From The Frying Pan Into The Fire

Years ago, a friend of mine planned to move from one job to another because she didn't feel valued in the one she had. Since I was afraid she hadn't dealt with the reason she'd attracted the original job and feeling of being mistreated, I wondered if changing jobs was a good idea. She asserted that her new boss would recognize her worth. A few months later, she was complaining how her new boss treated her worse than her old one. When we don't deal with the underlying, emotional cause that attracted a difficult situation into our lives, then we'll get to experience it again. There's an old saying "Those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it." We can escape one challenging life experience just to find that we've jumped into one that's even more difficult. As long as we continue to run away from the feelings and conditions which brings these events into our lives, we'll attract worse ones. 12-Step programs recognize this. If the partner of an alcoholic runs away from the relationship without doing any inner work, generally they'll wind up in a relationship with another alcoholic. This is because they haven't dealt with the original issues that attracted them to the first alcoholic. The idea holds true for any association. Someone who ends a suffocating relationship without realizing why they were with that person in the first place very likely will attract someone similar. I don't advocate anyone stay in an abusive relationship or situation until the lesson is learned. Having the courage to leave and recognizing your own worth may be part of the lesson. But if a person moves from one abusive relationship to another, this sets up a pattern. Inner work needs to be done, once they're in a safe place, to address the emotional, mental cause. The Universe keeps bringing the issue to our attention. If we ignore it, or try to run away, the issue will pick up steam. It grows on the energy we use to attempt to escape it. The more we avoid dealing with the underlying thought, the more power we give it. A person who hates to deal with authority will continue to do so until they understand and release their original cause of the hatred. They'll have power-hungry bosses, they might experience more than the usual number of encounters with the police, or they might have trouble with their landlord. The emotions they hold about the issue keep attracting it to them. And it won't go away until they resolve it. There have to be changes in belief, attitude and behavior before the condition will be released. For instance, the person who hates authority would meditate on the reasons why they hate authority. Did they experience someone who abused power in the past? If so, what idea did they accept about authority and power? Do they feel like the authority figure is trying to control them? If they feel disempowered, they can remember that they own their power, and they must decide whether to keep it or give it away. Suppose someone used authority to hurt them in their childhood, and the only way they survived was to resist. They can now understand that they don't have to do that now to survive. The solution to a problem is to figure out how they 'feel' about the situation and find a way to think differently about it. Once a person can make the changes in belief and attitude, changes in behavior generally happen automatically. To help change the behavior, a person can decide how they want to respond in a situation and mentally rehearse new actions. Using self-hypnosis to re-train old patterns would make the change much quicker. In self-hypnosis or meditation, imagine the situation with the new responses. For the friend who changed jobs, she had to learn how to say "no" and value herself. She practiced it in her mind before she actually expressed it verbally. Eventually, she got a job with a boss she really liked, who treated her as a partner, and encouraged her to open her own business. As she found out, when the original issue has been resolved, miracles can happen.