“The mind is an iceberg. It floats with only one-seventh of its bulk above water.”—
Sigmund Freud
In the autumn of 2012, I conducted a group coaching program to help people overcome procrastination. Four people “met” with me on a conference telephone line for an hour at a time for six consecutive weeks. In week number two, one participant reported on a feeling that was taking her over and confused her. It was a feeling that she characterized as “off balance.”
She was crying more, and felt more confused.
She shared this after discussing the progress that she had made on her long-unattended attic. She had followed my advice to the letter, and spent 40 minutes a day, every other day, clearing the long-neglected room. So, considering the progress that she had made in dealing with the attic, and considering the progress that she had made in feeling much better about herself for acting like a responsible adult on the attic, why did she feel off balance?
I told her that it was due to the Principle of Healing. “Principle of Healing?” she asked. The principle states that “Progress brings up everything unlike itself for the purpose of release and healing.” The principle holds true for other positive qualities that could be substituted for progress, such as love, truth, affirmation, and so forth.
A licensed massage therapist—and one who has been much more successful at that than she had been up until then with her attic—she understood the principle when I related it to how healing takes place with body work. Often, the person on the table of a masseuse, I explained, will sometimes feel more pain as the therapist relieves tension in the neck than she had felt prior to hopping on the table. That’s because the masseuse’s attention on the neck brings up all the gnarly tension and pain for release and healing.
As my group coaching client affirmed her higher nature by being a responsible adult with regard to her attic, all of those lower-self thoughts she had about herself for being an irresponsible procrastinator were being released as a by-product of a healing process. I also reminded the therapist that some of the papers she was dealing with in the attic had a kind of energy about them; in fact, it was because of this that she had locked them away in the attic in the first place. The artifacts of deceased loved ones also carry strong energy, as do things you might have owned during a previous marriage or relationship.
As a person physically handles paperwork, photographs, and other things that contain such energy, it’s likely that he or she may feel somewhat drained by the examination of such material. My advice to people who are overcoming the procrastination that has sealed such papers and things from their lives: treat yourself very gently during the process. Take long walks, long baths, etc. Meditate, pray, see friends and loved ones, watch videos that inspire you, read books that lift your spirit, swim, get exercise that stimulates rather than drains you. This is the time that some chocolate or pints of Ben and Jerry’s creamy ice cream can come in mighty handy.