(If this is your first time on this site, please begin with "Are You Prepared For Success [Introduction.])
Take heart, It's not your fault! However, instead of blaming others, this process will enable you to take control of your life and effect the necessary changes.
It's only human nature, after hearing these messages from people you trust, over and over again, to believe and then repeat these messages, to yourself, over and over again, until they become a part of you; until you have internalized them so deeply into your being that they "become" you.
These messages become embedded in your sub-conscious mind. You may not feel negative about yourself consciously, however, you feel that there is something stopping you from achieving the success rightly deserve. This something is a collection, built up over time, of negative feelings about yourself and your abilities; caused by your internalization and ownership of these negative messages. These feelings are deep in your subconscious. There they cause feelings of inadequacy, inferiority and the inability to believe in yourself and your abilities.
You are where you are, and you are who you are because that is all you believe that you are capable of becoming.
I had, and most of you probably have, a deep, dark scary place inside of you that contains your darkest secrets and your most frightening fears; a place of demons and monsters; a place where you hide those prior actions and thoughts that you are ashamed of. This is the place where all of those negative messages, which contribute to your inadequacies, self condemnation, feelings of rage, envy and jealousy, all congregate and grow stronger every day. They will continue to grow stronger as long as you continue to validate them.
It is a place that you fear...will one day reveal itself to others...and you will be exposed as a fake, a phony, and a loser and then the "truth" will be known by the whole world. This is probably your deepest fear.
In the reflections of the soul
And the honesty of the heart
The truth will be seen
And the fear will depart.
This fear is not your truth. This is the false truth of your past; the false truth that others in your life have forced upon you, as in the following examples:
- People who possibly meant well, trying to protect you from their truths: that this is a "cold, cruel world."
- People who wanted to share their misery by inflicting their pain onto you.
- People who felt inadequate and who could only feel better by making you feel bad.
All of us who are worth anything, spend our manhood in un-learning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley
I'm sure you can think of many more examples that are unique to your own life. List them. Again, this can be very cathartic.)
When you are immersed in your deep, dark scary place, it is difficult hard to understand that these truths that you perceive as yours, are not yours. So you continue to hide them in your dark place, scared that one day they will be revealed. When you are in this place, you most likely reject anything that is positive while only accepting things that are negative in nature, things that fit with your collection of negative messages. Thus, your deep, dark scary place grows ever stronger and even more scary. While holding onto this belief, consciously or subconsciously, it is impossible to break free from the hold that this place, with its negative messages and your greatest fears, has on you, and truly become free of them so you can attain the success you desire.
This process will give you an enjoyable way to break free from this death-grip of negativity.
"The only way to truly fail is to give up." Let this statement sink in. When one gives up, it's usually because he/she does not believe that he/she is capable of succeeding. This belief is completely preventable, and fortunately, reversible. Both...the belief that one cannot succeed, and quitting...are usually caused by processing information through these very same false, negative, attitudes that you have built up over the years.
Half the failures in life arise from pulling in one's horse as he is leaping.
-Julius C. Hare & Augustus Hare
Failure? I never encountered it. All I ever met were temporary setbacks.
-Bill Marriott of the Marriott Hotels
Following is a metaphor that will help explain what my process is meant to do for you and how it can guide you to the place that you want to be:
“If you grew up wearing a pair of black tinted glasses everything that you look at would have that black tint. No matter how hard you try to see the true colors of objects, you will still see everything through that black tint. There is nothing that you can do to the object you are looking at to change how you see it. This is the same as growing up with negative attitudes; having negative messages implanted in your subconscious. Everything that you look at will be filtered through these negative attitudes (black tinted glasses). A person with positive attitudes will see a cup as half-full, you will see it as half-empty; where a person with positive attitudes will see an opportunity, you will see the risk; where a positive person will dig a little deeper for that little bit extra that is needed to win, you would give up and say "what's the use, I've already lost."
What one person approves, another scorns,
And thus his nature each discloses;
You find the rosebush full of thorns,
I find the thornbush full of roses.
-Arthur Guiterman
Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that
we see too late the one that is open.
-Alexander Graham Bell
Now think of how it would be if you were able to remove these dark glasses, and put on a pair of clear glasses. Everything that you previously saw as dark, hopeless, depressing and negative would now have bright colors, true colors, be hopeful, happy and positive. The whole world would seem different, better, more exciting and a place of opportunity...not failure.
The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
-George Bernard Shaw
By Mel Kaye
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