What is essential is that he be able to relinquish his attachment to his pathway—be able to say to himself, “I have wasted X years of my life in a painful and useless pursuit; this is sad, but I now have an opportunity to try another approach.” This is hard for people to do. There is a strong temptation either to rationalize our wrong turnings as a necessary part of our development (“it taught me discipline”), or to deny that we participated fully in them (“that was before I became enlightened”). Giving up these two evasions leads initially to despair, but as Alexander Lowen points out,
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