On Procrastination as a function of Living from Fear

One of the most essential tasks for us to wrap our heads and hearts around is learning to bring love to ourselves since we, as divine beings, are the primary bringers of love to ourselves. No one else has the depth of knowing what lies within our persona facades, and if we can begin to learn how to love ourselves first, before loving others, we will accomplish at least two worthy goals:

a) We will be genuine in our love expressions of and for others when we are genuine with ourselves and not until.

b) We will avoid a classic trap of codependence wherein we attempt to love others first in an attempt to gain the others' love for us. This trap leaves our inner child/ego/shadow once again abandoned and betrayed in the dark since the light only comes from within when our hearts are open to ourselves, not from an external source such as someone we bestow some sort of conditional love in hopes of receiving love from they who are not self realized themselves. Ad infinitum.

So it is that procrastination is a similar trap founded on the premise that we can motivate ourselves with guilt and shame for not having done that which we think we need to do. In the end, any motivation borne of guilt and shame (two distinct forms of fear – see below) will fail and put us back in conflict with ourselves since we are not really being true to our divine selves by ignoring what we really want and love to do.

These two forms of fear can be regarded as:

1) Guilt – being seen by others as not good enough.

2) Shame – being seen by ourselves as not good enough.

The latter has a much higher propensity to harm us since we know where the triggers hide within and how to use them without mercy leading to toxic and perhaps fatal shame.

In the end, we suffer the fear and loathing of trying to do what we do not want to do while triggering the inevitable reign of guilt and shame as we swallow our self betrayal for not being true to ourselves.

One of my favorite teachers, Paul Ferrini, says in his Keys to the Kingdom, do only those things that you really want to do and only if they will not bring you and others stress and/or harm. In essence what this says is, do only those things we are positioned to do from the love side rather than the fear side of the equation.

The trick is to begin to say yes only to that which is within our loving and divine power to do; and no to that which we really do not want or cannot do without compromising ourselves in any real way. Of course, we need to learn to discern what is coming from love and what is coming from fear and this requires a committed inquiry and study of reliable resources not aligned with hidden agendas that obscure rather than clarify the divine truth and light within each of us.

So, when we agree to try to do something which we believe we need to do but do not want to do, we are abandoning ourselves to the darkness of fear and it will not end well, at least in the long run. Rather, we learn to do only those things that are founded in unconditional love, truth, and light - this we can live with and learn to bring love to our wounded selves, the love no one else can provide since the divine is within.

For the record, fear can be seen as a catchall expression for not getting:

a) What we think we want.

b) When we think we want it.

c) Where we think we want it.

d) How we think we want it.

If we substitute the words “Feel” for “Think” we allow our hearts to have a say in our needs versus our wants and move towards the self love found in trusting ourselves to do the next right thing ongoing.

Peace and blessings,

John Shearer

Wonderer