What is your block?

April’s series of blogs called “Why? Discovering your personal motivation” has been inspired by excerpts from Coventry Magic by Jacki Smith.   

Just to recap: For 2015, we are dedicating ourselves to unleashing your personal power. Since this is no overnight task, we have broken it down month by month. April, we talk about discovering what is your personal motivation.   It may seem obvious, but being honest about what and why you want the things you do can be a tricky and sometimes painful.  This week, we talk about aspects that may block you from discovering your motivation.  Each Saturday  there will be a new blog about motivation and what drives you.  These blogs are really just a summary of the real exercises found in Coventry Magic by Jacki Smith, for more detailed explanation, I recommend checking out the entire book.

What is Your Block?

We all have flaws. (this is hard for me to admit as one of my flaws is that I do not like to back down or to admit that I was wrong) It doesn’t us bad people, but it can create self sabotage and negative consequences.   With a bit of self reflection and humility, most of our flaws are forgivable to the ones who love us and want to love us. The problem is that fatal flaw.  We all know someone with a fatal flaw, especially in the world of dating.  You will meet this attractive, charismatic, seemly well put together individual who can’t seem to make relationships work.  Sometimes the flaw is clear to you: they are obsessive, they are cruel to those who would care about them.  Sometimes it is something you can’t quite put your finger on, but it is there none the less, and the person afflicted with this fatal flaw turns the blame outward instead of looking at negative patterns or blocks. We all have that friend or that ex who can’t seem leave victim land long enough to realize it is them leaving bodies in their wake.

Jacki writes in Coventry Magic, that some of these “flaws” are actually blocks we have put up for ourselves.  Where I am sure they were originally created as some form of protection, the file has become corrupted and it may no longer be doing its proper job, or even working at all. Jacki says “your magic always works; you may not be able to see it in your current condition. When you need to work some magic in your life, it is because something is truly lacking.” Before you can see that fruits of a change you are trying to make, you need to confront the roadblocks you have set up for yourself.

So what are your blocks anyway? In previous blogs, I have talked about what Jacki calls the Why Factor.  This is an exercise which follows a question line to get at a core of an issue. Following statements that represent your blocks with the questions “why is that?”  With every answer, keep digging, asking “why is that” until you discover the original stopping point or fear.

Once you have identified the blocks that you would like to overcome, the next step is to take a hard look at where they come from and how you can get around them or destroy them all together.  Next week, we will talk about confronting these fears and excuses in order to move past them.