The Dominant Emotion Wins
Have you ever found yourself stuck? You have so many things you want to do, and some of them are really important to you, yet, you don’t do anything about them. Why is that? If something is really important to you, you’d take care of it, wouldn’t you?
Sure you would. At least you want to tell yourself you would. But take a moment and do a quick mental check. Is there something important you want to do, maybe start a new hobby, write a book, or take a class? Something you think about quite a lot. Maybe you even daydream about it. You really want to do it. Yet, you do nothing to move toward it.
Take another minute to look at it again from an emotional stand point. And look at it from all sides. What is motivating you? What will it take to accomplish and how do you feel about that investment of time, money, or energy? Will it take time from your family? What will you have to do to make it happen? How does that make you feel?
Often times we do not allow ourselves to investigate our true motivations and feelings around our desires. We are unaware of our internal conflicts, and conflict is crippling. The problem is that the dominant emotion wins. Every time. Without fail.
Take example wanting to write a book. You’re really excited about it, you have a great concept. You’ve shared your idea and received an overwhelming positive response. You know you can do it. You’re going to do it. You’re going to write that book. You are.
But when? Something always seems to get in the way. Everything else is more important and you never quite get around to even making an outline for the book. Weeks, months, maybe even years go by with no action toward writing your book.
Take a look at your feelings around the idea and find your internal conflict. Does a part of you feel like writing a book is selfish? Maybe you feel like you are abandoning your family is some way. Taking time to write takes time from them, and that makes you feel bad about yourself. You feel like you won’t be a good partner, spouse, or parent if you do that. But wait, another part of you feels like you need to write the book because you have something important to share. Oh, so it’s all about you? No, it’s for them, too. For other people, too, and your family will benefit from it. Won’t they?
Does that brief internal dialogue sound familiar? That’s internal conflict. If you don’t resolve the conflict, you’ll be crippled. You are not going to let yourself be “selfish” if you are devoted to your family and writing a book feels like you are not taking care of your loved ones. If that is the case, or something like it, then you will never write the book because being devoted to your family is more important than writing the book.
I’m not saying that writing a book is selfish; I’m saying you need to look at how you feel about it. If it feels like you are being selfish and you that feels bad, then you won’t write the book. You feel better not writing the book because devotion to your family makes you feel better about yourself. You may also feel bad about not writing the book, but not as bad as you’ll feel if you “abandon” your family.
As a hypnotherapist I see this kind of conflict quite often. We all have conflicting parts that keep us from reaching our goals and keep us stuck in a rut. To break the cycle, you have to take the time to find out what is really going on with your feelings and what is important to you. In the end it is our feelings and what we believe to be true, regardless of whether the belief is protective or self-destructive in some way, which defines our behavior and motivates our actions.
Sometime the action is action, and sometimes the action is staying stuck.
So take the time to look at what is important to you. Then take the time to look at your feeling and find your internal conflicts. Then, do some clearing, make peace with yourself. Ask yourself if the belief or beliefs that you uncover are serving you today or keeping you stuck.
Then do the work to transform the beliefs. Find a trusted advisor to help you in necessary. A friend, a family member, or a professional, but remember, in the end, you are the one who gets to choose.
You do the work. You make the change. You get to clear and move forward.
As published on 7/28/14 at http://consciousshiftcommunity.com/the-dominant-emotion-wins/
