{"id":95,"date":"2010-10-29T06:53:57","date_gmt":"2010-10-29T06:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lettinggo\/2010\/10\/stop-hiding-the-things-that-haunt-you.html"},"modified":"2010-10-29T06:53:57","modified_gmt":"2010-10-29T06:53:57","slug":"stop-hiding-the-things-that-haunt-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2010\/10\/stop-hiding-the-things-that-haunt-you.html","title":{"rendered":"Stop Hiding the Things That Haunt You"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>We all have things inside of us that we fear: haunting thoughts and dark feelings we sense are down there, but that we&#8217;d rather not face for fear they may drag us down into their domain. So instead of questioning any of them, we let them work in the dark while we go out of our way to avoid becoming aware of them. And so it goes. Our lives are unconsciously directed by the invisible hosts dwelling in our internal haunted house. Who are these unseen goblins whose presence we know but upon whose faces we won&#8217;t look? Think about it for yourself! Isn&#8217;t anger a demon? Our discomfort at being alone a gloomy specter? And what about that phantom fear of growing old? Instead of looking at these internal chain-rattling entities to see whether or not they really have any power to hurt us, we keep them out of sight. We walk the other way whenever we distract ourselves from some unwanted condition or blame some outside cause for the way we feel.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div>There&#8217;s more. Hidden down in the same uninvestigated depths of ourselves are beliefs that we hesitate to examine: our theories about God and reality, about what our true place is in the universe. Most of us have few ideas of our own, relying mostly on what we&#8217;ve taken from others, from books we&#8217;ve read, or things we&#8217;ve heard from seemingly knowledgeable people. So, we&#8217;re reluctant to examine the validity of these ideas, thinking that if they were proven wrong it would be the same as finding ourselves wrong, and then we&#8217;d lose the foundation of our lives. It&#8217;s one of Truth&#8217;s greatest paradoxes, but exactly the opposite of our entrenched fear holds true: admitting we don&#8217;t know these things from ourselves is the first step toward real knowing and a real life. The extraordinary thing is that, to our present nature, it all seems easier to just ignore these inner issues. Here again, just the opposite holds true: it&#8217;s the tip-toeing around our own uncertainty and self-confusion that makes our lives so very complicated, and often incomprehensible. Yet, something within us prefers the resulting difficulty to facing what we fear.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>As long as we accept ideas about ourselves and our lives from others, and do not do the work of investigating for ourselves, even our comforting ideas will not be a real help in a crisis. We will always be afraid that something incomprehensible and all-powerful is lurking below the surface. Only the truths that we know from ourselves can sustain us through any storm. We are defeated because we are acting on the basis of artificial truth &#8212; false ideas that we never examine and that rarely change based on the lessons of experience. But, when we discover the Truth for ourselves and let it teach us how to react correctly, we will, always be victorious.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We all have things inside of us that we fear: haunting thoughts and dark feelings we sense are down there, but that we&#8217;d rather not face for fear they may drag us down into their domain. So instead of questioning any of them, we let them work in the dark while we go out of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3,8,7],"tags":[56,37,46,242,243],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enlightenment-self-realization","category-fear-fearlessness","category-negative-states","category-self-remembering-awareness","tag-darkness","tag-fear","tag-negative-states-2","tag-past-events","tag-self-investigation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Stop Hiding the Things That Haunt You - 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\/2010\/10\/stop-hiding-the-things-that-haunt-you.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stop Hiding the Things That Haunt You - Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We all have things inside of us that we fear: haunting thoughts and dark feelings we sense are down there, but that we&#8217;d rather not face for fear they may drag us down into their domain. So instead of questioning any of them, we let them work in the dark while we go out of&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2010\/10\/stop-hiding-the-things-that-haunt-you.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=\"2010-10-29T06:53:57+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":"Stop Hiding the Things That Haunt You - 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\/2010\/10\/stop-hiding-the-things-that-haunt-you.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Stop Hiding the Things That Haunt You - Letting Go with Guy Finley","og_description":"We all have things inside of us that we fear: haunting thoughts and dark feelings we sense are down there, but that we&#8217;d rather not face for fear they may drag us down into their domain. So instead of questioning any of them, we let them work in the dark while we go out of&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2010\/10\/stop-hiding-the-things-that-haunt-you.html","og_site_name":"Letting Go with Guy Finley","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/","article_published_time":"2010-10-29T06:53:57+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\/2010\/10\/stop-hiding-the-things-that-haunt-you.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2010\/10\/stop-hiding-the-things-that-haunt-you.html","name":"Stop Hiding the Things That Haunt You - Letting Go with Guy Finley","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-10-29T06:53:57+00:00","dateModified":"2010-10-29T06:53:57+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#\/schema\/person\/1e80afed42f91bae3eb4ca59666c1d16"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2010\/10\/stop-hiding-the-things-that-haunt-you.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2010\/10\/stop-hiding-the-things-that-haunt-you.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2010\/10\/stop-hiding-the-things-that-haunt-you.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Stop Hiding the Things That Haunt You"}]},{"@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\/95","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=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}