How often have you found yourself in negative relationship patterns or feeling painful, limiting emotions (again) or enduring a distressing or even heartbreaking time in your life and not knowing why?

Knowing the deeper reasons why painful events happen gives you true empowerment, lasting inner peace and a guided path beyond them; or in other words, bliss!  

The key is awareness.  But how do you get there?

We’ll begin by looking at a seemingly unlikely source of Divine Insight and Guidance - your emotions. Believe it or not, information exists within your emotions which can help you to access this valuable insight, anytime you want.

Your emotions are not simply a response to an external event, or problematic hurdles to overcome, they are a Divine portal to knowing why events happen in your life. They are there to guide you to the life you want.

To paraphrase the Kabbalah, ‘your reaction to the situation is the cause of the situation.’ This means that the seeds of the fights you’re having with your spouse or the despair and depression you’re dealing with were planted long before your experience occurred.

Your every emotional reaction is layered with the intelligence of your underlying thoughts and beliefs.  Emotions don’t just happen, regardless of what’s happening in your life; emotions are always preceded by a thought and/or a belief.

These thoughts and beliefs may be conscious or unconscious. We forget that our subconscious beliefs could be diametrically opposed to what we know is true.

Accurate or not, your beliefs are always there, giving rise to your emotions and sending a vibration into the world which gets returned to you in the form of an experience.

So, within your every emotional reaction are the seeds that can show you what caused the painful experiences and how to move beyond them.  

This is in effect, the Law of Attraction, but this wisdom takes it one step further and makes this law truly useful in your life.

Let’s put this theory into action and watch how it works.

Take a moment with a pen and paper and reflect on some of the more painful events of your life.  Perhaps it was a break-up or a difficult job or financial distress.

Look at your reaction to that situation.  How would you label your primary emotional reaction?

You probably have a many-layered response to this event, but for now, just pick your most primary emotional response (grief, anger, terror, etc.), label it as accurately as you can and write that down.

Think about how much time you spent in that emotion and belief system prior to this experience.  

It’s not a new feeling, is it?

In fact, it’s most likely the emotion you spend as much time dodging as you can. Because when it rears it’s ugly head, it’s overwhelming or depressing and you’ve not found the answers to remedy it. Yet.

Now that you’ve realized this, ask yourself, ‘What is my belief behind this emotion?’ You will either hear or feel a thought come to mind. Write that down.

Think about how long you’ve had that belief. You might not be able to remember a time when you didn’t have that belief. In fact, your emotional reaction to certain situations might be so familiar to you, they seem to be a part of who you are.

But these beliefs are just thoughts. And thoughts can be changed. Change your thoughts, and you’ll change your life.

For example, I have a client who owns a small consulting business and she was once served with a lawsuit from a former client.   As soon as she received the paperwork, she felt overwhelmed with disgust and self-doubt. As she pondered her reactions her deeper beliefs floated to the top, "why do I even bother?  I should just give up."  This was a belief system of self-doubt she often faced and struggled to overcome as she worked to make her business a success.  

This experience was not a penalty for a habit of self-doubt but rather a spiritual wake-up call which brought her awareness to the deeper beliefs within that were still getting too much of her time and attention.

This event was a deeper call for her to believe in herself, her talents and her business, and to give up old beliefs that she no longer needed.  

The insight she gained from this exercise showed her both the reason for her experience as well as the easiest way beyond it.  

Apply this wisdom in your life and you’ll begin to see three things:

1. Why a challenge is in your life, 
2. What beliefs and patterns you need to truly give up in order for your life to work,
3. Where within, you need to commit more deeply to who you truly are for your dreams come true.