For those who would be free of the recurring pain of emotional and mental wounds, the choice must be to see. Authentic self-healing begins with truthful self-seeing, so that each discovery of what darkens our path in life moves us toward higher, happier ground.

Once we collect even a few of the necessary facts, the answer to these reincarnating aches becomes obvious. Not only haven't we healed from these blows that life deals us -- healings that ought to occur effortlessly and naturally under higher law, regardless of the psychic nature of the injury -- but we've actually been resisting that which would help us heal. But before we go on, here is an important insight that will help keep you safe and strong throughout your entire journey as you uncover the undiscovered parts of yourself:

Whenever we see something in us that is cruel, selfish, or otherwise self-destructive, our first temptation is to hand ourselves over to another dark state called self-condemnation. Most people will tell you it feels natural to first judge and then loathe ourselves when we stumble over some secret ugliness in our heart. But we must avoid falling into this trap of secret self-torment. Its nature is actually self-torture.

Though we may not yet understand how this works in us, each time we catch a glimpse of one of our character shortfalls, we do so by the grace of a Living Light -- a latent force for perfection that lives within us -- that never shows us anything in ourselves that it hasn't already started to change for us -- if we will only let It! This is the hidden meaning behind that timeless spiritual instruction "Let go and let God."

This same Higher Intelligence asks us, by its very presence within us, to see ourselves in its light. Through its illumination we discover that it is not negative to see the negative in us since it is the perfectly positive that makes this kind of seeing into ourselves possible.

Such honest self-observation reveals not only why mental and emotional wounds never stop hurting us, but also why it is that their hidden cause -- that "slash" somewhere in our soul -- just won't heal. We begin to see that in moments when we are thrown into emotional conflict, regardless of its initial cause, the first step this in-the-dark nature takes to deceive us is to direct our awareness away from the actual hurt we feel. It accomplishes this mean feat by its second step: it misleads us into placing our attention on the enemy outside of us, that person or condition that it points to as being responsible for our pain.

Once this unconscious self has succeeded in dividing us up in this manner, we now have less than half the possible powers that we need to heal. And if this wasn't bad enough, the remaining forces of light needed for our healing are themselves now half compromised by subsequent negative reactions that tell us to lash out at whatever it is that has been blamed for our pain!

The truth is that we are made to be self-correcting, so that each real correction effected in us elevates us above the dark and limiting influences we have been living under all our lives. Here is how we succeed:

The next time any pain -- be it an old familiar one, or an altogether new ache -- pushes itself in upon you, come wide-awake to yourself and remember this: Do not try to do one thing with any psychological pain that passes through you, other than to remain as awake as you can to its presence within you. Then, into this conscious self-awareness bring the following new understanding: this pain is not you but, in reality, constitutes a calling out from the injured part of you to a Higher Power to be healed. Your job is to see that the call gets through. Nothing more, nothing less.

If you will do your part in fulfilling this higher plan for healing what pains you -- and agree to simply hold this hurt of yours in the light of your own higher self-awareness -- then the healing you hope for cannot be denied and has, in some ways, already occurred. All you need to do is remain true to this principle as it works itself out within you. The rest is done for you.