It really would be good to spend more time thinking about yourself, said no spiritual person ever. Because spiritual people know it is always way better to think about others. Occupation with the self only ever leads to one thing—being selfish. Right? It all depends on how we go about it.

It really would be good to spend more time thinking about yourself, said no spiritual person ever. Because spiritual people know it is always way better to think about others. Occupation with the self only ever leads to one thing—selfishness. Right?

Of course, it all depends on how we go about such things. In fact, if our mind continually runs in unproductive channels of self-pity or constant complaining, brooding about how life seems to be passing us by, we need to take a closer look at ourselves before we’re ready to think about others. We need to turn in a new direction—namely, a productive one.

Then again, it may be good to get outside ourselves and think of others for a change. After all, doing something for others that causes us to forget our own worries for a while is a win-win. So then helping others and helping ourselves may not need to be mutually exclusive.

Where we get into trouble is when our occupation with others is more like being all up in other peoples’ business in the wrong way—constantly thinking about what others are up to, criticizing and judging them as we please.

No, thinking of others is not proof that we are spiritual. Likewise, thinking of ourselves is no certain sign that we are selfish. It all depends on how we go about it.

Listen and learn more.

Finding Gold, Chapter 1: Occupation with Self

Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #33 Occupation with Self – Right and Wrong Faith

So many of us are sincere in our desire for spiritual development. But our faith is not whole. There’s this little smidge of doubt that says: “Is this really true? Am I not just making all this up?” What do we do with this?

Job one is never going to be: push that aside. Such avoidance is done with the very best of intentions. We just don’t want to have these doubts. We hope that if we ignore them, they will go away. This whole idea that we can stuff things into our unconscious to make them go away is the genesis of most of the hurt in our lives. So no, not a good plan.

But we’re worried. If these doubts keep surfacing and hanging around, they will steer us off the road. We are going to fail in our spiritual endeavors, whatever they might be.

The root of our trouble here is all-or-nothing thinking. We are not aware that the doubting part is just that—a part. There is a greater whole and it is full of contradictory currents. So fear not, there is another part that does believe. Sure, it might be the size of a mustard seed. But that part does have faith.

The way out is by owning all our parts. The sooner we can let the negative parts have a place at the table, the better it will be for us. This keeps those immature parts from sitting off in the corner—because let’s face it, like it or not, they are in the room—and picking fights with their sisters. But it takes courage to acknowledge the parts we don’t like to own.

Listen and learn more.

Finding Gold, Chapter 2: Right and Wrong Faith

Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #33 Occupation with Self – Right and Wrong Faith

Under the weight of our emotional baggage, many of us are carrying around opinions that aren’t actually ours. For sure, these might be valid opinions, but if they aren’t our own, arrived at through our own mature thought processes, it is more harmful than holding a wrong opinion that we came to in an honest way. Surprising, huh?

Sure enough, it turns out that an honest mistake trumps an opinion arrived at through weak reasoning and lack of courage. Let’s face facts: we’re fallible humans and we make mistakes. Full stop. But that doesn’t address the reason we spout opinions not of our own making.

One possible reason: we’re a lazy bunch. If it’s not really our problem, we think it’s not important enough to make the effort of thinking independently. You know, just for the sake of truth. So we’ll grab someone else’s opinion, try it on for size, and if it fits well enough—sold. We somehow think this is preferable to holding no opinion.

Another reason: we feel inferior. In that case, we are so certain that others know better than we do, we’ll rely on them for forming our opinions for us. Weird thing is, the more opinions we hold that aren’t our own, the more we secretly hate ourselves. The more we despise ourselves, the greater our apparent need to let someone else think for us. Around and around we go. We need to have the guts to step off this merry-go-round.

When we do formulate our own view of things, we may find our ideas differ from others. And when we have the courage to live up to them, paying the price of possibly swimming against popular opinion, we automatically find a whole new pool of self-respect. And that sets us free. On the other hand, if we come to the same opinion we held before, but now we really own it, the courage it took to break free from the yoke of weakness we were wearing will have the same positive effect.

Listen and learn more.

Finding Gold, Chapter 3: The Importance of Forming Independent Opinions

Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #51 Importance of Forming Independent Opinions

Any truth can be distorted into an untruth. This is, hands down, one of the most powerful weapons of evil. Complete untruth is not the problem. But take something true in one setting and apply it over there, where it doesn’t belong—especially when it’s set up as a rigid rule—and we’re in dangerous territory. In this way, any truth can be bent into a distorted extreme that makes the truth null and void. And so it is too with self-love.

There’s a healthy version of self-love that exists in mature souls. But then if we fold in a few distorted currents, suddenly we end up with the wrong flavor of self love. The crudest of the many forms is selfishness, where we want an unfair advantage or to put ourselves always in a better light than others.

Another twist on this theme is a kind of self-admiration that’s of a sickly, obnoxious nature. We can easily spot this in others and often just as easily identify in ourselves. It’s actually more harmful if this exists hidden in emotional layers that are not so obvious on the surface, especially if the person believes their conduct truly reflects their innermost self. Such self-delusion is worse than the worst outer deed.

So first we need to ferret out these kinds of distortions. Then we need to find out the reason these wrong kinds of self-love exist. Without this, just knowing about these twisted currents won’t do us much good. Because we won’t be able to straighten them out.

What we’ll usually find is that the cause of lack of loving ourselves in the right sense is the same thing causing the distorted self-love. Simply put, if we don’t love ourselves as we should, we’re sure to go overboard in the wrong direction. We seek the wrong solution. But if we would just love ourselves properly, we wouldn’t need to love ourselves too much.

Listen and learn more.

Finding Gold, Chapter 4: Self-Love

Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #53 Self-Love

This state of self-alienation we are in—where we are truly not our real selves—is so pervasive, we don’t see the symptoms of it. We think we’re just being “normal.” Well, it may be normal but it’s certainly not natural to find ourselves feeling trapped in situations that are outside our control. This state of helplessness is a red flag that there’s an underground conflict—a problem in our soul.

Naturally, you might say, anyone would experience self-alienation if they had my kind of problems. We can cut this deck however we like, but what’s true is that if we experience helplessness, powerlessness or paralysis in our lives, self-alienation is nearby along with personal problems based on error.

As you may know from other Guide teachings, humans each choose one of three ways to cope with our struggles: submission, aggression or withdrawal. For those who turn to aggression, or power, it may be particularly easy to twist the Guide’s teaching here, believing that not being helpless or frustrated is the way to always win. Wearing our power mask, we will demand that things must always go according to ideal plans.

The sad truth is that adopting this strategy for winning makes us more dependent on others than most. Because we always have to win. If not, we feel weak and humiliated. Since our constant winning cannot possibly depend on us alone, we are dependent. All our energy then goes into forcing others to do our bidding. By putting all our strength outside ourselves, we direct our personal resources at others rather than using them for ourselves. How self-alienating! In this way, the aggressive person is as helpless as the outright submissive—and supposedly weak—one. Good grief.

So saying that we want to become the masters of our own lives does not mean a power-driven compulsion to always win and never do without. No, when our real self masters our lives, our forces work in harmony, constructively and productively. Our inner management gets all its committees working together. We will find strength and resources to create good choices. This is how we become our own solution.

Listen and learn more.

Finding Gold, Chapter 5: Self-Alienation and the Way Back to the Real Self

Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #95 Self-Alienation and the Way Back to the Real Self

We think that being lazy is a garden-variety fault. But we need to look deeper. It’s not something we can command away with our sheer will. But it can be tackled by taking on self-alienation. Because when we’re anchored in the center of our being, we will not be lazy. We will not feel apathetic. We won’t want to remain idle. We’ll savor our rest and relaxation, but that’s not the same as being lazy. We’ll have a zest for entering the full flow of life every day. Energies will replenish and regenerate themselves.

This is not an age-related thing either. No, in reality, losing energy is not natural. True, young people have a certain energy store that spends itself regardless of countless obstructions. But once that’s gone, it’s gone, and self-alienation then creates road blocks for regenerating more energy. So indeed, our energy seems to wane with age, but age is not the cause of this problem. Thinking this way further seals the door shut, misguided as so many are by this illusion.

How about compulsive over-activity? How does that fit in? It comes from the same root as energy loss and is just a different tack. It’s a fight against laziness that misses the target. Since we don’t understand the source of the problem, we disapprove of one of its symptoms, laziness, and attack that. This is a precarious remedy and it’s not a shade better than being lazy. The root here is identical. Overactive people, in fact, will have a nostalgic desire to do nothing.

The only real way to unfold our destiny is to find the activity that is in itself meaningful to us, so we are at one with it. This is something to strive for, but in reality, there isn’t a human alive who doesn’t operate from pretenses on some level. When we become aware of how we ourselves do this, we have a key we need for becoming aware of our real self.

Listen and learn more.

Finding Gold, Chapter 6: Laziness as a Symptom of Self-Alienation

Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #96 Questions and Answers and Additional Comments on Laziness as Symptom of Self-Alienation

If we grow up and don’t develop identification with the self, we will create substitutes for the parents we originally identified with. Often we will find, not an individual, but a national, religious or political group. It’s possible we will find a minority group to identify with so we can rebel against the majority.

Conformity results from this need to identify with someone who is more powerful. This can also show up as nonconformity, especially if one makes too big a point of it. Ironically, a rebelling minority will believe that they are free, what with their appearing to defy conformity and all. But any time we have this stringent need to prove something, we can be sure there are flaws underneath. Truly free people don’t need to make a big show of it. There is no need to be militant about things.

Causes are another magnet that people may identify with. But no matter how good the actual cause may be, it can be harmful to use it as a substitute for identification with the self. The problem is not that one embraces a worthy cause. For certainly, this can be done from a place of inner freedom. But if it’s done to give us something to lean on because inside we are still a weak child, our motivation will be off.

The point here isn’t to separate ourselves from all ideas, groups, loyalties or causes. That would be isolation and in fact even irresponsible as a member of society. But there’s a huge difference between embracing something out of healthy convictions so that we gain sustenance from our inner resources, and tapping a worthy cause to replace a dry well inside ourselves.

When we talked about self-alienation, we were talking about an effect. Failure to identify with oneself is the cause. This is indicated any time we find ourselves feeling emotionally dependent on someone else. It’s also there whenever we fear that others won’t give us what we need and expect. This might be financial help, approval, love or acceptance.

Of course there is a natural need for human interdependence. But this doesn’t make us feel anxious, as though our lifeblood comes from outside ourselves. That’s neither natural nor necessary. And it weakens a person, rather than strengthening them.

Listen and learn more.

Finding Gold, Chapter 7: Identification with Self

Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #113 Identification with the Self

Living in this land of duality, we are continually harboring arbitrary either/or concepts. Some of these, we may not even be aware of. One of the most common ones, which causes one of our greatest limitations, is an attitude we hold about being a winner vs loser.

In this way of looking at things, being a winner means being ruthless. We must be selfish, trampling and triumphing over others and belittling them. This leaves no room for being kind, considerate or sympathetic. Should such emotions be allowed, one would fear turning into a loser.

Being a loser, then, means to be unselfish. We are then self-sacrificing, kind, good and considerate people. Some of us will adopt one alternative, and some the other. But everyone fears the consequences of being the opposite of what they are.

Neither of these two choices is good. Neither is better or worse. Both have the same misconceptions built into them. And both lead to nothing but loneliness, resentment, self-pity, self-contempt and frustration. No bueno.

When two people come together in a relationship from these opposite teams, it will be fraught with great friction that will lead to the point of hopelessness. The winner will be fearing impulses of genuine affection as much as they fear weakness and any inner desire for dependency. For the loser, their concept of goodness is equated with total approval from others. This means they can’t stand any form of criticism, whether it’s justified or not. Both sides are basically resenting in the other what they are fearing and fighting in themselves, which is their hidden tendency to be like the opposite choice. Oh brother.

Listen and learn more.

Finding Gold, Chapter 8: Winner vs Loser: Interplay Between the Self and Creative Forces

Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #129 Winner versus Loser: Interplay Between the Self and Creative Forces