Sunday, January 10, 2010

Do you listen to your inner critic or your inner wisdom? (Read Time: 2 min.)

I'm working on a chapter about judgment calls and the top 10 that, far too often, we hearken to. In speaking to people about their lives, I often find that even when you remove a negative person from your life, while their presence is no longer there, the judgment calls they made about you continue on in your internal chatter.

Abusers can be dead for years but the abused take over where their abusers left off. It can be a vicious cycle. When criticism is what you were raised on, criticism becomes what's comfortable. While you might want badly to change that, if you're not conscious enough to know the difference between your inner critic and your inner wisdom, you'll find that what you listen to and respond from are the negative thoughts you grew up on.

There comes a point where we have to make a conscious choice about who we believe we really are.

Remember:
"The thing always happens that you really believe and the belief in a thing makes it happen."
-Frank Lloyd Wright

Friday, January 8, 2010

Do You Have Purple Walrus Syndrome? (Read Time: 3 min.)

If I looked at you straight in the eye, totally serious and full of faith and said, "You're a purple walrus", what would you say?

Would you agree and sell all your household goods and jump into the ocean to be with other walruses... or would you look at me like I've got three heads and six eyes and completely dismiss what I just said?

That's the topic I just wrote about in Chapter 3 of Not Built to Be Broken and, quite honestly, I went off on the topic. It amazes me how we will believe the lies that other people tell us about ourselves and, yet, those negative comments, ideas or opinions are as untrue as me telling you you're a purple walrus.

There comes a moment when you have to decide who you are. It's not up to anyone else to tell you who you are. In fact, they really don't have a clue and if you live your life people pleasing, being someone that you're really not, guess what? They really have no clue because those people haven't even met you yet.

It's time to get over the mental trauma we cause to ourselves when we choose to believe the "good" opinions of other people about who we are and about what we are capable of doing. I make it a point to deal with people in a "you speak while I do" sort of fashion. I don't have to convince you of who I am. You can speak and tell me who you think I am and you can really live your life believing that. Go ahead, do you. But, at the end of the day, I don't live by what people say I am or even who I say I am. I live by who I am choosing to be in my everyday actions.

We all can talk the good talk: "I'm compassionate." "I'm loving." "I'm adventurous." But, if you don't walk the walk, your talk means nothing.

So, here are two clear things I talked about in Chapter 3:
1) You're not a purple walrus so stop living like you are
2) Anytime you put more faith in other people's opinions, you turn over your power to them. Is that really who you want deciding your destiny?

Nuff said...

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Writing Just to Write (Read Time: 2 min.)

I had trouble writing Chapter 3 this morning. I got my allotted writing time in but it was more writing just to write rather than really saying something. Ever have moments like that? You speak just to fill the silence or you clean the house just so you don't have to think about a pressing issue or you shop simply because you'd rather spend money than confront the real drama in your life? Well, this morning, I was writing to fill in the time I'd allotted for my writing. It's a good exercise in discipline but it doesn't leave me feeling very accomplished.

Chapter 3 is about walking on eggshells. It's about why so many of us live our lives pretending, trying to be and say the right things all of the time. I wrote about blunt people the other day and it seems like on one side of the spectrum are the blunt people who use their 'realness' as a cover and, yet, on the opposite side of the spectrum are the people pleasers who live their lives walking on eggshells, trying to be everyone to everything.

I once had someone say to me, "Kass, you're not that nice." I still can't quite figure out why those words resound with me as much today as they did the first moment I heard them but I think it has something to do with this walking on eggshells thing. Everyone has a desire to be liked, appreciated or approved of and there's nothing wrong with that. There is something wrong with feeling like you need to be anything other than who you are in order to be accepted. On some level, we all have felt that but in writing this chapter, I'm trying to figure out how I hit home the point that we don't do anybody favors by pretending to be anything other than who we really are. It doesn't improve anyone's quality of life to live a lie or to pretend to be who you're not... but how do you unlearn that? How do you tell someone to stop faking it? How do you give someone the tools they need to take off the mask they've worn for so long? That's what I'm trying to figure out in this chapter...

Hmmm....

Monday, January 4, 2010

Blunt People (Read Time: 1 min.)

I was writing another chapter this morning and really feel the need to cover this one point:
Don't allow other people to use their personalities as scapegoats for bad behavior.

I'm not a fan of people who say "Sorry if I hurt your feelings. I'm blunt and tell it like it is." That would be like someone punching you in the face and saying "Sorry, I'm just overly aggressive and physical." Does that make any sense? Of course it doesn't!

At the end of the day, each person chooses how and what they say and far too many people live in an unconscious state where they vomit out words without ever considering the power of what they speak. Every word you and I speak to ourselves and others creates a world. When you really begin to get that, you start to understand that life and death ARE in the power of the tonge and they love it shall eat the fruit thereof. I don't know about you but I don't want to eat hateful, pain producing words.

Remember: what you give out comes back to you EVERY TIME...

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