Stuck in a healing journey?
You don’t have to be 100% healed in order to move forward!
You don’t have to be without fear, or sadness, or guilt, or have total certainty and clarity, in order to move forward and create the adjustments you want in your life. Not everything has to be figured out for the next version of you to emerge. In fact, life is about growing into our authentic selves. That growth requires learning and differentiating who we are from who we think we should be.
So, if we believe that we have to be “healed” in order to move forward, we can spend our whole lives searching for wounds, traumas and reasons.
Are you willing to see it differently or are you committed to seeing it the way you’ve always seen it. If you want to keep your perspective, I can guarantee there is no way out. But just having the willingness, even if you don’t know how that could be, opens the space for change.
Difficulties
Challenging circumstances of life pressure us to break through layers of conditioning. They are for us to let go of what no longer serves us and to allow ourselves to be. Life pushes us to put more energy into our nature and less into our adaptations and, in order to do this, it is NOT necessary to be 100% healed. In fact, this belief is what sometimes keeps us entangled in a spiritual bypass.
Spiritual bypass
Meditating for hours, trying all the therapies, identifying all our traumas and those of our ancestors, without taking actions different from the known ones, because we believe we are not healed enough, is a spiritual bypass. It gives “peace of mind” to be constantly “working” on yourself, and “making great effort” to get out of whatever knot you are in.
Believing that we must be healed in order to evolve, we use our understandings as excuses for why we don’t take the kind of actions that are required; or as explanations for why we don’t have the relationship, the job, the lifestyle, the habits we would like.
Thus, we keep ourselves in a spiral that “calms” our minds and shields us from really facing the responsibility and decision-making capacity we have over our own lives.
Break out of the cycle
Unhelpful beliefs – such as that you have to be free of fears, insecurities and traumas in order to change- only keep you searching for reasons why you are not moving forward in one or more areas of your life.
The past cannot be changed. It was what it was.
Fears and insecurities are not solved in the mind. It is not by thinking about them that they vanish. Or has it worked for you?
Surely, you are already aware of many of your blockages. Great, that is essential, because you can’t solve what you don’t know. Now, the necessary turning point is to open yourself to the solution.
How does one do that?
We have control over how much the past plays into our present, and over how much we act out of our fears and insecurities. That control is activated by the transformation formula (which I have and will continue to refer to):
Awareness. Intention. Action.
Awareness
For example, you have already identified that in some circumstances you are assaulted by such fear; you have noticed that at certain times you feel guilty; you know that you do not feel worthy of your desires or of receiving the good that comes into your life, etc
Honest intention
When the intention to let go or change what is blocking or entangling life is HONEST, it creates a space for transformation to come.
We don’t have to know exactly how to do it, or already have the courage to do it. It’s more like asking the question: who would I be like without this (belief, fear, sadness, guilt, unworthiness, etc)?
Are you willing to see circumstances differently, or are you stubborn to continue to see them the way you always have? If it is the latter, I can guarantee you that there is no way out. Now, if you are willing to see them differently, that is enough to open space for change.
Honesty is with you and it is essential. If you have already identified the block and are still holding on to it, it is because in some way it serves you or you are not ready to let go of it. It is easy to lie yourself into believing you intend to let go of the blockage and to victimize yourself for not transforming your life. Don’t fool yourself!
Ask yourself: what is the benefit of holding on to this (belief, fear, etc)? what do I lose by letting go of it?
For example, it may serve to keep you in a comfort zone; to maintain a relational dynamic that brings certain benefits; to keep you playing small, so you don’t have to take risks; to avoid exposing yourself; to make the other feel guilty and compensate you…etc.
So, if it still “serves” you and you don’t want to change it, accept reality as it is, and assume your part in it. Already that understanding gives you freedom, because it shows you that you are not doomed to anything and that when you are ready to let go, you will.
If on the other hand you decide the discomfort of keeping the same perspective is greater than “the benefits”, open yourself to the possibility of change.
Take action:
Here are two exercises to help you know what actions to take.
Note: doing the exercises is an action in itself. Yohooo!
Challenge beliefs*
Take a large sheet of paper and divide it into three columns.
1. In the first column, write down the belief(s) that block you.
For example:
“I am not worthy of….”
“I am not ….enough”
“I am afraid to fail by…”
“I am afraid that the past will repeat itself…”
“This is not possible for me…”
“Everything will fall apart if…”
“I am too …. and that is not good”.
2. In the second column, write:
What facts do I have that support this belief?
3. In the third column, write:
What facts do I have that support the opposite or do not support this belief?
*This exercise is taken from the book The Source by Dr. Tara Swart and targets the neural connections that have caused us to perceive beliefs as absolute truths and make them more flexible, so that we see that they are only possible truths and that there are alternatives that are equally true or truer.
Challenge your identity
Again, take a large sheet of paper and now break it into four columns.
1. In the first column, list the beliefs again.
2. In the second column write:
Who am I under this belief?
– How do I behave?
– What kind of decisions do I make or don’t make?
– How do I talk, walk, dress, interact etc.?
How am I like when I feel not enough? How am I like when I feel guilty? How am I like when I have this fear?
3. In the third column, write:
Who would I be if I believed the opposite?
How would I be like if I believed I was enough? How would I be like if I didn’t have this fear? How would I be like if I believed that this was possible for me?
What actions would I take if I were like that?
4. In the fourth column, write down the actions you can begin to take now.
Great!
It is from this clarity that you can begin to move into taking actions aligned with the next freer, more real version of you. This is how you begin to take charge of your present and your future, even if you are not “healed”.
If you have read the article How to increase self-love, you will notice that these actions will be loving to you and that starting to do them is essential for reconnecting with your true self.
Step by step you will embody that next version of you, and you will be transformed from the inside out.
If you want help with this process, the unblocking sessions are a hit.
P.S. If you haven’t already done so, download for free and enjoy the e-book: How to achieve the habits you want?
