Self-Compromise

One way or another, we all suffer over things that we can't stop doing to ourselves or to others. Adding to the conflict inherent in self-compromising behaviors is the fact that it's frustrating beyond belief since most of us (in some way) have built a business, worked, and succeeded in some place - won accolades, impressed our friends - and we've weathered storms.

In this answer to a viewer's question, bestselling "letting go" author Guy Finley talks about a strange part of ourselves that actually thrives on the sensations it receives when it does something harmful. It is the very awareness of this inner dynamic that brings about the gradual end to all self-harming behavior.

Every day we are attacked by a multitude of pains, so frequent and so familiar we don't even question them. In fact, we accept them as friends, as something to occupy us. These pains can range from petty irritations to the anxiety we feel every time we write a check and see our bank balance decrease, to concerns about our health. One of the major sources of pain involves other people and our relationships with them.

In this answer to a viewer's question, "letting go" author Guy Finley talks about how there is a part of our consciousness that will seek to derive a false sense of self out of anything, even if it means going into pain over something that is unwanted.

In this short video clip, Guy talks about two words that we can use in our relationships with others for the purpose of exposing the part of us that wants to gain a personal advantage at the expense of what is true.

Regardless of the assertion of any negative state that seeks to convince you otherwise (using its painful presence within you as "proof" that the prison you're locked within will stand until the end of time), apply this one great truth: All self-punishing states are "lies." They must break down if they don't succeed in breaking down your willingness to test their reality. How do you...

Topics covered:  One particularly pervasive lie in our culture is that we believe that we are only as valuable as other people see us as being; Until what is concealed in us is revealed, it can never be healed; "This above all: to thine ownself be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." -- William Shakespeare

Student Talks: 7/12/2024 - Key Lesson: Believing that avoiding the experience of an unwanted, or otherwise unknown moment is the same as freedom from the fear of it is like being lost in the African bush, crossing paths with a hungry lion, and hoping that if you just look the other way... it will too!

Topics covered: Presently our lives are much more about the avoidance of life rather than the fulfillment of its  possibilities. That consciousness cultivates pleasures and avoids pain: We avoid running into anything that we don't presently understand: Something inside of us that is more than just the physical body wants to go beyond the physical, to understand more about the whole of life: Spiritual development is voluntary...

Topic: Take the Secret Path that Leads to Perfect Peace (1/13/21 Classroom Talk)