Are you trying to understand your problems, in order to heal yourself from your problems?
When I’m starting to work with someone new, I’ll always start off by asking what issue or area of their life they would like to work on.
The Fallacy of Understanding
I’ll often have someone say that what they want is to gain is an understanding of the reason why they repeatedly engage in some behavior that they don’t want to be doing.
The behavior might be sabotaging their efforts towards the goals that they’re trying to achieve but they continue to do it anyway.
And of course the reasoning is, “If I learn all the reasons why I’m doing the behavior, then I’ll be able to stop doing it and my life will all work out.” But unfortunately, that isn’t how life really works.
Our subject for today is, Knowing is Not Enough. And I can even say, Knowing is Never Enough.
Here I’m borrowing a quote that’s attributed to the poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He said, “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
Why Is Knowing Not Enough
In today’s episode you’ll get to hear a sample of me working with someone, and hopefully this will give you insights on how you can also begin healing your own life.
I’d like to illustrate this point of Knowing Is Not Enough by playing a portion of the session recording. This is an actual session recording of me working with a person on a real issue that he’s facing. I know that this is an issue that many people struggle with in their lives.
And yes, this session was recorded with the permission of the person having the session and is being played with his permission.
When it comes to healing the underlying energies of a behavior, we can know all the reasons why we are doing something and still never change. Again, knowing is not enough.
The Importance of Compassion
The fastest way that I’ve found to change behavior is to first observe with compassion, and then look for what is it within ourselves that keeps returning to the behavior.
In almost all cases, I’ve found that it’s when we are doing something over and over that we don’t want to be doing; there is always some very good reason for the underlying behavior. But again, knowing is not enough.
As we look at the behavior we want to see it through the eyes of compassion. We want to look at it as we would look at a child that is scared or feeling insecure. The way that I see it, is that the behavior is just the Inner Child trying to feel safe or protected in some way.
So as we start to see the patterns of the behavior I ask my clients to repeatedly feel their feelings and emotions that come up. We don’t look for the, “Why” reason. We just allow the child to feel scared, or angry, or whatever else comes up.
We look for, what is the energy that the Inner Child needed when this behavior first started.
Setting Your Intent to Move Beyond Knowing
In today’s talk we’re going to focus on setting your intent when starting your healing journey. This is important because I believe that your starting intent will drive the direction that your healing takes.
If your intent is only to understand the reason for your problem, this is what you’ll get. You will get an understanding of all the reasons that you continue to do the behavior that you don’t want to be doing.
Many people that continue to deepen their understanding of their problems have an unintended consequence. That is they find that the search for understanding turns into a hardened belief that this is the reason that I continue to do the behavior. That in turn begins to lock them into believing that they are not able to change.
So when we start our energy healing journey we want to set the intent to go beyond understanding. I believe that the true goal should always be the freedom of energy.
When we have freedom of energy we then gain the ability to let go of unwanted behaviors without having to struggle or use will power.
When we have freedom of energy we also gain the ability to move forward towards our desires, without feeling burdened by our fears or worries based on past experiences.
Now let’s listen to how we can set an intent that goes beyond just knowing or understanding of the problems in your life..
Going Beyond Understanding: A Case Study
Client: To elaborate on what I put down, is that I want to achieve an understanding of why I make poor financial decisions and I want to be able to have control of the decisions. As you know from our meeting before, it’s something that I do struggle with. I hope that answers your question.
Patrick: I’m writing all of that down. “To achieve an understanding of why I make poor financial decisions and get control of my financial decisions.” Does that sound right?
Client: That sounds right.
Patrick: Terrific. Now I’m going to tell you why I think that we shouldn’t use that [both laughing]. I’m only half-joking about that. The reason is . . . and you are not alone here. I really want to stress that—you are not alone. I think most people that are in any kind of position that they don’t want to be in, is that they want to know, “Why am I making these bad choices?”
You know, you hear this a lot in people who get into these repetitive bad relationships. “Why do I keep choosing the wrong girl?” “Why do I keep choosing the wrong guy?” As if knowing is going to make any difference.
The truth is, knowing DOESN’T make a difference even if you do know why. It’s like, “Oh I make the wrong choices in women because all these women are just like my mother,” or for women they might say, “All the choices I make in men is they are just like my father.” Whatever, whatever, whatever.
In my opinion, KNOWING doesn’t make a difference. Does that make sense?
Client: That makes sense.
Patrick: What we want for you . . .
Client: I was going to add to that. It’s like knowing the process of fast food, you know. Even though you know how it’s made, you still eat it anyway [laughing].
Patrick: Oh, that’s a great analogy [laughing], it really is! Okay, so what I’m going to write down, “To achieve a sense of balance and emotional, not control—but emotional FREEDOM . .
Client: Yes.
Patrick: Our goal for these sessions is, “To achieve a sense of balance and emotional and energetic freedom in financial decisions.” How does that sound?
Client: That sounds great. That sounds great.
Patrick: Terrific.
Emotional Freedom Is The Goal
Again, what I’ll invite you to take away from this recording is setting your intent when starting your own healing journey.
Just knowing, or even understanding, the reason why we are repeatedly doing a behavior isn’t enough.
We want to go beyond knowing, and beyond understanding of your problems.
The outcome that I recommend when trying to correct an unwanted behavior is, the Energy of Freedom.
I don’t believe that we want to limit ourselves to stop any behavior without the option of ever engaging in it ever again. But rather, to have the freedom to either engage in the behavior, or to not engage in the behavior.
Now you’re living your life with ability to choose, without the weight of your past holding you back.
I’ve found that when a person has the freedom to choose whether to continue to engage in a past unwanted behavior, most often they will find themselves choosing to act in alignment with their goals and desired outcomes. And I think this is what we all want in our lives.
So now let me turn this around and ask you,
Do you have some unwanted behavior in your life?
Do you find yourself repeatedly engaging in behaviors that seem to sabotage your desires to joy, and happiness and fulfillment in your life?
And most importantly, are you ready to move beyond just knowing or understanding of your problems?
I believe that energy of freedom can lead to real and lasting changes in your life.
And if you’d like to work one-on-one with me, I’m here to help. You can reach out to me through my Contact page and set up a time for us to work together or sign up for my newsletter so you’ll know when new podcasts are released.