{"id":5685,"date":"2018-01-17T22:34:46","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T03:34:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/?p=5685"},"modified":"2018-01-17T22:34:46","modified_gmt":"2018-01-18T03:34:46","slug":"making-effort-grow-beyond-despair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2018\/01\/making-effort-grow-beyond-despair.html","title":{"rendered":"Making the Effort to Grow Beyond Despair"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When you know in your heart that you must keep going but your feet just aren\u2019t getting the message, self-understanding can open and carry you through doors that self-insistence cannot. The key to leaving behind our self-created and self-limited world is found in our willingness to keep going, even when it \u201cfeels\u201d like something bad is happening to us or that we\u2019re going \u201cnowhere fast.\u201d The idea of quitting or turning back is the unfortunate option that occurs only when we have an incomplete understanding of any given situation. This is where higher self-knowledge becomes so important for our real inner progress.<\/p>\n<p>Every sustained effort you make to grow beyond yourself\u2014to help effect a real change in your present level of consciousness\u2014brings up in you a host of negative thoughts and feelings that can\u2019t wait to point out the negatives as to why this can\u2019t be done. We\u2019ve all heard their whine within. They cry out, \u201cno way,\u201d \u201cwhy try?\u201d \u201ctoo tough\u201d\u2014on and on it goes. Unexamined, these inner voices appear to have our best interests in mind. But they lie, and to see the truth of this deception is vital in our quest for self-victory. We need only persist with our wish to wake up, let go, and know the truth of ourselves and\u2014in spite of their vigorous protest\u2014these same resistant reactions will be forced to reveal themselves as the hulking giants of fear and despair that they have always been! They are not your friends. In fact, their only appointed task is to see to it that you turn back. These fierce but fake fiends usually accomplish their task by making you believe that you can\u2019t go any further with them blocking the way.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the beauty and the secret way in which higher self-knowledge \u201crescues\u201d the one who actualizes it. You don\u2019t have to \u201cdo\u201d anything else. Your part in the process is done. All you need to do is to listen to the voice of truth and do what it tells you to do. Listen, now: you don\u2019t have to do anything about what tries to disturb you. You are safe in the conscious awareness of your fears. Now you know better than to run from one scary doubt right into the arms of another. Practice this lesson in perfecting higher patience in the trying moments of life. Remember that inner progress is not measured by what you do with any scary thoughts or feelings, but by how well you understand this new instruction: there is nothing that needs to be done with any dark state, except for you to stay awake and watchful. Whatever wants to frighten you or make you despair will eventually fade into the nothingness from out of which it came in the first place. Let the world inside of yourself go by. All you need do is to act from what you can see is true. Then, just like sunlight, victory comes to you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you know in your heart that you must keep going but your feet just aren\u2019t getting the message, self-understanding can open and carry you through doors that self-insistence cannot. The key to leaving behind our self-created and self-limited world is found in our willingness to keep going, even when it \u201cfeels\u201d like something bad&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[598,37,846,21,2967,385,844,489],"class_list":["post-5685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-negative-states","category-self-remembering-awareness","tag-despair","tag-fear","tag-limitations","tag-resistance","tag-scary-thoughts","tag-self-growth","tag-self-knowledge","tag-self-understanding"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Making the Effort to Grow Beyond Despair - 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\/2018\/01\/making-effort-grow-beyond-despair.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Making the Effort to Grow Beyond Despair - Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When you know in your heart that you must keep going but your feet just aren\u2019t getting the message, self-understanding can open and carry you through doors that self-insistence cannot. The key to leaving behind our self-created and self-limited world is found in our willingness to keep going, even when it \u201cfeels\u201d like something bad&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2018\/01\/making-effort-grow-beyond-despair.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=\"2018-01-18T03:34:46+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":"Making the Effort to Grow Beyond Despair - 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\/2018\/01\/making-effort-grow-beyond-despair.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Making the Effort to Grow Beyond Despair - Letting Go with Guy Finley","og_description":"When you know in your heart that you must keep going but your feet just aren\u2019t getting the message, self-understanding can open and carry you through doors that self-insistence cannot. The key to leaving behind our self-created and self-limited world is found in our willingness to keep going, even when it \u201cfeels\u201d like something bad&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2018\/01\/making-effort-grow-beyond-despair.html","og_site_name":"Letting Go with Guy Finley","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/","article_published_time":"2018-01-18T03:34:46+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\/2018\/01\/making-effort-grow-beyond-despair.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2018\/01\/making-effort-grow-beyond-despair.html","name":"Making the Effort to Grow Beyond Despair - Letting Go with Guy Finley","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-01-18T03:34:46+00:00","dateModified":"2018-01-18T03:34:46+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#\/schema\/person\/1e80afed42f91bae3eb4ca59666c1d16"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2018\/01\/making-effort-grow-beyond-despair.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2018\/01\/making-effort-grow-beyond-despair.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2018\/01\/making-effort-grow-beyond-despair.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Making the Effort to Grow Beyond Despair"}]},{"@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\/5685","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=5685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5686,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5685\/revisions\/5686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}