Freedom from Self Defeating Behavior - by Guy Finley
Freedom from Self Defeating Behavior
Making “peace” with people who would punish us:
There are parts of us that would rather be punished by unkind people than have to spend one minute being alone by ourselves, because the only way these same parts in us can exist is if they have someone to resent or somehow fear. In this case we remain in these ruinous relationships because the fear or emptiness we feel in even considering leaving them is felt to be too much to bear on our own. Here’s the Key to escaping this captivity: This fear does feel real, no doubt; but it belongs to an imagined self. Collecting and then consciously cultivating this new knowledge of ourselves points the way out if we will walk with its truth in our hand.
Whenever we allow angry parts of us to cast blame upon others for the conditions we find ourselves in, we enable the sleeping nature within us to stay in its dream that if it weren’t for others doing us wrong we would never be so upset and angry, defeated or depressed. The truth is there are unconscious parts of us that readily find fault with others in a misguided effort to remain infallible in their own eyes. Each time we blame someone else we agree to remain asleep in this misery-making mistaken identity. Saying NO to this nature is saying goodbye to a host of imagined enemies this false self needs to remain itself, as well as to a war that can never be won.
Complaining about your life:
The self that looks out at life and complains about what it sees cannot see that if it weren’t for a false picture it holds of how things should be, connected with the mistaken sense of self created by clinging to this picture, it wouldn’t have anything to be negative about. The more this nature compares what life isn’t to its own idea of imagined happiness, the more it complains, and the more complaints it makes, the more real it feels. Say NO to this codependent negative nature by learning to choose consciousness over resentfulness.