Overcome or solve?

(Click on the title of this post to see the entire post.)

THE EFFORT TO OVERCOME...OR...

As a runner in life, you can

Keep carrying the 50 pound weights strapped to your body

OR

You can stop for a bit and unstrap them one at a time and then run free of weights, in lightness with full energy applied to going for what you most want in life.

In the first case, you are living life by the "I will overcome" (overpower) and try harder with more effort to "go as fast as I can toward what I want most."  It is where one uses willpower to overcome lack of motivation, energy, interest, emotional blocks, or whatever.  It is a constant battle - and a losing one much of the time.

Daniel found that was true in his whole life.  In his great job in consulting, he was afraid, in fear and anxiety the whole day - but he thought that was what everybody went through - so he kept trying to go forward, with his 100 pound weights getting in the way.  And it was hard for him to get up in the morning just because of the anxiety, but also because he was exhausted from the constant cycle of having to work late in order to catch up on what he didn't do enough of.  Fear gave him procrastination and "paralysis of analysis" - which added a thick mud to run through, slowing him down further, while he still carried the 100 lb. weights.

And then that continued throughout his life and his many endeavors... always struggling with the weights but trying to valiantly run along...

Daniel has always been a good man.  A man who tried hard and spent a lot of effort trying to overcome, but, alas, there was no way he could run freely through life unless he, obviously, chose to unstrap the weights.  But he could not see that - and no one, and no amount of reading, got the point across to him adequately or powerfully enough.


IT IS SIMPLE

If we but draw a simple "causal chain", it looks like this:

    Expend effort --> extra weights --> caught in a cycle of "never enough"

Then it continues:   ...never enough --> got to catch up --> tireder and tireder --> can't think --> anxious... and so on into oblivion (a life full of stress and pressure, unable to relax and enjoy...).

This will continue, until one decides to "get off the train to nowhere" and to go a new way.


THE SOLUTION IS ALWAYS...

Since overpowering, or overcoming, through "willpower", or battling it, doesn't work, the solution is always to cure the cause of the problem - and to not spend one's life coping with the symptoms.  The cause looks something like this:

    Disabling beliefs ---> Disabling fears --> Inability to function well

Fear works - when there is a tiger chasing you.  It shuts off your higher brain, digestion, immune system, etc., and powers up your ventilation, adrenaline, big muscles (for running, fighting) - read Understanding Fear.   It works for a real and present danger...but it doesn't work as a constant, ongoing emotion. (It creates "stress" - if only we could be like zebras - see link in Overview Diagram Of All Core Fears.)

And of course to have it as a constant emotion, we must be repeating the cause, over and over, weighting oneself down with the burden of having to fight the fear and the behaviors that the fear causes, over and over and over...  It's a hopelessly effortful run through life...unless you stop and unstrap the weights.

You see, the "fear" is brought about by something left over from the beliefs we develop in childhood, where we are dependent and powerless.  As a child, one needs to somehow cope with the fear of not being cared for and fed - so we conjure up a haphazard system of beliefs.  That is understandable, of course. (And, as a way of trying to assure safety, we conjure up and try to think about every possible bad thing that could happen to us, always being on edge about what could happen to us next...)

But those beliefs must be updated to reflect reality as we grow to where we have sufficient power (even if we don't see it) and are no longer dependent.  (And, as I am writing The Self Control Book, it is apparent that we need to update our "instinctual" beliefs that evolved for our life conditions of 10,000 years ago - when we do that updating, life, and self control, become suddenly easier.)

You see, whenever we are in fear, we are "at the effect of" what we believe are "greater powers" (or authority figures or believed threats).  We are stuck in the role of a victim, not being 100% responsible for our lives because we believe that we are "unable" to take full control of our lives and we assume that we cannot be in full control.

The process is always the same, with a series of beliefs (that differ somewhat for each of us) but support the idea of dependency and powerlessness.

So, now, what do we do about it?

Well, Daniel (above) is a real person, a good person, who wants to do his best in life and especially wants to benefit and please his wife, and to be a good Christian, contributing to others (and often unable to say "no" to their requests), always busy, caught up by live instead of being in charge of it, often anxious and stuck in his mental/emotional world of fears and self concern.  He is a good man, running toward what is right and good, but with heavy weights strapped to himself.

His opportunity is now, for the first time, to really delve deeply into the process of effectively learning about and changing his beliefs that have been weighing him down and also causing him to run through the deep mud instead of running on solid ground.   He is still, after months, "thinking about it", but too busy to fit it into his schedule, leaving it for "later" - so he'll just be choosing to keep carrying the weights along in his life, until the end...unless...


MANY ALTERNATIVES, BUT WHICH ONE SHOULD YOU DO?

Of course, there are many alternatives, but it seems that most of us never quite get around to completing any of them.  And that is the reason that I often point to the means that I think is the best in terms of learning AND in completing the revision of those disabling beliefs.  Yes, there are good alternatives that contribute to some possible realizations and some, partial, progress, but a program where one actually deals with the beliefs and is "forced" to complete the thinking and rewriting of those beliefs is what, methinks, is the best way to go.

I keep pointing to The Hoffman Institute and the intense, very supportive, week of, with professional guidance, addressing one's beliefs, but I know of only a few people who have done the intensive.  Each one of them are individuals who are now fully in charge of their lives and happier.  Recently, one of the readers of The Site, a very proactive learner who is actually operating at a rather high level in life, went through the week - I put his note of appreciation on the blog (link to it).


THE TRAGEDY OF NOT DOING ENOUGH

I hold life, and the experience of life, as the greatest gift, and I am saddened when I see people continuing to waste it, to unconsciously throw it away, to live at a much lower level than they could, burdened by weights, finding it difficult to push through and to overcome.  It touches my very soul such that all I want to do, as my mission in life, is to help create the paths that will lighten the load and allow one to soar through life, fully living, fully thriving, fully creating, fully loving, fully in happiness...

I hope that one of you will heed this advice. I hope especially that Daniel will step forth and finally unstrap the weights by using this path (The Hoffman Institute) that works.   I've done all I can, as I can only point to the right direction, so that he, and you, can finally make that choice...  

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EVEN OUR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES...

The "super successful", capable Donald Trump is stuck in some cycle of trying to achieve enough approval (in a counterproductive way), to know that he is ok, and in a cycle of "getting even" as a way of exerting power and/or "protecting" himself, as if he were actually in danger... but both beliefs are just old, unexamined, and uncorrected beliefs.  His, perhaps excessive, drive to win could, of course, possibly cause significant change in the declining path of the US, but without moderating the two behaviors above it is unlikely that he will win the election.

Hilary Clinton, too, has ways that are protecting herself that are unnecessary at this point in life but are being counterproductive to her life and her effectiveness and are likely to get in the way of the progress that she could otherwise make.

And the American people are stuck with two choices that are not considered by them to be good ones.

I have compassion for both of them, for, like almost all us humans, they never have had the time nor the guidance necessary to "fix" those beliefs that underlie their counterproductive behaviors.  Fix those beliefs and the sky is the limit (even at ages 69 and 70)!

Meanwhile, I think I'll just write-in my own name on the ballot...
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HOW TO USE A POST LIKE THIS

While it is important to "get the point" or lesson of a post, these posts are designed to take you deeper, into the belly of the beast, to figure out all of what works, and what doesn't work.

To go deeper, you would set a time to review the piece and then use the links to follow the trains of thought that lead you to deeper understanding.  You would take notes and/or cross reference in some way.  You would determine future actions to take, and you would immediately enter that in your electronic task inbox, for a decision on when to do them or which project or area to stick them in for doing at the time set for reviewing the area or project...