Surviving a Negative Environment (part 2)

If you feel guilty about what has transpired, make amends as best as you can, and if possible turn it around and use it as a stepping-stone to make things better.

What is guilt? Why is it important?  I often felt that guilt was something good. But often guilt is rooted from negative thoughts, negative energy and definitely shouldn’t be there.  Colin Powell, Secretary of State during 1st term of President G.W. Bush once said “None of us can change our yesterdays, but all of us can change our tomorrows.”  I am interpreting this quote that if we make mistakes, how we have lived and all that, it doesn’t matter anymore, what matters is that choices we make today will affect our tomorrow. So choose wisely and things will be better.

Dave Pelzer sums it up with this quote “Learn from your past! Don’t become a prisoner of it!”  He certainly had a lot of reasons to be a prisoner of his past but he decided to step up and away from it and become a person that he is today.  He has done a lot of good things and I am amazed and at awe of him.  I think it is important that you learn from your past but don’t hang it over your head and make yourself guilty every moment. That is what I have done in the past. I do something wrong, then I overeat. Then I realized I overate, I feel guilty for that so then I ate more to erase that guilty feeling that leads me to more guilt. That is a vicious cycle to live with. Learning to let go of the past is hard but it is something that I need to do.

Surviving a Negative Environment (part 1)

This is the 2nd chapter of Help Yourself: Finding Hope, Courage, and Happiness by Dave Pelzer. There are six wise things coming from the chapter that I am going to put in here and make comments. I have decided that I will post one section at a time because by the time I am done making my comments to each section. It will be 10 pages report. I don’t want you all to feel that you have to read a paper. A blog is not a paper. It is merely snippets of my thoughts. So I hope you all are okay with that idea.

Don’t use your environment as a crutch, if you do, you’ll only limit yourself

I would like to expand that and say "Don't use anything as a crutch." It is so self-limiting. I don't know if most of us have ever heard this saying "Take the 'T out of Can't, and you CAN do it." Our minds are very special and smart, but it can also be dumb at the same time. Here is why, our minds will believe anything that we say is true. If I say that I can't lose weight. My mind will think it is true and make it come true. So taking the ‘T out of Can't and say that I can lose weight. My mind will change and make that new statement true.

“What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather, indicates, his fate”, a quote by H.D. Thoreau. The quote itself is self-explanatory. It doesn’t matter what happens to us, it is what we think of ourselves that determines my fate. Now that is the scary part because that forces me to regulate my thoughts and make sure that it is not negative or limiting. I want my thoughts to soar and make my fate the best that it can be for my own life.

Simply because I am what I think I am. Zig Ziglar, a famous positive mental attitude guru wrote in his book See You at the Top said “You are the sum total of what goes into your mind.” Which was further reinforced by James Allen’s quote “As a man thinketh, so is he…” My mind is a canvas, I am the artist. I get to paint whatever I want. I think I want something that is beautiful like this photograph that I took.

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It is a beautiful photograph and it is vibrant, bright strong colors. That is what I want my life to be like.

In order for me to have that kind of life, I need to grab the reins and be responsible of my own life. Jack Canfield, co-editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul series wrote in his book The Success Principles, “There is only one person responsible for the quality of the life you live. That person is you.” So I am responsible for my own life, no one else is. That means I got to make decisions, but oh no, that means I will be in charge. No no no I can’t handle that. Oh wait, if I am not in charge then what happens? My life won’t be what I want it to be and I would complain about it all the time. Whose is responsible for that, certainly, I will find someone to blame. You know when you point at someone; you have three fingers pointing back at you. Bottom line is You are responsible for your own life and I am for my own. Let’s take up the reins and do something about that.

Another thing that I truly do believe is that if I blame someone, I am making a crutch for me to use. Blaming someone means I am not taking responsibility for something that there and now. Stephen Covey wrote in his book Seven Habits of highly effective people that the word responsibility means "response-ability" or ability to respond to different things. The first habit is "Be proactive" meaning that we make choices about how we will respond to things. By blaming, we eliminate all other responses and say "See it is his/her/its fault, it is not mine. I am not responsible at all." That is something I need to work on because when I eat to comfort myself, the food is telling me "don't worry, I will take care of you and you don't have to feel pain anymore." But lately it hasn't been working and I need more food to make me feel better. But grabbing a hold of the reins again and telling myself that I need to be in control and I need to let go of everything, I am becoming responsible for my own life and I am making choices that means something to me.

Recently on Lifetime Channel, they have been showing this movie that is based on true story, Fighting the Odds: The Marilyn Gambrell Story. This movie is perfect example of how to not the environment as a crutch. Her students suffered so much but yet they succeeded. They graduated, they realized that they have to choose between being a victim or not be a victim any more. However one student pointed out that in the “No More Victim” class, she was able to take off her mask but couldn’t do that outside of the class. I think that is perfectly fine because survival is important. Being in a safe zone encourages person to realize that they have choices that they need to make. It helps them get the support they need and allow themselves to be open to choose how they will respond to different things. I want to sneak one more quote before I end this section. Tony Robbins, motivational guru, said “It is not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.” One thing we know is that we can change our beliefs and that will change our perspective of those events. You have the power to choose.

The Need to Free Yourself

This morning I was reading two chapters from Dave Pelzer's book, Help Yourself: Finding Hope, Courage, and Happiness I began to take a deeper look into my own soul, my life and my past. I think this time around, I am willing to really take a good look and deal with whatever I need to deal with. I couldn't really do that in the past but now I am willing to come face to face knowing that I may have to relive the pain, the anger, the evil of the past. I know I can't move on if I don't so have to do it.

In the book, the first chapter, it talked about "the need to free yourself". Dave wrote some really wise things that I want to share, in other words, to make a note of it so that I can read it again and again as I reread my own posts often.

Settle your problems as promptly and as thoroughly as you are able.

This statement reminds me of an organizational guru that suggests people to go through their papers and handle them right then by either filing, shred/trash or complete it now. Dave said that if we don't handle our problems right now and then, what happens is that it will be stored in your brain, clogging up brain resources and soon or later, the brain will crash, hence the psychological term "mental breakdown". As I revisit some of the issues, I am going to deal with it at that moment. Will it be tough? Probably so, will I feel better afterward? I sure hope so.

Let go of a past you cannot change.

How many of us know the Serenity prayer? I am trying to remember that prayer, not only is it a prayer but it is a wise saying that needs to be incorporated in my life. The prayer goes like this:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Letting go means accepting that it is going to be there and that way forever, nothing I can do to make something different or change what it is.

In the midst of fighting life's battles, relax.

Dr. Wayne Dyer, in many of his books he wrote, has said that in silence comes the answer. In whatever he meant, I think he is right because in most religions, it is a standard practice to have moment of silence in forms of prayers, meditations or simple focusing on one thing. By relaxing, by tuning out things and just be... the solutions to problems will come and you can then say "bingo, it is taken care of." That is what I want my life to be like.

Vent your frustrations in a controlled yet cleansing manner.

Controlled eruptions are what Dave is suggesting and I am trying to figure out how that applies to my life. That would be really good thing because I am usually a long term emotional person which means I feel one emotion for a long time and I feed that emotion until I get tired of it. The longest running emotion that I can remember of was the summer of 1999 when I was living with two other guys. I was so mad at them for breaking our agreements and they kept getting on my case about minor things. I gave them cold-shoulder treatment for 3 long weeks. I always try to suppress my emotions and deal with it later. But I do talk about how I feel if someone asks me. I prefer that they ask me and then allow me to open up. I can't seem to just ask someone if I could vent and have them just listen. It comes out in outbursts and then I become really frustrated because they can't really respond to my outbursts. Maybe if I had controlled outburst and then

Have the courage to purify yourself of whatever may be holding you back.

This goes back to the Serenity prayer about making changes. Be willing to take a good deep look and say "Okay, I can change something, be it accepting things that I can't change, or actually do make some changes with things that I can change.

Perhaps meditation is in order for me. Let it help me purify myself and get better.