“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.”- Eckhart Tolle
12. Regrets
Whether it’s a missed opportunity, a bad relationship, a choice we should have made or simply something that made us feel dumb, dwelling in regret consumes a large amount of our time and energy. It has been thought, that the reason we regret so many things is because we have an idealized version of ourselves that we wish to live up to at all times.
To put it into perspective, we all think that we are 100% good people and when we do things that don’t reflect the most positive aspects of ourselves, we deem that we’ve fallen short in some way. But, when we can let go of these ideals and embrace the gravity and reality of life, we then free ourselves from the illusion of “perfection”.
So embrace your dark side, it is where your creativity flows from, accept yourself both “good and evil” and find balance between the two.
11.Blaming other people for your problems
Each person in your life is a teacher. Each experience in your life is a lesson. Living is like looking into a mirror– every teacher is you. Every event and ever relationship reflects yourself. Although we do not consciously perceive this, at some level we all know that life shows us what we need to learn.
Learn the lesson and move on. If you didn’t learn the lesson the first time, it comes back around as a new experience a new person and a new circumstance. It comes right back and lands in your lap again, and says, “here… deal with it”- Excerpt from Ether Into the Nemesis
When we blame others for our problems we are shifting the attention away from ourselves and avoiding our own healing. The more we avoid ourselves the larger our problems become and the more we fall into “victim mentality”which can be a very troubling situation.
10. Victim Mentality
Alan Watts, believed that you always have two choices, you can either define yourself as a victim of the world, or you can come to understand that you are the world.
When we understand that everything we see around us, including our relationships, our homes, standard of living, the clothes we wear– everything, is an absolute reflection of our inner world, we see how much healing we need to accomplish. If your life is a mess, you are in an unhappy marriage or a dead-end career we should take note that something is off-balance inside.
When we are out of balance, we feel like we have no control over our circumstances and we end up repeating the same patterns without consciously understanding why we do it. This is why so many people don’t know how to help themselves.
It’s becomes too difficult to determine what the root cause of, or where the beginning of the cycle started.
By making the unconscious conscious and illuminating the hidden aspects of our minds we are able to bring unresolved memories forward for healing and release.
So look around you and find all of things in your life that you are completely fed up with. Find the things that insult your soul, and know that this is where your healing needs to happen.
9. Judgements
“Life is a mirror and will reflect back to thinker what he thinks into it” – Ernest Holmes
Whether it is a negative judgement we hold about ourselves or a judgement we place on another, judgements of any kind have the same root cause.
Each time you judge you are meeting an aspect of your own shadow. So if you insult someone else, turn those words back around, because what you just said, is exactly what you need to heal, accept and alchemize within you. When you are hard on yourself, it means that you’re not comfortable in your own skin and you lack self-acceptance. When we judge, not only are we bringing forward an aspect of ourselves we are reflecting our own perceptions into reality. As mentioned before it’s all about healing!
8. The need to always be right
Feeling like we always need to be right, stems from lack of trust and the need to feel safe. By establishing dominance over others we feel secure. If you are always right, it means that someone else always has to be wrong and this can be an ego boost.
When we feel that we are right in our judgements it makes us feel strong and secure and when we are wrong we have a tendency to feel insecure, deficient and even fearful.
The ego dominates the “I vs You” realm of being a learned behaviour of separateness, but when we can release the need to always be right we find a path to inner peace.
7. FEAR
How many times can you recognize every day, an action taken by you stemming from fear-based motivation? Some of them can be tricky to recognize, believe me I know. It creeps in when you are least expecting it, probing for a reaction. Causing you to take misguided action, more commonly known as “karma”.
Fear is the quickest derailment from your path to happiness and fulfillment. So when it comes knocking… answer the door with love.
6. All of that extra “stuff”
Wanderlusts and minimalists swear by it. We just don’t need all of that extra “stuff”.
Recent studies have shown that real happiness and contentment comes from life experiences as opposed to material objects. Yet, we all seem to line our homes with the latest fad on the market.
Why not switch it up and see how you feel. The next time you are about to drop a wad on something that you are going to throw out in a few years anyways, trade it in for an experience of a lifetime and make some memories.
5. GUILT
I have written about the debilitating effects of guilt so often that I think I will write until my face is blue. Next to fear, guilt is numero uno on my list of emotions that suck the life right out of your soul. They are the two best ways to control a population and the two best ways to keep you locked into your own suffering.
There are no wrongs and there are no rights. You don’t need to hold yourself up to anyone else’s standard, nor your own. We are both dark and light, yin and yang, and if you starve your black wolf he will bite you when you least expect it.
Dark is not evil. Dark energy is merely hidden influences which must come to light (enlightenment).
You must learn how to feed your wolves. Balance is key.
4. Limited beliefs
We like to say that we are all pretty open-minded. However, programmed behaviour of the way things are and ought to be, keep us locked into self-limiting beliefs of how far we can fly. Everything is possible, you just need to believe that it is. So think bigger!! The sky is not the limit, your mind is….
3. Worrying
Worrying and over thinking are caused by lack of trust. When we don’ trust ourselves its hard to trust the world around us.
We want everything to work out exactly as we foresee it and will analyze every single detail and go over it in our minds a thousands times.
All of this becomes an act of resistance to the unconscious desires that are steering our course, and when we let go of the need for control we trust more fully in the process.
Your unconscious will lead you into every situation you need to fulfill the healing that is required for you to break free.
Trust yourself, you got this!
2. Resistance to Change
Learning to love without attachment is the hardest lesson in life. Things come and go and nothing will ever stay the same. If we cling to the old and reject the new we miss out on opportunities that are knocking and the fruits will spoil before we can pick them.
The truth is, we do not know what the future will bring and we cannot perceive to understand the consequences of each action and reaction, therefore we must love without attachment, live without expectation and perceive without judgement to find happiness.
1.Expecting other people to do it for you
No one can change your life for you, you have to do it on your own. Introspection becomes key, and as always the most important thing above all…. know thyself.
“Happiness is an inside job, don’t assign anyone else that much power over your life”- Mandy Hale
by LJ Vanier, Team Spirit