Ambivalence is the thing that deflates you. It’s where the lights go out in you. It’s where you stop. Not sure. How do I know? What do I do? Where do I go? As if something would have to be so perfect for you to choose it that otherwise, you just are kind of neutralized.

In this excerpt from a teaching given by Marshall Vian Summers during the 2020 Messenger’s Vigil, Marshall reveals what the three main causes of ambivalence are and what it will lead to.

So I’d like to speak briefly on the problem of ambivalence, which is a common aspect of mental illness in the world today, particularly amongst wealthy people, or comfortable people. So in terms of moving forward in all the things that we’re talking about in the Vigil, and certainly in considering what a mission-based life would be like, ambivalence is the thing that deflates you. It’s where the lights go out in you. It’s where you stop. Not sure. How do I know? What do I do? Where do I go?

As if something would have to be so perfect for you to choose it that otherwise, you just are kind of neutralized. And a lot of this is internal, of course; for everyone it’s internal. But there are also external forces that attempt to neutralize you, too, take the wind out of your sail, deflate your inspiration—human forces, forces of the Intervention, the influence of your family, your old friends who don’t know who you are.

In a mission-based environment, ambivalence is something that has to be resolved if it’s prolonged. Prolonged ambivalence has to be resolved or you can’t go on. And if you stall out too long, you’ll just be sent away because you’re getting in the way. You’re holding people up.

Prolonged ambivalence usually means one of three things: You are not in the right place to begin with. You’re trying to be, but it just isn’t working and you’re just not…the fit isn’t there.

Number two: You’re in the right place, but not ready to participate. Maybe you’re still in the independence phase of your life, still trying to have all these things for yourself and express these things to yourself and try to have other people recognize you. “I want people to recognize me, to know who I am.” Like the great artist that must express, “I must express myself.”

Third: You’re in the right place, but are being blocked internally or externally. And there are many things that can do that, particularly internally…

You’re stuck where you are. You haven’t made the decisions you’ve had to make along the way and now you’ve built up inertia, which makes you actually resistant to change. You know you need to change; you really need to change, but you can’t. Why? You haven’t been moving enough and now to get moving is really hard.

It’s like you haven’t exercised since high school, you try to go and exercise really hard, right? Can I have an amen on that? Amen.

So that’s inertia. You’ve lost ability. You’ve lost capability. You’ve lost motivation. And now you see you need to do something, but all those things you need to get going just aren’t there or have reduced down…

So what’s critical in preparing to move forward in any way, in facing a new world reality, in preparing yourself to be part of a mission, wherever that may be, you have to start moving… You become involved in motion. You’re going somewhere, you’re doing something. It’s not big; it’s not huge. But you’re making some kind of forward motion that you haven’t made before that maybe you’ve known for a long time you needed to make.