heal yourself **AND** create the life you want

Warning to the modern reader. This is not short-short. It includes some recap of what I wrote about last week. Use SUBHEADINGS if that helps your navigation, and read what most serves you.


Craziest thing when people use spiritual principles against themselves: to justify staying or to force themselves to stay in situations, in relationships, in jobs—in short, in the life—they don’t want to be in.

SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLES ARE SUPPOSED TO SUPPORT YOU TO MOVE TOWARD THE LIFE YOU WANT.

By life in the phrase life you want, I mean your one precious life (at least in this form). Please stop turning that life over to other people who have their own ego-desires and ego-fears and ego-requirements of you. Please stop diminishing that life by staying where it has shown you you don’t want to be.

By want in the phrase life you want, I’m coming from the idea that your wanting comes from Source or your Inner Being. You want what you want because it fuels your movement toward what you’re here to get to (to learn, experience, be, do, have, offer to the world).

RECAP AND ELABORATIONS

Last week I wrote about shifting arrows of attention inward—reversing the arrows that go outward as you obsess over what others are doing wrong, or what’s hurtful or problematic about their behavior. (Whole article here.)

My intention in inviting you to turn the arrows inward, back to you, was and is for your healing and empowerment, NOT to invite you to limit yourself or make yourself small. Certainly not to invite you to live the life that feels bad to you.

Part of the point of this arrow-flipping is this: When you’re mulling over what THEY’re up to, you can’t choose what you’re up to, and you can’t go after what you want. Focused outward, you have no agency, because your attention is on what you cannot control (them, their behavior).

You also make yourself feel bad by keeping the focus on their bad behavior and how it affects you, instead of shifting your focus to what you want to do to heal yourself (which will at some point make you feel better). It’s not just that I would like you to feel bad less often (I would). It’s also that when you feel bad, you’re out of alignment.

So yes, you feel bad when your arrows of attention go outward. Yep, you’re out of alignment when you do that. So yeah, you might wanna turn them around.

AND you also feel bad when you’re not creating the life you want. You’re also out of alignment when you’re not creating the life you want. Heal yourself, but not to stay in the life you don’t want. Heal yourself, and head toward what you want. Heal yourself AND create the life you want.

Is that clear yet?

DON’T USE THE CONCEPT This is here to heal you AGAINST YOURSELF

I personally totally love the spiritual concept that the situation, any situation, however unwanted, is here to heal you—not to thwart you or harm you. It’s here for your evolution, to build muscles where you’re weak, to move you toward greater well-being. For me, adopting this idea as a mindset has been a brilliant way to meet whatever life sends me and keep heading toward the expansion, the evolution. It has kept me empowered and in motion where I used to be defeated and immobilized.

If you’re AT ALL willing to play with that idea, then you can benefit. (You don’t have to believe it or see it as some universal law). So, for example, if the current problem-person in your story is pushing against every last boundary you have, you’re powerless and keeping your distress active if you ruminate over this disrespectful thing they do (arrows of attention outward). Conversely, if you see the unwanted reality as being here to heal you, you can optimize for healing by turning the arrows of attention inward.

WHAT FLIPPING ARROWS OF ATTENTION MEANS FOR SELF-HEALING

Using the above example, you might shift the focus back to you by doing any of the following (and this is not even close to an exhaustive list):

• meeting your past selves (inner children included) who weren’t taught boundaries
• meeting your past selves whose boundaries were perpetually or in some painful way invaded and disregarded
• meeting the part of you who’s afraid you’ll hurt (disappoint, anger) others if you have boundaries
• meeting the part of you who fears you’ll become a mean, selfish, careless person if you have boundaries
• understanding more clearly your right and responsibility to have clear boundaries
• getting clear about what your boundaries are in this sitch and practicing establishing and holding them
• soothing the discomfort you feel when having and holding boundaries proves to be an ongoing job (Can’t I just say it once or twice and then depend on them to be cooperative and do the right thing?)

That’s the work—the work that heals you. That’s where you’ll be taking care of yourself because you’ll be

• focusing on unlearning wrong things you learned
  
• learning what will actually serve you on your journey
  
• giving your attention to stuff (mindsets & practices) you can work with
  
• empowering yourself by putting energy and focus to those in-your-business areas where you have agency
  

Again, focusing on them and all they’re doing wrong will not heal you.

WHAT SHIFTING ARROWS OF ATTENTION INWARD DOES NOT MEAN

Someone wrote me saying something along the lines of: yeah, but do you really just work on you and do you just shift your perceptions and do you just forgive them and let them keep doing blah blah blah and let it all go?

NO! NO, YOU DO NOT.

Can you remember back (or, hey, just look back) to the before-last set of bullet points—the ones followed by the words, That’s the work—the work that heals you?

The work is NOT to keep yourself in unwanted situations and stay close to people who do things you don’t want in your field.

And CRAZY CONCEPT: The work that heals you is not your only work! There’s also the work of creating your life consciously. (And that work can involve a whole lot of play. It’s fun. It’s meant to be fun.)

YOU’RE HERE TO CREATE THE LIFE YOU WANT. Please use spiritual principles to support you to create the life you want. NOT TO ACCEPT THE LIFE YOU DON’T WANT.

A POINT THAT I ESPECIALLY WANT YOU TO GET

Just because a situation or person is here for your healing does NOT mean you want more of them. It often means quite the opposite.

METAPHORS TO HELP YOU GET THIS FOR REAL
Let’s say a nasty painful full-body red rash is here to heal you because it’s reacting to something in your field that’s not good for you and it’s seeking to push toxins out through your skin. Thank you, rash. I can see you as a healing event.

AND I FUCKING DON’T WANT TO THEN ENSURE THAT I HAVE A RASH GOING ALL OVER MY BODY FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE SO I CAN KEEP HEALING.

Another metaphor (no really, aren’t metaphors the best?):

Let’s say you’re in a car accident and it shows you that you have a bad habit of not paying full attention while you drive. You’ve always [known you’re] [thought of yourself as] a good driver, so you gave yourself permission to do stuff with eating and drinking or texting or playing music or having chats, and this time that got you into big-bad trouble (or a close-enough glimpse of big-bad trouble).

THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS NOT TO SCHEDULE CAR ACCIDENTS ONCE MONTHLY TO MAKE SURE YOU KEEP IN VIEW HOW IMPORTANT IT IS NOT TO DO THINGS THAT COULD CAUSE TROUBLE. The moral of the story is more like, quit doing those things. Stay alert. Connect to guidance: pay attention when you get an inner tug reminding you it’s a bad idea when you even think of reaching for something unsafe. Change your behavior. Change your life.

Did the metaphors help?

THE PARTICULAR CASE OF FORGIVENESS

Let’s look at this from the forgiveness angle, since that especially trips some people up. Go to next subheading if you don’t need this one (or just hit the bulleted list).

Some version of this question comes up a lot: If I do my work (question my thoughts, shift my perceptions, turn my arrows of attention around), does that mean I forgive them and carry on as before?

Don’t pair forgiving with allowing what does not work for you to keep happening. There’s no virtue in that. Forgiveness does not require or even want that.

So sure, forgive. More precisely stated, intend forgiveness, move toward forgiveness; forgive at the point you’re able to now and forgive more as life calls you to it. (Forgiveness almost never happens as a one-time thing. There’s no switch to flip.)

BUT FORGIVENESS DOES NOT MEAN

• stay put
  
• keep yourself in the situation and reality you don’t want to be in
  
• commit to what you don’t like or prefer
  
• accept what feels unacceptable to you
  

NO NO NO NO NO nonononononononononono.

(And turning outward-pointing arrows of attention back inward to yourself doesn’t mean any of that either.)

AT THE RISK OF REPEATING MYSELF: YOUR WORK IS BOTH HEALING YOURSELF AND CREATING THE LIFE YOU WANT

Whether you do or don’t forgive, to whatever degree you’re able to forgive now, your work isn’t just to shift perceptions or arrows, or to focus on your inner healing. Your work is also to create the life you want.

And life (especially problem-situations with problem-people) shows you what you do and don’t want. YES, they’re here for your healing. And they’re here to show you

• what you do and don’t prefer
  
• what you do and don’t want
  
• what you want to move toward and what you want to move away from
  

So …
Question your thoughts, and leave.
Change your perceptions, and head toward what you like better.
Flip your arrows of attention, and establish clear boundaries that you keep honoring.

Any work you do that you do for healing, also do it to point yourself toward more of what you want and to keep heading that way.

Love & blessings, Jaya