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6.01.2010

Getting to a better place

When we're trying to get to a better place, we've got to start where we're at. Emotional baggage favors keeping us in a stuck place unaware of where we're at. The psychological dynamics of baggage seeks to minimize our pain, avoid repeats of unwanted experiences and improve our chances of survival. However, it does all this at a very high cost. It keeps us trapped inside a mediocre, boring and predictable place.

When we want to get to a better place, we usually know what's wrong with where we're at. We've got complaints about it, objections to it and dread about it continuing unabated. None of that helps us know where we're at in order to get to a better place. In effect, the complaints perpetuate the persistence of our same old story. What we resist persists.

It works to approach this challenge with a different strategy. Imagine the better place we want to get to is a far out idea. It's suddenly time to envision a perfect end result. We can inhabit the better place to get a feel for it, discover what all it offers, and appreciate all the changes it introduces into our lives. Then it's possible to work our way back to where we're at from the far out idea. Making all those connections sets up the migration to the better place.

We can also change our tune about where we're at. We can appreciate the good it's doing, the purposes it serves and the value it provides. We can reverse the complaints, objections and resistance into insights, respect and letting go. Then we'll find in really in a place with a partial solution. The better place is another solution with some added advantages. We're making a slight change from one solution to another, instead of going for some big turnaround, escape or conquest.

In short, we can get to a better place by first getting where we're really at and why we've been coming from there for a long while.

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