You don’t need to take any risks with The Work at all.
You don’t even need to do The Work. Life will eventually show you the same thing (the truth), though maybe not as quickly.
And if you choose to do The Work, you don’t even have to take the risk of facing the biggest, scariest issues in your life. Doing The Work on purely trivial situations can show you how to live in peace.
As you get comfortable with the process of The Work, you may want to start questioning your thoughts and beliefs in some of the more scary areas of your life.
Just exposing to the light areas that are taboo for you, or shameful, can be a big step towards freedom. The questions of The Work will hold you, no matter how dark an area you go into.
Doing The Work in areas where you hold deep anger and resentment against another person, or even against God, are also areas that we’d rather not go into. But if you have the courage to expose them to process of The Work, may find forgiveness where you thought it was not possible.
I have yet to meet a person who did not have addictions. Maybe not addictions to hard core drugs, but we all have our drugs. For some of us, it’s love. For others, it’s work. For others, it is food.
We all use our addictions to cover up our negative feelings. If you look back over your life, you may notice that times where addictions flared up were often related to times of deep stress, or shame, or anger.
By taking some risks, and doing The Work on these deeper issues, you are defusing the very source of addiction: negative thought.
When we are hurt, we identify ourselves as the victim. And we keep replaying our story of victimhood to maintain that identity. And we end up carrying the story of our pain throughout the years.
This is our burden.
The Work, by questioning what we think happened, can break us out of that painful, mental loop we’re in. It can help us see that there is no burden, other than our own painful beliefs which weigh us down.
In fact, The Work may leads us to take yet another step towards freedom.
We think we were wronged and hurt. And that may be true, but The Work gently points out where we did the same to others, and to ourselves. This can lead to making amends, the most humbling, sweetest experience you can ever have.
If you are serious about your freedom, amends are a beautiful way to expand that freedom. Genuine, heartfelt amends are the natural result of doing The Work on deeper issues.
Talking about your scary, deep issues is one thing. Doing The Work on them is quite another.
If you were to simply bring up the past, and get mired in it all over again, that would be counterproductive.
But if you do The Work on those same deep issues, you will be going there with an entirely different approach. The questions of The Work will not let you be a victim there. They will hold you gently to a place of responsibility, and power, and positivity.
This is an entirely different experience, that opens the heart instead.
When you’re ready—when you’re comfortable with The Work—take a chance, and bring up some of the deeper issues that you carry with you. It may not be necessary, but you may find it quite liberating when you do.
And if you want any support in doing this, you can set-up a private session with me here.
Have a great week,
Todd
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