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by
Rob White
what we fail to realize is that we make ourselves into our understandings first, and then we go out into the world and justify those understanding by acting in ways that validate them. Then we say, “This is just the way I am.”
Do you suspect that you may be accomplishing but a fraction of what’s possible for you? Let this moment be a launching point to begin proving your suspicion correct. Remain suspicious. Your wariness will help you discover those miss-understandings that have harmed you.
All of humanity’s miss-understandings are derivatives of the toxic question, “What’s wrong with me?” Consequently, the answers we come to put extreme limits on what we do, which limits us from realizing our incredible potential.
One great perk that comes with being a human being is that you have the capacity to make corrections to rid yourself of toxic understandings that poison your personality. And the best way to make corrections is by asking healthy questions.
Here’s an example of a healthy question to substitute for “What’s wrong with me?” Simply ask yourself, “How might I see myself differently so I might learn something that empowers me?” Ask that question meaningfully, and it immediately expands your view to include possibilities that you couldn’t see with the prior question.
Your ability to immobilize your focus is a power of great value. With one healthy question you can confine your mind to a single intention. And with your focus immobilized, you awaken another valuable power—your ability to monopolize your attention. When your attention is consumed, you are no longer led astray by distractions, and that’s when the fog lifts!
You are endowed with an awesome power—the Power of Intervention. This power creates a clearing for self-renewal. It enables you to turn your thoughts in the right direction when your self-talk is fraught with faulty ruminations. When you use this power productively, you begin noticing the many opinions you hold of yourself that just ain’t so and realize it’s time to let them go.
When you use your Power of Intervention to effectively free yourself of your miss-understandings, you see yourself as a valuable and contributing force in life, and your actions reflect that. When you see yourself as anything less than that, your responses are feeble. That’s a call to action—it’s time to intervene in your inner world by interrupting your inner dialogue.
Nervously reacting is a consequence of an inner narrative that is self-demeaning. Such a narrative gives you a very narrow range of choices when it comes to participating in life. In such moments it’s always appropriate to interrupt.
When your world occurs as threatening, it’s because you occur to yourself as inadequate,
which is a consequence of a degrading inner dialogue. You never, never, never need to bear the brunt of belittling opinions that have been programmed into your nervous system. The only way to deal with this is to tackle it head on by intervening.
Your Power of Intervention is key to your success in life.
Do you know the one thing that can prevent you from setting yourself straight when your inner narrative is giving you a nervous ache? It’s your own resistance to your incredible potential. When you release your Power of Intervention onto correcting your resistance, there is no stopping you.
Imagine challenging all those reasons you rely upon to justify your supposed shortcomings. It’s time to be rigorously honest with yourself. It’s time to begin noticing the many veils of miss-understandings you’ve layered over the incredible truth about yourself.
One grave error we make when we ruminate over a mistake, is to Overemphasize our assumptions of being deficient. If only it stopped there. The next thing we do is Overapply our nervous reactions, which reinforces our faulty assumptions.
JOHN “I know I’m way too heavy,” John sobs. “But screw it! There’s nothing I can do about it. I’m big-boned, and I have a slow metabolism.” John then polishes off a half gallon of rocky road ice cream, out of misaligned frustration and resignation. John’s feelings, thoughts, and actions all match up perfectly with how he occurs to
himself—hopeless and helpless. Can you see any exaggeration in John’s situation? What if John were to release his Power of Intervention onto his self-talk by asking this healthy question: “Is it possible I’m overemphasizing my inability to lose weight?” Productive change begins when John begins speaking to himself in a productive manner. With that one question, John has the opportunity to take command of his inner world and alter how he occurs to himself. That’s the Power of Intervention in action! The Power of Intervention combined with a healthy question brings light to any dark situation.
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“Come to the edge,” he said.
“We can’t, we’re afraid!” they responded. “Come to the edge,” he said. “We can’t, we will fall!” they responded. “Come to the edge,” he said. And so they came. And he pushed them. And they flew. —Christopher Logue2
The strong wings of a fledgling are useless if the fledgling overemphasizes her inability to use them. With the opinion, “I can’t, I will fall!” the fledgling overreacts by gripping tightly to the branch of the tree upon which she is perched. That branch is your “comfort zone,” which offers you no growth if you look closely. When it’s time to take flight, never allow negative r...
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You know when your inner court of miss-understandings holds a hearing on a tempting vision you’re entertaining and issues a demoralizing verdict—you feel it! Well, don’t accept it! That verdict comes from a biased jury of mistaken opinions in a kangaroo court. Quickly intervene when lame excuses pop up as evidence that support such a verdict: “I object!”
The quickest way to come to your own rescue is to continually ask yourself, “How can I see this matter differently?” That
The next time you’re feeling frustrated, make that feeling your ally. What it’s actually trying to tell you is this: “You are capable of succeeding, but success requires that you approach the matter differently.”
What if you were envious of the strengths and talents you possess that you’ve not yet accessed.
As a kid, the more envious you became of your unrealized potential, the more you reached for higher challenges, such as reading and writing and riding a bike…all in the name of understanding more of your limitless nature. In those moments you always found yourself at the edge of a new life.
Resentment is a mild dislike that has intensified. You allowed the dislike to linger too long in your mind, by ruminating on it, and now it’s toxic energy. However, if you direct
that ruminating energy of resentment correctly, it is remarkably energizing. You find yourself ruminating on thoughts that are soothing rather than angrily steaming.
For example, when you claim, “I am graceful,” and identify with that claim, your world occurs for you very differently, and you show up in your world very differently than when you claim, “I am clumsy.” When a person claims, “I am clumsy,” it is not an expression of his intelligence, but an expression of his confusion, coming from a miss-understanding. Yet that person will step into the world and prove it, so he can experience it. This happens unconsciously, but nonetheless it happens.
At any time, you can draw a line in your mind and distinguish a new way of being by claiming a new “I AM.” However, in order to do that successfully, you have to loosen your relationship with a current, opposing “I AM” that you’ve been committed to.
Nothing is a bigger stumbling block to stepping beyond your comfort zone than the statement, “This is just the way I am.” If you ever hear yourself saying that, honor yourself by intervening, and be a pouncing tiger about it. Don’t hesitate.
THE ULTIMATE UNDERSTANDING I am a rich and majestic child of infinite intelligence. I am marvelously made. I am here to reveal, feel, and share all that is good and beautiful about me.
It is your responsibility to choose to be on your side, always. No
An interesting phenomenon is that when you genuinely embody this first part of the UU, you feel no need to prove it, and furthermore, you leave space for everyone else to feel that way about themselves, too. And coincidentally, the more you grant others the freedom to feel that way, the more freedom you grant yourself.
The Bible verse, “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world”8 has always intrigued me. Could it be, the “greater he” within you and me is the rich and majestic child of infinite intelligence? Could it also be, the “lesser he” within you is the intruder, who insists you’re far less than that?
I am here to reveal, feel, and share all that is good and beautiful about me. This is why I am here. I am here to reveal, feel, and share all that is good and beautiful about me.
An important part of the package of being a human being is your ability to self-reflect so you may self-select, which is to look at yourself and think about yourself differently. With a newly selected “I AM,” you can present a new facet of yourself to the world and reinforce it with action that supports it.
Whether you put your To-Be list together consciously or unconsciously is important to understand, but what really matters is to know that you can alter your list and add to it. Every time you do this, you give new meaning to yourself, and that alters how you occur for yourself, which immediately alters how your world occurs for you, which alters your action in the world.
Knowing you can add to your To-Be list offers you the chance to notice the qualities you envy in others, so you may polish those qualities up in yourself, and put them on display in your life.
You need a supportive To-Be list to guarantee your To-Do list gets done. Only when you are Being who you need to be, in order to achieve what you’re conceiving, can you do what needs Doing so you can enjoy Having what you’re perceiving. That is the only “for-sure” route to take.
Can you recall a time when you conceived yourself achieving what you perceived, and then proceeded to do what was needed? Do you remember how there was no pushy trying-effort involved? Well, here’s what happened: in the process of conceiving yourself achieving what you were perceiving—you passed through a twilight of mild fervor, then into a dawning of exuberant confidence, and finally into buoyant enthusiasm.
Your life has worked out the way it has worked out because of your current To-Be list. If your life has not worked out as you hoped it would, that’s because your To-Be list was missing the “I AMs” necessary for you to do what needed to be done.
The productive “I AMs” you’ve placed on your To-Be list make up your pleasing personality. The unproductive “I AMs” make up that other personality, imposed on you by the intruder.
You are the ultimate authority when it comes to what’s on your To-Be list. You have complete jurisdiction over your “I AMs.” Every time you exercise your authority by responsibly altering your To-Be list, you create space for more innovation and ingenuity.
1. What current “I AMs,” on my To-Be list support me? 2. What “I AMs” should I add that will have me explore more of life? 3. What “I AMs” should I add that would help me solve the problems I’m stuck with? 4. What “I AMs” should I delete from the list that are hampering me?
I am affable. I am delightful. I am generous. I am bold. I am elegant. I am helpful. I am capable. I am fun. I am interesting.
Knowing your “I AMS” are calling you to be, what do you want them to call you to be? Always write them in the first person, present tense, and write them like they are ways of being that you would truly enjoy expressing. They are not hollow platitudes; they are your future unfolding.
Just to remind you—with a new To-Be list you do not actually reinvent yourself or create your self anew. What you’re doing is resurrecting unexpressed aspects of yourself that have always been available, aspects that augment your ability to succeed with your aims and aspirations.
