A lifelong process?
haideralmosawi • 25 Jul 2024 •
I hear the expressions “it’s a lifelong process” or “healing takes years” used a lot, and I personally believe that this belief stands in the way of effective emotional work and proper healing.
There is a story I heard many years ago (and so the details are a bit of a blur) about a group of people calling on a saint to help them with a problem they were facing. They prayed to the saint to help them “in 3 days.” And sure enough, the resolution to the problem came in 3 days. So they asked the saint: why did you come to our aid in 3 days?
He replied: because that’s the time you set. Had you asked me to help sooner I would have helped sooner.
The lesson I got out of this story is to not set our expectations that help will take an extended period of time. It can come sooner, if we allow it.
When we say: “This takes years of therapy”, guess what? It’ll take years of therapy!
But if we say: “I’m open to having this problem be resolved in an instant”, it MIGHT be resolved in an instant! It doesn’t mean that it will be resolved, but we allow it to be resolved sooner. We don’t push back the solution for an extended period of time. We don’t set our expectations that the solution will come many years from now. Otherwise we don’t allow it to arrive sooner. If it does, we will question it or may even reject it.
If you find yourself telling yourself (or others): “This will take years” or “this is a lifelong process”, I invite you to question your assumptions. Instead, ask: “What if I can resolve it now? What if I didn’t have to wait for the resolution to take place? What if I can heal now? What if I can achieve the outcome I want now? What will that look like? What will that involve?”
Don’t let your expectations get in the way of the outcomes you want.
Comments
@haideralmosawi Great points, Haider! Love the counter-perspective. Definitely got me thinking.
For me, it’s been at least 5 years, probably more, of working through my money mindset. I remember I started writing about this all the way back on 200wad. It’s so sticky it’s starting to feel like it’s deep seated issues, hence the “lifelong process”.
I find it’s tricky, a fine line between what’s a realistic objective assessment of the situation, vs what’s counterproductively reinforcing what I do not want, like saying “do not think of a pink elephant”. The former you evaluate, act on to remedy, and move on. The other, you dwell too much and it becomes reality. Being alert and self aware often enough to catch when I’m doing the former and when I’m doing the latter, is the practice.
@therealbrandonwilson Yes! What we manifest is largely driven by what we expect.
@jasonleow I find it helpful for me to admit that we often gravitate towards complexity and we try to make things “realistic” by buying ourselves more time. I also find Peter Thiel’s thought experiment of “what stops you from achieving your 10-year goals in 6 months?” Helpful in questioning my assumptions.
It really doesn’t matter how long you’ve wrestled with your beliefs around money. The struggle up to this point may have been painful, but it doesn’t determine how quickly you can let go of your existing money beliefs from this point onward.
I’m not saying it WILL be immediate but it CAN be immediate. Allow for the possibility of fast, drastic change so that your expectations don’t push back the results you want.
Be open. Allow for possibility. Don’t get in your own way. When you find yourself getting in your own way admit to yourself that you are. This will help you disentangle between reality and personal behavior.
You might surprise yourself just how quickly you get to experience a transformation in your attitude and the results that come with it.
@haideralmosawi I think we both agree, we’re just talking about different stages/stances. Being calmly realistic when stopping and assessing, but being wildly optimistic when moving and acting. Both can be true and embodied in the same person. 😊 💪
@jasonleow “Both can be true and embodied in the same person” I agree! But I also believe that being calm in pursuing high ambitions can help out a lot, ESPECIALLY calmness when it comes to reducing distracting anxiety. It’s a sense of engagement with what we do and want to pursue that feels good and allows for positive focus.
You have described a fundamental principle of manifestation.