Post by ADMIN on Jun 16, 2006 15:52:30 GMT -5
Why Most People Don't Really Want To Heal (Part One)
by Kevin B. Burke
I recently attended a metaphysical lecture facilitated by
Guy Williams, a friend of mine who also happens to be a
minister of Religious Science. After the lecture, Guy opened
the floor for prayer requests, and one of the attendees
asked for healing for a family member who was experiencing a
significant health crisis.
In the course of the discussion, Guy asked if the attendee
was certain that her family member actually wanted to heal,
observing, "Most people don't really want to heal. Most
people just want to stop hurting."
Once again, an off-hand comment by Guy Williams completely
rearranged the furniture in my head. (If you'd like to see
the results of some of Guy's other off-hand comments, check
out The Relationship Handbook: How to Understand and Improve
Every Relationship in Your Life. The sections on forgiveness
and anger are both inspired by Guy's wisdom).
Most people don't want to heal. Most people just want to
stop hurting.
(Article Continues Below....)
Most of us want to wave a magic wand and make the pain go
away. Most of us focus on treating the symptoms: we'll take
pills, injections, or have surgery. We claim that we want to
heal, but we rarely choose to heal. We remain motivated as
long as we're in pain, and once that pain has become
bearable or manageable, we choose to return to our normal
lives.
This is not healing.
For most of us, healing is a big, scary, and uncomfortable
prospect. Healing requires that we do two very simple, yet
incredibly unappealing tasks. First, we must accept that we
are responsible for creating our own illness: Our thoughts,
beliefs, choices and actions are directly responsible for
the imbalance and dis-ease we are experiencing in our
physical bodies. Second, we must be willing to change our
lives and eliminate the thoughts, beliefs, choices and
actions that created and supported the imbalance and
dis-ease, replacing them with new choices that support
balance and health.
The process of healing really is very simple, and if we
break it down into small, manageable steps, following the
process can also become easy as well. As with most
challenges we encounter during our human experience, healing
requires that we first become familiar with and learn how to
master our egos.
THE CARE AND FEEDING OF THE EGO
Let's begin by remembering who we truly are. We are each
whole and complete, eternal, multi-dimensional beings,
individualized aspects of All That Is. We are also each
currently having a human experience, in the third dimension
of matter and form, on the planet Earth.
When we begin our human experiences, we're given a very
useful tool to help us to interact with the third dimension:
the ego. The ego is entirely a third-dimensional construct.
In a sense, we put on an "ego suit" so that we can
experience and explore the third dimension from a unique and
specific point of view. The ego helps us to pretend that we
are individuals; more specifically, the ego helps us to
pretend that we're not, in fact, connected to each other as
a part of All That Is. Ultimately, our egos are designed to
help us to remember where we left our car keys, and not much
else.
The problem is that our egos don't know this.
Our ego believes that its job is to protect us from what it
perceives to be a very cruel and dangerous universe. Since
the ego was created to help us maintain the illusion of
separation from the Source, separation is all that the ego
knows. The ego feels lost, isolated and alone. In an attempt
to protect us from the pain of the world, the ego increases
our sense of separation. Of course, the greater the
separation, the more pain. The more the ego tries to protect
us from the pain of separation, the more pain it causes.
The ego's single greatest fear is death. Everything the ego
does, it does to try to prevent itself from being destroyed.
The ego _can_ be destroyed-it's a product of the third
dimension, and therefore it's fragile and finite. _We_, on
the other hand, are eternal, multi-dimensional beings who
can never die or be destroyed because we are a part of All
That Is. We get into trouble when we start to identify with
our egos and forget our true natures. When we start to
believe that we are our egos, we see the world from our
ego's point of view and experience fear and pain.
All fear comes from the ego. All fear, in fact, is directly
related to the ego's fear of being destroyed. Fear can only
exist when we believe that we are separated from the Source.
The more we believe the ego, the more we believe we are
separate from the Source, and the more we experience fear.
Only two states of being exist: fear and love. We experience
fear when we listen to the ego and buy into the idea that
we're separate from the universe. We experience love when we
remember the truth that we are whole and complete. It's not
possible to experience both states of being at the same
time, although most of us are masters at switching between
them almost instantly.
Many of us are familiar with the truth that our reality is
nothing more than words. Our thoughts and beliefs define our
experience of reality. Therefore, if we change the words, we
change the world. We can, in fact, change our lives in an
instant, simply by choosing to create more elegant and
supportive thoughts. We can release any negative belief,
eliminate any destructive pattern, and instantly experience
the levels of joy, love and prosperity that are our
birthright.
The challenge is that the ego does not understand this. And,
more to the point, the ego has a vested interest in making
sure that we do not change our thoughts, beliefs, patterns
or behaviors. Moreover, whenever we do set an intention to
change our thoughts, our egos interfere in subtle and
insidious ways to insure that we continue to think, believe,
and behave exactly as we have in the past.
And why does the ego do this? The ego does this in order to
protect us. One could even go so far as to say the ego does
this because it loves us. Granted, it's definitely a "Mommy
Dearest" "No-More-Wire-Hangers" kind of love, but even so,
when the ego encourages us to cling to our painful, negative
beliefs, it does so because it truly believes that it's
acting in our best interest.
Remember, the ego is a part of the third dimension; we are
not. What the ego believes is in our best interest is not
always actually in our best interest.
The ego believes that it is protecting us from being
destroyed. (In point of fact, the ego is actually protecting
itself from being destroyed. The ego _can_ be destroyed.
_We,_ on the other hand, cannot, because we are eternal,
multi-dimensional beings, and individualized aspects of All
That Is.) The ego believes that even our most painful,
limiting beliefs are essential, because the small amount of
pain that we experience actually protects us from a much
bigger pain: death.
When we choose to change our thinking, we must be careful
not to trigger our egos. One of the most powerful ways to
approach changing our thoughts and beliefs is to consider
this radical thought:
Every belief that we currently hold, no matter how negative,
painful, limiting, and even wrong it may be, actually serves
us. Because we are whole, complete and perfect exactly as we
are, it follows that each and every one of our beliefs is
also perfect.
This may seem a strange approach to changing our thinking,
but consider it more deeply. The root of every negative,
limiting belief is the belief that there is something wrong
with us. This belief, in turn, can only exist when we buy
into the illusion that we are separate, and forget the truth
that we are completely and eternally connected to all of
creation; that since we are individualized aspects of All
That Is, we are, by our very nature, perfect.
Often, when we believe that there is something wrong with
our beliefs, we trigger the ego. As a result, we beat
ourselves up for having created the negative belief in the
first place. This, of course, only reinforces the root of
all of our negative beliefs: that there is something wrong
with us. When we accept ourselves and our current beliefs as
perfect, we avoid triggering the ego. This is the most
effective way of actually changing our beliefs.
Once we've convinced our ego that there's nothing wrong with
the beliefs that we currently hold, we can introduce a new
thought. While all of our beliefs are currently working just
fine, it may be possible to upgrade our beliefs, and make
more elegant choices.
Consider this: most of our most limiting and painful beliefs
were formed while we were children. We created these beliefs
using the resources and skills available to us at the time,
in order to protect us from very specific circumstances and
situations. Even though these beliefs worked beautifully
when we were children, we've never actually updated them.
Our circumstances have changed. We've developed
significantly greater skills, and have infinitely more
choices and resources at our disposal as adults than we did
as children. It may just be possible that we can create a
new belief that does an even better job of protecting us
than the old one did.
Or, to put it another way, when we formed most of our
painful and negative beliefs, we only had the 8-color box of
crayons to use. Now, as adults, we have access to the big,
128-color box. The 8-color beliefs still serve us, but when
we're ready, we can also choose to upgrade and create more
elegant, skillful, and above all, more colorful beliefs
by Kevin B. Burke
I recently attended a metaphysical lecture facilitated by
Guy Williams, a friend of mine who also happens to be a
minister of Religious Science. After the lecture, Guy opened
the floor for prayer requests, and one of the attendees
asked for healing for a family member who was experiencing a
significant health crisis.
In the course of the discussion, Guy asked if the attendee
was certain that her family member actually wanted to heal,
observing, "Most people don't really want to heal. Most
people just want to stop hurting."
Once again, an off-hand comment by Guy Williams completely
rearranged the furniture in my head. (If you'd like to see
the results of some of Guy's other off-hand comments, check
out The Relationship Handbook: How to Understand and Improve
Every Relationship in Your Life. The sections on forgiveness
and anger are both inspired by Guy's wisdom).
Most people don't want to heal. Most people just want to
stop hurting.
(Article Continues Below....)
Most of us want to wave a magic wand and make the pain go
away. Most of us focus on treating the symptoms: we'll take
pills, injections, or have surgery. We claim that we want to
heal, but we rarely choose to heal. We remain motivated as
long as we're in pain, and once that pain has become
bearable or manageable, we choose to return to our normal
lives.
This is not healing.
For most of us, healing is a big, scary, and uncomfortable
prospect. Healing requires that we do two very simple, yet
incredibly unappealing tasks. First, we must accept that we
are responsible for creating our own illness: Our thoughts,
beliefs, choices and actions are directly responsible for
the imbalance and dis-ease we are experiencing in our
physical bodies. Second, we must be willing to change our
lives and eliminate the thoughts, beliefs, choices and
actions that created and supported the imbalance and
dis-ease, replacing them with new choices that support
balance and health.
The process of healing really is very simple, and if we
break it down into small, manageable steps, following the
process can also become easy as well. As with most
challenges we encounter during our human experience, healing
requires that we first become familiar with and learn how to
master our egos.
THE CARE AND FEEDING OF THE EGO
Let's begin by remembering who we truly are. We are each
whole and complete, eternal, multi-dimensional beings,
individualized aspects of All That Is. We are also each
currently having a human experience, in the third dimension
of matter and form, on the planet Earth.
When we begin our human experiences, we're given a very
useful tool to help us to interact with the third dimension:
the ego. The ego is entirely a third-dimensional construct.
In a sense, we put on an "ego suit" so that we can
experience and explore the third dimension from a unique and
specific point of view. The ego helps us to pretend that we
are individuals; more specifically, the ego helps us to
pretend that we're not, in fact, connected to each other as
a part of All That Is. Ultimately, our egos are designed to
help us to remember where we left our car keys, and not much
else.
The problem is that our egos don't know this.
Our ego believes that its job is to protect us from what it
perceives to be a very cruel and dangerous universe. Since
the ego was created to help us maintain the illusion of
separation from the Source, separation is all that the ego
knows. The ego feels lost, isolated and alone. In an attempt
to protect us from the pain of the world, the ego increases
our sense of separation. Of course, the greater the
separation, the more pain. The more the ego tries to protect
us from the pain of separation, the more pain it causes.
The ego's single greatest fear is death. Everything the ego
does, it does to try to prevent itself from being destroyed.
The ego _can_ be destroyed-it's a product of the third
dimension, and therefore it's fragile and finite. _We_, on
the other hand, are eternal, multi-dimensional beings who
can never die or be destroyed because we are a part of All
That Is. We get into trouble when we start to identify with
our egos and forget our true natures. When we start to
believe that we are our egos, we see the world from our
ego's point of view and experience fear and pain.
All fear comes from the ego. All fear, in fact, is directly
related to the ego's fear of being destroyed. Fear can only
exist when we believe that we are separated from the Source.
The more we believe the ego, the more we believe we are
separate from the Source, and the more we experience fear.
Only two states of being exist: fear and love. We experience
fear when we listen to the ego and buy into the idea that
we're separate from the universe. We experience love when we
remember the truth that we are whole and complete. It's not
possible to experience both states of being at the same
time, although most of us are masters at switching between
them almost instantly.
Many of us are familiar with the truth that our reality is
nothing more than words. Our thoughts and beliefs define our
experience of reality. Therefore, if we change the words, we
change the world. We can, in fact, change our lives in an
instant, simply by choosing to create more elegant and
supportive thoughts. We can release any negative belief,
eliminate any destructive pattern, and instantly experience
the levels of joy, love and prosperity that are our
birthright.
The challenge is that the ego does not understand this. And,
more to the point, the ego has a vested interest in making
sure that we do not change our thoughts, beliefs, patterns
or behaviors. Moreover, whenever we do set an intention to
change our thoughts, our egos interfere in subtle and
insidious ways to insure that we continue to think, believe,
and behave exactly as we have in the past.
And why does the ego do this? The ego does this in order to
protect us. One could even go so far as to say the ego does
this because it loves us. Granted, it's definitely a "Mommy
Dearest" "No-More-Wire-Hangers" kind of love, but even so,
when the ego encourages us to cling to our painful, negative
beliefs, it does so because it truly believes that it's
acting in our best interest.
Remember, the ego is a part of the third dimension; we are
not. What the ego believes is in our best interest is not
always actually in our best interest.
The ego believes that it is protecting us from being
destroyed. (In point of fact, the ego is actually protecting
itself from being destroyed. The ego _can_ be destroyed.
_We,_ on the other hand, cannot, because we are eternal,
multi-dimensional beings, and individualized aspects of All
That Is.) The ego believes that even our most painful,
limiting beliefs are essential, because the small amount of
pain that we experience actually protects us from a much
bigger pain: death.
When we choose to change our thinking, we must be careful
not to trigger our egos. One of the most powerful ways to
approach changing our thoughts and beliefs is to consider
this radical thought:
Every belief that we currently hold, no matter how negative,
painful, limiting, and even wrong it may be, actually serves
us. Because we are whole, complete and perfect exactly as we
are, it follows that each and every one of our beliefs is
also perfect.
This may seem a strange approach to changing our thinking,
but consider it more deeply. The root of every negative,
limiting belief is the belief that there is something wrong
with us. This belief, in turn, can only exist when we buy
into the illusion that we are separate, and forget the truth
that we are completely and eternally connected to all of
creation; that since we are individualized aspects of All
That Is, we are, by our very nature, perfect.
Often, when we believe that there is something wrong with
our beliefs, we trigger the ego. As a result, we beat
ourselves up for having created the negative belief in the
first place. This, of course, only reinforces the root of
all of our negative beliefs: that there is something wrong
with us. When we accept ourselves and our current beliefs as
perfect, we avoid triggering the ego. This is the most
effective way of actually changing our beliefs.
Once we've convinced our ego that there's nothing wrong with
the beliefs that we currently hold, we can introduce a new
thought. While all of our beliefs are currently working just
fine, it may be possible to upgrade our beliefs, and make
more elegant choices.
Consider this: most of our most limiting and painful beliefs
were formed while we were children. We created these beliefs
using the resources and skills available to us at the time,
in order to protect us from very specific circumstances and
situations. Even though these beliefs worked beautifully
when we were children, we've never actually updated them.
Our circumstances have changed. We've developed
significantly greater skills, and have infinitely more
choices and resources at our disposal as adults than we did
as children. It may just be possible that we can create a
new belief that does an even better job of protecting us
than the old one did.
Or, to put it another way, when we formed most of our
painful and negative beliefs, we only had the 8-color box of
crayons to use. Now, as adults, we have access to the big,
128-color box. The 8-color beliefs still serve us, but when
we're ready, we can also choose to upgrade and create more
elegant, skillful, and above all, more colorful beliefs
