Destructive Patterns of Behavior Develop when Our Emotions go Unprocessed
Everyone, if honest and somewhat aware, will admit they have destructive patterns of behavior that don’t serve their highest good. Is this the human condition? While most are content to ignore these tendencies feeling it is too much work to change, a small minority of us aren’t content to accept such a fate. Neither are we prepared to medicate with pharmaceuticals nor spend literally thousands of dollars in therapy regurgitating the same destructive for years on end.
In reality, pharmaceuticals simply placate the symptoms and therapy, while increasing awareness, doesn’t typically heal the wounds that initiated the destructive patterns. These things must be addressed as spiritual problems and thus must be corrected on the spiritual plane.
Meditation is hands down the best way to get to the root of destructive patterns that live below our conscious awareness. When we meditate, we are learning to mine deeper into our psyche where the subconscious can become conscious.
The genuine spiritual seeker knows from a deep place within that they are in fact creating or sustaining the negative patterns of behavior even if they can’t immediately see how. This also means that we can discover the patterns that are alive in us and change them. We will often find that as a result of being hurt or misguided in the past, we made a decision to protect ourselves and thus have closed our hearts and minds.
Meditation will help you get in touch with this stuff. And working with a teacher will help you learn how to forgive. Forgiveness is the ‘magic pill’ that invites healing on the mystical level. But this takes guts and the willingness to be led by someone who has done this work before you.
Often when we meditate, the mind and ego try to block us from the truth because the truth can be hard top face. For example, it might be that forgiving someone is the best course of action but our ego might hate that idea with a fury! The ego can thus stir the mind to create a logical argument as to why forgiveness is not a good option. The argument is sound and makes sense and yet by listening to it, we get to keep our destructive patterns.
Having someone guide your spiritual process means they will steer you away from some of these logical (but unproductive) choices.