For whatever reason, March has been the month of Tough Love for my coaching clients … with some truly phenomenal results that I’ll be sharing with you over the coming days and weeks.
People sometimes ask me why my 15 Miracle week program is 15 weeks long. And sometimes they ask me why I’m so focused on my clients making a deep upfront commitment to my programs (both in terms of time and money). The experience I’m going to tell you today will help to illuminate why this commitment is so important if we are going to transcend ego consciousness.
It’s no secret that the ego is a sneaky little devil. Most of the people who work with me have already tried many forms of therapy and coaching without getting the results they wanted. Some of them are deeply “psychologically reversed.” (This is a term I learned from Gary Craig, the founder of EFT, and it means that even though they say out loud that they want their problems solved, some deep hidden part of them DOESN’T want their problems solved. Because most forms of coaching and therapy fail to address psychological reversal, these people stay stuck. Over time, they get more and more frustrated, and eventually this turns into despair and depression.) This also means that, unless they have made a deep upfront commitment, they will often quit just when they are about to succeed, or avoid the very things that are going to help them get unstuck. This is why I will not work with people unless they make a commitment.
To change these deeply ingrained self-sabotaging patterns requires commitment, consistency, and highly attuned intuition (because what works for one client will not work for another, and only intuition is powerful enough to guide me in knowing what will work for a particular person).
My client “Tom” was one of these psychologically reversed people. He had “tried everything,” yet nothing was working, and he was still depressed. Then he came to me.
Tom is fortunate to have his financial survival needs handled. However, the fact that he does not have to work for a living brings him face to face with an issue that, for many people, is lurking underneath all their “busy-ness” in the world: existential angst about the meaning of life.
Tom had found himself in a rut where he would start activities (such as music and painting), but not find any lasting satisfaction or fulfillment in them. At social events, he would feel “lonely among people,” not finding common ground to bond with anyone.
What we were noticing early in my program was that, although Tom was attending sessions and doing the reading, and seemed to understand the “theory” (he even said he’d been exposed to some of the ideas before), his life was not changing in a fundamental way.
This is when I know I need to do something drastic to awaken my client from the hell-hole of ego consciousness.
This led to two very intense “tough love” sessions in weeks 12 and 13 of the program. In week number 12, I told Tom that if he continued living his life only for himself, he would never be happy. Period. It was as if he was amputating himself from the rest of humanity, and expecting to thrive as an amputated finger. This does not work, and will never work, to bring anyone happiness. Happiness is attained by finding your higher purpose, the reason you were put on this planet, to serve yourself and everyone else simultaneously. I recommended to Tom a live workshop where he could get in touch with this higher purpose and deep connection to others. He had TREMENDOUS resistance to this idea at first.
After he sent me another email expressing his deep unhappiness, I wrote him this tough love email:
Hey Tom,
I go back to the “tough love” email that I sent you earlier in the course. I also recommend you read this: The Value of Tough Love
Ultimately, YOU must make a decision that you are going to be happy. As long as you decide to be “poor miserable me,” that is what you will be, and nobody can take your power of decision away from you.
The fact that you have so much resistance to the workshop suggests to me that it’s probably EXACTLY what would help you most. Let me be clear, the point of the workshop is not to “fix” you. The purpose of it is to get you out of your comfort zone, connect you with other people, and get you in touch with a purpose that is bigger than “poor miserable me.”
I don’t see how you are going to break out of your patterns doing the same old things where you are. If you believe you can do it, then do it. But do not turn your nose up at amazing opportunities and then complain that you’re miserable. You’re miserable because everything in your life is focused on “poor miserable me.” And you’re going to stay miserable until you get out of that ego consciousness and see your connection to other people.
Talk to you in a few,
– Erika
Now, this may sound pretty “tough,” and I probably wouldn’t have been able to be so firm with Tom except that I trust my intuition so completely. I knew he needed something that would shake him up …
To his credit, Tom explored his resistance to the workshop (which, btw, I am not affiliated with and make no money off of … I just felt it was the absolute best option available for him at this time) … and he signed up … even though he will be traveling thousands of miles to attend. I was so thrilled for him … I know it’s going to be an absolutely amazing experience for him.
Then we had session #13, and now everything REALLY came to a head. Here, Tom was telling me about a party he had attended during the week, and how miserable it was for him. He talked about how the people at the party were “arrogant,” “lonely,” and “losers.”
I explained to Tom that his unhappiness was coming from his judgments, that every judgment of someone else is really a judgment of himself, and that judgment is so painful that OF COURSE HE HAS BEEN DEPRESSED. If you go around judging people all the time, you will be miserable. Guaranteed.
He kept saying “I understand.” And I said, “No, you do not understand. If you understood, you would be happy. You would not be judging.”
It became clear to me there was a stark disconnect between Tom understanding the theory of the 15-week program versus actually applying it in his life. Intuition guided me to go completely “off curriculum” for the day and try something completely new. (There is so much value in experimentation.)
In a very firm way, I guided Tom back through the experience of this miserable party, step by step. We took a close look at his thoughts from the moment he walked in the door (when he immediately judged the other guy there as “lonely and pathetic”). We applied the process that Emotional Liberation to each step of his way through that party. I showed Tom that all his judgments of other people were cutting him off from connection, and that he was really judging himself. He actually believed himself to be “lonely, pathetic, arrogant, loser.” I showed him how these judgments would constrict and shut down his energy so that he would seem utterly unapproachable by anyone else at the party, and how his judgments had all become self-fulfilling prophecies, leading to a miserable experience.
And I showed him how to make new choices at every step of the way at the party.
Tom resisted this process at first. He kept saying “I understand.” But I was very, very firm. “If you understood, you would not be unhappy. You would not feel disconnected. You do not understand, and that is why I am going to drill down into this experience with you and show you what I am talking about.”
At first, this felt like wading through concrete, but somewhere during the session something “clicked,” and Tom did begin to understand. He began to see the intimate connection between his thoughts/judgments and the results he was getting in the world.
It was a rough session for both of us, and yet it was so powerful. By the end, I could tell he was finally “seeing the Matrix.” His negative experience was not something “beyond his control” that was “happening to him.” It was an experience he was creating, moment by moment, with his own judgments. Now he could see it.
I was deeply thrilled to receive this email from Tom yesterday, just a few days after this powerful session #13:
Erika,
I feel great. Had an awesome night last night and met an amazing girl.
This is so interesting now. I am making a choice. Thank you. What you did on the last sessions has freed me. You are so strong, you dont flinch an inch even when I had a breakdown like I did a week ago. I have learned the value of that. Truly tough and truly love.
Send you lots of love back.
– Tom
As Tom continues to apply what I’ve taught him, he will soon see just how miraculous and amazing life was meant to be. This is the consistent result of this coaching, when applied with commitment.
As Shane (who finished up the 15-Week program about seven or so weeks ago) said in an email to me last week:
“The universe is an amazing place and so much is opening up for me. And I get to tap on any limiting beliefs that come up! Lol.” – Shane
Shane also reports that he has landed an amazing new job, which is one of the issues we addressed during his program.
There is no end to the miracles you will experience, when you transcend ego consciousness. I’d love to be your guide for this miraculous journey into your deepest Self.
Peace,
Erika Awakening
p.s. If you are interested in the profound life transformation that I create for my clients in the 15-Week Miracle Program, read this first and then email me at Erika@ErikaAwakening.com.