More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
May 10, 2019 - January 20, 2020
I’m so happy I persisted!
one that spoke of strength and love and joy and all good things.
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
lead, I unlearned the thinking that had been keeping me a prisoner of my own insecurities. I began to see the world as a less threatening and more joyous place; I started to see myself as someone who had purpose, and I experienced the meaning of love for the first time in my life.
I’LL HANDLE IT!
TRUTH 1 THE FEAR WILL NEVER GO AWAY AS LONG AS I CONTINUE TO GROW.
TRUTH 2
THE ONLY WAY TO GET RID OF THE FEAR OF DOING SOMETHING IS TO GO OUT AND DO IT.
TRUTH 3 THE ONLY WAY TO FEEL BETTER ABOUT MYSELF IS TO GO OUT … AND DO IT.
TRUTH 4 NOT ONLY AM I GOING TO EXPERIENCE FEAR WHENEVER I’M ON UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY, BUT SO IS EVERYONE ELSE.
You must feel the fear … and do it anyway. A very successful friend of mine, a
you have not been successful in dealing with fear, you probably never learned the Fear Truths, and interpreted fear as a signal to retreat rather than as a green light to move ahead. You have tended to play those WHEN/THEN games I mentioned earlier. All you have to do to find a way out of your self-imposed prison is to retrain your thinking.
A first step in retraining your thinking is to say the Fear Truths at least ten times a day for the next month. As you will shortly discover, retraining faulty thinking takes constant repetition.
Knowing the Fear Truths is not enough. You have to keep feeding them to yourself until they become a part of your being—until you start to reverse your behavior and move ...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
TRUTH 5 PUSHING THROUGH FEAR IS LESS FRIGHTENING THAN LIVING WITH THE UNDERLYING FEAR THAT COMES FROM A FEELING OF HELPLESSNESS.
Fear Truth 5: people who refuse to take risks live with a feeling of dread that is far more severe than what they would feel if they took the risks necessary to make them less helpless—only they don’t know it!
“I’ll handle it!”
Five Truths about Fear 1. The fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow. 2. The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out … and do it. 3. The only way to feel better about myself is to go out … and do it. 4. Not only am I going to experience fear whenever I’m on unfamiliar territory, but so is everyone else. 5. Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.
The former hold their fear from a position of power (choice, energy and action), and the latter hold it from a position of pain (helplessness, depression and paralysis).
This means power over your perceptions of the world, power over how you react to situations in your life, power to do what is necessary for your own self-growth, power to create joy and satisfaction in your life, power to act and power to love.
egomaniacs have absolutely no feeling of power—thus their compelling need to control those around them. Their lack of power leaves them perpetually in a state of fear, since their survival depends on the outside world.
The truth is that love and power go together. With power, one can really begin to open up the heart. With no power, love is distorted.
I AM POWERFUL AND I AM LOVED.
I AM POWERFUL AND I LOVE IT!
ACTION IS VERY POWERFUL!
“Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.”
Put a pin at the place on the chart where you see yourself situated at this moment in your life.
Use your “mistakes” as learning experiences. Remember that each time you get angry at yourself for an action you have taken, you keep yourself on the side of pain.
be really powerful, you need to be in charge of all aspects of your life—work, relationships, environment, body, and so on.
Although your life may look exactly the same to the outside world, it is your own sense of internal peace and growth that determines where you are on the chart. It is, totally, a feeling within. You may wonder if you really need to go to such lengths to get yourself moving. Trust me—you do! In the beginning, you need all the gimmicks you can get to remind you of where you want to go. You don’t become powerful without concentrating on power. As you must have figured out by now, simply knowing what to do does not mean that you do it, or, for that matter, even remember it.
Choose to move to a Pain-to-Power Vocabulary as follows:
“I can’t” implies you have no control over your life, whereas “I won’t” puts a situation in the realm of choice.
doesn’t leave you the helpless victim of your meeting. “I should” is another loser.
“I could” is more powerful.
“It’s not my fault” is another beauty. Once again, you look helpless. It’s better to take responsibility for whatever happens to you in life than always to be the victim. “It’s not my fault I got sick”; “It’s not my fault I lost the job.” If you are willing to take responsibility, then you might see what you can change in the future. Relative to illness, say, “I’m totally responsible for my illness.
“It’s a problem” is another deadening phrase. It’s heavy and negative. “It’s an opportunity” opens the door to growth.
“I hope” is another victim’s phrase. “I know” has far more power.
“If only” is boring. You can hear the whine behind it. “Next time” implies that you have learned from the situation and will put the learning to use another time. For example, “If only I hadn’t said that to Tom” can be restated, “I’ve learned Tom is sensitive about this issue. Next time, I’ll be more sensitive.” “What will I do?” Again you can hear the whine and the fear implied in these words. You, like everyone else, have incredible sources of power within that you haven’t used before. It would serve you to say to yourself, “I know I’ll handle it. I have nothing to worry about.” Instead of,
...more
Replace “it’s terrible” with “It’s a learning experience.”
The more powerfully you speak, the more you will be a force in the world around you.
bring more power into your life by expanding your comfort zone. What
Each night before you go to bed, plan the risk you are going to take the following day. Close your eyes, and in your mind’s eye, practice doing it. Make your visualization as clear as you possibly can. Also, as you go through the day, be aware of where you find yourself hesitating, and start planning your future risks based on these observations. If you can push through the hesitation at the moment you recognize it, great. Remember that the more you expand your comfort zone, the more powerful you become.
It takes constant repetition for newer and healthier patterns to take hold.
You, like all of us, deserve everything that is wonderful and exciting in
life. And
If you know you can create your own misery, it stands to reason that you can also create your own joy.
Taking responsibility means never blaming anyone else for anything you are being, doing, having or feeling. “Never?”
Taking responsibility means not blaming yourself.
Taking responsibility means being aware of where and when you are NOT taking responsibility so that you can eventually change. It took years before I realized that the place I played the victim role most often was with the men in my life. I remember many evenings of complaining for countless hours with my girlfriends about the grief the men in my life were causing me.
