I've been through a lot. I've experienced a lot. I have survived a
lot. And I'm still standing. Well, some days I may be reduced to a groveling heap just hanging on by a
thread.. but I make it through those days.
Somehow I always find my feet.
I'm writing another book. This
is not like my first book which is all about hope and sunshine and living your
best life. My second book is about
suffering. It's about walking through
the darkness and coming through it without becoming a monster yourself.
Because many wounded warriors are monsters. You're not a monster because your leg has been
shot off and half your face is blasted away.
You are a monster because your heart is frozen. You live in a place where pain is your norm and
you pass that on to everyone with whom you come into contact.
Most of us do not want to hurt the ones we love. We don't want to break their hearts or betray
their trust. We do not want to let them
down and hurt their feelings. We do not
want to be the cause of their tears. But
we are.
And we want to change so badly but we don't know how.
I can tell you from expereince, that no matter how open you are to the
process, no matter how willing you are to learn or how badly you want to
succeed, you do not stand a snowball’s chance in hell of success until you stop
spewing your shit all over everyone else.
It stinks, its disgusting and nobody wants to be around it. You have to own it and you have to take
responsibility for cleaning it up.
Quit
Controlling
We wounded warriors have earned a certain level of respect just by
surviving. Given what we have been
through, we are deserving of respect and honor for just being here and being
somewhat sane.
We took up our shields when we needed to and sometimes we can’t put
them back down because we never again, EVER want to feel the helplessness and
the vulnerability that we have felt before.
So we suit ourselves up in armor so thick that it keeps out the good as
well as the ill. We become
unapproachable, incomprehensible and in some ways unlovable. We don’t mean to, it’s not what we want ..
but we just can’t put our shields down.
What does your armor look like?
Are you the perfectionist workaholic who lives for the security that
money and power can provide? Are you
wearing the ‘stepford wife’ armor? Your
hair is perfect, your weight is perfect, your clothes are perfect, your home is
perfect, your kids are perfect...you’re
driving yourself and everyone else around you crazy in your attempt to make
your entire world perfect.
Is your armor rebellion and dysfunction? “I am who I am, I don’t
give a shit what you think. F!@# You!” So you drink and you dope and you binge and
you sleep around. Being out of control
is your way of maintaining control because if you bring the crap onto yourself then
you’re not so much of a victim, you can tell yourself that you deserved
it. And that makes sense to you.
“Let
go of the shore and let the water carry you” – Karen Drucker
Once when I was very young we were at the beach and I fell into the water. I remember the
sense of panic as I fought helplessly against the waves. I kicked and flailed with all my might but I
kept going under. The salt water seared
my lungs and poked daggers into my eyes and the cruel waves were like chains on
my arms and legs, inexorably pulling me under.
Finally I gave in and stopped fighting, I just surrendered to the waves. Then an amazing thing happened. The water took my limp body and pushed it
upward and the gentle waves carried me to the shore.
It’s hard for us to surrender control because deep down we see the
world as a hostile place and if we relinquish control we expose ourselves to
unthinkable horrors. But on that day in
my childhood I discovered that the same ocean which in one moment was this
terrifying force bent on destroying me, that same ocean buoyed me up and bore me
to safety. All I needed to do was
surrender.
You have to stop struggling against life and trying to control every part
of it. Life is like the ocean, the more
you fight it the more you drown. But if
you can learn to surrender, if you can learn to trust your own innate buoyancy,
then the waves just might carry you to safety.
Ditch Defensiveness
A warrior’s armor may seem to be as thick as a rhino’s hide but there’s
a little known secret that the warriors hide very well. Our armour is as fragile as eggshells and
people break through many times causing tremendous hurt in the process. When we fight back we do so much damage that
people are blinded to the cracks in our armor.
One of my favorite Dr Phil quotes is “Do you want to be right or
do you want to be successful”. There
are many variations.. “do you want to be right or do you want to be
married?”, “do you want to be right or do you want a relationship with your
child”, “do you want to be right or do you want your job?”
We’re always looking for the dangers lurking in our environment. Some of us actively go hunting , trying to
get them before they get us. Others stay
put with shields raised, repelling every threat as effectively as we can. Regardless of our approach we have one thing
in common.
If you’re a wounded warrior, you are defensive. Period.
Stop defending it, stop denying it, stop deflecting, dominating and
doing everything in your power to divert attention from it. Own your shit. Then heal it.
Park the
Paranoia
“My dad used to say, 'You wouldn't worry
so much about what people thought about you if you knew how seldom they did.” –
Dr Phil
As Warriors our senses are highly attuned to danger, we see it coming
where other people are impervious. Our
hackles rise and we go into fight or flight mode, we strike out or we duck for
cover. And others look on thinking “what
the heck?”.
I have persons close to me who live with real life full on
paranoia. I have tried to be sensitive
to their struggles and to love through it but I have also ended up badly
bruised from getting in caught in the wake their madness. Because paranoid people genuinely live an an
alternate reality. You cannot tell
them that the things they see and feel and experience are not valid because it
is very real to them.
Psychology speaks of perception “the way in which something is
regarded, understood, or interpreted”.
We all go through life with a filter on our vision. Some people have rose colored filters which
make the world a happy and accommodating place, others have clear filters which
allow them to have a fairly balanced vision of reality. Wounded warriors’ filters often act like
blinders, they simply cannot perceive reality as it actually is.
“We
often confuse perception with reality. That is, we mistake how we understand
things for the way that they really are. Our thoughts and feelings seem
real to us, so we conclude that they must be true.” -liveboldandbloom.com
Metaphysicians tell us that the things we perceive as being solid
actually aren’t. Scientists such as
Albert Einstien and John Von Neumann have proven that objects which we perceive
as solid actually are all just energy.
And energy is mutable. So mutable
that it can actually be changed into something else just through the
expectation of the observer.
It is important for wounded warriors to understand that reality is
multi-dimensional. It is complex and it
is fluid. It is not black and
white. It is not absolute. It is probably not what you perceive it to
be.
Surrender
Self-Pity
“There
is no practice more degrading, debasing, and soul- destroying than that of
self-pity. Cast it out from you. While
such a canker is feeding upon your heart you can never expect to grow into a
fuller life.” – James Allen
One of the ironies of life is that the people who do cause the most
hurt to others are often the ones who spend the most time feeling sorry for
themselves.
Yes, you’ve been kicked in the teeth, knocked down and run over. Yes you’ve been neglected, abused, betrayed
and hurt. We get it. Can you please stop throwing it at us ALL the
time!
Have you allowed the challenges in your life to define who you
are? One
interesting characteristic of the human state is that intense suffering can
bring out the worst in us and it can bring out the best in us.
Another immutable truth is that suffering is universal. We all experience it at some point in our
journey. Suffering visits us through
childhood dysfunction and trauma, through wars and political instability. Suffering comes to us as hunger, as empty
bank accounts, as calloused hands and aching backs. Suffering comes to us as children who die and
parents who forget who we are.
Suffering comes in the form of cancer and HIV AIDS. Suffering visits us as accidents and injuries
and sudden twists of fate that change the very fabric of life as we know it.
Suffering visits all or us.
But some of us hold onto suffering as our badge of honor. We make it our identity. We wake up everyday, pick up our suffering
and go into the world painting it all over everyone and everything that we come
into contact with. And in doing so we
become the cause of someone else’s suffering.
You do not have the right to make your misery everyone else’s
problem. You do not have license to go
out into the world and be an asshole. You do not have the right to hurt others
because you are hurting inside. Get over
yourself.
Vacate
Victimhood
“The
problem that we have with a victim mentality is that we forget to see the blessings
of the day. Because of this, our spirit is poisoned instead of nourished.”
- Steve Maraboli
There is a fascinating connection between victimhood and
martyrdom. Many who see themselves as
victims put themselves into positions where they can be victimized. Or they unconsciously take on all the burdens
of those around them and make martyrs of themselves.
Now if like Mother Teresa you are called to self-sacrifice and you
embrace that as your gift to the world then you have my utmost admiration. But I have no tolerance for the martyrs who take
on the role then spend all their time telling the world about it. And the funny thing about these martyrs is
that if you try to ease their situation you will come under attack, because you
are trying to remove from them the thing which is most important to them.. their
victimhood.
“Manipulators
often play the victim role by portraying
themselves as victims of circumstances or someone
else's behavior in order to gain pity or sympathy or to evoke
compassion and thereby get something from another”. - Wikipedia
Stop bitching about everybody else and what they’ve done to you and
start cleaning up your own shit yourself.
The only person who can make you a victim is you.
Author’s
note
As I penned the
headline for this post I was struck by the irony of it. I may be asking people to do things that they
are literally not capable of doing. I believe in the indomitable human spirit and I believe in
our ability to make the impossible possible.
This post is
inspired by my upcoming book Baggage Reclaim.
Sometimes before we can Embrace Prosperity, we have to clear out the
smelly stuff first. My message today is
we create our realities and if we are mindful of the trail we leave behind, we
just may manage to experience the reality that we desire.
If you liked
this post I would be so appreciative if you would spread the word and like my
author page on Facebook. I would be so happy to email this and future
posts directly to you, if you're interested please subscribe to my mailing list. You may also follow me on Twitter #ProsperityIsMind or check out my website www.prosperityismind.com
I bless you, I
bless your journey and I am so happy to be a part of it. I pray this is your time to stand as a warrior,
made wiser by your wounds but not crippled by them.
Inspiration
Links
* I am in no way
affiliated with the sites that I link to here.
The messages presented are in alignment with the thoughts presented in
this post and they have inspired me, I hope that they will inspire you too.
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