Liberate Yourself From Self-Limiting Thoughts and Feelings
It’s a paradox of the true spiritual path, but the more conscious we become of what limits us, the more limitless becomes our life. So, take as long as you need to understand the lesson that follows. It’s intended to shed much-needed light on one of the more deceptive dark states that stands between us and the freedom for which we long.
The only purpose discouraged feelings serve is to keep your thoughts on what you can’t do. And with your attention fixed in this fashion – on what seems impossible – there’s no room for discovering what is possible – for what you can do.
Let’s cover this important discovery one more time.
The only thing that feelings of discouragement do is keep you busy doing nothing except feeling sorry for yourself, which is the perfect guarantee that your sorry situation will remain hopelessly the same. Enough is enough! You don’t have to put up with one more discouraging moment, let alone a life filled with its darkness. There is another choice you can learn to make besides falling into those familiar feelings of failure. Use this next higher idea to help you start thinking about those old discouragements in a new way.
Whenever we suffer over what we aren’t able to do, have, win, or work through, our attention in these moments is riveted on our own thoughts, thoughts that are busy telling us we’re somehow stuck. Maybe you can recognize some of these heavy-hearted inner voices. They say in one way or another . . .
• “I’ll never get out of this mess.”
• “I’m too stupid to learn these things.”
• “I must have done something terrible to deserve this!”
• “There’s no point in going any farther.”
• “This is definitely hopeless.”
Now, on the surface of things, these all-too-familiar whispers of defeat – these dark voices that reach our inner ears, speaking to us with our own voice – seem to be genuinely concerned with our unfortunate condition. But a deeper look into this covert operation reveals these troubled thoughts are up to something totally different. There is an unseen “conspiracy of limitation” taking place within our own consciousness! Follow the next four ideas all the way to their stunning conclusion.
We value and respect the experiences of all of our HERWriters, but everyone is different. Many of our writers are speaking from personal experience, and what's worked for them may not work for you. Their articles are not a substitute for medical advice although we hope you can gain knowledge from their insight.
Add a Comment1 Comments
Thank you. Thank you. This is a column full of energy and life-changing thoughts. And we need them more than ever today, especially when so many people are dealing with the loss of jobs, or homes, or both. There are plenty of gloomy voices all around us in the world; we don't need extra ones inside.
As a (trying to reform) self-admitted control freak, dropping self-defeating demands will be my biggest challenge. Understanding that it can be done seems easy; doing it seems hard. I hope you'll be writing more in the future. And thank you again.
July 15, 2009 - 8:49amThis Comment