{"id":3250,"date":"2014-04-01T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T16:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/?p=3250"},"modified":"2014-03-30T20:20:32","modified_gmt":"2014-03-31T00:20:32","slug":"dont-be-fooled-by-negativity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/04\/dont-be-fooled-by-negativity.html","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Be Fooled by Negativity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Question:<\/strong> Can you briefly state an effective way to use feelings of discouragement for spiritual growth?<\/p>\n

Answer:<\/strong> You may have this backwards. We don\u2019t use clouds to realize the sun. When the clouds are gone, the sun is there. Discouragement is a lying, negative state that drags us into it because we get something out of the relationship. When we end our relationship with what is false, lo and behold the True appears. That\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n

Question:<\/strong> You have said that a person must become thoroughly dissatisfied with his or her life as it presently is in order to move beyond it. My question is, how do we prevent this dissatisfaction from becoming despondency, which hinders spiritual growth?<\/p>\n

Answer:<\/strong> This is a good question because many of us are already secretly reliant upon feelings of defeat or other destructive self-states. The difference between dissatisfaction with self as it manifests and becoming despondent over these expressions is that we must awaken to how unsatisfactory it is, how draining it feels to despond over anything. Negative states have to go\u2026 period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question: Can you briefly state an effective way to use feelings of discouragement for spiritual growth? Answer: You may have this backwards. We don\u2019t use clouds to realize the sun. When the clouds are gone, the sun is there. Discouragement is a lying, negative state that drags us into it because we get something out…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[672,8],"tags":[1882,1297,155,1883,118,774,13,67],"class_list":["post-3250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-changetransformation","category-negative-states","tag-april-fools","tag-defeat","tag-depression","tag-despondency","tag-discouragement","tag-dissatisfaction","tag-negativity","tag-spiritual-growth"],"yoast_head":"\nDon't Be Fooled by Negativity - Letting Go with Guy Finley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/04\/dont-be-fooled-by-negativity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Don't Be Fooled by Negativity - Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Question: Can you briefly state an effective way to use feelings of discouragement for spiritual growth? Answer: You may have this backwards. We don\u2019t use clouds to realize the sun. When the clouds are gone, the sun is there. Discouragement is a lying, negative state that drags us into it because we get something out…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/04\/dont-be-fooled-by-negativity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-04-01T16:00:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-03-31T00:20:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@guy_finley\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Don't Be Fooled by Negativity - Letting Go with Guy Finley","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/04\/dont-be-fooled-by-negativity.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Don't Be Fooled by Negativity - Letting Go with Guy Finley","og_description":"Question: Can you briefly state an effective way to use feelings of discouragement for spiritual growth? Answer: You may have this backwards. We don\u2019t use clouds to realize the sun. When the clouds are gone, the sun is there. Discouragement is a lying, negative state that drags us into it because we get something out…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/04\/dont-be-fooled-by-negativity.html","og_site_name":"Letting Go with Guy Finley","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/","article_published_time":"2014-04-01T16:00:56+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-03-31T00:20:32+00:00","author":"Guy Finley","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@guy_finley","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/04\/dont-be-fooled-by-negativity.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/04\/dont-be-fooled-by-negativity.html","name":"Don't Be Fooled by Negativity - Letting Go with Guy Finley","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-04-01T16:00:56+00:00","dateModified":"2014-03-31T00:20:32+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#\/schema\/person\/1e80afed42f91bae3eb4ca59666c1d16"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/04\/dont-be-fooled-by-negativity.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/04\/dont-be-fooled-by-negativity.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/04\/dont-be-fooled-by-negativity.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Don’t Be Fooled by Negativity"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/","name":"Letting Go with Guy Finley","description":"Holistic, Mental Health and Emotional Wellness","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#\/schema\/person\/1e80afed42f91bae3eb4ca59666c1d16","name":"Guy Finley","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/308\/3082f4cd4990377da62358c5c69fd4e1x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/308\/3082f4cd4990377da62358c5c69fd4e1x96.jpg","caption":"Guy Finley"},"description":"Bestselling \"Letting Go\" author Guy Finley's encouraging and accessible message is one of the true bright lights in our world today. His ideas cut straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues - relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom - and lead the way to a higher life. Finley is the Founder and Director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit Center for Spiritual Discovery. He is the acclaimed author of \"The Secret of Letting Go\" and more than 45 other books and audio programs that have sold over two million copies in 26 languages worldwide. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and religious leaders of all denominations. Through Life of Learning Foundation, Guy has presented over 5,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 20 years and has been a guest on over 700 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and NPR. The Foundation's popular Key Lesson e-mails featuring inspirational quotes by Guy are read each week by a hundred thousand subscribers in 142 countries. Guy speaks four times each week on inner-life principles at Life of Learning Foundation's home in Merlin, Oregon. These meetings are ongoing and open to the public. For more information about Life of Learning Foundation, Guy Finley, and their life-changing messages, visit guyfinley.org. \"Guy Finley is...one of the leading experts at the forefront of human potential.\" -Nightingale Conant \"Guy Finley has helped millions live fuller, more peaceable lives.\" -Barnes and Noble","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.guyfinley.org","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/","https:\/\/x.com\/guy_finley"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/author\/gfinley"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3251,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3250\/revisions\/3251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}