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When you ask that question, How did you get to be the way you are? people say: my family, my religion, my past, what happened to me.
But maybe not. Maybe what makes you, every moment, the way you are is not the past, but the future you are living into.
What future? The future you decided on back when you were little…
Let me explain:
Here you are, 2-3-4-5-6 years old. Something happened and you are talking to yourself. Maybe it is under the darkness and privacy of your bed. Maybe you are sitting in a corner, snubbed by everybody else. Or maybe you were just slapped by your father.
‘OK. I am worthless. But why? What is wrong with me?’
This is what you ask yourself during this period of wondering about…
What happened? How does this work?
At some point, early on, something happened. You saw someone being beaten, maybe killed. Or you were mistreated, told no when you expected a yes, frowned upon. Something maybe not even very significant in the wide scope of things, but you experienced that maybe life is not as safe as you thought it was, and you are not as OK as you thought you were before.
It is what happened. And if that happened, it will happen again.
And as little as you were with a very limited brain, a very limited scope of life, you started wondering about. About the future. About the why… And because little kids are self-centered, you asked: ‘what’s wrong with me that that happened?‘
And later, maybe years later something else happened, and you decided: ‘that’s it, that is what is wrong with me.‘
And you may have had a series of incidents, but the incident with the decision, maybe insignificant by itself, is where your life-script begins, with YOUR DECISION.
Before that time you had questions, after that time you had no questions. You decided, you killed the alternatives, and now you have your answer. No questions, just answers.
You didn’t choose to be that… choice is selecting, freely, AFTER CONSIDERATION. No, you had no freedom, you killed the alternatives.
Most of us ends up with a shade of worthless… and its therefore.
The therefore is a consequence… A future.
- You are pretty, therefore you don’t have to earn anything, it is due to you.
- Or you are annoying, therefore you are always left out of everything. You’ll be treated as a pariah.
- You are stupid and therefore you’ll never amount to anything.
- Or you are weak, and therefore you will be bullied… unless…
So there is also an unless? Yes. And that comes from the future… The unless.
Your unless is an invention. Whatever is after the therefore is due to happen, unless you something. See that it’s a future?
Unless you are seductive, unless you are very very very helpful, unless you convince everyone that you are really really smart. Unless you know the answer even before the question comes up. Ugh. Unless you are the ‘make things happen’ person of every party. Unless you dress to the nines, and hold yourself as someone important. Or alternatively unless you can crack some jokes that people laugh at.
Your fake, invented identity, invented to fix the future. It doesn’t even try to fix the original decision… only the future.
If you are annoying, offering help will not make you not annoying! If you are selfish, being seductive makes you even more selfish. Or if you are stupid, blurting out the wrong answers will not make you sound smart, on the contrary.
- An eager beaver is useful but annoying. Annoying because the behavior makes everyone feel like they are less… Being an eager beaver is a version of superiority.
- So is being helpful, being smart, dressing to the nines, having an air of importance, maybe even being very funny. Superior.
So, when we look, every fix is an even bigger problem, especially because the fix is used to cover up, hide something, so it’s not authentic.
If we peel off all the fixes, and all the therefores, and address the original decision, that you are stupid, or weak, or annoying, we could argue with it. We could fight it. We already see that fixing it wasn’t such a good idea.
What we have never attempted to do is embrace it. OK, I said I was stupid… so what?
Now, listen up, there is an important step that unless you do it, even embracing isn’t going to change anything. This isn’t going to set you free.
And the thing to do is a little bit of looking. A little bit of thinking.
Is this true that if I were that way the therefore would be what I said it would be?
Is it true that you don’t ever have to earn anything if you are pretty? Is it true that prettiness earns you a life of leisure? Or is it true that if you are annoying, no one will love you? That being stupid will rob you of all chance for achievement? That if you are weak NOW, then everyone will bully you?
I am not going to ask you to correct your original decision… the decision that you were stupid. You probably were. But your conclusion, your therefore is open to argument, and that is where you need to argue.
The cause and effect part of your argument needs to be thought through.
- If you are right and make others wrong… will that mean that you are a good person?
- If you make a mistake, does it really mean that you’ll get killed, beaten? Maybe when you are little with a violent mother. But not as an adult!
Your entire behavior in life is orchestrated and run by a three year old!
This is the issue we deal with in today’s ‘from inflated self to humble self’ workshop. At 11 am EST.
We’ll need to be precise… precision will be the stumbling block today. Approximately won’t quite cut it.
Be hydrated, rested, and ready…
We can alter the rest of your life… in a short 3-hour long workshop. If you agree. If you cooperate. And if you are willing.
Here is the link to register
From annoying to lovable
