CHAPTER 1
WANTING CHANGE
I was on my hands and knees in my living room, sobbing. My head ached, my eyes hurt, and I could no longer breathe through my nose or see through the tears in my eyes. I can no longer remember the exact incident that brought me to my knees, but I do remember my pleading prayer for help. This painful moment happened one afternoon well after my ten-year commitment to changing myself and my life's circumstances. After so much hard work toward growth, how could something so minor still bring me to my knees? I did not feel like a strong, confident, or empowered woman.
The way we act out may be different, but the important thing to see is that we have been triggered by some event. Our minds may try to warn us that we are feeling a familiar pain that we do not like, but we get lost in the details of the current trigger and can see no further. Easily, we allow ourselves to fall down the rabbit hole and reexperience painful emotion, sometimes with a vengeance.
There on the floor, I cried out, "What is the point of all of this anyways? I am a good person! Was I just born to be punished? And for what exactly am I being punished?" This feeling of victimization was a familiar one, but this time I was tired of it. I was embarrassed by my own fearful weakness. I no longer wanted to identify myself as a scared or victimized girl because I hadn't been a little girl in quite some time. I decided that it was long past time that the emotional years caught up with the physical years before my body was done with me. On that day, I decided to shift my focus from the details that triggered me to the trigger itself.
Whenever we ask a question, we will be answered. The trick is being open to hearing the truthful answer before we compulsively answer our own questions. As this workbook progresses, you will understand much better how not to do this mostly automatic behavior.
I have learned that I have had many automatic behaviors that have interfered with my ability to change and transform myself as I wanted to. For example, I have had the pattern of repeatedly giving my power away to others. I would then unconsciously expect them to be grateful, behave a certain way, and be indebted to me. I set myself up to experience negative feelings like rejection and powerlessness because I never believed that I possessed the power that I was giving away in the first place.
We all possess intense power, and we create our experiences with this power. This same power can change our lives the moment we claim it. With this call to action, all the wisdom, knowledge, unconditional love, and support from what is truth can and does manifest itself into this conceptual toolbox. As we use each of these tools of truth, we quickly feel and experience our strength as we see what is real.
Truth's Toolbox
T = Truth — brings clarity
R = Responsibility — promotes self-empowerment and strength
U = Unity — increases compassion, empathy, and patience
T = Time — brings present-moment awareness
H = Health — maintains balance, stamina, and positive energy
S = Simplicity — reduces stress while creating space for truth
H = Habits — creates positive and healthy behaviors
I = Inspiration — spreads love, kindness, and support
F = Forgiveness — letting go of what is no longer serving our greatest good
T = Truth — creates the shifts that propel us toward being our truest selves
One of the first things to understand about what is truth is to learn what it is not. I kept learning about this thing called the ego, and I always found it to be a little confusing and creepy. Great, another reason to be afraid of myself. For example, Sigmund Freud tells us (paraphrasing) that the ego is a set of psychic functions using tolerance, defense, control, planning, and memory to synthesize information and test reality. A Course in Miracles says that the ego wants no part of truth because it is not true. If the ego is simply a function of my very own mind to help me mediate between my conscious and subconscious, why is it always speaking so negatively? What does that say about who I really am? Furthermore, how does a mental function become an "it" anyway? Soon after I asked this question, I was answered. I finally recognized my own ego with complete, humiliating clarity through memories that suddenly surfaced. I was simply folding laundry when it happened.
First, an old memory surfaced of a time I had behaved boldly and obnoxiously. I felt embarrassment as this memory surfaced, but instead of quickly burying it, I thought about it a little deeper and used the tool of truth to keep my mind clear and open. I wondered why I behaved that way when my intent behind the behavior felt different. Then similar memories quickly followed as if to drive the message home. With no effort on my part, I could see a clear pattern. I understood with complete clarity that I was witnessing my own ego in action. In each incident, it was like every other part of me took a backseat so that my ego could be the one handling the situation. In each instance, my ego was completely in charge. It was easy for me to comprehend that it was obtaining intense energy for an unmet emotional need, and it was attempting to satisfy this need by running my thoughts, speech, and behaviors. In each case, the wanting or needing that I felt inside in no way matched my negative behavior, but because my need was a valid need for me, I could mentally justify my behavior at the time. It was the memories that caused me to cringe with shame and embarrassment. As these memories surfaced, my mind wanted to quickly rationalize those behaviors and bury them back down inside so that I could stop feeling embarrassment, but I held strong to my tool of truth because I understood that my question was being answered.
Whenever we use any of the tools of truth, we are the ones who remain mindfully in charge. Just by being mindful, we automatically begin operating at a higher vibration. Simply stated, as you use a tool, you become an observer of what is happening without so much (if any) emotional pull.
Once I recognized my own ego in action, I found that I could recognize it in others. The thing about egos is that once they become recognized, you can develop strategies to manage them without being emotionally triggered by them. All egos can become easily manageable as you learn to recognize their unique behaviors.
Meeting BOB
I needed to be able to conceptualize my ego in a way that I could learn how to work with it or around it. I knew that it would be much harder for me to accomplish any of my goals for mindful, loving change as it continued to flood my brain with negative self-talk fueled by the guilt, embarrassment, shame, or just plain fear I apparently still possessed. So I created BOB, a very willing and flexible ego who is very capable of making mindful, loving changes.
Here is how BOB came to be: We will always have needs, and from the moment we are born, we begin learning ways to get what we need. Every time a need is met, a happy, chemical, reward response floods our brains, and new little pathways to repeated rewards for the future are created. Then, each time we successfully repeat a behavior that triggers this same reward response in our brains, these same pathways harden, creating nice habit loops for quick behavioral responses. We continue to create habit loops our entire lives. Habit loops make space for the quick mental alertness needed for recognizing danger while also maintaining the capacity for any new learning opportunities as they present themselves. As we age, our experiences influence our comprehension and understanding of life and our space in it. Early on, belief systems begin to form based on what those in authority told us about ourselves and by the feedback we receive from others. Everyone we meet is a mirror that teaches us something about who we are and why we might exist. Even though we are not egos, we begin to create what I refer to as "a body of beliefs," a kind of shadow image of ourselves that attaches itself to our biological bodies while believing that it is that body. I call these "bodies of beliefs" BOBs.
Egos, or what I refer to as BOBs, know what we see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and feel within our emotions. Our beliefs are its programming, and they use this programmed belief system to determine for us what is real and what isn't, what is important and what isn't, what holds value and what doesn't. In this way, BOBs think that they are not only our owner but also our creator. Whatever beliefs they contain mentally transform into accepted truths, and we accept these understandings as factual. Because we are not our egos, we can always override them when we remain alert and are willing to do so. Otherwise, they can seem to be their own entity that is insanely fearful, competitive, jealous, and petty as it fights to maintain control over our every thought, action, and behavior.
In my new perception of ego, I could see the ego not as this compulsively negative thing that would fight me every step of the way on my path to change and transformation through what is truth but merely as a way to recognize the beliefs I hold that require correction.
This understanding is an extremely important first step in creating mindful, loving change without fear because we cannot and do not exist without also possessing an ego. Since we must have one, we must also recognize how they operate with complete clarity so we can strategize ways to mindfully override them at will.
In their battle for supreme authority over our bodies and minds, they attempt to block and defend against any new information that does not fit into our current belief systems by depreciating its value to us. This same body of beliefs compulsively nurtures and protects whatever beliefs we hold, as these beliefs are its life force. A belief system that attaches itself to a body and begins to identify as that body is an illusion and not truth. As an illusion, it will naturally fear any change that threatens its existence. In truth, there is no real threat. We will not disappear as our beliefs change about anything, but our minds will respond to these fearful warnings as if the threats are genuine. Our brains will then send the appropriate messages to our endocrine system. Our bodies then flood with a hormonal response that makes us feel as if we are truly being attacked. This damaging cycle, which is both mental and physical, happens again and again over perceived threats that are not at all truthful.
BOBs have words too, but their words are not truth tools that build relationships. Instead, they are destructive weapons used with the sincere intention of protecting us from whatever it believes to be a threat.
They are compelled to maintain themselves through our beliefs because they are fearful of becoming nonexistent. Therefore, their trick is to deny value to anything that does not fit into its body of beliefs. They must depreciate what we might appreciate.
BOB's Depreciating Weaponry
D = denial, drugs, distraction
E = egocentric thinking
P = punishment
R = religious dogma, righteousness, rules
E = entitlement, easiness
C = control
I = insecurity, fears
A = arrogance, avoidance
I = ignorance
N = narrow-mindedness, nearsightedness, neglect
G = guilt, shame, blame
If you have ever been affected by the depreciating weaponry listed above, then you are also aware that the thoughts, intent, and behaviors behind each weapon can have lasting negative effects. Knowing this, it is easy to conceive that the tools of truth are also effective. The difference is that the tools of truth are powered by the pure, unconditional loving intent that is continually serving a universal purpose. This universal purpose is much greater than we usually perceive simply because we tend to remain egotistically focused each day.
Individually, BOBs protect their belief systems, whatever they are, sometimes with a vengeance. The good news is that as beliefs change through what is truthful, these same BOBs become much less defensive and destructive. One by one, our behaviors change as our BOBs begin to serve universal goals while still maintaining their individual identity. This same identity evolves through these universal goals and naturally becomes more loving, patient, empathetic, and supportive to others.
For any real transformation to happen, I knew that I had to first understand the specific beliefs that formed the image I carried of myself down to the core. I had to face these beliefs bravely, or my experiences might never change. This is not an easy challenge to accept, but it is an easy challenge to take on once you become willing. Remember that you are only challenging an illusion.
In those moments when we ask ourselves, "Why did I do that? That's not me," we are recognizing the me apart from the shadow image. In my efforts to improve, I finally realized that this shadow did not care about "me," but I did care about me. It was time to ignore BOB. I allowed myself to fall flat on the face of all my deepest core memories with complete humility, and in that space, I could fall no further. In that space, I picked myself up from a dirty, contaminated floor where the soil was dry and void of nutrition for growth. Even with just the slightest lift of my head, the air was already cleaner, fresher. I breathed in new hope and new visions and welcomed change bravely and without fear.
Only then could I both mentally and physically shift myself into a new beginning for living in this very same lifetime.
CHAPTER 2
DECIDING TO CHANGE
I believe that we are all on the same journey toward first knowing what is truth and then being our truest selves. In this way, we serve a universal purpose that benefits us all. Every individual journey has its own uniqueness, and together we demonstrate so many different potentials and possibilities as we learn how to overcome what is not truth.
Every time our perspectives shift through what is truth, we transform ourselves. Each truth shift is a new beginning for us as we then see, perceive, interact, and behave through newly recognized strengths. Still, every journey must have a beginning point where truth is mostly unrecognized and thereby unknown.
I have already introduced the tools of truth that can be used to facilitate the miraculous truth shifts that transform us, but it might also be helpful for me to share a little more of my own story as an example of what I mean by a beginning point where truth is mostly unknown.
My First Beginning
I was a breech when my mom went into labor with me, wrenching myself inside the safety and security of my uterine home. The doctor had to first turn me and then yank me out with cold metal forceps. I still have a slight indent on my head from them. I am convinced that some part of me understood that all of this pulling, noise, and activity meant that the journey was now beginning, and I was scared to proceed.
I was a very shy, sensitive, and introverted child from as far back as my memories allow. I feared everybody and everything. Mom was my world, but I was always getting into trouble, so I believed that I was probably bad and mostly unlovable. My sanctuary was my bedroom or in the backyard where I could be alone with my imagination. I even had an imaginary friend who was my faithful companion whenever I needed him to be. I remember he was a little guy, like a tiny elf or fairy, but he had no distinct features or personality. His only role was to be my friend and to keep me company when I needed him.
Puberty added a newly weird dynamic to the already odd me. I was still shy and introverted, but way too suddenly I became no longer invisible. This attention was new, exciting, and kind of intoxicating. I did not know how to react to this unexpected change, but I loved being noticed. Puberty made me matter, and I wanted to capitalize on this new self-worth. My strawberry-blond hair from birth had darkened, so I bleached it. I wore tight jeans and put on lots of makeup hoping that might make me loveable. I did not know anything about myself, so I had to rely on other people's reactions toward me, and the hair, clothes, and makeup seemed to define me.
