How to Conquer Your Demons in 6 Easy Steps

Category: Personal Development for Adults

When we set out on the path of personal growth and choose sound methods, you may find yourself face to face with your own demons. In that moment a choice is offered. You can cover them with a New Age bandage and tell yourself, 'Everything is fine, these feelings are only an illusion,' or you can reframe them into something meaningful.

Hand on heart, the path of personal growth is not always easy.

In truth, when you walk it in earnest, you can expect the occasional explosive breakdown and the odd identity crisis.

The saying that you are exactly what you seek is entirely true. The greatest obstacle is that the universal, boundless, divine intelligence that WE ALREADY ARE lies buried beneath layer upon layer of social and cultural conditioning.

Depending on your belief system, the life we are trying to unearth beneath so much unknowing is not always a single life. Some people would say there are millions of endless lives unfolding across parallel universes, if that aligns with your beliefs. If so, the task is immense, so it is no surprise that breakdowns occur along the way.

One pattern shows up time and again. Stress, and even trauma, often leaves the system in the same way it entered. This mirrors healing processes described in Chinese medicine.

An illness can exit just as it came in, and when we enter deep healing, we may experience some striking symptoms as part of that release.

Perhaps this is best explained through a simple example. Imagine someone has a rash. Imagine the rash is caused by a deeper issue, such as a fungal presence in the lymphatic system. If we rely solely on conventional medicine and use topical creams to suppress the symptom, we never truly heal the cause, only the effect. It may look as though the problem is solved because the rash fades under an antibiotic cream, yet the fungi that caused it still remain in the lymphatic system.

Years later, the same person tries acupuncture. This approach directly or indirectly addresses the issue in the lymphatic system. As the body heals, symptoms similar to the old rash may reappear after having been suppressed. In this case, the rash is a sign of healing, the illness releasing and leaving the system, rather than a new infection.

The same holds true on the path of personal development, where we begin to unwind our cultural conditioning and many misconceptions about who we are. Along the way we can expect a few metaphorical rashes.

It is a kind of spiritual and emotional detox. A few years ago I did a colon cleanse with bentonite clay. The same result can be achieved with a juice fast, an enema, and similar methods. Some days I felt amazing and full of energy, and on other days I felt as if I had been pinned to the ground and dragged for miles. Those days are known as detox days.

After a few such cycles, you learn to ride them out. There is no way to beat them. Simply allow your body to release everything that does not belong within it. In the end you will feel happier and healthier. I certainly did.

Unfortunately, we do not take the same approach to emotional cleansing. In the modern Western world, if we do not feel 'blissful' or 'ecstatic' all the time, we assume we are doing something wrong.

Many people misunderstand the law of attraction and are therefore afraid to FEEL some of the painful human emotions. We try to be SUPER vigilant about our 'vibrational frequency' and 'what we attract.' Instead of sitting with those painful emotions, understanding them, and processing them so they can heal, we try to think 'positive thoughts' that distract us from the negative.

However, FEELING those difficult, painful, and sometimes frightening emotions is ESSENTIAL if we want to heal them fully.

Only by looking our inner demons straight in the eye and giving them attention can we release them and integrate them. From birth, we were taught to fear, suppress, and silence the parts of ourselves that society deemed unacceptable.

We were taught to live in FEAR of our natural, necessary human emotions. This leaves us somewhere between mild and acute anxiety, confusion, disconnection from our bodies, depression, a lack of inspiration, a cool and fearful demeanor, and a subtle yet constant undercurrent of PAIN.

When we set out on the path of personal growth and choose sound methods, you may find yourself face to face with your own demons. In that moment a choice is offered. You can cover them with a New Age bandage and tell yourself, 'Everything is fine, these feelings are only an illusion,' or you can reframe them into something meaningful.

It goes something like this:

1. Acknowledge that you feel pain. Stop running from it. Stop avoiding it. Stop trying to outrun it simply because you think something is wrong with you for feeling it. Pause, turn toward it, and face it.
2. Name your feeling or feelings. Is it anger? Sadness? Is it confusion, anxiety, or fear? Which emotion is it precisely? Know this. Every sentence that begins with 'I AM' shapes your reality. Also, every sentence that begins with 'I feel' is JUST ANOTHER THOUGHT in your MIND. A more helpful phrasing is: One aspect of my personality feels…
3. Where do you sense that feeling in your body? Do you feel it in your belly, your heart, your back? What is its color, shape, or sound? Is it heavy or tight? Sharp or aching? Did you feel this way at some point in childhood? Go there and feel it. Emotions are stored in your cells, in the BODY, so go there and pull the roots.
4. Ask yourself two questions. What do I feel and what do I need? The word 'NEED' can be replaced with 'WANT,' 'wish for,' or 'long for.' For example, instead of 'I feel anxious and confused,' say, 'I need clarity and understanding.'
5. Be fully present with your needs and desires. This takes you a step closer to healing. If you remain only with the pain of what you did not receive or of what you long for, you will never take the next step. It is crucial to CONNECT with the pain and feel it completely. At the same time, keep in mind that pain is only another thought and a passing experience that helps you reach the other side. The only way to reach the other side is to GO THROUGH the emotion, and the felt sense of your NEED OR DESIRE is like the light at the end of the tunnel.
6. Once you begin to understand what you want and what you need, ask yourself, 'Is there something that can help me realize this?' For the example above, 'I feel anxious and confused. I need clarity and understanding.' One way to honor this is to take a break and meditate in order to connect with what is moving within you. Or, if the confusion and anxiety are linked to an interaction with a particular person, after checking in with yourself, it may help to speak with that person.

Once you identify the wish, need, or longing, there are countless strategies you can use to fulfill it. Or perhaps you will not act on it immediately, because sometimes a desire appears simply to draw your attention to a place of sadness, pain, and potential healing.

What matters most is that we do not run from pain. We embrace it. Rather than fight, we surrender and allow our emotions to serve their intended purpose, which is to GUIDE us toward a deeper understanding of what is truly happening within. What do we yearn for? Which basic need remains unmet, and how can we take better care of ourselves next time? How can we value ourselves more? How can we show love to OURSELVES, and what inspires us? Most importantly, how can we effectively bring our dreams, goals, and desires to life?

Our emotions form an inner guidance system. They lead us toward a priceless treasure, the qualities of SELF-KNOWLEDGE, SELF-ACCEPTANCE, and UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.