About: Why we secretly resist what we want
We are each made in the image of God. This expresses the reality that, like God, we have free will. Using our free will, we can create.
As creators, we can use our intentionality to mold our life forces however we want.
If we have a negative intention, we use our will to withhold—to not give and not give in. Then our energy—which could have been used for positive creative purposes—gets channeled into destructive patterns.
These keep us stuck in what the Pathwork Guide calls vicious circles.
All of our distortions and blindnesses create vicious circles. One primary vicious circle lives in everyone, hidden. But there are also many other individual vicious circles.
They all begin in childhood, where our images are formed. In order to dissolve them, we need to uncover the entire vicious circle.
The first step is finding an off-ramp.
Exploring a vicious circle
An example of a vicious circle might go like this: I need love… I don’t get it 100% perfectly due to my unrealistic demand and the other’s imperfections…I feel hurt and rejected…I cut off my hurt feelings…I judge…I reject…I am lonely and isolated…I need love…repeat.
Underneath this will be a hidden mistaken belief, an image, that holds some conclusion about why this happens. Like, “I can never get what I need.”
There is a basic misconception here that it is not OK to have needs. Staying in deprivation creates acute pain, confirming the belief that “I can’t have it.” Such misconceptions are used by the Lower Self to justify its demands.
It can seem as though our only choices are to judge the other or collapse into the pain of rejection. That would mean we die into the pain of this illusion.
And so we keep judging others in order to avoid feeling affected by this pain. Or we might collapse into feeling worthless and then judge the self.
What the undistorted Lower Self energy is really trying to say is, “I have a need!” Instead, what the Lower Self actually says is, “I demand that you show up the way I want. If you don’t, I will use this to justify staying in separation.”
The intention of the Lower Self is to not take self-responsibility. We need to heal this wound to uncover the divine longing that is behind all this negativity.
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Learn more in Gems, Chapter 13: Landing our desires by letting go of our demands.
Our withholding of love, even if it is due to fear, is as hurtful as active cruelty.
The push-pull dynamic
Based on early childhood experiences, our energy gets attached to a push-pull dynamic that can never be satisfied: “I reject what I want—love—because it hurts the way I get it.” In duality, we either make the other wrong, or we are wrong.
Pride says, “I need to make the other wrong.” Fear says, “I’m afraid they will hurt me.” Self-will says, “I choose to stay isolated to protect my vulnerability.”
The intention of such Lower Self statements is to keep us safe from pain. But they cause more pain. Note that statements coming from the mask, such as, “It’s not safe to be in relationship,” are an effect, not a cause, and are not at the level of negative intention.
If we cannot find a way out, it is because of our own choice—our negative intention—to stay stuck. This is both a defense and a way to punish others: “I don’t like this so I want to punish you.”
It is a way of not giving anything and demanding everything. Our withholding of love, even if it is due to fear, is as hurtful as active cruelty.
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Learn more in Blinded by Fear, Chapter 6: The push-pull of both desiring and fearing closeness
Open to giving
In emotional maturity, we would be able to give and receive love—even if not perfectly—and get our needs met. Instead, negative creations are now being perpetuated in which there is a demand for 100% perfect love, which does not exist on the earth plane.
If we have a problem that we can’t seem to solve, there is likely a negative intention that is still hidden. Negative intention in one area seeps across many areas. But we will not find a way out if we play a game of helplessness, dependency and victimization.
Self-responsibility is the way to find new solutions.
When we take responsibility, we give the other the benefit of the doubt. We give them space to also be imperfect. We give room for something new to arise.
This is the way to heal our negative intention—we need to give.
Off-ramps for the example given include recognizing the anger of an emotional reaction; feeling the feelings under the anger; speaking one’s truth about feeling hurt; being curious about the other; having compassion for the other; accepting that others aren’t perfect.
People in addiction recovery programs are often encouraged to “get outside themselves,” which means to find a way to give of themselves. For some, this means sponsoring others, for others it means helping set up the space for a meeting.
The important thing is to give from the center of ourselves, to give from our richness.
This breaks a person out of their inward facing orientation. By re-orienting ourselves to giving, doors also open for receiving—because giving and receiving are one. This lets in the possibility to receive the respect, affection and appreciation—in short, the love—the soul longs for.
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Learn more in:
- Living Light, Chapter 19: The Three Stages of Development | The movement toward giving
- Bones, Chapter 17: Overcoming our negative intention by identifying with our spiritual self
Finding our hidden No
We work with our withholding by entering the resistance held in the body and the breath. We first uncover the protective anger that says, “No, this is not what I want!” Beneath that lies the pain of not receiving the perfect love the child longed for.
We must use self-responsibility to surface our intention: “What makes me say no?”
We need to re-educate the inner child to realize there is nothing wrong with having needs. We can then use visualization to plant the seed of truth that fulfillment of our longing is possible.
Finally, we accept the reality that sometimes the other is going to be able to love us, and sometimes they’re not.
The key is to find and align with God’s will. To do that, we must find our own will—our own positive intention. That requires commitment.
Anything less than full commitment will not give us the results we want. Half-measures avail us nothing.
We need a holistic approach that combines clear thinking, intuition and meditation. It won’t work to just do the right thing if our motivation is wrong. We will end up still feeling like we’re a persecuted victim in a haphazard world.
If, after much work, a vicious circle will still not dissolve, the solution may be found in looking at opposites. For example, if we struggle with a great amount of fear, it may be good to look at how we actually desire to make others afraid of us.
Perhaps the greatest irony is that we spend our lives trying to earn what has never been absent.
The truth is simple.
We are lovable as we are.
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Learn more in After the Ego, Chapter 8: Commitment: Cause and effect.
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