Why self-motivation can be counterproductive to your dreams
Laura Becker • 20 February 2024
It is important to become aware of the intention behind self-motivation
I remember I once heard Sadghuru, a spiritual master from India, say that “to motivate yourself” is nonsense
from the west.
And at first, it triggered me for some reason. At the same time, it invited me to look further and motivated me indeed to think about it and feel into it what it means. And for myself I concluded it has a valuable teaching and understanding and maybe it can help you too. Firstly, it depends on the situation or how you define it. Words can lead to misunderstandings easily.
I am not criticising others but rather looking deeply where we can improve including myself. Where we can enhance our understanding and perspectives. Here was what I was going through in my mind. If I constantly have to motivate myself it means I’m doing something I’m not passionate about. Our essence is joy, happiness, freedom, ease and flow.
What we are passionate and good at comes naturally. Imagine I love to paint, then I will always be passionate about painting. When there is a time when I do not feel passionate about painting, I do not do it. What’s the point of motivating myself into doing it? Who I do that for? Who do I prove myself?
It sparked a curiosity within me to look deeper in my life: Where do I need to push myself? And if I push or motivate myself, is it really what I want to do right now?
Because to be honest. There are two main reasons if I am not motivated to do something.
1) It’s not my highest passion and excitement what I do
2) There might be blocks or fears that prevent me from doing it right now
Instead of motivating and pushing myself I need to look into and heal or let that go what’s blocking me. We create a lot of push energy. Where we push ourselves and this may happen at the beginning when starting out with a new habit to a certain degree but when we push and push, it’s so exhausting, it causes stress and even burnout.
We might say we have bills to pay, children to feed and that is a fair point. But then we rather got to heal and look within what are my beliefs about money? My beliefs about a life mission? Why do I give my power away to an institution or company I do not like to work for? We think we do not have any power. We often feel like we are victims. But ironically, it’s the victim consciousness that keeps us stuck there. So many people as soon as they do the inner work and claim their power and do what they love, eventually they can even sort their finances out. Life sorts itself out eventually when you do the inner work.
And for myself for example I found that one of my talents for example is about about creative stuff. If I push myself to become an astronaut right now, and I motivate myself to study maths and physics because I might to do because it might bring me money and fame eventually, is it not a constant struggle leaving to unfulfillment? Because it’s not who I am and what comes naturally to me as my talents and interests.
So, if you struggle with motivation right now, maybe the questions I
asked myself can help you look deeper what is behind that the same way I did.
Two journal impulses for you about self-motivation
1) Does it really excite you from the heart what you do?
2) Is there just any blocks e.g. fear, resistance.
Then instead of motivating and pushing ourselves, it can be more serving to sit with it and look within.
I noticed it’s all about the intention behind it. Do we motivate ourselves because we hate what we do? Or motivate to become the best version and get up 15 min earlier. In the first case, the motivation is not really serving. It’s rather pushing against our own desires. It is our desires that lead us to our dreams and goals. If we do not do what we love, how shall we even come closer to our dreams and goals?
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Where’s home? Ever asked yourself that question? So did I. More than once. Recently I returned from a two-month stay in Southeast Asia. While it initially took me some time to adjust to the new environment, you kind of get used to the new culture, different ways of being, and their daily life. When I came back to what I refer to as my hometown, as in my "birthplace" where I grew up, it felt random. Yes, there was a sense of home of course. It felt familiar. And yet, you realize you’re not the old version of yourself. That can feel stressing. And there are two major possibilities that often happen. You either fall into the old traps or you feel like you need to move again or at least change something. You feel you can’t continue your life the way you did before you left it. This is mainly because you’re not the same version of yourself, you often feel the need of adjusting on the outside. What I realized in particular was how old clothes or even furniture no longer aligned. But it didn’t feel like a happy moment. Letting go of old versions of yourself feels like dying. You leave some old part of you behind. And while that moment can be disturbing or even challenging, you see how it has to happen. It’s part of life. You need to make room for the new. The only constant is change. I personally find this is an ongoing process. Not a one-time event. We undergo continuous changes, and with certain changes, the past cannot accompany us. In fact it binds us. It keeps us trapped in a way. Therefore, I have discovered that the only effective approach is to embrace the sadness. Allow the grief. Grieving old versions of ourselves can be a real thing. I remember when I was a young kid and I grieved that I outgrew my favorite trousers. It felt heartbreaking. And after you allow that sadness and give honor to your path and all your past selves that led you to where you are today, you come to a point where you find gratitude and a new lightness. Even if the path is not yet clear. Even if you have no idea where to head next, you know most likely you can’t continue the same way you always have. It just no longer feels aligned. I feel it doesn’t only happen in our individual lives but collectively too. Cultures and towns are changing, which requires adjustment. There’s a different time and different opportunities, but the old is gone. You can feel it in the air as if the ancestors' spirits echo. So after living or spending time abroad, you suddenly ask yourself, "Where's home?” When you move abroad, you're a foreigner in that new country. But after a longer stay abroad, you now even feel like a stranger in your home country. As much as many of us like travelling and spending time abroad, there can come a time you feel like settling down. But for people traveling and exploring the world, this can be frightening. Not because of staying in one particular place, but rather, to be confronted with the question: where is my home now ? I believe there’s not a right or wrong way when it comes to settling down or thinking about it. There’s only the way that works for you. And as with all in life, you sometimes have to try what works for you in particular. That can be different for each single one of us. What I’ve found for myself is this. Home is in the heart When you feel good with yourself, no matter where you go, you carry that warmth. You know how to be comfy even if your body temporarily feels uncomfy in the new environment. In the moment I wonder, "Where's my home?" without having a direct answer. I center within myself. I ground myself even deeper. Feeling the energy of a place Secondly, what I feel makes you come closer to the answer to that question is to perceive the energy of a place. Places carry energy too. That’s why some places feel light and others feel heavy. Some feel inspirational; others feel dull. So the atmosphere of an apartment can have a great impact on how you feel. Engage with the surrounding Thirdly, home is what you make out of it. It’s the people that make a place special. If you engage in life, initiate something, or open yourself up, your home takes on a new meaning. Stay where it feels good right now, it doesn't have to be forever Fourthly, it’s good to embrace a place as your home without feeling this has to be your forever place. This takes out the pressure. There can be such pressure of making the right or wrong decisions. Sometimes we’re pulled towards places, and they’re exactly where we need to be or what can teach us valuable lessons. Let your heart choose where it takes you next In times of social media and AI, there’s an increasing amount of loneliness arising. People mingle less. They meet less. There’s less art. While AI can have a lot of benefits for making our lives easier, it’s important not to lose our connection to ourselves. Not to lose the creativity. This is what shapes us. It’s not Alexa answering questions; it’s asking our heart the question: what feels good next? The more heart-aligned we are, the more we feel drawn to places, activities, and people that can give us a sense of belonging. Remind yourself you're a temporary visitor Yet, "Where's home?” sometimes remains almost a mystical question. Because on a deeper level, we’re here on Planet Earth temporarily. It’s not our true home. Some souls originate from other star systems or, in the end, from the ether. The nonphysical. That’s why on some days when I feel confused and ask myself, "Where's home?” I remind myself it’s deep in my heart. I’m reminded that I’m a temporary visitor, and instead of being sad or going into over-doubt, I try to remind myself to make the most out of the moment as long as I’m here. Planet Earth is my temporary home now. There’s something beautiful dissolving underneath. The attachment to a specific culture, identity, or place. You realize you’re neither this nor that. On a larger scale this helps you detach a little more from the strong human role and connect a little more to the soul that isn’t bound to a specific place or identity. Allow yourself to experience different versions of yourself Lastly, I remind myself of why I’m here. To experience different versions and identities of myself. I came here for the experience. And so I don’t have to stay the same all my life. It’s ok to let go of past versions. Even if sometimes it feels easier, sometimes it feels more hurtful. I always imagine how trees go through the same dying process each autumn. They drop their leaves. It made me become aware of how nature is so used to the dying process and letting go of the old. Only we humans sometimes hold on to so many things: old memories, old identities, old structures. Imagine nature would resist change the way a lot of humans do; we wouldn’t even have food. Focus on being more, not just doing more Being home reminds me to focus on being more instead of doing more. What people used to call “fear of missing out," referring to a phenomenon to engage in the latest trend, now has slowly turned into an emerging concept of “the joy of missing out." The question of being home reminds us it’s not always about exciting highs and moments that fill you with immense adrenaline; it can be a calm evening at home filled with nice music and candles knowing you're exactly at the right time at the right place. So if you’re currently also going through a period where you ask yourself, "Where's home?” Allow yourself to access deeper layers of yourself. While the grieving and dying process can be hurtful, most likely this process brings you to new realizations or a shift in the way you do, think, and perceive things. Every time I feel off in a place, I make myself become aware that it’s a perfect moment to anchor deeper. To connect a little deeper to my soul instead of my human identity. One day, this whole life fades in the blink of an eye, and all there is is the memory. So let’s fill it with rich experiences and memories and appreciate that each year has its memories. Did you ever experience déjà vu in another country? Like you felt you had been there before? That’s not random. There can be past life connections. I share more about how traveling made me remember my past lives in various countries. And that can contribute to the fact that you may feel so inspirational in some countries and so dull in other towns. Stay tuned.
Today I want to give you a deeper perspective on the deeper meaning behind diseases and how you can rewire your subconscious mind to kind of heal the root cause of diseases. What's happening these days is that a lot of people, when they are faced with a disease or they get a diagnosis, get into fear and panic. And this is a normal reaction. And what is happening on planet Earth is that a lot of people are treating the symptoms. And they're just looking at one main question: How can I get rid of the disease? And they treat the symptoms, which is not a bad thing, obviously. But a lot of people miss the deeper meaning, what it actually caused. They miss the valuable question: What caused the disease? If you kind of miss the deeper meaning, there are many different things that can happen. There’s a higher likelihood that the disease will return a couple of years later or that you may develop another disease because it can shift to another organ or body part if it is not eliminated subconsciously. Sometimes, you face the consequences of a surgery that left you unhappy, and you're dealing with the consequences if it went wrong or resulted in a lower quality of life. Many people are unhappy with their surgery or treatment. That's why I want to share what I have learned during my journey with diseases, especially for those like me who are seeking deeper answers. A disease is not bad luck. It's basically your body talking to you. Your body is signaling that something is at dis-ease, not at ease. And today I want to show you that from an energetic perspective. We have to understand that everything in this universe works in energy. This is not esoteric, it's physics. Understanding this concept can help you a lot when dealing with diseases. So from my personal understanding, diseases only exist in a certain level of consciousness, on a certain energy vibration. Let's say your reality is a bit like a radio sender or a TV sender. You know, when you switch on the TV, you watch a special movie, or you're presented a reality. It doesn't mean that this is the only reality, the only movie, but you are tuned into the frequency right now. If you don't like what you're seeing, you need to switch the sender to have another experience, let’s say, watch a different movie. Like let's say you want to watch a comedy, which means you want to have more fun in life or you want to experience health. That's why the true healing is not treating the symptoms but the root cause. It’s linked to energy. You need to look at what caused it. And it's usually old patterns. It's something like trauma. It's low energy. It's some inner stuff you haven't processed. And that keeps you in that reality, in that vibration where diseases are possible. If you switch your energy to a higher vibration, let's say you rewire your subconscious mind and you kind of neutralize the trauma and the emotions from within, and you move into a state of joy and following your heart and reconnecting with yourself, well, guess what? Your body or your cells, which are the transmitters for consciousness, adjust to your new vibration, and they can actually kind of recover more quickly. And this is what happens when you sometimes see people who heal overnight, and it seems like a miracle. But in truth, they might have such a deep energetic shift, like something like an identity shift, or where they release something, that suddenly when they release this old pain and trauma, the body kind of recovers so quickly that the symptoms fade. And this phenomenon is the kind of thing I would not even say it's magic; it’s the result of shifting energies within you. Sometimes when you shed old trauma or emotions, it can feel very dark. It's not that you feel good. It can feel like you're moving through hell internally. But that is the true healing or how you can actually really treat the root cause. Because if you treat the root cause, then you might even get the surgery to have that thing removed. It doesn't matter, or at least it doesn't mean you can't get surgery. But if you know the root cause, at least it doesn't come back because it's kind of neutralized. The lesson is learned. Otherwise, if you only treat the symptoms without addressing the underlying energetic patterns that led to your experience, you may still have energetic resonance points, as everything operates on energy. So later, this trauma kind of haunts you like, you know, it's not gone. This is because the subconscious mind works a bit like a computer. If you have some old beliefs, it's just like some old files on a computer. You might not see them. You might forget about these old files. You might not think about the past or go like, "Oh, I have emotional trauma.” That's not how it works. It's not conscious, but it's running in the background, so to speak. And this can cause you to repeat the experience and the lessons. Sometimes you see people that after a couple of months, they have another disease, or let's say they first had problems with their legs, and then they treated the symptoms. And then later they have problems with the heart because the trauma or the deeper meaning was not healed. You know what I mean? That's why it's really important, or what I personally see as a big opportunity for humanity, to look a bit deeper and to go into energetic healing, which doesn't mean you can never make use of school medicine. Of course you can. But to really treat the root cause of the disease, look a bit deeper and become curious about what your body is trying to teach you. Because otherwise, if you just treat the symptoms and then you go back to your old reality, please be aware that your old reality where you are right now brought you to that disease. So obviously you cannot go back in there because you risk having another disease, you know? So you need to change. Remember that example that I mentioned with the radio or the TV? You need to kind of shift the sender. In other words, you need to shift your energy from within so that in the future it might not happen again. And when you do that, you can actually experience the true healing from within. That’s the kind of beauty about it. And also sometimes what's unknown to society, which is kind of kept secret, because obviously some entities have interests that are not in the best interest of society. There are some people on Planet Earth who make a lot of money from surgery, pills, and that kind of stuff. And you know what? Changing your energy from within is free. Like, you have to imagine that it's free. You can do this right here and right now. You can start right here and right now. And you basically, if you know some of the tools, you don't even need someone outside. You don't even need to spend thousands of Euros. You know what I mean? Like, this is why sometimes it's not known to the masses. I’m aware some people are doubting energy work. Some people might say that it's not working and it's all made up. However, it is important to note that science has confirmed that everything in this universe is made up of energy. So it's not even esoteric. It's physics. It's already proved by science. And secondly, people can't see electricity. You can't see electricity. So you can't basically see electricity, which gives you a picture on your TV, but you're not doubting it because you see the image on TV. And that's what I always say. You don't have to believe me or believe anyone. You just try it out. Try changing your energy and observe how your external circumstances actually change. Because that's the only way you can know. Like, a lot of people don't believe it, or some believe it and others don't. But believing is not knowing. How can you truly know if something works for you? You need to try it out and see the results for yourself. And as soon as you have like first successes, you realize, oh, this is kind of interesting. And that's why I always say don't believe in anything like that. Just try it out. If you're currently going through a disease, learn to change your energy from within and just see what happens. This is not a guarantee to heal your disease straight away, although nothing is impossible. When you change your energy from within, you feel and see things differently than when you're in complete fear or just treating the symptoms. And that's a message I wanted to share and just raise some awareness that there are in fact other possibilities.