Negative States

We value negative states because of the strong sense of self we get from them. This may be very difficult for us to see, but a strong light will show us the freeing facts. No one wants to believe that he or she values things like self-pity, anger, and depression. We would insist we don't, and as evidence we point to the fact that we fight against them, but the struggle gives us a false sense of life and importance...

Whenever we find ourselves in some "unwanted" part of ourselves, perhaps reliving an old heartache or caught in the throes of some irrepressible anger, old fear, or unyielding worry, part of this unwanted moment includes our certainty that we're trapped in this condition. And compounding our confusion over feeling ourselves captive in this way are all of the attending negative inner voices.

What's the first thing we see when we hear news that runs counter to what we want? The evidence suggests we don't really "see" anything at all; instead, our attention is seized, absorbed by a familiar negative reaction whose only wish is that the unwanted moment just go away. This resistance acts within and upon our consciousness as a "blinding" and binding force, so all we can "see" is our own negativity over what we wish wasn't...

We have in us -- built over time as part of the construct of our personality - a literal host of demands. Things that over time have been thought over and over and over again until the construction of those thoughts becomes an unconscious attitude. For instance, if you think enough times, "Why are they doing this? I shouldn't be treated like this!" Gradually, you walk around with a chip on your shoulder, but you don't know it's a chip on your shoulder...

In this answer to a viewer's question, "Secret of Letting Go" author Guy Finley explains that it is not enough to simply say that you are no longer going to be deceived by negative states such as fear and anger. If you ever want to be free and in command of your own mind, then you must begin to taste the bitterness inherent in those poisonous negative states...

In this answer to a viewer's question, "Secret of Letting Go" author Guy Finley talks about the imperative to observe the nature of negativity itself instead of complying with whatever the negativity is telling you to do.

There is no consumptive negative state in the consciousness without resistance being the "goo" it grows out of -- something black and dark pulling and pushing on you. And in the moment that dark state starts to swallow you, when you're starting to feel sorry for yourself, or you're trying to figure out what to do about something because you're asleep to yourself, all you know to do is to push back...

In this answer to a viewer's question, "Secret of Letting Go" author Guy Finley talks about owning your own attention for the purpose of observing the painful tendency to blame everything outside of yourself as the cause of whatever is disturbing you.

In this excerpt from a recent classroom talk, Guy talks about how agreeing to live with fear, worry, anxiety, depression -- or any other negative state -- is the same as living in the "dread zone," a psychological state of useless suffering that prevents us from being alive and aware in the present moment.

In this question and answer session, Guy explains that not wanting to see something about ourselves actually attaches us to the very thing that we say we don't want. So the task is not to change what we see. Instead, the task is to observe ourselves so that we can be changed by the very awareness that is observing.

When you don't -- when you consciously won't -- express some negative state, you are literally asking for awareness of a higher self. Here's why... As you don't express that state, you become conscious of yourself as the ground upon which it is breaking as well as the presence of that visiting state. In this moment of new awareness there is something there inside of you, with you...

If there could be only one idea -- a lamp whose light could show the aspirant of real life the way out of the prison of dark thoughts and punishing feelings -- it would surely be this: your true self doesn't win in life by overpowering problems but by revealing they never really existed as you once believed they did. Truths such as this can be difficult to accept. Tell some people...