Deal With Your Issues Over Time to Avoid the Dramtics
If you are already at your cross roads and in the midst of your personal crisis, you should first read my article “Losing Your Passion for Your Business – There are Benefits to That“
The very basic reason we lose our way and find ourselves in a personal crisis is most often that we have ignored our own desires and true identity for too long. We are so very embedded in the persona that our environment has shaped for us. It is shaped by the expectations and perceptions of our family, religion, society, school, friends, etc. These are our ‘tribal beliefs’ as Christel Nani put it in her book “Sacred Choices”. Some of us grow up “rebellious” and do not buy into the tribal beliefs at all because our own intuition and inner knowing is stronger. These are the youngsters that go their own way from day one and are considered trouble makers. However, more often than not they are the ones that have it “together” and follow their hearts and have no regrets. In many respects I was this youngster, but I still ended up with a full repertoire of tribal beliefs that I had to get rid of.
When we come to a breaking point and we cannot live a lie anymore, we breakdown and shed that old persona, i.e. your old self dies. It is a traumatic “near death experience”, yet, very cleansing and beneficial. However, how about trying to discover your higher truth earlier, before the meltdown, would that be a good idea perhaps?
Many of the tribal beliefs you will not be able to shed until you fully understand how they contrast to your true self; they may actually require a crisis for you to move past them. It is very possible, though, to work through the majority of them over time and, most importantly, in your own time. This what is really called “Soul Searching”. You have to go inside yourself and really dig deep to discover your true self. It requires commitment, bravery and strength. You will also have to prepare yourself for the consequences that will come from existing from your true self as opposed to from what others expect of you. Clearly, if you start behaving in a way that others do not expect of you, not everybody is going to appreciate it and will start to either “attack” you or move away from you. You know what, let them, this is part of the “shedding” process, you are to shed all that no longer serves you.
Step 1 – What do you need to shed?
Make a list of behaviours that you display that are negative; jealousy, anger, bitterness, judgemental, lust filled, narcissistic, etc. You may feel that you need some of these to protect yourself, so start out easy. Categorise your list into the ones that you need to get rid of and the ones you’d like to hold on to for a while. Once you work through the first category, another slew of the second will move in to the first and you will work through the second category like that until they are all gone.
Step 2 – Triggers
For each of the negative behaviours that you have chosen to work on, attach to each of them situations that trigger that behaviour. Extract commonalities out of these situations. For example “I get angry when people don’t do as I say” and “I get angry when my children disrespect me”, these both might have the following commonalities (these are just examples and will differ from person to person):
- Taking things personally
- Lacking self-assurance
- Deficient in self-confidence
Once you’ve worked through your list and extracted the commonalities, you should start to see a red line in the commonalities; they will all be similar and you will have perhaps two, three of four key ones. These are now the challenges you will have to work with.
Step 3 – The Work
Congratulation, you are well on your way to healing some challenges that lie deep within you. The first step, which you completed above is acknowledging that you have something to work on. You have now set the intention to yourself that you want to work on these challenges and the work has already begun. For you to take active and positive steps towards shedding these challenges you have a wonderful variety of tools to access in today’s society. Thankfully we do live in a time were we can freely (though not without cost, but free from social or legal persecution) seek out the help we feel we need. You may want to start seeing a therapist, priest, spiritual healer or perhaps pursue a hobby that brings you into a new group of people, like artistic pursuits, exercising, martial arts, yoga, etc. Listen to yourself to understand what you need.
If you cannot hear your body, you need to quiet your mind through meditation. Place you awareness by you heart (which, according to “new” research (e.g. HeartMath Instistute) generates and radiates more bioelectricomagnetic energy than the brain) and ask the question; “What can I do to remove …… ?” (insert challenge in the blank), if your mind is still you will “hear” the answer, you may have to ask more than once if you cannot hear the first few times. What we are trying to do is to access the subconscious, which is where the behavioural patterns that cause your challenges are stored.
It may take a while, but rest assured that every step you take is the right one for you and that you are progressively evolving exactly as you’re supposed to in order to avoid your personal crisis.
You have the upper hand against your ego and your learned “bad” habits, now just do the work. Stay well.
Photo by Jesús Rocha on Unsplash
