Have you ever noticed that loads of Self Help courses, books, etc offer you a “Money Back Guarantee”? That if you follow their EXACT ADVICE and don’t see the results your looking for they promise to refund the full price of whatever it is?

I’ve been there, we all have, being really excited about a new Self Help book or program or holiday retreat, giving it your best shot and then a few weeks later BLAMING YOURSELF that it didn’t work or the changes didn’t last that long, and you’re back to where you started from?

You’ve tried “Will Power”, you’ve pushed yourself, you’ve even gone so far as to “Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway!” But it doesn’t last. Your body fights back, the animal in you doesn’t appreciate you having your foot on its back, forcing it to do things that it doesn’t want to do.

You might wrongly assume that “Will Power” and “Discipline” is what you need to move your life forwards to where you deep down believe it should be.

But rather than really moving you forwards it pushes you artificially towards, hopes and dreams that you are not entirely comfortable with and ultimately short lived. This is because “Will Power” is built on the premise, that you are rubbish, lazy or stupid and you have to fight yourself, “toughen up” and change, to get results.

That’s why almost every single Self Help program DOESN’T actually work long term, and why many of them, offer a “Money Back Guarantee” because that small part of your brain that ‘Knows’ what you’re meant to be doing doesn’t have the “Will Power” to fight the REST of you without there being some kind of internal mutiny.

We can “try” to stop a bad habit, to get more positive, change your life, but your heart and body is, at best begrudgingly going along with it for a while, or at worst saying “F**K YOU, I’m not doing this sh*t! I’m gonna sabotage this big time!” Using “Will Power”, you are just continuing to beat yourself up and tell yourself that you’re “not good enough as you are”.

However externally successful people think they have become using “Will Power” and “Discipline” – inside they’re really crying. Inside unfortunately, they’re probably not as happy as they could be, because they’ve been fighting themselves, instead of loving and nurturing themselves.

One of the reasons why we find ourselves stuck and unable to move forwards in life is because our emotions, personality and identity are in conflict with the more rational part of our brain that “knows” exactly what we’re meant to be doing.

The problem is that we’re all addicts, addicted to the drugs of emotion or “personality”, and it’s very difficult to let go of those feelings because we’re 98% “Pleasure Seeking Animal” and only 2% “Rational Human Being”, what we get pleasure from and our identity are deeply associated with each other.

If we just stopped for a moment an listened to the dull quiet rumble of everyday life, we would notice that, without the phone, tablet, computer, T.V, radio, newspapers, magazines and frenzied busyness of our lives, without the constant noise in our heads, life is actually rather quiet, dull and for many unnervingly boring. It’s on this background of the boring, mild and gentle ups and downs of everyday life, that the painful or amazing peaks and troughs in our impressionable emotional life, really stick out.

These peak emotional experiences, very strong or overwhelming feelings are also a combination of internal drugs, hormones and chemicals that we become secretly addicted to. We then create and reinforce the neurological patterns, thoughts, that trigger the flood of these drugs as often as we feel we need to.

These could be intensely positive or negative feelings, or no feelings at all, you’re inner emotional addict (body) doesn’t mind. It’s hooked to the intensity of these emotional experiences, so we secretly hold on to them, cherish them, get pleasure from them and unconsciously recreate situations where we can re-experience them again and again. Therefore, peak emotional experiences become very important and significant to us.

We identify with these peak emotional experiences and because no one else is feeling what we are experiencing, we identify with them on a very deep level of our being.

We wrongly assume that these unique feelings and experiences define who we are. “This is who I am.” It’s our Primary Emotional Identity (PEI) which shapes our view of ourselves and the world. So in order to truly transform our it would be sensible to discover what our PEI is and where it originated from? Once you’ve found out what you PEI is you can learn to change it.

Of course I am also interested in thoughts and our internal dialogue, however, positive thinking is not enough to truly change our lives and who we are. That’s why our emotional selves our PEI is so important in this transformation.

To Re-identify with happier, more life affirming emotional identities, takes serious emotional effort, intelligence & maturity.   It also takes a little bit of craziness or “insanity” and a willingness to jump outside of ourselves.

To break the chains of personality addiction, to admit we are addicts to our fundamental feelings and begin the process of emotional re-identification. Changing ourselves on such a primary level means that the person we thought and felt we were has to die.

We have to let go of all the pain and suffering in our lives, to embrace it learn from it and let it go. To realize that we are not our suffering. We are not the lessons the University of Hard Knocks/ aka University of Life, has taught us.

Who we are is that person we were before school, before our parents, teachers and peers knocked the joy of life out of us. And who we dream we can be, given the love and support we desire to fulfill our potential, and live happily ever after.

Moving Forwards 

When we where kids, we got pleasure from hundreds of different places. All of our senses were involved in exploring and discovering more about the world. We were mini adventurers, little pleasure seeking beings in search of even more fun.

But then something happened, they through you into school, told you to shut up and sit down, stop exploring and playing and start learning that you are not the only person in the world.

By the time we’re adults, we don’t get pleasure from many places at all, perhaps from our job, our primary relationship, and something else and if one of those three or four sources of pleasure get undermined we’re in trouble.

We’ve forgotten how to play, how to switch off from the business and productivity. I believe that “Pleasure” and “Identity” are our primary motivators, so expanding our sources of pleasure, getting in touch with our inner child and allowing that child to move us forward. It’s not enough just to look at your life now and know what you’re not happy about, to realise what you don’t want. Because that will only move you forwards out of a lacking.

So whatever dream you have for your future, make sure it’s something that makes you deeply happy, an idea, vision or feeling of who you’d like to be and the life that you’d like to live, which gives you deep down pleasure, fulfillment and contentment.