Iyasu’s Metaphysical Cleanse Webinar Series

By Stephanie Kato, Metaphysical Intuitive Healer

“Self-knowledge is the beginning of self-improvement.” Baltasar Gracian

“Unhappiness is the hunger pain for change…” Kari Hohne

Why do we strive to improve ourselves?

Regardless of race, religion, gender or sex, people are not that different from one another. We all want to be happy. We all want to love and be loved. Happiness goals vary among people. Some want financial success for security and to increase their status in the world. Others want contentment in their relationships for their offspring, families, friends, business associates, others in the world and themselves. Many people want good health–mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual. Whatever instigates the need for happiness one thing remains…human beings desire happy and meaningful lives.

How do we create daily happiness and contentment?

So much of life is out of our control, and for some people this creates anxiety. I like to accept certain realities instead of living with the illusions of our fantasies. We cannot control how another person thinks or behaves. We cannot control the outcome of certain aspects of our lives. Attempts to control what we cannot contribute to frustration, disappointment, and physical issues. Accepting what is within our control and what is not frees us and allows us to embrace more joy and contentment. Often, a shift in perspective is all we need to create happiness. Let’s focus on aspects of life that we can control.

Here are a few examples:

• Wishing the best and happiest life for other people, especially those we don’t feel loving toward.
• Embracing the idea that hurtful feelings we personalize from others’ behavior reveal their suffering and emotional pain; their behavior doesn’t inform us about who we are.
• Practicing gratitude for others when they challenge us, knowing they offer opportunities for self-growth.
• Choosing to approach life and others with a trusting and open heart.

Opening our hearts and sharing love with each other isn’t always easy. We must first begin with ourselves. Self-love and self-compassion are the core requirements for happiness and peace. Many people do not show themselves loving kindness so naturally self-judgment, self-criticism, and self-destruction rules our lives. 

We can heal past traumatic experiences so they no longer create  

emotional pain and physical dysfunction in our present lives. 

To live happy and peaceful lives, we must address and master four main concepts to attain the joy we seek:

• Daily mindfulness living
• Taking full responsibility
• Living free from victim mentality
• Healing our vulnerable selves

Daily Mindfulness Living

Before embarking on a soul’s journey of self-healing, we must begin with a present mind. Human beings avoid feeling their emotions (because some are painful) through distractions. This is true today more than ever with the distracting technology all around us. When uncomfortable feelings arise, we grab our phones and peruse social media. We manage internal anxiety by controlling external circumstances (including other people). We take part in addictive experiences to avoid feeling our feelings, and we succeed this way, but only temporarily. The only way we monitor our current beliefs (and shift those that no longer serve us) is to be present with what our minds present as truth. We must question these beliefs to determine when change is needed. The most profound change is to own our responsibilities in our relationships and our lives.

Taking Full Responsibility

It is virtually impossible to find joy and live freely if we are unwilling to admit our part in every interaction of our lives. To know one’s true self, we must go under the protective layers we’ve carefully built up through denial and justification. I have compassion for these layers because we learned how to cope with pain and trauma in our childhoods, though it becomes disruptive and destructive if we continue coping this way as adults. We cannot enjoy the sweet candy until we unwrap the wrapper. Getting to the root of discomfort in our lives requires us to heal our past and awaken to our truth. Truth looks different for every person. The one thing we all have in common is this: 

Every single person on the planet deserves love and peace. 

Its absence shows a lack of self-love and worthiness. 

• Taking responsibility is hard for some people because:
  • They need to look at themselves honestly and admit their behaviors, actions, words and pain they cause others.
  • They feel the discomfort of vulnerability.
  • Once they own their responsibility, they need to do something about their behavior, actions, words and pain they cause others.
  • We feel emotions kept buried inside ourselves when we take responsibility for what belongs to us. This alone can be very daunting and feels unmanageable.
  • Admissions of responsibility to others requires us to admit to ourselves we are not perfect.

The upside to owning our part is we become free. When we accept we cannot control other people, we feel free. When we admit truths to ourselves no matter how uncomfortable we feel, we let go of guilt, shame and worthlessness and become free. Taking responsibility for our emotions instead of hiding from them we connect to ourselves in such meaningful ways and this frees us.

Letting Go of Victim Mentality

Do you know someone who lives their life as a victim; either doing for others and then complaining about it or constantly sharing experiences of how others treat them badly or disrespectfully? This personality type rarely owns their responsibility for what shows up in their life…it’s always about what someone else does to them. A common thread amongst victims is their perpetual unhappiness. Without taking responsibility, we live as victims and there is absolutely no power in victimhood. (Some use the illusion of power to control others.)

Although some of us experienced abuse and trauma in our past, living with victim mentality will not bring the happy and peaceful lives we desire. What will? Acknowledging the emotional and physical pain we went through, accessing and releasing the unresolved issues stored in the body, and grieving the experiences we wanted but never received. (If it is uncomfortable and unpleasant to admit you have victim mentality, realize that acknowledgment is the first step to freedom.) This step asks us to look at our own expectations. Since we cannot control other’s behaviors it benefits us to remove our expectations of others and ourselves. Suppose we expect someone to behave as we determine they should. When they fall short of this expectation (which they invariably will), we feel disappointed and slip into victim mentality believing others are intentionally causing our pain. 

I understand that many people survived scary and lonely childhoods. For those who experienced trauma and abuse as children, I advocate healing the young, vulnerable parts of themselves that carry unworthiness, and shows up most often as relationship and money issues. Romantic relationships mirror the unresolved issues within. If we carry distrust (because of betrayal or mistreatment from parents) or anger and resentment from our past, current relationships touch emotional wounds so they might surface for healing. Without acknowledging our victim mentality, we miss the healing opportunity our relationships offer by giving us the choice to move past the pain or stay where we are. For those courageous enough to heal their vulnerable selves, they will learn it is the most profound and meaningful internal healing they can embark on. Since imperfect caretakers raised each of us, everyone would benefit from inner child healing work, not just those with abuse in their history. 

Healing Our Vulnerable Selves

The number one trait we need to heal the wounded part of us is: trust. We must trust ourselves so we can begin to trust others. Without a willingness to trust, we do not feel emotional or physical safety in the world. Therefore, trust is vital and can help us find joy and heal our hearts:

• Trustworthiness:
  • Emotional safety within any relationship requires trust. 
  • To trust, we must be willing to take responsibility for what belongs to us.
  • To take responsibility for what belongs to us requires us to trust ourselves that we can admit imperfections through vulnerability, and we are lovable and worthy. 
  • Some of us have protected ourselves from who we really believe we are. If we don’t feel worthy or lovable, then we don’t have a healthy sense of self or self-esteem and we end up having issues with food, alcohol, drugs, relationships, work, money and our lives. 
  • We feel as though we cannot trust ourselves and for some the journey ends there. Learning how to offer oneself compassionate and loving kindness is the way to create the lives and love that we desire. 

Familial Relationships

• Inaccurate self-perceptions created in childhood inform our choices in adulthood. 
• We form beliefs from the environment we grow up in. These include who we are, if we feel worthy and lovable, and what we are capable of. Our caretakers modeled or told us directly what we should believe about ourselves. As children, we are witnesses to our caretakers’ relationships, their self-perceptions, and the management of their emotional, mental, spiritual and physical health. All these tell us who we believe we are.
• When raised by others lacking a healthy self-image, we conclude their treatment of us is the truth and often carry this belief through adulthood and our subsequent relationships. 
• We cannot control how other human beings behave or think, however, we learn how to judge and control others in childhood. 
• We have control over:
  • Our intentions
  • Our willingness to self-heal
  • Our choice to do whatever it takes to love, first ourselves, then others
  • What and who we attract into our lives

Romantic Relationships

• Issues with expectations show up in our romantic relationships causing emotional pain, distress, judgment and shame.
• Learning how our love relationships mirror our own beliefs of deficiencies, unworthiness and unlovableness is the highest form of service our loved ones can offer.
• Love relationships provide us opportunities to relate to each other with open hearts. Doing so helps us see where we embrace victim mentality, poverty mentality, and unhealed past childhood experiences.

Friendship Relationships

• Friendships offer love, fun, and emotional safety and support. When they don’t, life may mirror unresolved past relationships needing clearing and resolution. 
• Conflict between friends can show personal growth that serves to separate people no longer on the same page with each other. 
• Experiences viewed from the perspective of our highest good can help us let go of friendships that no longer serve us and encourage us to embrace gratitude for our friends’ presence in our lives and their part in helping us move toward self-love and self-worth.

Work relationships

• Difficult work relationships offer wonderful, albeit challenging, opportunities to resolve emotional issues from our childhoods. 
• They encourage us to find our voice and speak our truth, especially regarding:
  • Money
  • Being treated with respect and dignity
  • Standing with strong and healthy boundaries
  • Speaking up against abusive behavior and unfair or unjust treatment
  • Knowing when it is time to move on or create more fulfilling opportunities within the company
• Often superiors in authoritative positions represent experiences with family members that we can resolve internally:
  • Use the Gift of the Trigger to heal our young and vulnerable selves.
  • Give ourselves a different experience with a co-worker bearing a similar personality to the family member we had (have) an issue with.
  • Resolving a conflict with a co-worker can help us resolve and heal internal unrest, moving us into a more accepting and peaceful life. 

Not only can we heal our past and live a life of peace, joy, and love, but everything we need to do so lives within each of us. Aided by our experiences with others we can use what triggers us to take responsibility for what belongs to us, help us avoid victim mentality, heal the young and vulnerable aspect of ourselves and learn to live with daily mindfulness so we continue to create the lives we desire and deserve.