When you were a young child, you were pure love. You were happy, alive and free. This is the essence of who you are. This is your natural state.

Unfortunately, you were born into a world that suppresses this state. Instead of being born into a world that is loving and supportive, you were born into a world that is critical and harsh.

Before long, you experienced invalidation, rejection and painful losses of love. You felt this hurt from your parents, your friends and the world around you.

As a little child, the only way you could explain this loss of love was to blame yourself. In a moment of hurt, you decided that you were worthless, not good enough, not worth loving, a failure, or in some other way, not okay.

This wasn't the truth, but in the eyes of a child, this became your truth. This was the only explanation that made any sense at the time.

You then hated the very notion that you created. "No one can ever love me if I'm worthless. Worthless is a horrible way to be."

The moment you bought the notion that you were not okay, you created an internal mechanism, or core issue, that would then sabotage the rest of your life. From that moment on, the underlying focus of your life would be to avoid this hurt.

A good way to see this hurt is to notice what happens the moment you get upset. Notice the immediate and powerful surge of feelings and emotion that come forth. This is the hurt that runs your life.

You may never notice this hurt, but it is certainly there. It determines your actions and shapes your life.

The automatic avoidance of this hurt also forces you to act in a way that creates all sorts of suffering.

Whenever something comes along that reactivates this hurt, you feel threatened. In an instinctive attempt to avoid this hurt, you fight and resist.

This automatic fighting and resisting then creates a state of fear and upset that destroys your effectiveness and almost always makes your situation worse.

You get upset and close down inside. You lose your creativity and your ability to see clearly. You get tunnel vision. All you can do is fight, resist, hang on or withdraw.

This state of resisting then destroys love and creates opposition and resistance against yourself. Instead of having your life work, you make your life more difficult.

Without knowing, you interact in a way that actually creates more of the very hurt that you are avoiding.

Here is an example that illustrates this:

When Rhonda was growing up, her father was so occupied with his work that he seldom paid any attention to her. When he did pay attention, he would yell at her. She felt totally unloved.

As a result, Rhonda couldn't help but adopt the belief that she wasn't worth loving. This wasn't the truth, but this became a hurt that she would run from for the rest of her life.

To avoid this hurt, Rhonda would interact in a way that would sabotage all of her relationships.

She was so afraid of being alone and feeling her hurt that she never had the patience to find the person who was right for her. She would settle for anyone who was half-way acceptable. As a result, none of her relationships worked.

Even if she found the perfect person, she would get upset over and over because the other person wouldn't treat her a certain way or wouldn't give her enough love and attention.

She would also hang on to the person. She would hang on because, if the person left, she would have to face even more hurt. Her hanging on would then push the person even further away.

Eventually, all the men in her life would leave. Rhonda did everything she could to be worth loving, but everything she did to avoid her hurt created more of it.

The same thing happens to every one of us. The specifics are different, but the process is the same.

Every one of us has a hurt that runs our life. For one person, this is the hurt of feeling inadequate, a failure or not worth loving. For another, it's the hurt of feeling not good enough, worthless or some other form of not okay.

It's the automatic, subconscious avoidance of this hurt that creates the suffering in our lives. Any aspect of your life that doesn't work can be traced to this hurt.

The avoidance of this hurt is responsible for virtually all your fear and all your upsets. It is responsible for all your conflict and all your self-sabotaging behavior.

To resolve the areas of your life that don't work, and to have your life be as great as it can be, you need to find and heal this hurt.

Once you heal this hurt, your whole life begins to change. Instead of creating a life of fear and upset, you create a life of love.

You restore the happiness, the freedom and the aliveness that you once had. You see life clearly and you become far more effective.

You can then create a life that works for you instead of against you.

The process of finding and healing your hurt is very simple and very fast. This book will show you how. All you need is the desire to be free.

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ACTION TO TAKE

1. Make a list of the areas of your life that don't work. Where do you suffer?

2. Any area of your life that doesn't work will be an area where you feel threatened. To avoid this threat, you automatically fight, resist, hang on or withdraw. Notice the fear and upset that exists in these areas of life.

3. See if you can find the hurt that is under your fear and upset. What do these areas of life imply or suggest about you? Do they say that you are worthless, not good enough, not worth loving or a failure?

4. Now recall the hurt that you experienced as a child. Notice that this hurt is the same hurt that runs your life today.

5. Are you willing to be free of this hurt? Are you willing to create a life that works better than anything you ever dreamed possible? If you are, use this book to learn how. Make sure you do the various exercises.

Visit our bookstore.

Download books and CDs.

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