Your secret power

Your Secret Power

By M. Alexander Wright i

Introduction

This booklet is designed to be read and worked in the order presented. You can read it through and then read it slowly doing the work. The later material will have more meaning to you personally after doing the work as described.

I dedicate this booklet to my parents, my first teachers who showed me how to live and learn from my experiences.

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Table of Contents

1. Your Past a. b. c. d.

Experiences…………………………………………………………. 1 Learning from your Past……………………………………. 1 Power Journal…………………………………………………….. 2 Forgiving Yourself for Past ‘Mistakes’………………… 4

2. Your Feelings a. b. c. d. e.

Source of Feelings……………………………………………… 4 Automatic Thoughts……………………………………………. 5 Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs)………………… 6 Directing Thoughts……………………………………………… 8 Practical Strategy for Anger……………………………….10

3. Drawing Passion from your Past a. Making Friends with Your past……………………………12 b. Locating the Patterns…………………………………………..12 c. Choosing Your Direction, Following Your Heart…13

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Your Past Everyone has a past. Successful people, troubled people, stagnant people, everyday people, passionate people, failed people and many other types of people all have pasts. a.

Experiences

What makes the difference in the outcome? Do some people have charmed childhoods with their futures handed to them on a silver platter? Some absolutely do. However, even they have experiences that they may regret.

Simultaneously, some seem to have a bright future handed to them and yet they remain troubled. Their lives are filled with drama and turmoil.

At the same time, some people have tragic, chaotic childhoods with what seem to be unsurmountable obstacles and yet they rise above it all to become successful.

How would you describe your life? What story do you tell yourself to explain who you are? b.

Learning from your Past

People take their past experiences and weave them into a story they tell themselves. Think back to a time you first met someone. After the introductions, names and maybe a position identified by a job or relationship to someone else, you start to share past experiences with each other. Through the stories, you come to know the other person and they come to know the you that you want to share with the other person.

Next time you find yourself meeting someone new, notice the stories you share.

Do you share events in your life that happened to you or do you tell stories of things you have done? Look at the statements below and notice the subtle difference between the two.

“When I was young, my sister told me I was stupid and since she was older I believed her.”

Or “When I was young, I liked to climb trees and run around rather than sit in school.”

The difference between the two is perspective. In the first statement, the person is stuck in the description by the older sister. This person has identified with 1

the self-description as ‘stupid’ so much that it is included in their conversations with anyone who will listen. This focus has caused the person to collect more stories to confirm the ‘stupid’ identification. You can tell that the memory of this event is still fresh in the person’s mind, almost like it happened recently.

The second statement doesn’t mention the older sister, but talks about an activity the person enjoyed. The statement goes on to show the conclusion the second person has come to after mulling over their experiences. This person is not stuck in the past, but rather has claimed their present. This person has taken the time to process the past events and learned about themself.

All experiences in your life are valuable to you and can teach you something about yourself. Perhaps you need to learn a skill, or make a change, keep it the same, slow down, speed up or some other activity. At the very least, you can learn that you don’t like it and you never want to do that again. All of it is useful information you can use to move forward with your life.

YOUR JOURNEY HAS MOLDED YOU FOR YOUR GREATER GOOD, AND IT WAS EXACTLY WHAT IT NEEDED TO BE. DON’T THINK THAT YOU LOST TIME, IT TOOK EACH AND EVERY SITUATION YOU HAVE ENCOUNTERED TO BRING YOU TO THE NOW. AND NOW IS RIGHT ON TIME. ASHA TYSON

This perspective of honoring your past, no matter what, can help you to let your past with some work inform your present in a positive direction.

c.

Power Journal

One technique for coming to terms with how your past informs your present is through a Power Journal. Writing down your thoughts and feelings can help you to see patterns, traps, red flags, gifts, progress and also provide the place to create the focus to develop a plan of action.

You may have kept a diary when you were younger, only to have an older or younger sibling find it and read it. Even with the locking mechanism on the 2

book which could easily be picked, your sibling would get into it. So, you will want to take care where you keep the journal because you will want to keep it personal. The purpose of your journal is to get to the real you without the inner critic stopping you from entering some bit of information you wouldn’t want other people to know about your inner thoughts. When not writing in your journal keep it hidden in some way.

You may wonder what to use as a journal. Journals can be in books, on sheets of paper, on a computer or tablet, or on a voice or video recorder. I recommend some sort of paper journal for ease of access to you, (you can take it anywhere with you) the physical act of writing connects more directly with your emotions, allowing you to put your emotion into how you put it into your journal, not just the words you choose. Computer software often autocorrects or points out perceived ‘mistakes,’ which encourages your inner critic to raise its ugly head. Better to use the friendly piece of paper.

There is only one rule you need to follow for a successful journal; keep it simple. You want to keep it simple so that you take action and do it.

Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation or grammar. You are the only one going to read it, so let loose. If you don’t write a complete sentence, so be it.

You can write in bullets if it will help you to get your thoughts on paper.

Write in your journal regularly. You can write in it daily or weekly or some variation of that. You want to write in it on a regular basis rather than during times of trauma only so that you can recognize more in your life than just the trauma. You also want to see your growth as a person.

What do you include in your journal? Since this is a Power Journal you want to write down the significant to you events in your life and your related thoughts and reactions to the events. You also might include your hopes and intentions.

Part of your power can come from getting the rush of competing thoughts, the ‘chatter’ on to paper. Often, seeing the thoughts on paper can allow you to look more objectively at thoughts you have previously accepted. Many of these thoughts entered your brain as a child when you didn’t have the experience or knowledge to evaluate the usefulness or truthfulness of the material.

You might find that some of your thoughts about the events will remind you of events in your past. Include those too! Write what you can remember as well as any 20/20 hindsight thoughts you have.

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Some people find that locating a particular place and a specific time can help them to write in the journal on a regular basis. Some recommend writing first thing in the morning with the benefit of ‘sleeping on it’ and others recommend writing at the end of the day when it is fresh in your memory. It’s up to you, it’s your Power Journal. Choose what works for you.

Wait at least two weeks before you review your entries to allow time to develop some perspective on your writings. d. Forgiving Yourself for Past Mistakes Sometimes you can get stuck telling yourself the story of some horrible mistake you made in the past. You beat yourself up with “what if’s” or “if only’s.” You turn the scenario over in your mind and think of all the things you should have done. You know you can’t change the past. But you can’t help wishing things had been different. You can drive yourself crazy thinking so many different ways you could have handled the situation. This process just goes round and round with no end.

How do you get out of that cycle? How do you more forward when you are ‘shoulding’ on yourself? “I should have……I shouldn’t have……” Your mind will continue on the same thought pattern unless you actively do something to change it. If you find yourself in a vicious cycle of ‘should’s, gently ask yourself “What’s next?” The mistake is past so what are you going to do? Draw Power from the mistake and move forward.

Let your past inform your present; in other words let what you learned from your past experiences guide you to better, more informed, more healthy, more success-oriented choices. Instead of blindly making choices in your daily life that lead you to continued misery, you can draw on the knowledge gained from your experiences.

Your Feelings Everyone has feelings. Happy, sad, mad, and glad just to name a few. Some emotions are easier or more comfortable to feel than others. Emotions are neither good nor bad, they just are. a.

Source of Feelings

Scientifically, emotions are caused by changes in your nervous system, usually accompanied by physiological changes like increased heartbeat or respiration.

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You might think that the changes in emotions occur due to changing events.

You’d be partially correct. However, 90% of what you experience during an event is due to what you tell yourself about the event. Take the following example: You see an acquaintance in a store with a group of people you assume are his friends his friends and you wave hello, but the acquaintance leaves laughing and doesn’t respond to you. In your head you tell yourself why he didn’t respond and decide he doesn’t want people to know he knows you. He doesn’t like the way you dress. He thinks you’re weird and he probably told his friends some crazy story about you. He reminds you of some people in your past who told you that you were odd. They used to leave you out of fun activities and laugh at you when you tried to join in. Your acquaintance’s laugh brought you back to those times when you were excluded. How embarrassing!

In this case, The event: the acquaintance in the same store as you with a group of people laughing.

What you tell yourself about the event: He’s with his friends. He doesn’t want people to know he knows you. He doesn’t like the way you dress. He thinks you’re weird and he told his friends some crazy story about you. He reminds you of some people in your past who told you that you were odd. They used to leave you out of fun activities and laugh at you when you tried to join in.

Your acquaintance’s laugh brought you back to those times when you were excluded.

Your feeling: Embarrassed.

Notice how little of the event actually occurred. Most of the experience resulted from the thoughts created to explain what the situation meant to you. The thoughts generated the feelings of embarrassment, not the situation. Your mind is constantly working, trying to help you interpret your world, giving meaning to situations, people, sights, sounds, tastes, smells and sensations or touches. You may even tell yourself that things are gross, fantastic, threatening or pleasing. b.

Automatic Thoughts

A lot of this thinking happens automatically. As you grow up, you are having experiences and laying down memories of those experiences. When faced with a

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similar situation, your brain retrieves the memory and offers it for consideration.

Over time the memory turns into an automatic thought.

Automatic thoughts can be useful, helping you do things like get ready to go, brushing your teeth, walking into your home, putting on your clothes. These are the thoughts you have doing routine things.

Automatic thoughts:     

c.

Happen easily. Seems like something you just know Believable, they’re your thoughts so you usually don’t question them.

Familiar, these are thoughts you’ve carried with you for some time, so they are very familiar.

Unfiltered, Often you took on the thoughts when you were a child and have not evaluated them with better thinking.

Reinforced, the thoughts happen over and over. The more they repeat, the more reliable they seem.

Automatic Negative Thoughts

Some of your automatic thoughts are negative, sometimes referred to as ‘ANTs.’ Just like at a picnic, the ANTs join in uninvited, move everywhere and make the picnic-goers uncomfortable. Automatic Negative Thoughts are just like that, they are automatic (uninvited), unhelpful (uncomfortable) and plausible (move everywhere.) In addition they are distorted, in other words, the thoughts upon closer review can be viewed as inaccurate.

The major problem with ANTs is that you accept them as they are because there hasn’t been a clear reason to question the thoughts. You’ve thought these thoughts before; you usually don’t share these particular thoughts with anyone, so it seems there is no reason to question them unless you decide for yourself to reevaluate your thoughts.

The key to dealing with Automatic negative thoughts is to identify them.

According to Dr. Glenn Scheraldi PhD, there are 13 categories of ANTs. The top five are as follows: Assuming/Mind-Reading - where you assume what other people are thinking or feeling. You might look at the actions of another person and interpret their actions to have a meaning that you assume is correct without checking for proof.

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Examples:  

She didn’t return my call; she doesn’t like me.

I just made a mistake, my friends think I’m stupid.

Overgeneralizing - taking one event or example and drawing a conclusion.

This ANT doesn’t take into account the times before or the potential times after that differ from the conclusion. This ANT can easily be identified by including the words “always” and “never.”

Examples:  

I didn’t get a good grade on my paper. I never get good grades.

I don’t have date for tonight. I’m always going to be single.

Fairy Tale Fantasy – Where you fantasize an ideal situation and not accept anything less than ‘perfect.’

Examples:  

I will keep my car impeccably clean.

I can’t start on this project until I collect all the information possible.

Shoulds and Musts – statements including the word should or must create unrealistic expectations for yourself. These statements are inflexible and rigid.

Examples:  

I shouldn’t feel this way.

I must exercise 7 days a week.

Catastrophizing – taking a single mistake or failure and jumping immediately to complete disaster.

Examples: 

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I’m late for work and I’m stopped at a red light. All of the lights on my way to work will be red! My boss doesn’t like me. My boss will fire me! I won’t be able to pay my rent! I’m going to be homeless!

If this relationship doesn’t work out, I will be lonely. I’ll spend my time alone and be sad. No one will ever ask me out. I’ll grow old and live with cats.

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Once you become more aware of your thoughts, you can replace them with more rational thoughts, ones based on evidence, based more on reality.

d.

Directing Thoughts

Try this exercise: Close your eyes and think of a large full moon. Think about it in detail.

Let that thought go, then think of a waterfall hitting with such force it creates a mist. The sun is shining and you can see a faint rainbow in the mist. Let that vision go and then think of a large blue triangle. Then let that thought go. After you have visualized the three items, open your eyes again.

What you have just done was directed your thoughts. You have the ability to control what you are thinking. You must first become aware of your automatic thoughts. The Power Journal can help you identify automatic thoughts.

Reviewing entries after some time has passes allow you to look somewhat objectively at your thoughts. The practice you get thinking about your thinking while writing in your Power Journal will make you more aware of your recurring thoughts.

When you find yourself having some unhelpful thoughts or Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs), say something to yourself to stop the process. The word “Stop!” and a visualization of a big red stop sign might be useful. Inyanla Vanzant uses the words “Cancel, Cancel!” to stop thinking that is headed in an unhelpful direction. Find something that works for you.

Once you have stopped the process, review the thinking and question it. Look for the evidence to support it (quite possibly the lack of evidence.) Then replace the ANT with more accurate information. In the previous examples: 

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She didn’t return my call; she doesn’t like me. o Maybe she’s busy and can’t call right now. Maybe she lost her phone and didn’t get your call. There could be many different reasons she hasn’t returned your call.

I just made a mistake, my friends think I’m stupid. o Your friends make mistakes too. If they’re really your friends they’ll like you and accept your mistakes. If they don’t, you have some information about your associates.

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I didn’t get a good grade on my paper. I never get good grades. o Have you received good grades in the past? o What did you miss on your paper? Could you have studied more, done more research or taken more time? o Maybe you can talk with the instructor and get more guidance on the assignment.

I don’t have date for tonight. I’m always going to be single o What else can you do with your time? Take yourself out, have a good time and meet people. To find interesting people you need to be interesting too.

I will keep my car impeccably clean. o Keeping a car impeccably clean requires constant upkeep and the car will never leave the garage. Instead aim to keep your car neat and keep us with the recommended maintenance.

I can’t start on this project until I collect all the information possible. o How much information do you really need to start the project? Is there a deadline for finishing the project? Is anybody else involved with the project? What do they know about the project? At some point during research for information, the same information will start to appear. New information will get scarce. Give yourself a limit for information-gathering and move on.

I shouldn’t feel this way. o Says who? A person feels how a person feels.

I must exercise 7 days a week. o On the surface this might look like a great idea. The word ‘must’ puts this statement in the rigid-rules-zone. What will really happen if you don’t exercise 7 days a week? Is this realistic for your schedule?

I’m late for work and I’m stopped at a red light. All of the lights on my way to work will be red! My boss doesn’t like me. My boss will fire me! I won’t be able to pay my rent! I’m going to be homeless! o Ok, you’re late for work. Some of the lights will be green. Your boss will probably not be happy. What can you do to make the situation better? Can you call and let them know? (Don’t drive and call or text.) Can you stay late? What can you do to prevent being late in the future?

If this relationship doesn’t work out, I will be lonely. I’ll spend my time alone and be sad. No one will ever ask me out. I’ll grow old and live with cats.

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What thoughts are you having about the relationship not working? Is there something you could do differently that would make things better?

Is your partner not a good match for you? Are you not a good match for your partner? See above for without a date.

Look for ANTs in your Power Journal. Look for ANTS in your thought patterns.

Being aware of these thoughts can give you the chance to evaluate them and replace them with thoughts that are more based on reality and more helpful to you. e.

Practical Strategy for Anger

Anger is an emotion that some people have problems handling. Anger in and of itself is just an emotion which causes several responses in your body. As described previously, your body responds to the thoughts you have in your head. Your body responds to a perceived threat. It takes on the automatic fight or flight response. The blood rushes from your brain and out to your hands and legs so you can fight or run. Your brain is functioning minimally, so choices made under these conditions are not usually the best.

The first step to manage your anger is to learn to identify what your initial symptoms are. You might start shallow breathing, clenching your fists and jaw, yelling, getting hot, or speaking sarcastically. You might identify some repeating thoughts, “I’m not ____________ (fill in the blank.) I hate __________ (fill in the blank.) This situation stinks! ___________ took advantage of me!” The key is to figure out how to identify that you are beginning to get angry. The sooner you can identify the beginnings of your anger, the easier for you to move to step two of anger management.

Once you have identified the beginnings of your anger you can take steps to calm down. You want to calm down because you want to get back the full functioning of your brain so that you can move to step three. One way to start calming down is to be aware of your anger and rate it with a number from 1 to 100, 100 being the most angry. Somehow objectifying the anger can give you a different perspective. A 30 is not that big a deal in the big scheme of things.

A 70 may be a little more problematic. Another technique is to count to 10, or 100, or 1000 if you have to do that. At the same time you can be telling yourself that you need to bring your initial rating number down to a lower level.

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Another perspective technique you can use is to evaluate the importance of the issue to you at different times. For example will this thing you are beginning to get angry about be important to you in an hour? Will it be important to you tomorrow? Next week? Next Month? Next year? Five years from now? The process of looking at the issue from different angles can help you to realize that you are making more out of this issue than you need to make of it.

A practical technique that can help on several levels is to focus on your breathing. Shallow breathing doesn’t provide very much oxygen for your blood.

Full belly breathing can increase the oxygen in your blood, allowing more oxygen to go to your brain. To belly breath, you want to draw your breath in while allowing your diaphragm to fully move down toward your belly, making your belly stick out a little. To practice, you can sit or stand up straight, place one hand on your stomach and breathe in to the count of 4 to start. You want to try to get your stomach to push your hand out a little. Then you want to breathe out to the count of 8. As you practice and get better, you can increase the number breathing in, then the number breathing out should be double.

This technique works on another level. By focusing on your breathing, it brings your mind to the present and out of the automatic thoughts whirling about in your head. You can become more aware of the sensations in your body and more present in the moment.

Practicing as described with the hand on your stomach gives you awareness of your body. It will help you to identify when what it feels like to breathe fully.

Then, when you are faced with a situation where you need to pull out the breathing technique, if you have practiced beforehand, you won’t have to put your hand on your stomach. You will be able to breathe deeply at will. You can also think of it as Power breathing, giving you the power to choose your next steps.

You definitely want to practice these techniques before you need to use them to calm down, so that you will be able to do the technique or techniques easily and quickly when you need to calm down. Your mind and body will have a memory and more easily get to calmness.

You may find that the situation is overwhelming and your best bet is to remove yourself from the situation. Your safety and the safety of those around you is very important, so leaving can be a useful option.

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Once calm, the brain is again functioning at a high level and able to move to step three, to deal appropriately with the situation. You owe this to yourself because your anger points to something you feel very strongly about.

Drawing Passion from your Past If you’ve been doing all of the work described previously, you’ve spent some time reviewing your thoughts and how they affect your mood, your choices, your habits.

“Your beliefs become your thoughts.

Your thoughts become your words Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

a.

Making Friends with Your past

The key to making friends with your past depends on how you frame it. Instead of thinking about how your past affected you, think of the choices you made and what you learned about yourself from those choices and events. As described in the section about your past, you learned that those choices were made with the information you had back then. Maya Angelou says, “When you know better, you do better.”

Doing the work to identify the thought processes that are not working for you that are holding you back takes time and self-awareness. Some people find that a good therapist can be helpful to keep you on track when things get difficult.

Success comes from following through with a commitment for a better way. b.

Locating the Patterns

The Power Journal can help you to see the patterns in your life, especially if you were able to include past memories that came up as you wrote about the thoughts that came up and what you told yourself about the events and situations in your life.

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Another exercise that can be helpful is to write your autobiography. You can format it anyway that you like. The important thing is that you include the events that you think are important in your life. Include those things that made you who you are. Include your observations from the present. Treat yourself like a good friend and make those observations with love and an eye toward learning something about yourself.

Through an autobiography you will start to see yourself as a person who can do many things and identify your values. The hard work results in honoring your past for what it was, and moving forward with the person you are who despite whatever setbacks has arrived at today. c.

Choosing Your Direction, Follow Your Heart

You are now in a position of Power. You are a person with a past, a past which informs you. Since you have reviewed your past, reframed where necessary, made your thinking processes more effective and intentional, put your anger in perspective and identified your past values. With that information today you can choose to make choices to support your new informed and intentional values

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