What were your New Year resolutions? Giving up smoking or alcohol? Losing weight or starting and finishing a book in six months? Unfortunately, for many people, the temporary excitement and surge of energy usually fades away within few days and we are back to square one.
Wanting to give up something or taking on a good habit requires breaking a pattern associated with it. For example, when I gave up smoking, after having tried many times, the pattern I saw was that I reached for a cigarette when I was under stress, angry or annoyed. Finally, when I dealt with my stress, anger and annoyance the need for smoking disappeared. I learnt to meditate and started exercising regularly. I also realised that I was not my stress, anger or annoyance. These were just emotions, the memories of which were locked deeply within me. Often these negative emotions are caused by the negative parts of our personality such as anger, fear and (need for) control.
When we experience a negative emotion, it is usually linked with a layer of emotions. For example, an anger arising at a given time may have a layer consisting of disappointment, not being good enough, bad results at school in the past, etc. Until such layers are experienced and cleared, they will recur.
I worked with a client recently who wanted to lose weight and become healthier. She identified that she was avoiding being attracted by men because of a bad relationship with a man in the past. Without dealing with emotions and memories associated with them, the client was not going to be able to break the pattern of overeating and become healthier. Our emotions, whether negative or positive, are healthy if we deal with them appropriately. Dealing with negative emotions help us to evolve ourselves and transform into someone who has more freedom and choice and to live a life full of joy. As Gary Zukav, PhD, has commented,
“When you welcome your emotions as teachers, every emotion brings good news, even the ones that are painful.”
A resolution and the commitment associated with it, in my view, often leads to ‘struggle and effort’ or even ‘burnout’. Often a commitment is made not out of our essence or at our soul level but from the projection of an ego fixation. The results therefore are temporary. Transformational approach to resolving issues including dysfunctional behaviour or disempowering habits bring with it not only relief but freedom and joy. As Brandon Bays, an expert who developed the Journey Process which is a profound method of accessing and dealing with repressed cell memories in the body has said,
“No matter how deep your issue is, no matter how much you have struggled with it, the possibility exists for you to become absolutely free, whole and healed.”
I wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2014.
Harish Davda, BA (Econ), MBA (Open), Certified NLP Practitioner
Harish offers coaching on business development, personal transformation and authentic leadership to managers, business owners and individuals.
Tel: +44(0)7802485608 – harish.davda@hotmail.co.uk
© Harish Davda 2014
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