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

This wasn't the truth, but to a little child, 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 a 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.

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

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

Any circumstance that reactivates this hurt is subconsciously perceived as a threat that must be avoided at all cost. To protect yourself from this threat, you automatically fight, resist, hang on and withdraw.

This fighting and resisting then creates a state of fear, upset and tunnel vision that sabotages your life. You destroy love and create opposition and resistance against yourself.

Any area of your life that doesn't work can be traced to the automatic, subconscious avoidance of this hurt. It is responsible for all your self-sabotaging behavior and all your suffering.

The irony is that the more you fight these feelings of being not okay, the stronger they become and the more they run your life. Everything you do to avoid this hurt actually creates more of the very hurt that you are avoiding.

To see how this works, be sure and read the examples at the end of this section.

By avoiding these feelings, you give them power. Here is a short exercise that demonstrates this:

Imagine four large yellow balloons on the ceiling above you, but don't think about them. Whatever you do, don't think about those four large yellow balloons on the ceiling above you. You just thought about them. Don't do that.

Notice what happens when you try not to think about the yellow balloons. You keep thinking about them. In fact, you can hardly think about anything else. Your resisting keeps the thought alive.

The same is true with the hurt of feeling worthless, not good enough, or whatever your core issue is. Ultimately, these feelings are only thoughts, but by resisting the thought of being this way, you give the thought power and carry it with you day after day.

It's not true that you are worthless or whatever, it's just a hurt. But it's a hurt that we will do almost anything to avoid feeling. It's the avoidance of this hurt that gives it power.

To heal this hurt and to be free inside, you need to do the opposite of fighting it. Find the specific hurt that you have been running from and make peace with that part of you. Feel the hurt of being that way and let the hurt come and let it go.

Get to the place where you can say, "Yes, I'm worthless. So What? I'm also worthy. I'm both." As you do this, the hurt loses power and disappears.

The first step in the healing process is to find as specifically as possible, what the hurt is. The best way to do this is to look at your upsets.

Make a list of all the major upsets that you've had in your life. Then find the hurt that's under each one. Go back in time to the moment each upset began and ask yourself this question: "According to the hurt, on an emotional level, what do those circumstances say about me?"

If someone leaves you, this may say that you are not worth loving. If you lose your job, this may say that you are a failure. Find the words of "not okay" that hurt the most.

Don't look to see if you are this way, because you're not. Look to see if it would be painful if you were. The more painful the words or the more you want to deny them, the closer you are to your hurt. For most people, the bottom line hurt is worthless.

While you are looking, you may discover several core issues. For example, you may have the hurt of worthless and also the hurt of failure and not worth loving. Find the words that hurt the most.

As you work with your upsets you will discover that the same hurt keeps showing up in your life, over and over. This is the hurt that runs your life.

See a list of common core issues.

After you find the specific hurt that you've been running from, the next step is to do the opposite of fighting it, which is to face it and then make peace with it.

Allow yourself to feel the hurt of being this way. Feel the hurt willingly like a child. Reach in and pull it out. Cry this hurt as hard as you can. Fake the tears if you need to. Let the hurt come and let it go.

Then, while you are feeling your hurt, look over your life and see all the evidence to prove that this is indeed an aspect of you.

Find the evidence to prove that you are worthless, not good enough, not worth loving, a failure or whatever else you've been avoiding. Each time you have been upset will be more proof that you are this way.

Remember, this isn't true in reality. This is only true in the realm of thinking and emotion, but in this realm, you are both worthy and worthless. One moment you feel one way and in the next moment you feel the other way.

Worthy and worthless are two sides of the same coin. If you look at your life from the side of the coin called worthy, there will be a ton of evidence to prove how worthy you are. If you look at your life from the side of the coin called worthless, there will be a ton of evidence to prove that as well.

So put yourself in the hurt of the side of the coin called worthless, not good enough, or whatever your core issue is. Then look over your life and see all the evidence to prove that you really are this way.

The evidence will be there if you are willing to see it. It has to be. It wouldn't keep showing up in your life if it wasn't there. You don't have to like it. You just have to tell the truth about it. Let it in.

Allow yourself to feel the hurt of being this way and see all the evidence to prove that this is an aspect of you. The more you let in the “fact” that this is an aspect of you, the more impossible it is to run from it.

When you can't run from it, you can't fight it. When you can't fight it, you take away it’s power. It's just like the yellow balloons. If you stop fighting them and let them be there, they go away.

As you heal this hurt, your whole life then 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. You become creative far more effective. In relationships, you can end the conflict and restore the love, one human being to another.

The process for finding and healing this hurt is very simple and very fast, but it takes more than just an understanding of how it works. It's important to actually walk through the healing process.

The best way to find and heal this hurt is to schedule a Consulting Session with Bill Ferguson. Consulting sessions can be done by telephone or in person.

The second best way is for you to do the Mastery Of Life Audio Course or attend Bill's weekend workshop, Return To The Heart. You can also read Bill's book, Get Your Power Back. To start the healing process now, download the audio course and book.

Make sure you do this work. Healing this hurt is one of the most important things you can ever do. Give us a call at 713-520-5370 if you want more information.

The following examples will give you more insight into how this hurt sabotages your life. Be sure and read them.

Go to the next section.

Example 1

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 it became her truth. She would then spend the rest of her life running from this hurt.

To avoid this hurt, Rhonda would interact in a way that would sabotage all of her relationships. Anytime something implied that she wasn't worth loving, she would become full of fear and upset. She would try to control life and force people to be a certain way.

No matter how hard the men in her life tried, they could never treat Rhonda "worth loving" enough. She would constantly get upset about one thing or another.

She would also hang on to the men in her life. She had to, because if someone left, that would trigger all her hurt. To avoid this hurt she hung on.

Rhonda was so hard to live with, she pushed everyone away.

Finally, after her third and most painful divorce, she noticed that there was a pattern in her life. She realized that she must have something to do with her relationship problems. This was the point when Rhonda's life turned around.

It wasn't hard for Rhonda to see that "not worth loving" was an aspect of her. She spent her entire life running from this, but now the hurt was so much in her face, she could no longer deny it. The evidence was overwhelming.

As she owned this aspect of herself and allowed herself to cry, the hurt that ran her life began to fade away. She then realized that "not worth loving" was just part of being human. What a wonderful freedom.

"I'm not worth loving, how great. Now I don't have to prove to myself and to everyone else that I am worth loving. Now I can just be me." She started laughing once she saw the joke that she had been playing on herself.

From that moment on, the hurt had lost its power.

Rhonda was then able to go on and find the relationship of her dreams, and most importantly, she was able to keep it.

Example 2

Mark spent his life running from the hurt of failure, trying to become a success.

In his attempt to avoid the hurt of failure, he would overspend and take unreasonable financial risks. He lived in a state of fear and upset. He lost his ability to see clearly and he interacted in a way that continued to produce more failure.

Finally, he failed so big, he was forced to face this aspect of himself. He lost everything. He lost his property, his office and even his home. Failure was in his face like never before.

Then there was a moment when Mark let in what a failure he was. He looked over his life and saw one failure after another.

Mark was forced to let in what he had feared the most. He was a failure. He could no longer avoid or deny it. Success was also an aspect of Mark, but at the moment, all he could see was failure.

This was a very painful time for Mark, but the moment he let in what a failure he was, something shifted inside. His fear of failure lost its power. How can you run from something that is always there? It's like running from your shadow. You can't.

Mark was sad for a while but soon his whole outlook toward life seemed to change. The fear and upset that ran his life was no longer there. He no longer had to be a success. For the first time in many years, Mark was able to be himself. What an incredible relief!

With the fear of failure gone, Mark was able to put his focus on creating a life that worked. He stopped overspending and got out of debt.

He continued to go for his dreams, but he did so in a way that worked. As time went on, his dreams began to come true. Now he has a life that he could never have imagined before.

Mark's life turned around the moment he made peace with failure.

Go to the next section.