This question is pretty complex because we all bring different stuff to the growth table.

I won't go into the common blocks found in energy therapies which are called reversals--in short energy is either severely curtailed by energy flow disruption by blockages or reversed flows or by challenges caused by allergies and energy toxins. All of these have specific answers like looking for windows of opportunity, overriding the blockages with energy flooding, rubbing and percussing very spots in the body to overcome these problems. By the way reversals also exist in regular therapy as well and often go unnoticed and untreated. Plenty of persons get labeled therapy proof or resistant by folks unaware of energy impairments.

The most common blocks to growth are these:

Hopelessness: Here we view change as a hopeless task. We might believe we can't change or this will never work because I'm different. Or I lack what it takes so why bother. Here we have negative self-views that will likely make us give up before we even start or quit early on if we hit slow progress.

A problem beyond our problem: Issues beyond something we're targeting, can thwart us in a hurry. How willing would we be to make a change, if it dropped a larger problem in our lap. Remember this problem beyond our problem better be cleared or negotiated.

Lack of Commitment: We better decide to commit to our changes and stick to them from start to finish. Without full commitment we will quit if the tide shifts. Folks making changes build their houses on the rock of commitment and not on the shifting sands of feelings.

Easy: Here we believe change should be easy, natural, spontaneous, and without effort. Change does require time and effort. This can adventure can be fun--but it is work sometimes.

Frustration Intolerance: Sometimes people stop working at change because they believe its too hard, too difficult, overwhelming, or painful. Some of the new energy processes help in overiding some of the very painful aspects of doing processes. The days of flooding are over! However we can learn to stand a great deal, especailly when we are looking down the road at long term rewards.

Unnaturalness: we often feel unnatural or uneasy when first making changes or or practicing a new skill or behavior. Naturalness comes with practice and habit. Hang in there Vortexers and Clear 5ers.

Self-view attack: Some of us duck changes because they fear discovering something about themselves that might put them in a bad light or lead to failure of the process itself. It's not failure that's so bad, itt's the abuse we might dump on ourselves afterwards.

Guilt and self-suffering: If we believe we should feel guilt or suffer for what we've done, we're going to back off on change if it would lead to less guilt and suffering.

Inspiration and the right mood: Here we think we need to feel inspired or in the right mood to do our self-help. If we wait for that we could wait a long time and not accomplish much. Sometimes we just have to set a time and follow through no matter what we're feeling. We don't have to obey our feelings and secondaries--we can just get up and do what the situation requires. Pretty soon those millions of pac man secondaries vanish into the past and you feel the control of managing your life and the reward of getting where you wanted to go.

Demand for certainty: Here we demand our self-help activities have guaranteed positive results before we undertake them. Nope! Actually few if any guaranteed outcomes exist. We have probable outcomes and we can raise that probability by doing what is required and learning from our slips and errors.

Theorizing instead of taking action: here we focus on creating reasons why we did something instead of taking concrete action to overcome a challenge. Although it's fun and interesting to reason "after the fact" and come up with causes and explanations, searching out insights can blocks us from taking required action and making change. Some poeple actually demand to know the cause before they do anything about it. Factoid: We can make changes without ever having insight into the cause. Besides it's sort of silly when you recognize that many, many frameworks exist in which to view a problem and its so called causes.

Payoffs: We get rewarded for our selfdefeat--we might get finacial reward or attention for something that isn't working in our lives.

Demand for Instant Improvement: We might believe that without instant improvement, we will never improve. Quitting follows this belief. Instant is getting somewhat more accessible with some of the new processes, but you still better be ready for an uphill fight. Sometimes stuff gets blocked--and you have to wait it out and keep on doing what you need to do.

Loss of Emotion: Believe it that some folks believe they might lose their ability to emote if they take up change processes.

Loss of Creativity: Some people--I've known writers and artists who feared they would loose their creativity if they grew.

Having the same feeling or state of consciousness forever: This block comes from the notion that we might become frozen in a state of consciousness by doing altered states exploration.

Going crazy: A close cousin of the previous block, this fear is based on the idea we could go crazy or lose control from doing certain kinds of therapeutic enterprises. Folks with this problem are likely to have suffered panic or trauma. They will need support for some of their processes.

Perfection: If you believe you must perform perfectly you may resist self-help if it calls on you to possibly make mistakes. You may regard failure as a disaster. If our taks fail then we magically become failures.

A Change in our relationship with others: If we use self-help and make changes in our emotional responses and behavior, we might face an alteration in our relationship with others. This change may have a negative meaning for us and we might feel uncomfortable with the resulting uncertainties.

Unclear Goals and Methods: Here we lack clarity about our objectives and self-help methods. Without clear and specific targets, we won't be motivated for the task of self-help. And without a solid knowledge of self-help procedures we will not know how to effectively go about making changes. Most of us would resist driving to a mystery destination in a car lacking windows and a steering wheel.

Too Busy: I don't have the time--I'm too busy! We can locate time for high priorities in our lives.

If we're in a near chronic state of upsetness: this can intrude on growth. Find a time when you're not too caught up and see what you can do about paring down some of your down time.

Oppositionalism: This seldom rears its head in self-help, but it could. We may thwart growth if we are with someone who is pushing for our improvement.

Procrastination: Most of us know this one. Procrastination offers a lot of targets.

Anyway we've just scratched the surface here--our secondaries offer us more meat.

Steve Mensing