Month: August 2016

When you’re doing your work, you’re going to be exploring the very opposite of what you currently believe. And the mind sometimes resists this. It looks like this. I’m exploring a turnaround and finding some examples. Suddenly, my mind goes, “Yeah, but that’s not really true.”

I’ve always worn my birthstones. But a recent addition of a choker strand of pearls got me feeling very self-conscious. I found myself hiding them. I found myself not wearing them with a T-shirt. I found myself worried about what others thought of them. And it all came to a head when a 12-year-old girl asked me, “Why are you wearing a girl’s necklace?”

People say, “That turnaround is in the other person’s business.” And then they skip right over that turnaround, and stick with turnarounds that they are more familiar with. No big deal. There are plenty of turnarounds to choose from. And you certainly don’t need to find them all. But why skip something without even giving it a chance?

Sometimes people block their inquiry like this… say your mother expects you to call every week, and you don’t want to call that often. So you do The Work on your underlying belief, “I have to call Mom every week.” And here’s what happens.

This is a common reaction for many people when doing The Work, and I’ve experienced it myself. I decide to do The Work, and pretty soon I’m thinking, “OMG I need to go to bed.” But I’m not really ready for bed, I just feel that way as an excuse. Like a kind of mental fatigue.

We spend a lot of time talking about the “questioning” part. But the “identifying” part is just as important. Here’s another way to go deeper when identifying stressful thoughts.

Even if you don’t join us in the desert, you can still get much of the benefit of this retreat by questioning your resistance thoughts about it. Here’s how to do it.