I Know Focusing Within Will Improve My Life But I Have So Much Resistance to It

Hi Kelli

I know you talk a lot about the importance of internal focus for creating change in the external. I intellectually understand it, and see more and more that is what I need to do, but there is so much resistance there. How can I do the inner work without so much interference? 

This is a great question and the struggle is real when it comes to shifting gears from focusing on the outside all the time, and trying to arrange everything there to our liking, to focusing within, which is where we will find what we really seek. There are a few things at play here that make this task seem very difficult. So let’s dive into a few of them…

We Actually Don’t Want to Do It

One of the reasons so many of the things we are called to do on our path of personal growth, or whatever you call that journey, seem so difficult is because we really don’t want to do them. And it’s hard to do things when we actually don’t want to. 

We have a lot of resistance to our negative feelings, and everything we do in life is aimed at avoiding them. The egoic mind really isn’t interested in healing these painful feelings, so much as merely suppressing them enough so they don’t bother us on a day to day basis. That is good enough for this part of us. 

Pain-minimization is the name of the game, and the funniest thing about this approach is it actually creates more pain. 

The resistance we feel to our feelings, and the exhausting lengths we go to to avoid them, actually causes us more suffering than the feelings themselves. 

A lot of the things we could do–perhaps must do– to feel better may cause emotional discomfort the egoic mind would much prefer to avoid; and therefore, it stops you from doing these things. And when we resist making changes, and developing habits that will be good for us, this will also add to our pain. 

Pain-minimizing is the precise reason we are so invested in changing the outside world, and that often leads to a lot of painful effort to make certain things happen; it also brings a lot of heaviness to our personal growth ‘work’ where experiencing good feelings aren’t the goal, but something we are interested in ‘producing’ as a means to an end, that end attracting something we don’t have.

And it is hard to genuinely feel better when feeling better isn’t our actual goal. 

The egoic mind doesn’t see value in exploring the mind, it doesn’t see value in changing your emotional state. It doesn’t actually care if you are truly happy. Again, it just cares about minimizing pain, and that is a very, very different journey that will have very, very different results. 

There is a lot your mind doesn’t understand about how reality actually works, it doesn’t understand how so many of the things it is so resistant to you doing will actually serve its ‘agenda’ quite nicely.

That is why I talk about the mind so much in my work–its dysfunctional thinking and complete lack of understanding about what effects true and lasting change in our lives is at the root of every problem we perceive we have. It is at the root of every bit of energetic discord that affects your ‘manifesting.’ 

And one of the ways this misunderstanding interferes the most is…

 

The Mind Sees a False Choice 

Again, the mind doesn’t understand how deep inner change has no choice but to dramatically effect deep external change in all areas of your life, from relationships, to health to your finances. 

If the inner world is the level of cause, the more ‘work’ you do there, the more you embrace the ‘spirit’ thought system, the more your outside world will naturally reflect this energy, this belief system. 

But because it doesn’t understand how intimately linked the two are, it believes that by focusing internally, you are abandoning your ‘efforts’ at changing the world of ‘form’ in which your human self exists. 

It sees a false choice between going within–which will lead to energetic/emotional shifts that will easily align you with all your egoic human wants and needs–and focusing on the external world and taking a very active, all-consuming role in trying to get the things you don’t have and change the things you don’t like, both in terms of action and  the type of ‘ work’ we typically engage in when applying a teaching like the law of attraction. 

And if the egoic mind believes you must make a choice, which do you think it is going to choose? 

But again, this is a false choice. The outside world has no choice but to change when your inner world does. To me, deep inner focus is kind of like a more ‘advanced’ level of manifesting in that you make such profound shifts in your emotional state and belief system, that things change in such miraculous, effortless ways.

The outside world changes more dramatically without you putting so much attention there; you don’t need to think about all the specific things you want so much, and put so much effort into ‘manifesting’ them. 

This deep inner work tends to strengthen your belief in more general spiritual ideas that have a far reaching effect in all areas of your life, such as being loved and supported by God, the Universe or whatever term you like, such as believing you are worthy and deserving. 

This deep inner work provides deep relief from painful ideas that are huge obstacles to seeing the changes you want to see in your life, such as being unworthy or undeserving; it heals all sort of ‘yuck’ that wouldn’t seem related to manifesting X, Y or Z, but plays a huge role. Remember if energy and vibration are just fancy words for ‘feelings,’ then any improvement in your emotional state will have a positive impact in the world of ‘form.’ 

The typical LOA teachings help you access a more ‘rudimentary’ level of mind ‘power’ if you will. They make you aware of the power of your mind, but because the focus tends to be very external, and the emotional changes more on the ‘surface’ because we are simply trying to change our thinking around very specific subjects to get specific things in the external world, we tend to sell ourselves short. 

We may be very successful at this in certain regards, and we get what our ego mind wants, but still feel unsatisfied. Or we may find our ‘results’ to be inconsistent. Or if we have a lot of emotional baggage, trying to effect change in our external circumstance with this more surface level change of emotional state and belief system, may prove very insufficient. 

If some people are honest, the surface level changes, and simply being ‘successful’ at being able to manipulate their external circumstances in ways they find pleasing, may be perfectly fine for them. And that’s okay. No one is under any obligation to do deep inner work, or live their life a certain way. Plenty of people exist in such a state and they seem to be doing just fine. 

But if you are really struggling with manifesting as it is typically taught, you may need to do a bit more internally as you may have more ‘stuff’ that needs to be addressed. 

If you are someone who seems to be very good at ‘manifesting’ but find that you are no better off emotionally even with all this great stuff, you may want to shift within a bit and see what is going on there, rather than do what the egoic mind will always tell you to do, which is try to get more things, step up your game, take it to the next level,etc…

But again, no matter how much you focus internally, your external world will still keep on turning. As long as you are existing in this body, your life will go on–things will happen, opportunities will present themselves, you’ll make money,etc… 

Manifestation is about what we are ‘being,’ not what we are ‘doing,’ so as long as you continue to ‘be,’ you will continue to ‘get.’ 

In my experience, applying LOA teachings as they are typically presented has us operating much more from the egoic mind–which can net results for sure—which always has an undercurrent of tension since it tends to feel much more like we must always actively be ‘creating.’ Everything we want becomes so precious and important. 

Whereas, in my experience of ‘manifestation’ from doing that deeper inner work, where the focus is much more on improving our emotional state, and dealing with our suppressed emotions, the pain lying at the root of all our ‘wants,’etc…, the process of manifestation feels much more like ‘receiving.’

If I had to pick, I would opt for the experience of ‘receiving’ as I have felt it to be, rather than the experience of ‘creating’ as I have felt it to be. 

Not only does a lot less seem to be required of me, I enjoy what shows up a lot more since I now understand more deeply, the limitations of changing the external world as means to changing my emotional state in any meaningful, lasting way. 

I enjoy what shows up a lot more because it is almost certainly a better version than what might have had the egoic part of my mind been exercising its powers to influence my circumstances. 

 

Your Mind Relies on Your Pain

Again, the egoic mind doesn’t really understand how things work, so the importance of your emotional state and belief system on what your life looks like is totally lost on it. 

It doesn’t understand how your resistance to what is now, lamenting about what you lack, being very attached to certain outcomes and channels, wanting to control everything, and the like, is not helpful in the world of effecting change in your life through changing your emotional state, and state of mind. 

It is used to effecting change through action–not realizing it is a manifestation of what is happening inside–and in this paradigm, all of your negativity works to its advantage. Your unhappiness with the different aspects of your life is the perfect fuel for engaging in all sorts of actions that you believe may turn things around in your favor. 

The pain is what motivates you to do all that you believe you need to do–all the strategizing, straining, striving, hustling, troubleshooting. All of this action tends not to feel very good, but that pain is worth it, if doing all this can help take away the pain of not having what you want, of things being the way they are now. You may be suffering now, but the reward will be very sweet. 

So if the egoic mind relies on keeping you believing your external circumstances are the cause of your pain to get you to do what it wants, it will be very threatened by any idea that suggests otherwise. 

It will be very reluctant to you exploring your mind and seeing the problem is there instead. If you feel better now, it’s screwed basically because you may not do what it wants you to do any longer, you may give up on getting things it wants very much. 

I think a part of us believes our pain and negativity actually contribute to getting what we want. It is as if we believe Spirit– or whatever term you prefer–must know how incredibly unhappy we are with things as they are now lest it will think we don’t want these situations to change. We crazily believe that feeling better now will somehow work against us, will be bad for us in the long run. 

But feeling better now is no threat to anything–remember ‘energy’ and ‘vibration’ are just fancy words for feelings. Feeling better can only be a good thing. 

So if our pain won’t really help our cause, and feeling better will, there is a shift in thinking we must embrace and that is where we are headed next…

 

An Idea We Must Be Willing to Explore

Like I said earlier, the biggest reason we struggle with all the stuff we seem to be called to do, and believe on this journey, is because we simply don’t want to do and believe these things. We will be resistant to going within so long as we believe that doing so is of no value to achieving our various goals. 

All we want at the end of the day is to be ‘happy’ which can be a bit of a loaded word. In many cases, I think it is usually used as ‘shorthand’ for a variety of pleasing feelings we would like to feel more often. 

And the ‘ego thought system’ and the ‘spirit thought system’ have very different ideas about where this much desired state comes from. 

The former believes it lies in acquiring, and achieving, various things in the external world. And if we believe that is true, then naturally we will prefer to maintain our focus there, and see little value in exploring our mind more deeply, and changing our belief system, save the typical basic LOA-type beliefs we think we need to buy into to get what we want.

The latter will tell us our emotional discord comes solely from our mind. It is not our circumstances–past or present–but our stories about them, our interpretations of these events, the meaning we have assigned to them, the conclusions we have drawn.

So in order to manifest more ‘cleanly’ if you will, it is really, really helpful to explore what lies at the root of what you want. The more badly you feel about this subject, the more important it is you do this. The more ‘stuff’ there, the more painful those beliefs and stories, and you want to change them ASAP. 

If you don’t address these issues, you may have trouble seeing change in this area of your life in any meaningful way. Or even if you still manage to ‘create’ in these areas, they will be hollow victories emotionally since the lack of the thing was never the problem. 

The acquisition of the relationship, the money or whatever else may give a temporary boost, but whatever was in your mind making you want that will still be there–the insecurity, the sense of not being good enough, the low-self esteem,etc…

Not only will all that stuff still be there, the negative emotion might even intensify since you will be even more upset because the thing you thought would take it away didn’t. 

When you see the problem is inside, and the key to feeling better lies in going within the mind, you will be more amenable to this ‘inner exploration’ because you will understand this is how you truly get what you want, which is emotional well-being. 

You will uncover those stories and beliefs, and will be called on to make a choice–do I believe the ego thought system’s interpretation of all of this or Spirit’s thought system’s interpretation?

And even if you decide you still want certain things in the outside world, your pursuit of them changes dramatically. You don’t take it all so seriously anymore. These ‘wants’ no longer feel so precious. You won’t feel that aforementioned ‘tension’ as much since you will be less in ‘creating’ mode and more in ‘receiving’ mode. 

You will get to feel better without anything have to change first, and considering how much we believed we did have to change things first, and how terrible that makes us feel, even just accepting this idea a little bit has the potential for immense emotional benefit. 

The more value you see in exploring your feelings and what is happening in your mind, the less resistance you will have to doing so. You will get more comfortable with all those uncomfortable feelings. You will get more comfortable with honestly acknowledging what you think and feel, rather than try to deny it.

It feels really good to give up fighting all those thoughts and feelings. Operating from pain-minimizing mode and constantly railing against ‘what is’ and constantly feeling the need to arrange the external world in a certain way, is beyond exhausting. How good would it feel to know you could safely give it all up without any of the negative consequences your ego mind wrongly believes will come?

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