When you are working on self-improvement, there are two booby traps that can confront you as you move forward.
Understanding these booby traps will help you significantly on your path.
Booby Trap #1: Fear of Happiness
Booby trap number one is what Nathaniel Branden has referred to as "happiness anxiety."
It is a trap that besets individuals to the extent they have become habituated to unhappiness.
It is a form of fear of the unknown or unfamiliar, and tends to arise just as one is breaking free of suffering into a happier way of living.
It is based on a legitimate human need for security, and should be treated compassionately, but not followed blindly.
Booby Trap #2: Fear of Pain
Booby trap number two is a function of what we might call the healing-growth cycle.
In accordance with this cycle, if you have unhealed wounds from the past, every spurt of growth will tend to be followed by the appearance of painful material that can now be healed — while every process of healing will make possible and tend to be followed by a new spurt of growth.
Understandably, when approaching the healing portion of this cycle, it is common for fear of pain to arise as a prelude to the pain itself. As with happiness anxiety, however, this fear should be treated with compassion, but not followed blindly.
Benefits of Awareness
Why is awareness of the twin booby traps so useful to those pursuing a path of self improvement?
1. When happiness anxiety arises, you can identify it as such, remain present with it, and continue to operate from your best wisdom — recognizing that the anxiety will pass as the new becomes more familiar.
2. When fear of pain arises, you can identify that as such, remain present with the fear, and allow your presence to heal the pain and create a space for integration to occur, trusting that healing and integration will occur, so long as you continue to remain present (resisting the temptation to close down) and operate from your best wisdom.
3. Over time, you can cultivate — perhaps through some form of meditative practice — equanimity, so that you can remain equally present throughout pleasant and unpleasant experience.
In this way, while you may prefer pleasant to unpleasant experiences and make choices so as to maximize the former and minimize the latter, you can simultaneously enjoy a sense of self that remains stable throughout.
At this point, the booby traps are no longer dangerous. They are, quite simply, visible bumps on the road of life.
Andrew Schwartz provides self esteem and intimacy coaching to individuals wishing to improve the quality of their inner lives, the quality of their creativity, and the quality of their relationships.