Let’s be honest. Most folks don’t really want to heal. What they want is less pain and suffering.

What most folks want is the “magic bullet”, microwave approach to alleviate their pain, their discomfort, their frustration – at work, at home, at play, in their relationships.

The truth is that while most folks say they to want to heal – intellectually and emotionally – their solution is the quick fix – the pill, the chemical or non-chemical (e.g., food, alcohol, TV, sex, surgery…) quick-fix to mask their discomfort and treat their symptoms.

Their drive for healing exists with the pain; but the real choice to take action to heal is non-existent. Once the discomfort disappears, the move is back to “normalcy”, not towards healing.

For most folks, true healing is scary and threatening. Why?

For one thing, true healing requires asking ourselves two questions:

1. How am I contributing to my own discomfort? How am I responsible for the situation (mental, emotional, spiritual, psychological, social, financial, health, relationship…) situation in which I find myself? Which of my thoughts, beliefs, preconceptions, values, assumptions, choices and actions are responsible for the imbalance, dis-harmony and unhappiness I am experiencing in my life?

2. Am I willing to make the necessary changes and take action to reduce and eliminate the imbalance, dis-harmony and unhappiness I am experiencing in my life at work, at home, at play or in my relationship?

Simple, but not easy — which is why many folks often think about change (simple) and rarely take positive and sustaining action (not easy) to effect true and real change.

So what’s the real deal about healing? What stands in the way of most folks’ willingness to change is ego.

Ego is necessary. Ego supports us to interact with living our life on the planet. Ego is our personality, our individuality. It’s like a “suit” we put on in the morning that helps “me be me” when I go out into the world. Ego helps us to pretend that we are individuals and ego helps us to remember where we left our wallet and what time the team meeting is.

Unfortunately, our ego also feels it’s its job to keep us safe and protect us from harm and in so doing, the lenses that the ego wears often see the world as scary and hurtful and so we spend much of our life defending ourselves again others – being in judgment, being critical, defensive, resentful, jealous of, and resistant to others in some way, shape or form – all in an effort to avoid pain and suffering. Fear comes from the ego.

Our ego defines our thoughts, beliefs, assumptions, preconceptions. Just consider how many of our thoughts are “healing or loving” thoughts and how many are “killing, i.e., fear-based, judgmental, negative” thoughts? The latter, most likely, for most folks.

Our ego’s job is to feel safe and secure so when it comes to changing our (the ego’s) beliefs, thoughts, preconceptions, assumptions, etc. about our life and living in the world, our ego becomes scared, afraid and, in subtle and insidious ways, attempts to insure that we continue to think, believe, and behave exactly as we have in the past. Change is hurtful to us, according to our ego, and it wants us to feel it’s acting on our behalf, to keep us safe, by “not acting,” i.e, not changing.

Our ego believes that even our most painful, limiting beliefs are necessary, because the small amount of pain that we experience actually protects us from a much bigger pain: death in some way, shape or form.

Often, when we consider true and real change, we begin to feel there is something “bad” or “wrong” about our current thoughts or beliefs. This triggers our ego and we spend a huge amount of time beating ourselves up for thinking we are, in fact, bad or wrong for what we have been thinking or believing.

The deal with true and real change is to allow our beliefs, our thoughts, whatever they are – just observing them, allowing them and not judging them. This action quiets the ego and our Inner Judge and Critic that wants us to feel small, invisible, scared, wrong and bad.

When our ego senses there’s nothing wrong with our thoughts or beliefs, we sense the freedom and have the opportunity to introduce new thoughts and beliefs and with these new thoughts and beliefs, we create the capacity to make new choices, and take new action.

The point to understand is that we created most of our limiting and painful beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world in childhood, using whatever resources we had at that time, so we could feel safe, secure and garner mommy and daddy’s love, attention, approval, recognition and acknowledgement.

Our beliefs worked then. They don’t work so well now. So, they need to be updated.

The bottom line is that we can change our words, our thoughts and our beliefs. We can, in fact, change our lives at work, at home, at play and in relationship by creating new, supportive thoughts and beliefs by choosing to do so. So, if you really do want to heal, that choice is yours to make. What better time than now?

So, some questions for self-reflection are:

What stories do you tell yourself that keep you from making true and real change in your career, home, play or relationship areas of your life? What beliefs or blockages prevent you from experiencing change in your life? Do you recall any of these beliefs or blockages from when you were young?

Do you ever follow your intuition, your “gut”? Do you trust your intuition?

Do you constantly beat yourself up? Why? Would you allow your friends and colleagues to speak to you the way your Inner Judge and Critic speaks to you? Do you constantly judge yourself as “bad”, “wrong” or “not good enough” in some way? Why? Really, why?

The average person has “16,000” thoughts a day. Would you characterize the majority of yours as “healing” (love-based) or “killing” (fear-based)?

Did you ever just observe your thoughts without getting caught up in them, or in a “story”? What is that like?

What one or two debilitating or limiting beliefs would you like to update right now? Can you do it? Will you?

What one or two baby steps can you take this week or next to make changes in your life by creating new thoughts and beliefs about your self and then taking action?

What beliefs do you have about: career, teamwork, meaningful work, money, health, men, women, relationships, appearance, fun, chores, children, personal or spiritual growth, marriage, clothes, hair, pets, etc.? Do these beliefs bring you true and real happiness (be honest) or pain and suffering (be equally honest)? If the latter, why do you continue to hold these beliefs and allow them to run your life? If the latter, how can you heal yourself?