Supercoach - Michael Neill [40]
1. Apathy. Apathy is the “dead” feeling that so many people experience as a sort of depression or indifference to life. In relation to your goals, it stems from a kind of learned hopelessness: “Nothing you do is going to matter anyway,” apathy tells you, “so you may as well not do anything at all.”
Apathy is sometimes mistaken for peace because of the absence of emotional variance—the difference is, peace actually feels good!
2. Grief. If you feel a great sense of sadness or loss when you think about your goals, you’re resonating with the frequency of grief. This is an evolution from the hopelessness of apathy to the helplessness of despair. “What you want could have happened,” grief says, “but it won’t—at least not for you, not anymore.”
3. Fear. When you begin to see that it really is possible to have what you want, grief often gives way to fear. “You could have what you want,” says fear, “but it would cost you so much that you’d regret it for the rest of your life—which might be over sooner than you think if you actually go for this!”
The important thing to remember is that if you’re feeling fear, you’ve already turned a corner—you have moved from hopelessness to helplessness to possibility (albeit a vague and frightening one).
4. Lust. As you get more comfortable with the idea of having what you want, lust (as in need and greed) tends to kick in. This is for me the real meaning of the biblical phrase “the love of money is the root of all evil”—substitute “lust” for “love” and you can see how lusting after lucre could lead to all sorts of moral, ethical, and actual dilemmas. Lust says: “You can have what you want—and then you can get more, and more and more and more and more, and then everyone will do your bidding and you can take over the world!”
On the plus side, in order to lust for something, you have to have really begun to believe in the possibility of getting it.
5. Anger. The energy of anger burns hot. “Sure you can have what you want,” anger rages, “but look at all these jerks who are trying to stand in your way. You deserve it—how dare they!”
There is actually a lot of energy in anger—it’s just usually directed at your obstacles, not your goals.
6. Pride. Pride can be a tricky one, because to many people it feels really good. “Look at me,” pride declares. “Aren’t I amazing to have already done so well and gotten so much of what I want?”
The truth is, you are amazing—but if your energy gets stuck in pride, it stops moving toward your goals and quickly slides back down into anger that you don’t have more, lust to get it, fear of losing what you’ve already got, and grief anytime you actually lose what you thought was yours to keep.
7. Courageousness. Courageousness is the first truly “attractive” emotion in that it accepts the possibility that things might not work out but drives you on anyway. “Screw it!” courageousness declares. “Let’s do it!”
8. Acceptance. There’s an easiness to acceptance that says: “I have the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the strength to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
With acceptance, you’re still moving toward your goals, but it’s with a sense of ease and lightness that knows the journey is every bit as much of a prize as the destination.
9. Peace. In A Course in Miracles, readers are encouraged to make peace their only goal. This is because when you have peace in your mind and heart, you need nothing and have everything. Peace doesn’t say much of anything, except to occasionally whisper, “Rest easy—all is well.”
When we’re at peace, we already have everything we need—and nothing is quite as creative as a need-less human being.
In order to move up the scale of emotions in relation to a project or goal, all you need to do is let go of your current thinking about that goal—in particular, the story that having what you want will in any way change your life for the better or for the worse.
As we talked about in Session Three, when you recognize that there’s nowhere for you to get to and you don’t really need what you