Steven Shewach wonders what it take for you to stop holding yourself back in life.
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The Two Most Common Ways of Screwing Yourself
A. Internal
You know you’re holding yourself back in many facets of your life. You may even be able to explain the reasons why. And you can probably explain why you’re not going beyond them or moving through them. You understand, so you say, why there’s a void between where you are now and where you want to be. Yet somehow, despite having done some level of inner work, you know that (1) you’re screwing yourself and (2) claiming to know why, but you’re still screwing yourself anyway.
B. External
Or perhaps the reasons are mostly external. You claim you’re getting screwed because of other people, maybe your boss, clients, the government, or society as a whole. Bonus: this way of getting screwed is the fast track version to eternal screwage.
And if people (including those dastardly secret societies) are screwing you over, why aren’t you putting a stop to it? Conversely, why are you allowing whomever these people are to screw you?
Same End Result
Either way—who’s getting screwed?
Are you the one endlessly searching for happiness? Or peace? Or whatever it is you believe is missing and need to find.
The Never Ending Epidemic
Is it me or is this the equivalent to the world’s longest running mental health epidemic? For which I didn’t have a cure for my personal version of this epidemic for a long time, and it certainly wasn’t for a lack of trying. Wait, scratch that. It was for an abundance of addiction to avoidance and evasion. Even though it all seemed so real—I mean was in therapy—that definitely counts for trying, right? I can recall arguing with my last therapist several years ago about something and emphatically stating, “No, I cannot just change the way I see the situation”, despite him patiently and compassionately suggesting that I could.
There’s digging a hole, digging the same hole but with the intention of being vulnerable, and digging a hole (or a bunch) in the entirely wrong field.
I used to do the first and last—even when I was supposedly trying, such as while in counseling or in relationships.
Let’s Try One of These
So what’s it going to take? A near death experience, perhaps? This seems to do the trick for a lot of people. They shed all their old, self-limiting perceptions and embrace their life with vigor. Maybe I should start a business that stages near death experiences, like a gnarly car crash, so as to trigger a person’s brain to spontaneously rewire itself towards an orientation that values the sanctity of their life, their body, their soul, and sufficiently deflates their ego.
So what’s it going to take? A religious quest, perhaps? This seems to do the trick for a lot of people. Maybe I should start a business that fabricates the outcome of going on a religious quest, but omits the oft narrow-minded, proselytizing effect following such a quest. Oops. Did I say that out loud?
So what’s it going to take? Traveling around the world, perhaps? Spending thousands of dollars in therapy? Saving the pandas? Going to personal development seminars for years on end? Ooh, how about a nice vision quest from another culture’s history? Don’t forget to take an extra sip of ayahuasca just in case.
What’s it going to take to settle the endless manifestations of conflict you experience about how much you say you want something and the ensuing oppression as to why your something cannot be attained?
I screwed myself for quite a long time. Maybe because I had the extreme strain of screwyourselfover-itis which is the combined effects of the internal and external ways listed above. Not so much anymore. I had my own version of a near death experience, albeit not so extreme, that seems to have done the trick for me—and oftentimes can get through it rather quickly because of what I’ve learned through experience, and what I’m now teaching others to do.
Battle, Fight, Conquer, War, Enemy, and Resistance
A common framework I hear a lot is the battle metaphor; life is a battle. We must fight. There’s a part of us that some perceive as being separate from us like a mind squatter; battling us all the time. So we’re constantly fighting and counter-attacking. Call it your conscience or your ego (or alter-ego), the point is that ‘It’ appears to simultaneously live inside us but yet we have no control over ‘It’. ‘It’ is the initiator of the battles we face dozens or hundreds of a times a day. ‘It’ is a parasite with the mind as host. Wow! Doesn’t that all sound like a lovely way to live? Or maybe the existence of the ‘It’ is both eerily true and a part of us we can embrace, cultivate, and change?
Another phrase often used is Resistance (see Steven Pressfield’s War of Art book):
The War of Art identifies the enemy that every one of us must face, outlines a battle plan to conquer this internal foe, then pinpoints just how to achieve the greatest success.
The War of Art emphasizes the resolve needed to recognize and overcome the obstacles of ambition and then effectively shows how to reach the highest level of creative discipline. Think of it as tough love . . . for yourself.
Faux Fear Factor
I don’t know what’s more overused these days, the word fear or authenticity. Today, we’ll go with fear; it fits better. I’ve studied fear from a neuroscience perspective because I find it interesting and at one point believed if I could understand it better I’d finally be able to move through it. I’ve also dealt with client’s fears (and my own) when I used to work as an outdoor professional. The fear was more physical in nature (pun intended), like swinging off a ropes course 60 feet in the air or learning how to roll a kayak. More has been studied and written about fear and how it affects people than I could possibly understand. What’s important to convey here is that fear, as it’s commonly referred to in matters of the mind, has become a genericized, ambiguous, and misguided word; whereas anxiety and perception distortion are probably much better suited descriptors. Example: it’s not fear of looking foolish; it’s anxiety of looking foolish. Let’s call it for what it really is: Obese Ego Syndrome.
Is There Another Option?
Yes. Although I’ve had success with myself and with others there is no one-size-fits-all way to expressly activate it in/with/on another person. I know enough so far to suggest that it involves some mix of the following: a shit metric ton of self-love, total accountability and responsibility, ego deflation, probably some meditation, eating good food, regular exercise, and a heaping helping of the amorphously stated “Get Over Yourself’.
But you know all of this already, right?
Final Question
So, what then, is it going to take to stop screwing yourself?
Photo: Oskay/Flickr
Originally appeared at Love More Hurt Less.com
