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...

Second force prolongs whatever it is that we resist; The illusion that my identity exists apart from the image it's attached to; There is no 'I' without an opposite; Thoughts are outside of you; The self feels incomplete the moment it imagines what will complete it; Poverty of self; What is incomplete can't bring an end to itself with anything that it will acquire; Being called inward...