Are you letting your obstacles stop you from living the life we want?  Do you even know what your barriers are? Obstacles, blocks, and barriers fall into four categories. There’s Fear, Criticism, Resentment and Guilt. I’ll be explaining each of these, so you will be able to exam your own life to see what is stopping you from the life you desire.

Remember our experiences always reflect our inner beliefs and whatever you believe becomes your reality. If you want to know what your inner beliefs are, just take a look around at your life and environment. Look at your friends and family, are they happy, kind and supportive or do they always take your time, money and energy? What about where you work? Do you wake up happy to go to work or do you dread it.

Let’s go over the 4 Obstacles:

The first one is fear: What is fear anyhow?  F.E.A.R. = False   Expectations   Appearing    Real

It’s time to stop scaring yourself. How often do you terrorize yourself with your thoughts? You take your problem and blow it up, which make it worse, then you blow it up a little more. Now you worry about it, you lose sleep over it. You can’t get it out of your mind. It’s all you think about. The secret is, no one is doing a thing to you. It is your reaction and you’re thinking towards your problem. Why not make a list of your fears and turn them then around into the positive of what you want. Affirmations are a good way to turn your thinking around.

Did you know one idle thought doesn’t do a lot or make a lot of difference? You think 60,000 thoughts a day. But if you took that one idle thought and dwell on it with a strong emotion, then you have a lot of negative energy on that subject.

Let’s compare a thought to a drop of water. One drop doesn’t mean much, but if you keep adding to that drop of water, now you have a puddle on the counter that drips down to the floor where it turns into a pond. Now your house is flooded and the waters going out the door to make a lake. That lake turns into an ocean. Now you have an ocean with your accumulated thoughts, which are huge and there is a lot of power behind it. You can drown in the ocean of negativity or you can float on the ocean of life. It is all up to you.

What kind of puddle are you standing in? Or are you drowning in an ocean of negative thought? How are you thinking? What are you focused on? When will you be ready to change? Today is a good day don’t you think. We can change our experiences by changing our thinking.  

Sometimes an old thought comes back to us and rolls around in our mind. Well my friends, this is keeping you stuck. It is time to let it go and move forward. I found when this happens I just say, “Thanks for sharing, but the truth is…” and you fill in the blank with a positive statement such as, I am a wonderful person. I am successful. I am happy. You get the idea.

What you are doing is retraining your mind how to think. Did you know when you think a thought either positive or negative that it goes out and connects with others with the same thought pattern? Have you ever noticed a group of friends together and one group is laughing and having fun and the other group talks about illness and depressing stuff. Birds that flock together stay together. People that think a-like hang out together.

When we are learning something new it’s a good idea to be gentle with yourself. The last thing we want to do is beat ourselves up and go back to the old way. How do we finally know if we have really learned it? What you do is bring up the old situation again. It’s like were testing ourselves. We take a step forward and then backwards to see if we really have learned the new way. If you react the new way then you know for sure that you have gotten it. Now you can move on to something else.

The second one is criticism. Criticism keeps us stuck. Stop all criticism. Start first with yourself then move to other people.  Learn how to change the criticism to praise and approval. What you don’t like about yourself are patterns that you created to deal with a problem in your life.

Change the negative thought or criticism to praise. Say, “I like myself, I approve of myself, I am wonderful.” When you accept who you are, then you bring out the best in yourself. Procrastination is not loving yourself. I want you to know how wonderful you really are. A lot of people think I’ll be a better person if only… but what you’re really saying is that you’re not good enough. We want to overcome “not being good enough”. Be willing to Love and approve of yourself just the way you are and let all the negative stuff fall away.

The third one is guilt. People tell us negative things as a way to manipulate us. They lay guilt on us to control us and guilt is the easiest way to manipulate someone. Guilt never solves anything so don’t put guilt on others, just give out good intentions. What we give out is what we get back. Guilt always looks for punishment and punishment creates pain in yourself and others. 

If someone is laying guilt on you ask yourself, “What is it that they want?” Why are they doing this? Do you want to give it to them or not? You have a mind of your own and you’re an adult not a small child that needs to be controlled. What do you choose to believe is true for you now, today?

The last one is resentment. Resentment is unresolved anger. It is anger that got shoved down. Too many of us were raised where we weren’t allowed to be angry. Anger was not acceptable, so we swallowed down our anger. Swallowed down anger becomes resentment, which is now lodged down in the body. Resentment takes seed in the body and starts eating away at the body. We have to realize that we are the ones holding on to the resentment. No one else is involved. It’s like running an old movie in your mind over and over again. It is time to get over it and be free from it. We need to go beyond it. Resentment is only a thought and thoughts can be changed. Be willing to forgive yourself, the event and let go of the past. A good way to let go of resentment is to breath though it. Just feel the emotion and as you exhale and let it go. 

Now that we understand what our biggest obstacles, blocks and barriers are. There is one emotions that you can turn to and practice. That is love. Practice loving yourself. Praise yourself and what you do. Appreciate yourself, what you have and have do so far in life.

Love is one of the biggest healers there is. It stimulates your immune system and fights diseases. Dis-ease is a way we punish ourselves because we don’t love ourselves. People fight not loving themselves, but did you know when you were born, you loved yourself. You were perfect. It was society that taught you that it wasn’t ok to love yourself. Loving yourself is one of the most powerful things you can do for yourself. When you respect and appreciate yourself, it makes everything in your life flow. Today, why not tell yourself, “I am wonderful”. “I approve of myself”. “I’m ok the way I am”. Pick one and go for it or make up your own phase. Turn it into a chant and say it all day long, but most of all have fun.