When we’re facing a problem, what we truly need is a solution. It’s crucial to have that mechanism that will give us the power to fight back.
Easy to say. But, at the moment, we’re usually hopeless.
How can we find a solution? How can we step out of the comfort zone, facing pain and escaping from immediate gratification?
Attitude is(n’t) everything
When your mind is cluttered with negativity, for instance, it is useless to try to control it inside of your head. You need a specific procedure to use at a specific time to combat a specific problem.
Let me tell you. Change is hard. Change 
takes time. And real change requires to change our behavior.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Our attitude consists of thoughts happening inside your head–even if you change it, you’re working within the limitations you dready have. A tool takes you beyond what happens inside of your head; it connects you to a world infinitely bigger than you are, a world of limitless forces.[/perfectpullquote]
The Tools explains that human beings possess untapped forces that allow them to solve their own problems, and that’s why we should have a daily connection to life-changing higher forces. “Higher forces are so mysterious that it’s almost impossible not to doubt their existence from time to time.”
If you ever want to experience an invisible energy force or field of infinite possibilities, try this experiment that I came across reading E-squared. I found it fascinating.
In this experiment, you’re going to devote 48 hours to looking for 
evidence of this all-knowing, all-perfect FP (the field of infinite potentiality). Call it God, if that feels more comfortable. Luckily, the FP exists in every single place you could ever think to look.
To up the stakes, you’re going to ask the FP for a blessing or what I call an unexpected gift. You’re going to give it 48 hours to send you a gift you wouldn’t normally receive–a surprise check in the mail, a card from an old friend you’d lost touch with, something that is truly unexpected.
Believe me. It works. (Don’t overuse it, though).
Operating outside of the comfort zone
Not only do we tend to escape from pain, but also we want to replace it with pleasure.
Some do internet surfing; others use alcohol or drugs.
And the more you indulge in your own warm-bath activities, the more likely it is that you’re using them to create a comfort zone while trying to avoid pain.
Now, what it is supposed to keep you safe, it really keeps your life small. That’s the price you pay.
If you can’t tolerate pain, you can’t be fully alive.
Is the knowledge that you’ve wasted your life what you want?
The force of forward motion
Its power is the power of life itself. Everything that’s alive is evolving into the future with a sense of purpose–from a single organism to a species to the entire planet.
The central task of an adult is to find her purpose in the world. For instance, the sense of a purpose of a child who is learning to walk is quite amazing. He’s tapped into the Force of Forward Motion.
Yet, it’s always not that easy to discover our higher purpose.
If you’re still looking for your purpose in life, M
an’s Search For Meaning is an opening-eye book. Viktor Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning:
1. By creating a work (or doing a deed)–doing something significant;
2. By experiencing something or encountering someone (caring for another person);
3. By the courageous attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. What matters is not the meaning of life in general but the specific meaning of a person’s life at any given moment.
At the end, the Force of Forward Motion only works in an individual if consciously chooses to use it–and accepts the pain that comes with it. No amount of thinking can do this for you; you need to change your state of being.
Here’s a tool that will help you to create your own future.
What does the reversal of desire consist of?
There are several steps you should follow to desire pain instead of avoiding it. Yes, you’ve read well. The Reversal of Desire is a tool to desire pain.
1) See the pain appear in front of you as a cloud. Screan silently at the cloud, “BRING IT ON!” Feel an intense desire for the pain to move you into the cloud.
2) Scream silently, “I LOVE PAIN!” as you keep moving forward. Go so deeply into the pain you’re at one with it.
3) You will feel the cloud spit you out and close behind you. Say inwardly with conviction, “PAIN SETS ME FREE!” As you leave the cloud, feel yourself propelled forward into a realm of pure light.
This tool should be used repeatedly until you feel you’ve converted all the pain to energy. It will increase your inner strenghs. But, The Reversal of Desire, as the authors explained in the book, doesn’t work against adversity. It bypasses your opinion about what should be and gives you an active way to accept what it is.
It’s true that accepting bad things takes work, even I would say hard work. You’ll see, though, that the more you use this tool when something bad happens, the faster you’ll be able to recover from it.
When to use the reversal of desire
The authors of The Tools tell us that we should use it every time we recognize a cue.
First cue: Right before you’re about to do something you want to avoid
Imagine you need to tell bad news to somebody, so you keep avoiding it. Here is when we should use the tool, even several times if necessary.
Second cue: When we have to do something we find extremely unpleasant and we start thinking about it rather than doing it
Overthinking doesn’t help. It actually makes you even more avoidant. This cue trains you to use the tool not in the future but right now. Actually “each time you use this second cue, you’re making a deposit in an invisible bank account. You’re depositing energy, not money; yet eventually you’ll build up enough to act.”
