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This may ruffle a few feathers but one of the key reasons why most of people don’t notice any real shifts from doing traditional Self Help or Personal Development type programs is because the focus is on symptoms rather than the underlying imbalances.
If you don’t have enough money, it’s not a money problem, it’s an imbalance in how you feel about money. If you don’t have a good relationship with your partner, it’s not a relationship problem, it’s an imbalance with how you feel about relationships.
The issue with personal development is that it implies that as a person, we’re deficient and need to be developed into something else (better). In other words, we have one set of symptoms and we need to have a better set of symptoms.
To understand this, consider that from the moment we’re born, we are creating an identity for ourselves (a story), trying to understand the environment we’re in, this is the way the human mind works. This data gathering happens up to around the age of 5, at which point the base identity is in place.
We now have a basic understanding of how we fit within our environment and what we need to do to survive. From this point onwards, everything we experience is interpreted from that basic understanding, even when we become adults!
It’s for this reason that often when people get angry, the behavior becomes childlike, the core survival mechanism that was developed in the early years is triggered and the situation is dealt with in the only way that person has been preconditioned to deal with things.
This often leads to a general unhappiness for life and the desire for better circumstances. This is usually the point at which personal development comes along to help the person resolve the unhappy story, for a happy one.
I’ll say that another way, there’s one story where unpleasant things keep showing up and we then start looking for better story in the hope of finally living a good life through good things showing up.
It’s natural to want a good life, there’s nothing wrong with that, it just helps to know that you are whole right now and that there’s greater part within that has been covered up, up to now.
If you doubt this, look at a contented baby, they emanate joy and you find yourself smiling simply by looking at them. They remind us of the joy that’s in our own hearts and so if we know that joy already, it means that the only reason that we’re not experiencing it right now is because we’ve blocked ourselves off to it!
The process then is discover that part of us that is covered under the layers of story that was put in place from childhood. In this sense, what we’re wanting is “Self discovery”, where we find our true essence, that foundation that provides the security to take confident steps in the world.
This is where I believe the personal development world is moving to. It’s the integrity we’re looking for and it takes care of the imbalances automatically. This is the foundation we all want and it goes beyond whatever you think the outside world can provide. If you find this of interest, go to http://www.foundationalwealth.com
Angelo Campione is a writer and publisher of Mindfulness related articles. He has real life experience in dealing with emotional pain and now walks the path that has him live a life of Purpose, Joy and Freedom. He is passionate about helping to raise consciousness and runs an online Mindfulness Series Free of charge.
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