I unabashedly adore my “Leaning Into What You Really Want” worksheet because when I want something, this technique works with magical-feeling ease.

Except when it doesn’t work at all.

I used to believe that those instances meant I was “self-sabotaging” or that I didn’t REALLY want whatever-it-was (since by definition we always do what we want, right?). BUT:

When a craft/construction tool doesn’t work, it means the tool is not right for the situation — not that the situation is flawed.

Likewise, please remember that if a healing technique doesn’t help you, it DOESN’T mean “you don’t really want to be healed.” It means we haven’t figured out the real mechanism of what’s going on and/or a way to get in there and tinker with it.

So this presents…

A Dilemma

On one hand, I think logic supports the idea that:

~ My inner self (like your inner self) wants itself to be as well as possible.

And yet I also have the experience that:

~ Sometimes I figure out some healthy, vital way I want to feel AND some small, easy ways to feel that wonderful way, and yet I still don’t do those things.

A Resolution Honoring Both Logic and Experience

When I can’t get myself to do something that I really want to do, it must be because my inner self does not believe that my plan is a way to be well. In fact, in those cases, my inner self believes my plan is a sure-fire path to suffering.

An Experiment

Recently — being very tired of being very stuck in a particular grasping for a very long time — I began exploring this idea in depth. And I am super happy to report that I have been able to feel movement. I budged! I experienced a bit of unexpected ease in doing what I want to do — in doing what makes feel the way I want to feel.

You have no idea what a relief that is.

Or maybe you do.

A Worksheet (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?!)

Just in case you have undergone similar dilemmas, here’s my new worksheet. (Click on it for a .jpg file that you can print.) Together with the “Leaning Into What You Want” worksheet, it forms my current favorite coaching two-step.

Note 1: Your desired feeling state is an especially powerful tool here when you have identified its PHYSICAL sensations in your body. So not just: “free” but “that free feeling like after you take off a backpack and you feel like you could float or jump really high — like your shoulders are light and you have the strength to leap.”

Note 2: If all you do is hold your younger self who felt unsafe or sad or unworthy, or unloved, then that is the main thing. If you do that, you can probably skip the particulars of the last three boxes.

A Thank You

Quite some time ago, in the middle of an almost overwhelming “follow your bliss!” group buzz,  Bridgette Boudreau interjected “of course you get to feel safe.” My whole self sighed in relief.  I thank her for that feeling AND for the phrase that triggered it. I recommend you visit her site (especially the page describing “The Essence of the Wild Life”) for more of her irreverent goodness.

PS

As you will see when you play around with this worksheet, the old situations (and the people involved) are probably NOTHING like the thing you’re trying to get yourself to do. That’s why it’s been so hard to see what’s stopping you.

What’s stopping you is some experience that “proved” to you that “if you feel like {____}, then something bad will happen to you.”  Because that WAS true then. And possibly could be now were it not for your inner self warning you to check it out and clear it up. You may have to actually make it no longer true. Use the old situation as a model to show you how to protect yourself now and in the future (including, sometimes, from those people that hurt you before and with regard to situations unrelated to what even started this whole worksheet). You have to really mean it and follow through on those things. Then your inner self goes full steam ahead in doing what you want to do.

My next post will include an example of working through this process. Both before and after that, please let me know what you find when you put pencil to paper, how the process went for you, and if you have any questions at all.  I send you love and thanks for your own tinkering and your feedback.