CHAPTER 1
Point of Departure
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
—Marianne Williamson
Introduction
Welcome to the journey of life!
There are vast arrays of self-improvement books on the market that give guidance on how to reach your full potential. This book is different from these in that it gives you the opportunity to assess your current needs and skills and also provides you with ideas and activities to develop and practise your latent ability. This will have an impact on every dimension of your life. You will be embarking on an adventure, and hopefully you will discover and look at yourself and others in a completely new way.
This journey is intended to be full of interesting challenges, surprises, and anecdotes. You will be given the opportunity to explore (and maybe even discover) your own gifts and talents and learn how to consciously use them effectively. You will create your own paradigm or model to help you maximise your inherent abilities and to guide you in this new millennium.
You will be the captain of your own sailing craft. The model we will be using is that of building a boat and crossing tropical seas to an exotic island of your dreams, and learning to engage with other travellers and pirates you may encounter on your journey. The illustration of the craft outlines the concepts that it represents.
Travel Guide
The goal of this travel guide is to assist you, the traveller, in embarking on an adventure on which you will encounter a variety of different terrains. It is not an excursion for the faint-hearted, but it is guaranteed to enrich every element of your life. This guide is designed to help you explore your unconscious intrinsic and extrinsic motives and perspective on reality. It has been developed from life-skills training materials that I have presented over the years. It is specifically designed to challenge your mental and physical fitness and to assist you in evolving your personal sense of identity and self-esteem while fine-tuning your intuition. This is achieved by completing a number of activities and practical experiential exercises.
This travel guide has been compiled from a vast array of academic research materials and sources. Occasionally these are acknowledged within the text, but all are recorded in the bibliography.
At the end of each chapter, there is a Notes page where you can jot down any ideas, selfreminders, or thoughts that you might have.
Monitoring Your Progress
In the back of this travel guide is a list of the activities that will give you the opportunity to enhance your awareness and skills. On completion of each activity, mark and date your progress.
Travel Bag
At the beginning of each chapter, under "Travel Bag," you will find a list of items (similar to a list of ingredients for making a cake) that you will need to complete the activities for that particular leg of your journey. For example, for this leg of the journey you will need a journal, a piece of A3 paper or cardboard, old photographs, magazines, and bits and pieces from around your home and garden that are meaningful to you.
If you are ready to embark on this exciting journey and apply yourself to all the activities in full, let us begin! Your adventure starts with a personal collage, creatively exploring where you are at the present moment.
1.1 Activity: Make a Collage
A collage is a collection of unrelated items glued to a backing in an artistic manner. Page through some of your magazines and look at the things that you collected from your home and garden that are of value to you. Either sketch them or stick them onto an A3 sheet. The collage should reflect who you are and the people, experiences, and things in your life that have brought you to where you are today. This exercise will possibly take longer than you think, so take your time and enjoy what unfolds.
Journal
The purpose of the journal is to allow you to explore freely the thoughts that continuously whirl around in your mind. You will be encouraged to write in it regularly. Your journal should be completely private. Be honest and truthful. By writing things down, you clear the way for other thoughts and ideas to crystallise; blockages are removed, allowing new ideas to come to the fore. You will be amazed by what happens when you give your thoughts the opportunity to be fully expressed and explored. Previously elusive and abstract concepts become understandable and meaningful, enabling a clearer perspective.
Date your journal. This helps you to reflect back on certain recurring thoughts and feelings and to perhaps link them to certain events. For example, my close friend Nancy found, on ruminating through her journal, that her marriage always seemed to hit a rough patch in February and June. It was an annual pattern. By musing through her daily journal over these periods, she found it always to be the same. Her schedule was wall-to-wall booked with social events. Her husband, John, was the principal of a prominent school. The busy times in the school's social calendar were February and June. She was able to understand then why, as an introvert, she felt tense and distant from her husband during these months. They were both over-committed with social events, leaving no time and no energy for their personal lives.
My friend now knows in advance that these are going to be particularly stressful times for them as a couple and, with this awareness, plans her life around them. Either she plans for her work to take her out of town at these times, or she downscales her activities during the day so that she has the energy needed to cope with the functions she has to attend in the evening. More importantly, she does not take these bumpy times in their marriage so personally. She recognises that they are simply due to outside pressures.
1.2 Activity: Make Your First Journal Entry
Make the first entry in your journal now. Write down your expectations for this course.
Viewpoints
Listed below are the viewpoints (concepts and skills) that you will visit while on your journey and a brief description of each:
• assertiveness: stating and insisting on your rights in a calm and controlled manner while recognising the rights and feeling of others
• beliefs: opinions you have accepted to be true
• communication: understanding the dynamics of communication within the transactional analysis communication model
• conflict resolution: to address, solve, and remove areas of opposition or hostility between different parties
• creativity: enhance the ability to be inventive and imaginative
• decision-making: the ability to make an insightful choice
• deductive thinking: analysis of the situation in fine detail. This is the ability to focus on the specific details of the situation and to record these in a rational and controlled manner. It is the ability to focus on the facts of the situation without contaminating them with emotions, values, and beliefs.
• emotional awareness: being conscious of your instinctive reactions and feelings
• environmental awareness: being conscious of the dynamics and happenings occurring around you
• ethical guide: your inner voice, which provides insight or wisdom to guide your decisions
• financial management: to maximise the use of all available opportunities without exploitation
• focus of attention: to focus on your life goals and the steps needed in achieving them
• global perspective: a worldwide perspective on life
• goal setting: planning and achieving personal goals
• health: a state of physical, mental, and social well-being
• inductive thinking: accurately and logically interpreting the above details in terms of accepted theoretical concepts
• initiative: to take responsibility for your personal situation and to act consciously and positively so as to improve it both for your benefit and those around you
• interpersonal skills: the ability to successfully communicate your needs and enlist the cooperation of others
• motivation: internal and external motivating factors
• negotiating skills: the ability to maximise a solution for all parties involved
• nutrition: healthy eating
• rational thinking: consciously navigating everyday situations through asking Socratic questions of why, where, what, when, which, how, whom, and what if.
• self-esteem: to be conscious of and embrace your own self-worth
• sense of purpose: the driving force—unique and different for every person—that enables and directs your efforts in a meaningful way and allows you to feel fulfilled
• sense of self: the degree to which you are conscious of yourself and integrate your values and beliefs in your life.
• sensuality: healthy physical expression
• social awareness: a deeper conscious understanding of other people
• spiritual awareness: to be aware of something greater than yourself
• stress management: positive coping strategies
• time management: maximising the use of all available opportunities without exploitation
• values: opinions that you have personally selected from a number of possible beliefs, have publicly declared, and have integrated into your lifestyle
• vision: an accurate perception of reality and the requirements of the environment
These fall into three main categories: knowledge, skills, and application leading to insights, as seen in the illustration.
1.3 Activity: Assess Your Current Skill and Awareness Levels
The purpose of this exercise is for you to create an awareness of your current position so that you can monitor and congratulate yourself on your progress as you work through the activities in the travel guide.
This is a self-evaluation. Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 the highest level of application. For example, if you don't analyse a situation and don't think of it from every perspective before making a decision, you may give yourself a rating of 2. Alternatively, if you are very careful, ask a lot of questions, and do a mountain of research prior to making a decision, you may give yourself a rating of 5. At the end of the course, you will re-evaluate yourself and determine your progress.
Developing these skills and abilities will also improve your self-discipline, persistence, and flexibility—whichever is appropriate in a given situation. Consequently, you will increase your sense of control. People who feel in control of their own destiny generally do not experience stress negatively and are healthier and more productive. They are also better able to make a decision, think logically, and accept their own conclusions. Taking control over your circumstances often simply requires a change in perception, and once this is achieved, dynamic changes in all aspects of your life will follow. Successful people go that extra mile in almost every sphere of their lives—in their interpersonal relationships, work, play, and personal development. They see life as an adventure, a challenge to be enjoyed.
All this means a lot of hard work! To embark on this journey, you are encouraged to dedicate at least thirty minutes every day to your travel guide and journal; otherwise, you won't get anywhere. It is envisaged that each leg (chapter) of the journey should take you approximately four weeks—though in truth, this is a lifelong adventure!
1.4 Activity: Consider What You Have Learned So Far
In your journal, note each of the viewpoints listed previously that you would like to develop during your journey. Consider the following:
• What specific element would you like to explore? Perhaps you could start with your thoughts and expectations for this journey.
• What insights did you gain from your collage?
• Note how you are feeling right now and about the prospect of the journey ahead of you. Are you committed and ready to walk the road and face the challenge? Or is there the temptation to shelve this book until some future date?
• Do not worry about spelling or grammar or even content. If you wish to ramble on about the routine of the day, do so.
• Acknowledge what has featured predominantly in your thoughts during that day.
• Ideally, you should write in your journal at a particular time each day—early mornings are best for some.
In the next leg of your journey, you are going to focus on who you are as a person and who you would like to be in the future. If you would like to engage in one-on-one support or join a small group with which to share your journey, contact info@colleensullivan.net.
Remember to mark off the activities you have completed at the back of the travel guide!
CHAPTER 2
Designing and Building Your Sailing Craft: Below the Water Line
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. —Carl Jung
Introduction
In this chapter, we are going to explore the essence of your being and how this impacts your outlook on life. Imagine a sailing craft that represents you, with different parts of the craft symbolising different parts of your personality. We will be looking at the part that forms the foundation and structure of who you are as a person.
I have used the keel to reflect your sense of purpose, and the hull of the boat will depict your beliefs and values. Though mostly invisible below the surface of the water, it is the keel and hull that maintain the balance of the vessel. In turn, the boat is directed by the rudder, which represents your emotions and feelings. On the whole, our emotions remain out of view, but awareness and control of them is fundamental in determining your direction and how successfully you can navigate your way through unknown waters.
Finally, the anchor represents what grounds or inhibits you in times of turbulence, insecurity and transition.
Keel: A Sense of Purpose
The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive. Albert Einstein
We are all unique beings and have an inimitable interpretation and perception of life and its meaning. Our life meaning is a coalescence of our cultural and religious beliefs and is mirrored by our experience of life and how we choose to interpret life events. Let's choose the keel of the craft to represent a sense of meaning. The keel is fundamental in determining the overall design and capacity of the craft. It provides the foundational supporting structure for the whole vessel.
Victor Frankl, in his book Man's Search for Meaning, suggests that in any situation, there are three possibilities for experiencing or creating a sense of meaning:
1. We take or learn from the experience.
2. We create or add to the experience.
3. We choose to adopt a position or attitude, no matter what the circumstances.
The Gift of Free Will\
Humans have the unique ability to distance themselves from events and to see things in a broader context. The gift of free will gives us the opportunity to rise above our animal instincts and drives, to detach ourselves from our circumstances and transcend them, exhibiting our potential divine nature. Humans have the capacity to choose their attitude, emotions and behaviour, no matter what the situation. We can either be animalistic, self-seeking, and self-preserving, or we can adopt a more loving and accepting attitude. If we are given only the option to suffer, we can choose to do so with dignity.
