Options to Motivation by Self-Flagellation

Have you ever asked yourself questions like:

"Why am I in this situation, again?"

"Why am I with this guy/girl?"

"Why am I staying in this job that I hate?"

"Why do I put up with being treated like this?"

Just rhetorical questions, right? NO!

Isn’t it funny how we are much more willing to believe we are just ‘screwed up?rather than believe we might actually have reasons, good reasons, for what we do?

We go to our churches or study various spiritual teachings, agreeing that the Spirit of God (whatever that might mean to us) is within. Yet, we continually doubt that we could actually know why we do the things we do.

I have found, through using and practicing the Option Method for the past 15 years, that the great teachers and masters were right - we do have the answers within us. In fact, we are very rational beings with reasons for everything we do. Even when we think we are doing something that is self-defeating, or even self-destructive, somewhere within our belief system we think (believe) it is the best way to take care of ourselves.

So it appears the beliefs are wherein lie the rub.

A wonderful example of this is how many of us use, or have used unhappiness in order to become happy. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But here are a few examples:

We use fear and shame to keep ourselves on a diet, so that we will get thin and be happy.

We feel bad about not having something we want, in order to motivate ourselves to get it.

We feel bad about not being how we think we should be, so that we will make ourselves change.

We get unhappy with things we have, in order to justify wanting something else.

We even get unhappy with others, in an attempt to get them to be more how we want them to be. In short, we spend a lot of energy being unhappy now, in order to be happy later.

Bruce DiMarsico, the founder of the Option Method, said, "Everything you are and everything you do, you do in order to be happy."

The fallacy in the reasoning, of course, is just how unhappy does one have to get in order to become happy?

With the Option Method, I have the great pleasure of watching people with whom I work untangle their own personal webs of erroneous beliefs. I have seen person after person get free of this pattern simply by exploring and discovering that what they are believing that no longer is true for them. It may have seemed true from their perspective as say, a 5-year-old, but it no longer holds water.

The amazing thing about this whole process is that each client I work with finds the answers they need within themselves. As I have assured many people, "I don’t have your answers (it’s a big enough job finding my own!)--- But what I do have are some excellent questions and a safe, non-judgmental attitude within which you can explore."

After using Option to uncover the beliefs behind one’s unhappiness (or ineffectiveness, etc.) we become more and more like happy detectives in our day to day lives-- flushing out the erroneous beliefs that are keeping us from our natural state of happiness.