be yourself.” I said, “Do it for the fun of it. There are people out there looking for exactly what you have to offer. Let them know you exist.”
She called several agents and casting directors, and said, “I am a senior, senior citizen, and I want to do commercials.” In a short time, she had a commercial, and since then she’s never stopped working. I often see her on TV and in magazines. New careers can start at any age, especially when you do it for the fun of it.
Self-Criticizing Is Totally Missing the Mark
It will only intensify the procrastination and laziness. The place to put the mental energy is into releasing the old and creating a new thought pattern. Say: “I am willing to release the need to be unworthy. I am worthy of the very best in life, and I now lovingly allow myself to accept it.
“As I spend a few days doing this affirmation over and over, my outer effect pattern of procrastination will automatically begin to fade.
“As I internally create a pattern of self-worth, then I no longer have the need to delay my good.”
Do you see how this could apply to some of the negative patterns or outer effects in your life? Let’s stop wasting time and energy putting ourselves down for something we can’t help doing if we have certain inner beliefs. Change the beliefs.
No matter how you approach it, or what subject matter we are talking about, we are only dealing with thoughts, and thoughts can be changed.
When we want to change a condition, we need to say so.
“I am willing to release the pattern within me that is creating this condition.”
You can say this to yourself over and over every time you think of your illness or problem. The minute you say it, you are stepping out of the victim class. You are no longer helpless; you are acknowledging your own power. You are saying, “I am beginning to understand that I created this. I now take my own power back. I am going to release this old idea and let it go.”
Self-Criticism
I have a client who will eat a pound of butter and everything else she can get ahold of when she cannot bear to be with her own negative thoughts. The next day she will be angry at her body for being heavy. When she was a little girl, she would walk around the family dinner table finishing off everyone’s leftovers and eating a whole stick of butter. The family would laugh and think it was cute. It was almost the only approval she got from her family.
When you scold yourself, when you berate yourself, when you “beat yourself up,” who do you think you’re treating this way?
Almost all of our programming, both negative and positive, was accepted by us by the time we were three years old. Our experiences since then are based upon what we accepted and believed about ourselves and about life at that time. The way we were treated when we were very little is usually the way we treat ourselves now. The person you are scolding is a three-year-old child within you.
If you are a person who gets angry at yourself for being afraid and fearful, think of yourself as being three years old. If you had a little three-year-old child in front of you who was afraid, what would you do? Would you be angry at him, or would you reach out your arms and comfort the child until he felt safe and at ease? The adults around you when you were a child may not have known how to comfort you at that time. Now you are the adult in your life, and if you’re not comforting the child within you, then that is very sad indeed.
What was done in the past is done, and it is over now. But this is present time, and you now have the opportunity to treat yourself the way you wish to be treated. A frightened child needs comforting, not scolding. Scolding yourself only makes you more frightened, and there is nowhere to turn. When the child within feels unsafe, it creates a lot of trouble. Remember how it felt to be belittled when you were young? It feels the same way now to that child within.
Be kind to yourself. Begin to love and approve of yourself. That’s what that little child needs in order to express itself at its highest potential.
In the infinity of life where I am,
all is perfect, whole, and complete.
I see any resistance patterns within me
only as something else to release.
They have no power over me. I am the power in my world.
I flow with the changes taking place in my life as best I can.
I approve of myself and the way I am changing.
I am doing the best I can. Each day gets easier.
I rejoice that I am in the rhythm and flow
of my ever-changing life.
Today is a wonderful day.
I choose to make it so.
All is well in my world.