SGM Mar 2018 Weekly Message Three: “What’s The Secret To Mastering Your Greatest Challenge?”

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Spiritual Growth Monthly. I’m Kevin Schoeninger. It’s great to have you with us here at SGM!

This month, our discussion and practice center on the book “Rewire Your Brain” by John B. Arden, PhD.  In our first Weekly Message, we explored the FEED process for rewiring your brain and creating positive life changes.  In Weekly Message Two, we explored the importance of laying a strong foundation of energy, vitality, and neural activity through diet, exercise, and using mnemonic devices.  These skills and practices prepare you to successfully meet your greatest challenges.

So, what is your greatest challenge?  Is there something that you continually procrastinate about doing?  Is there something that seems to show up on your path again and again?  Do you have a long-held desire that seems perpetually out of reach?  Do you find yourself in a yo-yo between motivation and hesitation?  Is there a persistent fear that holds you back?

Whether it’s public speaking, opening up in intimate relationships, taking more time to meditate, losing weight, getting in shape, kicking a bad habit, creating your art, building a business, or realizing your greatest dream, each of us has some area where we can expand and grow.

At the same time, each of us have some pattern of hesitation, self-sabotage, or fear in relation to what we truly desire.  Maybe we believe we’re not worthy, or that what we desire isn’t possible, or that we’re not capable of it.  Maybe we subconsciously don’t want the responsibility that comes with having what our soul truly desires.  You may harbor an underlying belief that not doing what you truly desire is safer.  If you subconsciously desire the “security payoff” of not doing what you truly desire, this will keep you locked in inertia.

Furthermore, you may interpret challenges on your path to mean that it’s just not meant to be.  In actuality, moving through your challenges is likely exactly what you need.  Arden encourages us to meet what is most difficult head-on.  He has found that difficulties often signal you to the most important work to be done.  If you feel uncomfortable and keep rubbing against resistance, you’ve found fertile soil to cultivate.  That’s where you’re going to grow the garden of your dreams.

So, the first principle to overcoming your greatest challenge is to recognize, accept, and face your discomfort.  Rather than avoiding it, accept it, and face it head-on.

The second principle is to expose yourself to what unnerves you gradually.

Break your challenge into smaller chunks in your mind.  Take small actions steps to get your feet wet.  Whatever you desire as an end result, there’s a whole series of little steps to take on your way to “that".  The bigger your desire, the greater the number of small steps along the way.

While it’s important to envision your end result, the little steps create that result.  So, map out the little steps, from the smallest and easiest to the more challenging ones down the road.  Take action on the small easy steps first.  Some of your first steps could be researching, buying a book on your topic, talking to others who are doing what you want to do, or studying for an exam to get a license, a certification, or a skill that you’ll need.  Get in the habit of taking the small steps and the bigger project will gain momentum.  Your project will take on a life of its own that will carry you along with it.

Once you get your ball rolling, there are some poor mental habits that may get in your way.  There are also antidotes to those mental habits that will help you along.  In the rest of this Message, we’ll explore how you can feed the process of realizing what is most important to you with good mental habits and skills.

The metaphor we’ll use for good mental skills is being a positive storyteller.  As Arden says, “Think of yourself as the narrator of your life.” (p. 55, RYB)  You want to tell a positive upbeat story in which you and those around you win.  Through positive storytelling, you’ll activate both the right and left sides of your brain and bring important mental skills into your life.

Think of the right side of your brain as the energy, fuel, and passion for your story.  Think of the left side of your brain as the interpreter of your experiences along the way.  When you are a narrator, you draw on both hemispheres to tell your story.  You get the emotion, excitement, and big picture vision from your right hemisphere and your little steps and interpretation of events along the way from the left hemisphere.

Let’s look at how this process can get derailed through poor storytelling habits.  Then, we’ll look at how you can put yourself back on track with better storytelling skills.

First, when you think of growing what is most important to you, you’ll likely have some positive and negative associations from the past.  The first skill you’re going to need is the ability to review the past in a positive light.  You’re going to need to become a master of positive spin.

To help you in that, realize that whatever happened in the past brought you to where you are now—ready to make the next step.  Whatever happened in the past was a learning experience—if you choose to see it that way.  From all past experiences, you’ve gained awareness and skills that have prepared you for what you are here to do now.  Previously, you may have viewed these past experiences as mistakes or failures.  Now, you have the choice and opportunity to look at them as important and necessary preparation.

It is vital that you make this shift, to view perceived “problems” as “challenges,” perceived “mistakes” as “learning experiences,” and perceived “failures” as “opportunities” to be more conscious and skilled.  This is not some kind of “New Age” rose-colored vision—this is simply what successful people do.  They persist toward what they desire by asking:  “What went well and what didn’t?  What is my next step?  How can I do this better than before?”  The only difference between the people that live their dreams and those that don’t is a learner’s attitude and persistence.  Successful people keep learning and going.

To help you grow in awareness and success, here are some common narrative strategies that will tend to derail your story. These Pitfalls may have become a part of your “default” mode, the way that you habitually narrate your story.  You’ll want to watch out for these as you narrate what is happening in your life, because these will tend to throw you into a Pessimistic Outlook.  Use this list to see how you may be sabotaging your story:

8 Potential Pitfalls in Your Personal Narrative

(based on p. 58, RYB)

1. Black and white thinking

Be wary of seeing things as only two alternatives.  For example, right or wrong, good or bad, or us versus them.  Black and white thinking is pure fiction with little basis in the complexity of what is actually happening.  It is also severely limits possibilities and sets the stage for inner and outer conflict.

2. Overgeneralization

“You always do that.”  “That’s the story of my whole life.”  “That’s the way they are.”  “You never listen to me.”  When you over-generalize, you take one experience and stamp it onto other times and circumstances.  While there are certainly general patterns in our lives, the way out of the negative ones is not to categorize them as “always” or “never.”  That type of thinking just cements them further into place.  It makes them feel like unconquerable conditions set in stone.  As with black and white thinking, over-generalized statements do not represent the complexity of what is really going on.  Yes, recognize patterns, but do not label them in a way that makes them feel more solid and immutable than they really are.

3. Taking things personally

You’ve probably read “The Four Agreements.”  It was a bestseller a few years back, is a classic personal growth title, and we’ve featured it on SGM in the past.  The one thing I remember most from this book is “Don’t take things personally.”  I guess I remember this because I tend to do that.

Publishing online has given me a big lesson on that one.  You would not believe (or maybe you would) some of the things people feel free to say about what you put out online.  Maybe it’s because they don’t know me, or aren’t reading in context, or aren’t looking me in the face.  Whatever the case, I am continuing to learn not to take things personally.  It’s a good check on when I’m coming from a more ego-centered perspective when I find myself taking things personally.  Nevertheless, it’s often a challenge to put your heart into something and not take it personally when someone attacks it.  A work in progress. . .

4. Thinking you know what others are thinking

Here’s the flip-side to the above.  In this case, someone hasn’t given you a response, but you are reacting as if you know what they are thinking or feeling.  How many times do you later discover that you were just projecting your own judgments and fears?

Applying this again to my online publishing experience, it’s easy for me to interpret “no response” to what I write as a “negative response.”  For example, if someone emails me with a question and I email back a detailed response, but I don’t hear back in return (which is common), I may interpret that as the person disliking what I had to say.  They just as easily could have found my response just what they needed to hear, or some mixture of both.  In truth, I don’t really know unless I hear back from them.  The bottom line is that it’s a waste of time and energy to think that I know.

5. Getting caught up in “should” and “should nots”

We grow up being conditioned into a complex web of “should” and “should nots.”  Whether it’s from our parents, our teachers, our friends, organizations we belong to, our doctors, or the culture as a whole, we live in a sea of “shoulds,” many of which conflict with each other.

Fortunately, a great many of these “shoulds” have no basis in what is actually happening.  The ones that are real and true for us, we’ll usually end up learning for ourselves—often, the hard way.  Regardless, “should” isn’t a good strategy in storytelling about yourself or others.  It tends to create resistance and reaction.  Be on the lookout for “shoulding” in your storytelling.

6. Making an insurmountable mountain out of molehills

Avoid melodrama in your story.  It can only lead to overwhelm and hesitation in moving forward.  Remember the idea of breaking things down into manageable pieces?  Do the same thing in your story.  Keep to the “facts,” the small details you can actually describe and back up with experiential evidence.  Describe life in a way that makes action seem more possible, not more daunting.  For example, as a newscaster, you could describe the known details, the specific efforts to aide a situation, and the bigger plans that could work to solve it, rather than harping on overdramatizing the situation as “the greatest disaster in human history.”

7. Basing your opinions solely on your feelings

Be careful with this one.  Feelings are an important source of information.  It’s important to learn to discern what information your feelings have to tell you.  It’s also important to be wary of over-valuing your feelings.

Feelings come and go.  And just because you feel something does not mean that it’s accurate.  Be wary of projecting your fears onto situations.  As a good guideline, seek to understand what your feelings are telling you about yourself and what you need to do, instead of thinking that they’re telling you about others and what they need to do.  You may be getting good information from your feelings, but check it out with your other senses, things that you know to be true, and feedback from others.  This will clarify your insight.

8. Having a glass half-empty outlook

That classic metaphor roughly sums up the Pessimistic Outlook.  No matter what happens, you could find something wrong, or scary, or anxiety producing in it.  This is exhausting to you personally and to those around you.  Most importantly, it will definitely keep you from moving forward and growing what is most important to you.  Yes, it’s important to be “realistic” in terms of what resources and skills you need to accomplish something, but be wary of “realistic” meaning “this is why it can’t be done.”

You can counter the above 8 Pitfalls with the following narrative Antidotes.  These will create an Optimistic Outlook.  Practice these as you are interpreting life events and especially when you recognize the 8 Pitfalls above cropping up in your story.  Practice these Antidotes to rewire your brain, so you write a better story.  When you write a story full of positive opportunities, you’ll realize better results in your life.

6 Antidotes to Shift Your Story Positive

(based on p. 59, RYB)

1. Think in infinite shades of meaning

This is one of the most valuable things I learned as a Philosophy major—you can analyze anything down to the assumptions that support that point of view.  Then you witness how varying an important assumption gives you a whole different picture of reality.  You start to see the infinite shades of meaning that can result from taking different starting positions and making different decisions along the way.

Everything you experience comes from holding a certain point of view.  And there are an infinite number of possible points of view.  This insight frees you to choose points of view based on what is best for all, given current circumstances.  Which bring us to the next point:

2. Check for context and exceptions.  See the web of cause and effect.

Everything that happens occurs within a web of circumstances and conditions.  As you become aware of these circumstances and conditions, you start to see why things are the way they are at the moment.  Instead of over-generalizing or judging something to be good or bad based on some external standard, you see the internal logic that is present within things as they are.

Look for what is exceptional in a particular situation as a means of spotting what is trying to happen now.  That will lead to more easily realizing this next point:

3. See every moment as an opportunity, especially the challenging moments.

When you see that things are the way they are because of a complex interrelationship of an infinite number of different events, you see how this exact set of conditions offers specific opportunities.  Rather, than bemoaning the opportunities that you wish were present, look for how to enter into what is actually happening and use it to the best possible result.  When challenges arise, be alert that something different may be ready to happen.  Can you see the opportunity and go for it?  That will depend on the following skill.

4. See the situation as a detached observer

Can you engage in a situation and, at the same time, not be lost in it?  Can you witness events and circumstances without strangling them with your own agenda?  Can you allow what is best for all to emerge?  It’s easy to get lost in a narrow point of view and miss something important that is trying to happen.  When we step outside our self-centered viewpoint, we widen our sense of possibility and free up energy to do what is best.

5. Do your best, change what you can, and 6. trust the Universe to take care of the rest.

Another point from The Four Agreements is to “Always do your best.”  O.K., let’s forgive the over-generalization in that one.  We’re not always going to do our best.  The point is to see what you can do and go for it.  Then, let the Universe handle the rest—it’s going to anyway.

Some events and forces are bigger than you and beyond your control—even your own destiny and most certainly the destiny of our Planet.  Yet, at the same time, our interlinked destinies are shaped by your awareness, choices, and actions.

Every thought, feeling, and action makes a difference.  You can gain awareness, you can improve your choices, and you can become more skilled at effective action. Then, see how it all plays out and go through the process again and again.

In my experience, I’ve found overwhelming evidence that there’s a Bigger Plan working for the best interests of everyone.  I may not always see that.  Sometimes, it may seem like the opposite.  Nevertheless, I chalk that up to the limits of my vision, rather than the limits of that truth.

So, I’ve learned to trust in a Bigger Plan.  When I do trust, I’ve discovered that I become aware of what I need to know when I need to know it, I make better choices, and I take more effective actions.

I encourage you to test out “Trusting in a Bigger Plan” for yourself.   Practice writing your life story from that perspective and see what you happens.  It may surprise you as it has often surprised me.  As you narrate the story of your life, also keep the above Pitfalls and Antidotes in mind and see how your story shifts to the positive.

Next week we’ll practice one of your most powerful tools to shift to a positive state.  When you meditate, you access a deeper perspective that empowers you to recognize your Pitfalls and access your Antidotes.

Until next time,

Happy writing,

Kevin