Ashok Gupta identifies three emotions that block healing in chronic illness: grief over loss, anxiety about the future, and victimhood. These trap you in past-or-future thinking. The shift is noticing when they arise and moving toward acceptance instead of resistance.
There are three core emotions that contribute to our resistance to being unwell. And you might expect that. The first one I'm going to say is anxiety or worry. Actually, I'm going to talk about grief, first of all. So grief is one emotion. Secondly, we've talked about anxiety. So anxiety, fear, anger, the fight or flight response in response to how we're feeling. And thirdly, victimhood. Feeling a victim of having this condition, whatever it may be for you, blaming others, blaming ourselves, that keeps us stuck in the past. And each of these three emotions can block us from fully healing because they are aspects of the mind, aspects of resistance which keep us in the past or the future. So grief, the grief of having this condition and the life that we've lost keeps us stuck in the past. Anxiety about what might happen in the future, whether we're going to get better, keeps us stuck in the future. And blame victimhood can keep us stuck in the past as well. In terms of what's happened, why did we get here? It's someone else's responsibility to fix me. And when we move from resistance to surrender, which is our journey today, it is recognizing these three core emotions or states of mind which can influence the course of our condition. And it's about awareness, awareness, awareness. When are we aware of these core emotions bubbling up within us and blocking our thoughts? And they're like a marketing message. Yes, believe it, believe it. You are a victim of this. Yes. It's so unfair what's happened to you. Look at everything that you've lost in life. The mind can go down those cheeseless tunnels of darkness, and today is all about recognizing that and moving towards acceptance and finally surrender. What a beautiful journey this is for each soul.
