Tip#1003

From Joan Hitlin, MFA, CCHT

It's April already!

Do you know where your New Years Resolutions went?

For most of my life I've made New Year's Resolutions Lists. It wasn't until I started storing these lists on my computer, and then re-reading them the next year, that I realized that I had been resolving to make the same changes year after year.

What an eye opener!!! My friends and clients report the same thing - every year it's last-year's resolutions all over again!

To be sure, it's not for lack of trying. We've all made our "To Do" lists, written affirmations, done visualizations, been coached, walked on hot coals, ESTed, Actualized, 12-stepped, and gone to therapy, with fine results - except for this stubborn list of recurring, recalcitrant resolutions.

So, what exactly is at the bottom of "the mystery of the recalcitrant, recurring resolutions." ? What puts that invisible wall between us and our best intentions?

First of all, a goal usually doesn't earn it's way onto your New Year's Resolutions List until it has already been a goal for quite a while. It's a biggie. It's playing hard-to-get. A goal, especially a soul's-goal, might choose to play hard to get for many reasons. And, these "reasons" - I call them stoppers - not only lie outside of consciousness, they often have roots in your past. Old traumas and early core-belief-formation play a large role here.

Here are some of the stoppers which make your resolutions play hard-to-get:

* You made an early decision based on a past-trauma.

Something bad happened (perhaps when you were very small) and you decided back then to never to let that happen again. Ever. Even if it meant keeping yourself from living up to your fullest potential.

* You have an unconscious fear of displeasing your parent's inner-child. You got the idea that mom needed you to be sweet and quiet and submissive, or that dad needed to stay king of the roost forever, and you unconsciously agreed to protect them.

* You've accepted societal injunctions. "Nice girls don't ŠŠŠ , strong boys can't ŠŠŠ , sexy women shouldn't ŠŠŠ , successful men never ŠŠŠŠŠ ."

* You are getting something positive out of not getting what you want. Staying fat, poor, sick, single (you name it) get's you out of something worse - especially, getting hurt.

* You are afraid to fail. Humiliation and disappointment seem worse than staying stuck.

* You are afraid to succeed. Success seems dangerous: it can lead to ever increasing expectations, or jealousy.

* It's hard for you to trust. To get deeply involved in your project, you may have to let down your guard! (It helps to believe that the world is a friendly place.)

* You are punishing yourself for real or imaginary transgressions. Unresolved guilt and unforgiveness are two of your main issues! It's time to let go of past mistakes.

* You don't think that you deserve to have what you want. "I'm not good enough for so much love, success, money ŠŠŠ " Low self-esteem has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

* It's hopeless! You don't believe that this (or anything else) can work for you. Your defeatist programming needs to be addressed.

With the right methods, these stoppers can be identified, rooted-out, and addressed in a deeply creative way.

Over the past few years, I have been exploring a variety of new techniques which are particularly effective at overcoming stoppers. These new techniques fall into the category of energy therapies, and are based on the principles of acupuncture (but without the needles).

Energy therapy - including EFT, BSFF and TAT - assumes that all emotional and many physical problems are caused by a disruption in your body's meridian system. It is actually this disruption which causes you to be blocked. By eliminating the disruption, you dissolve the blocks and stoppers which hold you back. And while you are dissolvingthe blocks, you are clearing your mind of limiting beliefs as well.

Once you depotentiate the perennial stoppers, your New Year's Resolutions List won't seem like the movie "Groundhog's Day" -"deja vu all over again." You'll start to feel enormous satisfaction as you cross those newly accomplished goals off your list. And you can look forward next year to having a new list, full of dreams which previously seemed out of reach!