I used to think behavior modification was my friend.  It was all I had.  Then I realized something about it. Behavior modification is a big method of shoulding on myself.

I should do this. I shouldn’t do that. I better do this. I better do that. This is good. This is bad.

It just keeps the judgments and opinions cycling and circulating so intensely.

There’s no healing involved.

Healing happens at the level of the mind – not behavior.

I’m not saying it’s wrong or bad.  Behavior modification is the ego’s way of working. It’s a form of managing and coping.  If it’s all you have, maybe it’s something.

Notice the name:  behavior modification.

It doesn’t say anything about healing in there, does it? It doesn’t say anything about transcending or transmuting the patterns and eliminating them.

Modification isn’t healing.

If behavior modification is all we’re willing to do, it’ll decrease the intensity of shame that acting out brings.

Yet the shame and the pain of revisiting those patterns, re-energizing them, which is often the very result of behavior modification, all that suffering becomes a motivator.  Many people use behavior modification and then their beliefs compel them to act out and that results in more shame and blame.

So, here’s what I wonder – what motivates us?

Does our suffering motivate us to do something different?  Or does the vision and the possibility of our healing motivate us?

The ego motivates with pain.

The pain and suffering will ultimately motivate us to choose love, to choose healing, to choose forgiveness. Ultimately it will.  It might take many lifetimes before we’re motivated enough to change our mind.

I think of the great author and teacher, John Brandshaw, who wrote about his own shame from having had a drinking problem that was pretty epic.  Ultimately it was the shame that got him to change his mind and sober up.

In my End My Self-Sabotage Program, we move into the vision of our Holy Christ Self motivating us instead. It’s far more effective, much more interesting, much more joyful, and it works much faster.

I’ve watched hundreds of people dedicate themselves to working spiritual principle, working in the invisible, rather than managing and coping.

They experience profound healing. Expansion. Clarity. Freedom. Joy.

It’s real healing, and it’s lasting healing.

I know both roads personally. I’ve had negative patterns that held me like a prisoner in a cage, and I’ve had them transmuted.

So why would we ever choose behavior modification when permanent healing is available?  That’s the thing we’re interested in.  We can have lasting healing.  I know.  I’ve experienced it.  I never thought it was possible for me until I really committed to working the principles of A Course in Miracles.

We’re done modifying. We’re healing.

My End My Self-Sabotage program is six weeks of getting real with ourselves about what’s really going on – and doing it together.

Sometimes when we become overwhelmed and upset by what we think we see we find ways to drown out the intensity of our reactions.  We fall into various forms of self-medication and self-sabotage.  I know a lot about that.  And that’s why I created this program to rise up out of that pain.

End My Self-Sabotage 6-Week Program begins Sunday, July 26th. Self-sabotage is designed to slow down our spiritual growth. But what if I told you that we can dissolve that pattern? When you recognize the pattern, you can interrupt it. And when you interrupt it with Love instead of willpower, everything changes. I used to struggle with self-medication and other forms of self-sabotage, but that’s behind me now – if you can relate – let’s do it together! Click here to learn more.

LATEST PODCAST EPISODE: Learning to Trust Yourself with Author Tama Kieves  My friend Tama Kieves wrote the book on trust I wish I’d had years ago. She’s a Harvard Law honors graduate who walked away from her law career with no plan and no money, following a single voice toward the life that was actually hers. We sat down to talk about her new book, Learning to Trust Yourself, and the thing nearly every A Course in Miracles student wrestles with: how do we tell the voice of love from the voice of fear?