What Holds Us Back? by Ross Bishop

If you think about it, it doesn’t make sense—a planet full of people trapped by their fears and anxieties. Their fears control their lives, making them miserable and preventing them from expressing their individuality. 

Initially, one might think people would work hard to let go of these false and limiting beliefs, but that's not usually the case. People often go out of their way to avoid facing these damaging traits. When something is so widespread, it indicates that much more is happening beneath the surface. This is definitely true here.

You see, all of humanity is enrolled in the School of Spiritual Development. We are here to learn how to confront our tendency to believe negative things about ourselves—“I’m not lovable,” “I’m not good enough,” “something is wrong with me,” etc. Often, we fail to realize that the Creator is guiding us through this process called LIFE. He wants us to learn the truth about ourselves: that we are lovable and worthy. 

While it can be burdensome, our beliefs cannot simply be taken away from us because we have free will that must be respected. No matter how we feel about it, we must accept the truth for ourselves. To hold the truth as strongly as possible, we initially need to believe its opposite. Then, through internal conflict or confrontation with others, we eventually abandon our false beliefs in favor of the truth. In doing so, we will hold the truth more deeply than any other method could teach us. 

But the path is full of potholes because we get distracted by our negative beliefs. Is the process tough and painful? Absolutely! When asked about the meaning of life, the Buddha replied, “Life is pain.” Every time you act out of fear, anxiety, self-doubt, or similar feelings, you will feel hurt inside, and your relationships will suffer as well. This doesn’t happen as punishment but as a wake-up call that some of your beliefs are out of alignment with the truth. Day after day, encounter after encounter, the Universe sends you messages about your misalignment. However, because we’re attached to our beliefs, we often think our problems come from our being flawed.

We get caught up in our pain and self-blame instead of seeking the harmony that the Creator encourages us to pursue. However, there is wisdom in this process. Through pain, you will ultimately learn to embrace love and compassion; without it, you probably would not.

And there are safeguards in this process. Aside from physical violence (which follows different rules), you cannot be hurt! It may not always feel that way, but those are just bruises to the ego. Nothing that happens here is permanent except what you learn. You carry that with you.

Once again, we must forge our own path. Teachers have tried to assist, but our preconceived notions hold us back. In response, the Universe amplifies the pressure. This effort is not wasted; we are making progress. Although we have our moments, we are no longer the harsh beings we were even in our recent past. Still, there is more work for us to do.

What do you do in this situation? One of the best actions is to notice when you're being triggered, or in other words, when you feel threatened. If you can recognize this, you'll see that the current situation isn’t the cause of your feelings; it has merely touched a childhood wound that you haven't healed. Doing this can help de-escalate the situation. It also alerts you that you have work to do.

A major obstacle is that your ego resists change. It prefers familiarity, even when it involves difficulties and pain. Although seeking the truth can make your life easier and more enjoyable, the ego will try to keep you where you are.

Some strategies to boost your learning can help you understand what is true, which you currently struggle with. They are too complex to explain in a simple article, so I created a three-part webinar called “Unlocking The Secrets To Life And Happiness.” You can find it at https://www.rossbishop.com/workshop/. (Sorry for the promotional content. There’s no other way to do this.) 

I don’t know if this offers any comfort, but living on Earth is not the end of the journey. Earth is just a way station on our journey to spiritual enlightenment. Your current form is only a temporary home for your spirit. You know you have lived past lives here. What does that tell you?

About Ross Bishop: I became a healer as an outgrowth of my own need for healing. My pain and dissatisfaction with my life brought me to leave the corporate world and begin a journey to find and root out the sources of the considerable pain I carried within myself. I found western psychology to be woefully inadequate to help me and so I set out to find more meaningful answers. 

My teachers all encouraged me after working on my own stuff to go outside myself and help others to heal, not as a humanitarian service but as a way to deepen my own healing process. I found that I had a gift for the work and that my teachers were absolutely right. Serving others is a remarkable learning process. My clients over the last 25 years have taken me to places I could not have gone on my own. I am deeply grateful for the gifts of personal growth that our work together has given me. 

In a former life, Ross was president of an advertising agency and a communications executive for the former Northern States Power Company (NSP) in Minneapolis. After leaving NSP, with a colleague he founded Creative Power Workshops and traveled the country teaching creative thinking to advertising writers and art directors. Seeing the limitations fear placed on people’s creative passion led Ross to undertake a spiritual journey in search of answers. That journey covered many miles and several years and brought him to many teachers. Finding some answers, Ross also found he possessed a natural gift for shamanic healing. He returned to this country and conducted vision quests for spiritual pilgrims throughout the Southwestern United States. Today he concentrates his energies on writing and on an active healing and counseling practice in Santa Fe. 

Ross Bishop’s website: https://www.rossbishop.com/