Do you know what you want?

Millions of people today are embarking on a journey of personal development. There are numerous paths to choose from and some are more effective, thorough and practical than others. Many have to do with business and success and they outline practical steps and the values of very successful people. Others promote mainstream therapies dealing with stress, relationship or career crisis, and a multitude of health problems or addictions.

New age or alternative practitioners espouse a spiritual approach to everything based on the harmony of one’s energy field. Various techniques and workshops are taught all over the world and are usually based on principles of spiritual masters from different cultures.

One premise that many approaches promote is goal setting and the power of intention for all areas of life. The goals include the outcomes of therapy, workshops attended, family desires or financial targets with future dates and amounts earned or invested. They are told the goals or intentions are the foundation or starting point to their recovery or success.

But how about the millions of people who simply do not know their heart’s desire? They are either lost or seeking their personal truth and are advised to cognitively create goals for their future. Why? This is confusing and overwhelming.

I believe this method takes people down a blind alley and it is premature. It’s good to embrace the unknown for a while. It’s healthy to say, “I’m not sure where I’m headed or what I really want yet.” It’s OK to accept that one is disappointed in life so far. It does not matter what one’s age is. Most young people get lost sometimes and older folks have a midlife crisis and revisit that lost feeling.

One of my personal character flaws that took years to transform is that I did not trust myself or life. My first major self-betrayal was that I permitted my parents to sway me away from psychology at university into business. They said it was more practical.

So I graduated, entered the corporate world and never looked back. I obtained my master’s degree (MBA) and climbed the ladder to please my parents, though this was mostly unconscious. I was told to set specific career goals before I knew myself, trusted myself or had explored my heart’s desire. It took me 15 years to understand my own motives and choices.

My second self-betrayal was to turn down an offer from the FBI to become an agent. My girlfriend wanted to get married because her parents loved me. She wanted to remain close to the nest so I gave up my impulse for adventure to please her. Needless to say, it was not my truth.

For this reason and from observing many clients, I believe everyone needs time to know him or herself and establish an inner life that grows and evolves — regardless of their age, gender or place in life. The “deepest reality” or innermost self is cut off in most people. The following depicts these three aspects of awareness:

Conscious persona or ego that Deals with the outer world.

Unconscious mind or collective unconscious – A powerful state of images and archetypes.

The Heart’s core or soul made in God’s image that must be uncovered through an inward journey.

The persona is a social mask that we all present to the world. It is not our deepest truth. The unconscious mind is massively powerful and includes millions of images, some healthy and some not. It runs most of our behavioural tendencies and patterns, which can be multi-generational. It includes the body and a surrounding energy field that holds our deepest beliefs. It includes the wounded child and the wonder child. It requires a great deal of effort to transform it. It is much more powerful than the conscious mind.

The heart’s core is the aspect of our soul that is pure love, intelligence and creativity. It is our deepest longing to return home to God. As Dorothy said so well in The Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like home.” How we get there is the “journey of a lifetime” or perhaps eternity.

Many people are led astray because well-meaning teachers give them the false belief that they are in touch with their inner life when they are in fact stuck in their persona or the demands of their wounded child. They are not yet prepared for this journey.

 

Build Your Life Force

I believe the essential prerequisite for transformation and the inward journey is to build your life energy. This is something that one can do alone every day. The human energy field is the source of centuries of spiritual and scientific evolution. The ability to develop oneself from this foundation on a physiological, psychological and spiritual level is infinite.

 

Psychological Life Force

The first and most important element is to build a strong ego to contain your consciousness on a physiological, psychological and spiritual level. To know ourselves at the personality level we must expose our blind spots and distortions. This can be accomplished by asking five people in a professional and personal capacity for feedback. The following questions are a good beginning inventory to assess a healthy ego.

 

Questionnaire

Choose one answer per question:

a) Never b) Sometimes c) Frequently d) Always

1. Do you feel free and safe to give me constructive or negative feedback?

2. Do you see me as a person who is reactive or overacts to frustration or criticism?

3. To what degree am I living in the present moment as opposed to drifting off into my own world?

4. Do I have the capacity or will to consistently love, accept and embrace myself and others?

5. I am I able to integrate constructive feedback into my work and life?

 

The answers will give you an indication as to how others perceive you. If you want to build a stronger ego, you cannot take other people’s behaviour so personally and be knocked off your horse so easily. If you desire to pursue further the healing of your distortions I recommend The Feeling Good Handbook, by Dr David Burns.

Developing your ego’s container builds confidence, self-esteem and emotional grounding. Spiritual masters claim one must build a strong and healthy ego so as to let go of it.

 

Physiological Life Force

Our bodies are the laboratory of life. Exploring our consciousness through the body allows us to tap into a dynamic psychosomatic network.

The neurotransmitters in every cell are equal to a mini–brain confirming the oneness of the mind-body. Emotions held in each cell generate either positive or negative neuropeptides. The neuropeptides communicate our emotional life authentically to our minds, bodies and energy systems. When trauma, abuse, neglect or rejection permeate our consciousness, they are held in chronic muscular tensions. The muscular contractions bind up enormous energy and this blocks the flow of the life force.

Many people become numb and defensive to protect their pain or vulnerability. It is as if they convince themselves that things are OK when in fact they are not. This leads to issues commonly known as anxiety, depression, insomnia and chronic fatigue.

The physiological life force is freed up effectively with body psychotherapy and the opening of the life force grounds the body in the present moment. It allows us to love life and generates great hope for all dreams to come alive!

 

Know what you want

With a powerful energy field we human beings can manifest anything that is in truth; what is not in truth cannot be sustained. How do we know what is in truth? Sometimes it is difficult or impossible to know truth or what we really want until we let go of what is not in truth. We all know what is not truthful when our lives do not flow. We feel contracted, stuck, perhaps anxious and depressed. At that time we are not in contact with our soul’s heart or core.

Meister Eckhart, a medieval mystic, was an advocate of radical “letting go” and “letting be”. It is important not to take personally what others say and do. People are usually reacting to personal dramas, traumas, wounds and distortions from their past. Their realities are not clear and they project their pain and judgements onto others. Therefore, we cannot take things personally.

Another step in letting go is surrendering our personal will or volition to the will of God. In other words, God’s will becomes our will and vice versa, thus giving us clarity about truth and passion.

The letting-go process begins with forgiveness. Healing is a forgiveness process that requires grieving. It begins with having the humility to be grateful for everything that has happened to us. On some level, we have invited everything that has happened so we can purify our souls and become acquainted with our deepest truth and purpose for this life.

The most profound pain or crisis is the gateway to knowing why we are in this particular life, family, culture and so forth. While facing this pain, we begin to see our own part in the hurt and dysfunction and we take responsibility. We are no longer victims and recognise that we have contributed to all that has happened to us.

 

Techniques to find what you want

Lie down and go into a meditative and relaxed state. Close your eyes for five minutes and simply focus on your breathing. If you get distracted, just notice that and come back to your breath.

Go back to a time in your childhood when you were totally excited, absorbed and happy. What were you doing then? What made your spirit soar like an eagle? How does that passion still burn in your heart? Where does it take your thoughts, actions and daydreams? This is a clue to what you want now. If you knew you could not fail, what would you do with your life? You may find it helpful to write down the thoughts and feelings that came up during this time of reflection.

The old saying “Be careful what you wish for” is a good precaution. Our intention is the most powerful tool of creation that exists. Professor of quantum physics William Tiller explains scientifically how our intentions from the past, positive or negative, are perpetually manifesting in the present moment.

Sowing and reaping is one of the oldest laws of the universe. We always harvest the seeds we plant. This is why we all need clarity about what we want so we can focus our seed of intention on what we truly want. When your purpose becomes clear and refined you will get what you want by developing your receptive energies.

This is where your grounding exercises will pay off. Building your base chakra and energy of the legs helps generate the law of attraction. We attract the content of our consciousness like a perfect mirror.

When our intention is backed up by emotional energy or passionate, excited feelings of love and creation, we are actually praying.

Matthew Fox, a mystical writer and leader of Creation Spirituality, advocates radical prayer as a pouring out of the heart in passionate desire to feel what it is like to have already achieved our deepest intention with clarity and appropriate action. In other words, we should wait before taking action until the spiritual inspiration ignites us to act swiftly. In these profound moments our will and God’s will become unified. This is faith in action that leads to fulfilment, which then creates absolute faith.

We need to learn to strengthen, over time, a refined and precise receptive capacity. As we open up we become open to receive. It takes courage and trust in the powers of creation and co-creation to manifest in this way. It beats pushing and shoving with a forceful energy to get what we want. Manifesting can happen this way, but without surrender it soon becomes exhausting. Many times in life I have become exhausted because I have been trying to make it without God. I cut myself off from the mystery and source of life.

What is the dream in your soul that needs to come out? Many of these steps we can take on our own, but sometimes we get stuck. A qualified therapist, healer or body psychotherapist can make a huge difference and so can a support group that has your best interest at heart.

 

Robert Kirby is an international speaker, author and director of the Body-Psychotherapy Institute/Core Energetics Australia.