Do we spend too much time trying to let go of things that would just naturally drop off if we focused our attention on joy and happiness?
Working in the 'self-development /spiritual world' I regularly hear from people that they have been working hard at things such as:
•Getting auras cleared and chakras realigned
•Working with ancestral clearing
•Gone to see practitioners of all kinds of healing arts to remove what is blocking them from moving forward
•Attending workshops and seminars
Nothing is working for them, no matter who they have gone to see!
I have a growing belief that the 'self' work can be another procrastination tool that works against change rather than for it. Believing you will live a happy life when you are 'clear' from all the negative things about yourself. In my thoughts, clearing yourself through suffering isn't the fastest way to go about personal change.
If we were happy, would these things even exist? Whatever you put your attention into, you make bigger. You give it energy and feed it, if you were feeding beyond it, into the state you think will emerge into once you have fixed whatever the perceived problem is, would that not make the problem fall free? Often when a limiting belief becomes conscious, we realise it's untrue and drop it. However some people jump up and down and think 'OMG I have a limiting belief, I must be limited' and then make passionate love to the problem so that becomes a part of their identity! If you know it's a belief you have the power to change your mind and act differently.
If you want to stay focused on the problem, it's because your life beyond the problem isn't clear to you.
It's because the problem has become all you know, or your identity. This is why a darn good day dream is so important. You can use your creative imagination to reinvent yourself using the emotions you want to feel, and drawing pictures with your mind from that point. Otherwise you're living in the past whilst you're trying to clear it.
Every single generation has wanted happiness for their children. That's years of passed down happiness intended for you. From one generation to the next we want out children to do better than we did. So why would the past be something we need to clear? It depends what you're looking for, love or fear?
We all love fixing a problem, it's part of what it is to be human, to feel we are progressing by fixing problems. But progression doesn't have to only come from fixing problems, it also comes from imagination.
Never let a problem become bigger than the joy you would find in fixing it.
We love gratification, but we sometimes get lost and start to believe that the only way to become happy is by clearing problems. I love crossing jobs off a list, but if the job has created more fear and discord that the gratification of fixing it I know two things. One: I was being too independent and I should have got help, and Two: it wasn't worth it if the gratification doesn't equal the effort.
Most people live to clear problems and that's not living at all.