Sometimes my clients are resistant to change because they misunderstand what is their essential nature, what they have been taught, and what is a survival mechanism developed through circumstance. There are those who think they are loners who instead keep themselves isolated because that’s how they learned they can be safe. But now that isolation is killing them. There are others who think they are dumb when they are intelligent because their brilliance is in constructing things rather than working with computers or books. Quite often I hear “I can’t” or “That’s not me” even though I’m reading the information directly from their soul book!
Sometimes childhood is about affirming the gifts of a child, but many times it’s not. For a large number or people our childhoods were about either fitting into a family situation where the role was predefined and therefore came to define us or developing the skills to survive a situation that was dangerous on a variety of levels. Once we are out of that situation, when we are out on our own we have choices. In general we can rebel against the role or the persona we were forced to live as a child, we can continue with it as if it’s really us, or we can break it down into its constituent parts, sorting through them and keeping what we want while throwing out the rest.
When someone has a knee jerk dramatic response to a suggestion, somewhat like asking them if they would like to perform an animal sacrifice before or after lunch, this is an indication that there is an essential nature underneath this persona that can be discovered. Because if the person were living their essential self, then suggesting they do something different wouldn’t be shocking or surprising, it would be intriguing or it would be uninteresting. There would be no adrenaline spike, no shock to the system, just information flowing. There could also be laughter because people living their essential selves can see the humor in most any situation.
As the first task in any spiritual endeavor is to know yourself, to live an examined life, what aspect of yourself is asking to be looked into? In your life right now, how much of how you live and who you are is what you’ve been taught to be?