Getting Your Power and Choice Back

 Photo by Gratisography/pexels

There are people in the world who are being victimized. They have no choice. They have no freedom, and they have no power.

If I asked you if you were a victim, you may so no. There is a stigma of shame that can be associated with being labeled as a victim. “You’re such a victim,” is a hurtful criticism used to diminish the credibility of a complaint. So, even when we feel victimized, it’s better to present as “in control.” Better not to complain. Better to just suffer in silence.

Feeling victimized makes it difficult to take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, and actions. But not impossible. When it feels like there is no choice and no power, it’s easy to feel like life is happening to us.

We can easily feel victimized by the circumstances of our lives. This manifests in our reactions to difficult or disappointing circumstances. If the perspective of victimhood is accurate, if the circumstances of our lives are responsible for our unhappiness or dissatisfaction, that means we are at the mercy of our circumstances.

A trip to the grocery store can show you how easy it is to give away your power. Do you really want the price of hamburger to ruin your day? Do you really want the clerk at the checkout counter to be in charge of your mood?

How much power do we have? How much control do we really have?

We can influence the circumstances of our lives to some degree. But there are very few things that we have power and control over.

For example, I have no power or control over the spin or orbit of the earth. The precise spin of our planet as well as its orbit around the sun is entirely out of my control.

Let’s stay with nature. I have no power or control over the weather. Yet, the weather seems to account somewhat for the quality of my life.

I have no power or control over what other people think of me. I can influence my reputation. I can do things that I think people will be pleased with or I can do things that offend and alienate others. I can predict the reactions and behaviors of others with some accuracy. But I don’t control the thoughts and feelings that another person has toward me.

Yet, what others think of me has consumed massive amounts of my conscious attention.

I have no power over the past and can’t control the future. I certainly can influence the future and there are things I can do to change how I think about the past. But the past remains the past and the future will only show the extent of my efforts to influence it when I am living in it.

Yet, I spend so much mental and emotional energy on regret and worry.

I can feel victimized by the weather. “I can’t go for a bike ride because it’s snowing. That’s why I’m feeling down.”

I can feel victimized by the changing seasons. “It’s dark by the time I get home from work. I hate winter.”

I can feel victimized by those who judge me. “I don’t like her because she thinks she is better than me.”

I can feel victimized by the past. “I don’t take big risks because of what happened to me before.”

I can feel victimized by the future. “I don’t know what to expect so I’m worried all the time.”

I can feel victimized by what doesn’t happen. “She didn’t even notice that I did the laundry.”

There are people who are happy, joyful, productive, fulfilled, and true to their purpose even when it snows and when it gets dark early. Maybe you have been able to maintain your inner peace and joy despite negative circumstances.

There are people who take big risks despite being burned and failing in the past. Maybe you have been able to push back fears and resistance and take chances to improve your life.

There are people who make big plans and embrace the unknown even though there is so much that could happen. Maybe you are able to forget that last loss or failure and keep your positive energy.

Do people who seem to have it together, who don’t get slowed down by the challenges of life have more determination, more grit, more strength than the rest of us? Do they know something we don’t?

Maybe. But I believe that happiness, joy, and fulfillment are possible for all of us despite circumstances.

Why, when we aren’t really victims, do we sometimes feel victimized by life?

The overwhelming majority of what can be perceived in our environment is managed unconsciously. There is a limited capacity for conscious awareness of all that there is to be perceived. As children, most of us got years and years of protection and care while our brains and minds were being programmed by our experiences.

Once we knew what chairs were, we lost all curiosity about them, and they became common. Chairs are to sit in, most chairs are safe. Got it. Now I don’t have to give much of my attention to chairs.

Dogs are fun or maybe dogs are scary. Dogs are safe or maybe they seem dangerous. Got it. Now I don’t have to give much attention to dogs. I will unconsciously react to them according to my programming – according to what I made my experiences with dogs mean.

We have already chosen what chair and dog mean. We have already decided what woman and onions and people who look different means.

We feel like victims to the circumstances of our lives because it doesn’t feel like we have a choice. But, in fact, we have already chosen. We logically draw meanings and conclusions about what we experience and then put concepts, ideas, beliefs, fears, and expectations into unconscious storage. And until we choose again – until we pull our programming out of storage and take inventory, we will feel powerless.

By taking inventory of the beliefs, fears, and expectations formed in our early childhood, we can use our conscious minds to discard what is no longer relevant and replace what has been released with updated information. Once inventoried and updated, the ideas and concepts that automatically determine how we react to life begin to produce reactions far more relevant to current reality.

If things are going your way, you’re probably content. But when things go wrong and don’t quite measure up, most of us automatically look outside of ourselves to identify what is causing our discomfort. It seems obvious that we are dissatisfied because of what is happening out there.

But that’s not what is really happening most of the time. Our satisfaction is determined by our perception of what is happening out there. Our perception happens inside our minds and hearts. Our perceptions show up as the thoughts, feelings, and reactions to what life hands us.

We have all built the lives we have from what we decided a long time ago about the meanings and values related to all that we experience. If we feel victimized, it’s because we see the situation through the lens of our outdated beliefs, fears, values, and expectations.

If we can change our perception, we can change our satisfaction.

To change our perception, we must journey into the unconscious. It is entirely possible to reach back into the unconscious storage area of your mind and examine it with your conscious mind. This can be done in any area of life that you are dissatisfied with.

Feeling victimized is characterized by a feeling of powerlessness and the loss of choice. By exploring what you have been storing in your unconscious mind, you can reclaim your power and choice.

If what we learned about jobs, relationships, trust, money, relaxation, and a million other concepts isn’t automatically generating the experiences and results that we want, it can feel like life is against us.

But that changes as soon as you understand that it is your unconscious automatic programming that determines your satisfaction with life. With effective methods for changing your mind, you can begin to live a life unrestrained by your outdated past.

What do you Expect

 Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya from Pexels

This article may help you understand why your life unfolds in predictable patterns, despite your intention to have things go differently. At the end of the article, you will be offered a free tool that can help you begin to break out of lifelong patterns and start living the life you want. What do you expect to happen in your life? The answer is probably evident when you look around and see what you are getting.

 

We all have a vision for our lives but most of us don’t know what that vision is. In fact, I’m guessing that even those who think they know what their vision is don’t.

When you think about the life you will be living tomorrow, you probably expect it to look a lot like it does today. When you think about the life you will be living a year from now, what do you expect it to look like? Even if your circumstances change between now and next year, you will probably be experiencing life a year from now much like you are experiencing it now unless something changes from the inside out.

I have coached many clients to create a vision for the life they wish to be living in the future. For some, this process has worked very well. With a detailed vision of a future life that inspires and empowers them, clients have been able to change the trajectory of their lives and accomplish what they otherwise would not have.

For others, creating a vision was just one more thing on the to-do list. They followed the instructions and produced a written or visual representation of their future lives, but nothing changed because they weren’t inspired or empowered. They didn’t believe a better life was possible for them.

Why did creating a vision work for some but not for others? I suspect it is because some of my clients expected life to improve in the ways they imagined while others expected life to remain the same.

Most of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors happen automatically and are directed by your unconscious programming. Your programming is made up of…

• your beliefs; what you have decided is true,
• your fears; what you have decided is dangerous,
• your values; what is important and valuable to you, and
• your expectations; what is predictable in your life based on what has happened in the past.

What do you expect to happen in your life? For change to be possible, and for coaching to be helpful, you will need to believe that change is possible. So, before we go any further, do you expect coaching to work? Do you believe you are capable of changing, or of having a different experience of life than what you are accustomed to?

Our expectations are based on our beliefs; what we have decided is true.

If you have decided that you don’t DESERVE to have what you want, you will expect to keep getting what you’ve been getting. You will expect…

• The same level of connection in your relationships
• The same amount of income and savings
• The same standard of living
• The same level of respect from others
• The same sense of overall satisfaction with your life
• The same bad habits
• The same group of friends
• The same everything

If you don’t believe you deserve anything different than what you have now, you can expect to have the same life a year from now.

Whether you take the time to imagine a brighter future or not, if you don’t believe it can happen for you, it probably won’t. Fortunately, changing your disempowering and self-defeating beliefs is one of the things you can expect to happen if you are willing to do the work of changing your beliefs.

If you want to make changes in any area of your life, it’s important to get some insight about what you expect in that area.

A vision can be both conscious and unconscious and it is entirely possible for the unconscious vision to be in conflict with your conscious vision.

Your conscious vision is what you consciously intend and aspire to in your life. Your unconscious vision is what you unconsciously expect. If these two don’t match, the unconscious will win because it is thousands of times more powerful than your conscious mind.

If things are going to change or improve in any area of your life, the unconscious vision must be examined and updated consciously.

Once we are consciously aware of our unconscious vision, we can modify it. In fact, just becoming aware of it begins to change it. Upon examination, you may be surprised to find that what you currently believe, fear, value, and expect is entirely outdated. They no longer accurately reflect the current reality of your life.

Summary

• Your  unconscious is responsible for what you automatically and involuntarily do and how you automatically live your life.
• We all have an unconscious vision.
• This unconscious vision reflects what we expect to happen in our lives.
• Our expectations are governed by our beliefs including our fears.
• Our beliefs are held in our unconscious.
• If we wish our future life to be different than our past and present life, our unconscious vision must support that expectation.
• Before we can change our unconscious vision to match our intended conscious vision, we need to know what the unconscious vision is. We need to be consciously aware of it
• Once we are consciously aware of our unconscious vision, we can modify it. In fact, just becoming aware of it begins to change it.

Self Management or Self Discovery?

 Photo by Grafixart_photo Samir BELHAMRA from Pexels

Most of us are unaware that we live unconsciously. We think, feel, and behave automatically. It makes sense that we don’t know we are living unconscious and automatic lives. We are usually unaware of what is unconscious.

We experience this involuntary life with a degree of dissatisfaction and pain. To manage the discomfort, we try to control ourselves and the conditions and circumstances of our lives. The dream of control brings hope. We fail to control anything and experience disappointment. The familiar sense of malcontent returns. We give up or try harder, continuing to experience life in this repeating pattern.

Pain inspires change. Fear stops progress.

Pain inspires change. When the discomfort becomes too great, some seek help from a personal development coach. This works for many people (including me). Reflection, clarity, intention, and accountability can add up to a shift that changes how we view ourselves and the circumstances of our lives.

Fear can stop progress on the journey to a transformed life. A degree of courage is required to meet the fear that change can activate. With perseverance and some degree of success, our perception of what is possible can permanently expand. A shift in what we believe we are capable of can boost confidence and reduce fear. Disempowering self-doubt is replaced with empowering confidence.

If the coaching only works when the client places their faith in the wisdom and expertise of the life coach, the client will only get results while actively involved in the coaching relationship. Often, the benefit of granting authority to a coach lasts only as long as the coaching session.

A helpful coaching relationship should increase self-trust which can permanently improve the client’s life. Authority over decisions and actions belongs to the coaching client. Coaches who recognize the unparalleled expertise of the client regarding their own lives, know that mere strategies and advice only undermine the client’s long-term success. As coaches develop their skill, they learn to help by facilitating conversations that yield the self-trust that comes from insight and empowerment.

A typical paradigm for helping coaching clients could be described in the following manner.

• The coaching client identifies their dissatisfaction, discomfort, and pain.
• The coach helps the client envision the life they want.
• The coach facilitates an exploration of the motivation and potential benefits of living that life.
• The coach and client explore the historical and projected obstacles to having that life.
• Coaching objectives are identified and quantified.
• A plan for achievement of objectives is collaboratively created.
• Obstacles and breakdowns are identified and mediated as they occur.
• The coach provides structure and accountability to keep the client focused and motivated.

This model has been very successful for some clients. But even when the coach assumes that the client is whole, complete, and capable, the client often unconsciously holds an opposing view. Deep down in the dark recesses of their mind, many clients fear they are deficient or broken. They see themselves as imposters. All the work of coaching is layered over a false premise held by the only authority that matters – what the client believes they are capable of.

In this case, personal development becomes a matter of managing a problem (the brokenness of the client).

If you secretly believe that there is something wrong with you, your personal development journey is based on self-improvement.

But what if there was nothing to fix or improve?

What if you could shift your paradigm from self-management to self-discovery?

As powerful as the traditional coaching model is, imagine how effective it could be if you could get past the idea that you need to be improved!

The following describes my approach to personal development coaching:

• I ask the client to temporarily let go of trying to change anything about themselves.
• The initial coaching process is guided by one primary objective: Help the client to get to know themselves deeply enough to answer four important questions.
  • Who am I and who am I not?
  • What makes me think, feel, choose, and act as I do?
  • How can I change the thoughts, feelings, choices, and actions that aren’t working for me?
  • How can I start living the life I want?
• Answering these questions will engender the confidence and self-trust required to transform a life.
• Informed by this newfound clarity, I support the client using a traditional coaching approach.
• I help the client remember who they are as they develop self-trust, overcoming or resolving obstacles and setbacks on their journey to success.

Some of us are capable of adopting the strategies and formulas of others to have a better life. We certainly can benefit from what others can teach us. But following someone else’s path and ignoring our own limits what is possible for each of us.

By getting to know your authentic Self, you can tap into your true power and purpose.

What if you could invest as much energy into self-discovery as you have into your efforts to manage yourself and the world around you?

The result would be a life directed by your authentic Self and fueled by the untapped resources and energy of purpose and possibility. This would mean the difference between living with the restraints and limitations of survival versus a life of freedom, personal power, and choice.

Breaking Harmful Habits

 Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Habits. What they all have in common is that once they are formed, the execution of them is no longer a function of the conscious mind. They require little or no will or effort. Charles Duhigg wrote about them in his book,The Power of Habit. James Clear added a wealth of insight about them in his book, Atomic Habits. Both are excellent resources if you are interested in learning about breaking a harmful habit. This article offers additional insight that neither of these authors address in their books.

 

Both Clear and Duhigg agree that a habit is something that happens automatically; without  the need to choose. The subject of habits is important because, according to John Assaraff, co-author of The Answer, 96 – 98% of what we perceive and do is controlled by what he calls the nonconscious brain. We are not conscious of 96 – 98% of what we perceive and do. Most of what we perceive and do is out of our control.

 

We choose and are aware of 2 – 4% of what we perceive and do. Changing a habit requires awareness, choice, and will. To change a habit, we need to use some of our very limited conscious bandwidth.

 

And that, my friends, is why it is so hard to change a habit!

 

Take it from me. Changing is hard. But not impossible.

Take the Harmful Habits Survey

 

Imagine playing a game of Jenga which involves stacking wooden blocks to form a tower. When it is your turn, you must carefully pull one block out of the tower and place it on top without toppling the tower. If the tower falls over, you lose. To win, you must pay attention, watching which block your opponents move, noticing how the tower reacts when they do, planning to pull just the right block, and doing so carefully enough to avoid losing the game.

 

Now, imagine while you are playing the game, you are making gravy on the stove or changing the oil in your car, or reading the instruction manual for your new device. Because your conscious attention is divided; because your bandwidth is shared with two or more areas of focus, your efficiency will be reduced. You are at risk of tumbling the tower, burning the gravy, forgetting to fasten the oil cap, or failing to understand how to use your device. Or if you pay too much attention to the gravy, the oil change, or the instruction manual, you will probably tumble the tower and lose. Something has to give.

Register for a free 2-hour Harmful Habits webinar

To successfully change a habit, part of the 2 – 4% that you can consciously perceive will have to be sacrificed. Other areas of your life will suffer because you won’t have the bandwidth for them. This can be managed. But what will you give up? What are you willing to let go of in exchange for the effort that changing a habit requires? Who and what will be impacted by your shift in focus?

 

For example, when I realized my first marriage was in jeopardy due to my excessive alcohol consumption, I got scared. I didn’t want to lose my family so I decided to devote energy, effort, and attention to changing my drinking habit. Ironically, attention to my family is what suffered. I successfully quit drinking, but to do so, I spent up to 5 hours a day in 12-step meetings.

 

Twelve years later, after trying and failing for four years, I successfully stopped smoking cigarettes. To do so successfully, I had to learn how to sit with emotional discomfort triggered by the stresses of my life without lighting a cigarette. For most of those four years, I had to choose repeatedly to not light that first cigarette. Time after time I returned to the habit, feeling both relief and disappointment. Each time I failed, I became more convinced I wasn’t capable of making the change.

 

In both cases, my life improved when I successfully changed the habit. Both excessive alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking were harmful habits. Changing these habits required a conscious commitment followed by deliberate actions. And in both cases, I had to spend some of my limited conscious attention on the effort – especially when I first attempted the change. The commitment, actions, and attention required had an impact on other commitments, other actions, and other areas that I otherwise would have been focused on.

I’ve been sober for over 39 years now and haven’t smoked for 27 years. It hasn’t been hard to be sober or nicotine free for most of that time. My new habit; what is automatic for me now, is to be sober and to be a non-smoker.

 

As a result of my more recent training and personal development, I now believe there is another way to change a habit. To understand this novel approach, let’s turn our attention to the unconscious mind; the 96 – 98% that happens automatically.

 

Many therapy models acknowledge the presence and influence of subpersonalities. The idea is that who we are, what we believe and think, how we feel, and what we do are all influenced by specialized parts of ourselves. According to the Internal Family Systems model, each of our parts have their own agendas, their own values, and beliefs.

Learn More about IFS .

I realize now that when I drank excessively, I did so because there was a part of me that used drinking as a strategy to help manage my emotions. It was the same with cigarettes.

 

Getting to know and understand parts of myself and updating them with the facts related to the current conditions of my life has proven to be an effective way to help myself and my clients change harmful habits.

 

This novel approach still requires a shift in conscious attention. What is unique about this approach is its energy and feel. I still appreciate and advocate for the logical and scientific approaches described by Clear and Duhigg. But rather than just focusing on strategies and processes designed to control ourselves, I believe it is important to enroll the assistance of those parts of ourselves that use harmful habits to try and help us.

 

By getting to know, understand, and appreciate the parts of ourselves that are trying to help in this way, we can create collaborative relationships with those parts. Gradually, they can become our greatest allies and help us form helpful habits that accurately reflect our current circumstances and desired future life.

The 100 Pound Backpack

 Photo by Mark Gleeson from Pexels

Living with unhealed emotional wounds is like running a marathon without knowing you’re strapped to a hundred-pound backpack. I didn’t know I was handicapped by my unhealed past. I really believed that because I had survived it, there was nothing left to do with it.

There is a famous scene in the movie, Good Will Hunting. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) tells Will Hunting (Matt Damon) that what happened to him wasn’t his fault.

It’s hard to get through life without getting hurt emotionally. I’ve learned that when it happens, it’s possible to heal.

Michael Singer, in his book, The Untethered Soul uses a metaphor to describe what many of us do when we get hurt emotionally. The hurtful event is a thorn that gets lodged under the skin. He describes an elaborate series of accommodations made to avoid touching the wound.

Many of my thorns happened at home growing up. By the time I went out on my own, I was deeply wounded. My choices in life were unconsciously made to build a buffer around my emotional wounds. Consciously, I didn’t know I was bringing the past with me into my new, liberated life.

Almost immediately, I surrounded myself by other broken-hearted people. I married my first girlfriend who was deeply wounded. Unconsciously, she could probably see that I wasn’t emotionally available and that I lacked the capacity to get anywhere near her broken heart.

My first roommate and I used cannabis, cigarettes, and alcohol to hide and numb our broken hearts.

I thought I had walked away from the past. I had survived. I had endured. All I knew how to do was try and protect myself from further pain.

The deeper the wound, the greater the handicap. And the deeper the healing, the greater the capacity.

Living with unhealed emotional wounds is like running a marathon without knowing you’re strapped to a hundred-pound backpack. I didn’t know I was handicapped by my unhealed past. I really believed that because I had survived it, there was nothing left to do with it.

The effort required to succeed in life surrounded by others who were less burdened was incredible. I was baffled by my inability to remain emotionally steady in the face of normal life challenges. Angry people and beautiful women scared me to death. I compared myself to those who seemed to navigate life with ease and judged myself as less than, incompetent, and stupid.

At the age of 27 when I stopped drinking alcohol and using cannabis, my healing journey began. Because I didn’t know what I didn’t know, I hoped that sobriety would make everything okay. But it didn’t. Abstinence from my self-prescribed pain killers only seemed to make things worse.

I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to remain sober if not for all those meetings. I was surrounded by broken-hearted people who, like me, found a new identity in sobriety. I had been a member of the Retail Clerks Union and knew the value of seniority. I equated that to my length of sobriety and remained sober despite my increasing emotional discomfort.

After seven months of abstinence, I had a spontaneous emotional release. It moved up through me and continued practically non-stop for a couple of hours. My old roommate rescued me from under a desk where I was hiding in shame and took me to chemical dependency unit. There, I was introduced to counseling and therapy.

Gradually, over years, I began to heal as the many therapists I worked with helped me extract the festered thorns. It was a slow process and I vacillated between embracing the process and hating it. After each round of therapy, I believed I had “done my work,” only to realize within a few months that there was more healing to do.

As I healed, my capacity in life increased. The transformation was subtle, but I began to crawl my way out of anxiety and depression as I spent complete hours without fear, worry, frustration, or anger. Hours turned to days and weeks over the years. I became more emotionally stable, less insecure, and had more confidence.

Eventually, I accepted healing as a way of life. On my journey I have had many mentors and guides. No one method, model, or approach has provided all that I’ve needed to heal my emotional wounds. But the sum has been greater than the parts.

The Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy model refers to the authentic, true self as “Self.” The IFS model recognizes that Self is the essence of a person and that it cannot be harmed.

An emotional wound remains unhealed until it is given an environment that supports healing. The Self can provide that environment if given the opportunity. I now understand that each time my heart was broken, parts of me devoted themselves to managing the emotional pain. In my younger years, when my essential Self wasn’t as powerful as the toxic and dangerous external environment, the thorns remained embedded in my psyche.

Beginning with sobriety, my external world grew safer and healthier. This was the environment needed for my internal world to heal. My “Self”; who I am, has matured and become the internal healing agent that my parts need to release their emotional burdens. This is the healing process that IFS is helping me with.

I have learned that Self is contagious. The IFS model provides structure to help my pain management parts know what to do until they make enough room for the healing qualities of Self. When, with self-compassion, I get curious about my thoughts, feelings, and actions, my parts relax and surrender to the wisdom and love of Self. When this happens, my pain management parts release their burdens and I become more whole (healed).

And when I lead with Self and am around other broken-hearted people, their burdened parts respond. Increased presence and influence of the Self seems to relax the parts of those around me which gives them more room for their authentic, core Self.

Just as a broken arm can heal, my emotional wounds can heal in a loving and safe environment.

“It’s not your fault,” spoken in the safety of love and trust, can be healing words.