SHOCKED About My Mother After Learning This

This changed me forever.

She blamed my father for her miserable life.

My mother, who passed in 1988, used what I call mantras – words she repeated so many times that I still know them verbatim.

Because of regular reiteration, I believed and didn’t question some of them. It was like repetition used to learn arithmetic tables, but these were impressed on me with far more feeling.

“When I was young, I used to be happy-go-lucky. Then I met your father.”

Because they argued intensely, she started her day with this mantra: “I wonder what that S.O.B. is going to do to make my life miserable today.”  (Note – she didn’t use initials.)

She had no idea that her daily proclamations and choice of emotions were what made her life miserable, not anything my father did or didn’t do.

She thought her suffering was my father’s fault, and I accepted it as true, too. I didn’t have an attitude about him. I liked and loved him. At the same time, I saw her perspective and believed her woeful declarations.

Then around 2002, I was talking to one my teachers about how I felt sorry for them. He knew my parents and replied,

“Your mother wanted your father to change so she wouldn’t have to change.”

What?!!??

This was a throw-a-bucket-of-ice-cold-water-in-my-face moment.

It was his fault. That was a given. Never questioned it. She lived a miserable life because of him.

Here’s the kicker.

As long as she complained about and blamed him, she didn’t have to take responsibility for her own emotions and actions. It was his fault. She was the victim. Pointing her finger at what she decided were his failings absolved her of cleaning up her attitudes, feelings and thoughts.

In a flash, I realized the blaming wasn’t true. She could’ve been happy if she stopped giving him power over the way she felt.

In a shocking moment, for the first time, I stopped feeling sorry for them.

I realized that my pity (vs. compassion) was condescending and disrespectful of their choices. They decided how to interact with each other. They had complete control over the way they felt. If they chose to argue as a way of life, and if she chose to feel miserable, those were their decisions.

As emotions create reality, she created a “living hell” for herself where she felt “like a prisoner in my own home.” Her life was a self-fulfilled prophecy.

Think about the implications in your life. Who are you blaming for what doesn’t work and how you feel?

• Do you want others to behave the way you think they should so you can feel good? In other words, do you want others or situations to change so you can feel better? Or will you decide to feel better anyway?
• As you create your future by how you feel, do you allow others to affect how you feel by reacting to strangers who drive weird, crazy acting people, politicians or past hurts?
• Are you blaming yourself? Or will you take command of your own energy because, if you don’t, you block your dreams coming true? Guilt, regrets, bemoaning your past, blaming yourself and others are false narratives… and an insult to your divine nature. Everyone’s learning. It’s okay.
• What mantras run through your head? I can’t afford it. There’s never enough. What if I run out of money or time? Nothing I do ever works out. My life would be so much better if only…

Even if they’re “wrong,” you still can choose your attitude and how you respond. As like attracts like, how you feel shapes your future.

What does this have to do with your life, business or work?

Your feelings and thoughts magnetize your experience, so don’t hand the keys of your emotions to others and “if only” things would be different. Don’t give your power away.

Allowing others to affect how you feel relinquishes the keys to your kingdom – or queendom – of success, happiness and ability to enjoy personal, financial and emotional freedom.

By the way, blame is one of ego’s greatest tools; no matter where it’s directed, it holds you back.

You choose how you react and feel.

Your now and future depend on it.

“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce.

Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce.

Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience.

No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change”  

Thích Nhất Hạnh

Edited excerpt from Soulgoals’ post of March 13, 2017.

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Ready to live YOUR life, let go of blaming and complaining and gain emotional mastery? 

Contact me to learn how at:

virginia@soulgoals.com
http://www.soulgoals.com

I help women to tune in to their true Selves, see clearly and live their personal and professional dreams.

Copyright © 2023 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

Advertisement

NEW: Trying to Fix, Rescue, Teach Others? Please Stop!

My linen closet after I edited it.

Earlier this year, I watched a show called The Home Edit on Netflix. It inspired me to massively reorganize my home.

I let go of 2/3rds of my clothes and shoes. I threw away bags of stuff, sold some, and brought countless carloads to Goodwill.

For a variety of reasons, they no longer fit who I am now.

I categorized what was left (grouping similar items together in the same area). I bought containers so everything on my shelves had their own place. I stepped back to look at all my rooms, closets, drawers and cupboards with an eye for them to be aesthetically pleasing. The end goal is to maintain the system.

There’s not a paper on my desktops.

Following was the yard edit. I cut and dumped the equivalent of truckloads of pruned trees and branches.

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Months of this focus led me to ask questions about editing my life.

How was I using my time? Why were individuals in my life? I paid attention to attitudes, beliefs, patterns, actions of myself and others. When did I feel unhappy or stressed? What did I like or just put up with?

When I honestly paused to see, I admitted to myself what didn’t serve me.

I saw where I was taking care of others above taking care of me. For logical reasons: they needed me, my help, something.

…and regularly being on that vibrational frequency was interfering with my ability to create a life that I choose.

It was time for me to draw the line and stop tolerating the vibrational dissonance.

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“Use whatever excuse you can to vibrate in harmony with those things you’ve been saying you want. And when you do, these things that are a vibrational equivalent flow into your experience in abundance… That which is like unto itself is drawn.“

Abraham-Hicks

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Why did some drain my energy?

I learned from YouTuber Richard Grannon regarding narcissists that “you’re dealing with a performance to elicit a response from you that caused you to serve them.”

Whaaat?

Some people try to pull you in, to do things for them and satisfy their needs, with their stories, neediness or emotions in order to elicit a response from you. This is how they caused you to serve them, in ways you wouldn’t had done if they hadn’t played on your emotions somehow.

They may want your money, your time, your stuff, your sex, your advice, your doing things for them, your emotional support, and on and on.

At the same time, they can be sooo grateful to you for helping them. Yes. It feels good to make a difference by helping others. Until their needs surface again. And again.

I realized I wasn’t helping. They were using me as a band-aid.

Are you rescuing or trying to fix others? You might believe you should do this to be a loving and good friend or family member. However, you may be holding others back from learning their lessons!

If you try to “teach” them, aka rescue or fix them instead of being an example, you may be holding them back spiritually.

Consequence: they keep coming back to you for help, and your enabling doesn’t motivate them to learn their lessons.

Ask yourself. Is the relationship 50-50 or more like 90-10, you giving more than receiving?

You can let go of the toxicity and drama in your life. Maybe you’ve outgrown that, and it’s no longer a fit.

Of course, be willing to extend a helping hand!! However, if your hand gets tired from the repetitive performance, here’s an option.

HAVE COMPASSION. BLESS OTHERS.

LET THEM KNOW YOU BELIEVE IN THEM TO FIND A WAY THROUGH THEIR SITUATION.

BUT DON’T DO THE WORK FOR THEM.

Be empowered. Happy. Surround yourself with supportive people who love you for who you are, not because of how you can serve them.

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Ready to be free of helping others more and helping yourself less? 
Contact me to learn how at:

virginia@soulgoals.com

http://www.soulgoals.com

I help women to tune in to their true Selves, see clearly and live their personal and professional dreams.

Copyright © 2022 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

“Damned if You Do, and Damned if You Don’t”

So what should YOU do?

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”

Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States, 1933-1945

“I’m the man of the house (although he didn’t act like a responsible one, financially or otherwise), and you need to follow me and support me in everything I do.”

However, she wasn’t considered by him to be a good wife because she started to say “no.”

In the end, she lost her house that she bought before she married, lost her car, lost her savings, nearly lost her mind, plus the police showed up so often that they knew her by name – because when she disagreed, the beatings would begin.

For him, it was a personal affront that she wouldn’t agree with him.
 
She told me, “I was brought up to be compliant with my husband. But he was an idiot, and the results proved it. He was misogynistic and would never take any advice – but instead would do the opposite.

“I was going in two different directions. How can you follow someone if they’re taking you to a dead end, and all the time you know that direction is wrong?

“Even a rat has enough sense to jump off a sinking ship. I had to leave the relationship. I had to save my life.”

Just because people you “should” believe say something, demand your obedience to follow, repeatedly lie to fit their own purpose but call it the truth, doesn’t make it true.

The good news. If it weren’t for him, she never would have the clarity she has now to speak her truth, especially in a male-dominated industry where she works.

Her ex trained her to no longer be a wimp and not value others’ reactions more than trusting herself. To stop being a people pleaser.

She knew better. But she allowed herself to be bullied by someone who was metaphorically blind and demanded unreasonable loyalty.

Eventually, she allowed herself to act on what she knew, what she had the courage to honestly see, and leave him.

Sounds crazy? You think you wouldn’t do something like that?

This is what belief systems can do. If a person believes something, even though the belief is false or doesn’t make sense or can be harmful, people often stick with it.

Her belief was she was to be compliant with her husband. See where that belief brought her?

What erroneous beliefs might you have? I know I erroneously believed my share. You can get past yours, too. 

Previously posted on Soulgoals’ Blog on November 1, 2021

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Could you use help discovering and letting go of faulty beliefs that  are mucking up some of your life?

Contact me to learn how at virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people who choose to share their gifts or business in a BIGGER way but don’t know how, feel stuck or could  use new tools or support. I help them connect with their Soul’s goals and be richly compensated doing what they love.

Copyright © 2022 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

I Learned This While Existing in a Living Hell

During my twenties, miserable because of a five-year relationship, I had a dream. For years I kept its message on my dresser, although I didn’t know what it meant or how to do anything about it:

 Find the Heart and Rescue It 

He had a Ph.D. in psychology and was a revered member of our spiritual community, which played into why it took me a while to realize I lived with a self-centered, master manipulator who cared only for himself.

He easily saw my vulnerabilities of low self-esteem and self-doubt and how to use them to intimidate me and undermine my self-confidence while bending me to his will.

Although we had been dating long distance, he lived a six-hour drive away, we solidified our legal commitment to be together within three weeks after my father passed away. 

Note: It’s recommended to avoid making big decisions after experiencing a death.

In our second month together, I was bullied to let go of my business and with it my financial freedom. Amongst countless other examples, he listened in on my phone conversations and would scream at me non-stop if I didn’t do what he wanted. He even left me stranded in a southwestern desert at 3 PM in the middle of the summer with no cash or credit cards as he drove away – to return 30 minutes later. 

In our third month together, the stress of what my life had become short-circuited my adrenals, thyroid, blood sugar and more – so I wasn’t able to speak my words in the right order, think well, have physical energy to move and would cry if someone said hello. 

Enabling this behavior was my belief there was something wrong with me. Years later, when I saw the 1944 movie Gaslight with Ingrid Bergman, I recognized that this was what he tried to do… make me believe I was crazy so he could control me.

My unhappiness induced me to question and think. 
 

He insisted his reality was truth, but was it? His created what I called a living hell on earth.

I made a bad choice to be with him, which put me on a sorrowful path. Eventually, I figured out that regardless of how many good choices I subsequently made, I was still on the wrong path. 

I had to listen to my heart, my truth, and not give my power away.
Even if others claimed to know more or be an authority.
Even at the risk of losing my worldly goods. 
Even with my perceived HUMILIATION that, once again, I made a relationship mistake.

Actually, it was my ego’s need to protect this self-image that held me back the most. 

My survival ultimately depended on my ability to listen to my guidance, speak up for MYSELF and not be cowered into obedient silence and submission.

When I got honest with me, changes occurred, which made my exit easy. I packed my car and was gone in three weeks. 

The good news is that this experience taught me to think for myself and not believe others’ so-called authority. I learned to separate what I saw was true vs. what others told me I should believe.

And be the coach I am today.

It’s like the person who says the proverbial, “Yes, I’ll still love you in the morning” … not. Beware: many people lie to get what they want. Many believe their own lies!

What life do you want to live? Are you living it? Are you willing to honestly speak up, at least to yourself, and acknowledge what’s in your heart? 

Don’t wait for permission. It’s YOUR life!

Edited excerpt from Soulgoals’ Blog Post May 8, 2011

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If you’d like support
to listen to
your heart and
what to do about it,
contact me
for a complimentary
Soulgoals’ Break-Free Session
by phone.
Email me at:
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people who choose to
enhance their lives or share their gifts 
in a BIGGER way but
don’t know how, feel stuck or could use new tools or support.

I help them be richly compensated doing what
they love by connecting with their Soul’s goals.

Copyright © 2022 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

Annoying People in Your Life?

A client was annoyed because she consistently attracted unqualified customers.

One got nastily irate when she told him that his application didn’t go through.  Although she quickly let him go as a customer, she knew she had to change her focus to stop attracting dodo birds – who went extinct centuries ago.

Whatever you focus on, talk or think about grows.

In the past, she complained about how many applicants didn’t qualify. Because she focused on lack, what she didn’t want and have, she kept attracting more applicants who didn’t qualify.

Now she focuses her attention on having great applicants who both qualify and purchase her high-end products, all with grace and ease.

Her new perspective is working.

Are there similar (annoying) types of people or circumstances showing up in your life again and again?

Here’s how you can gain clarity about what you’re doing to attract that and release the energy.

Journal about how you feel when the dodo birds get you down. For example, you can write about:

• Does how you feel remind you of how you felt about people or events from your past?
• When you notice the patterns, observe them and choose to let them go.
• Replace them by writing about your ideal perspective.
• After, refocus on your wonderful dreams and goals instead of what you don’t want.

WRITING, not just thinking about, what’s bothering you can help you SEE what you’re thinking and doing to create this what-the-#(!X&!! in your life. You’re worth the time to discover what’s going on AND turn it around.

It’s time to soar with the eagles. You deserve it.

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Know someone who might enjoy reading this? Please forward.

If you’d like help to soar with the eagles, contact me
about a complimentary Soulgoals’ Break-free Session at 
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people who choose to have a better life or business but don’t know how, feel stuck or would benefit from new tools or support.

I help them be richly compensated doing what they love by connecting with their Soul’s goals.

Edited excerpt from a July 31, 2017 Soulgoals’ post

Copyright © 2022 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

Can You Be Grateful About What Bugs You?

Once I asked someone who’s wise why things in my life weren’t working. I said that I practiced gratitude every morning and night. The reply I received was what was I doing the rest of the day?

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Gratitude, continuous gratitude, will change your life!

That can seem easier said than done at times, until we realize…

we’re rarely angry for the reason we think we’re angry. How dare they!

That feeling is not necessarily about the other person or situation being wrong. The emotion triggered may be from a similar, emotional memory or our perception that may or may not be accurate.

The reason we have charged emotions is because those challenging feelings surface (and then we get bugged about things) when it’s time for them to be released.

Have you noticed how sometimes people can jump to the wrong conclusion and then become upset by their interpretation, even if it’s false?

Regardless if the other was right or actually the wrongdoer, holding on to a lack of forgiveness or a one-sided, limiting perspective might feel empowering. It might feel validating, proof that you’re right and the other is wrong.

However, there might be another side of the story that’s not being considered because of being locked into a particular viewpoint.

The ego loves feeling right.

But your Essence knows the trap of self-righteousness and sees things differently.

A mother copped an attitude about perceived activity regarding her senior-aged daughter. Things she never did. Not even close. In fact, her accusations were ludicrous.

The whole issue could have been easily dismissed, but not even going to mediation altered her mother’s foolish perspective.

Rather than talking about it or seeing proof to the contrary, she set a court date!

She had her daughter evicted from her house through a court order the day before Thanksgiving. Her daughter had nowhere to go.

By the way, she had invited her daughter, who was down on her luck, to live with her. To do that, she had to sell her car and belongings and move over a thousand miles away.

Replacing her anger, frustration, hurt and fear of what her own mother was doing to her, the daughter began to send her mother love, disregarding any of her mother’s unforgiving attitudes.

The mother began to soften and question her hardline approach.

Empowerment through shifting your perspective to love and gratitude are more truly empowering than feeling justification through a lack of forgiveness or holding onto the feeling of what bugs you. Maybe there’s another angle you’re overlooking.

Perhaps, given an opportunity, you can clear the energy on whatever might be bugging you through discussion or seeing things from a different viewpoint. It doesn’t matter if that does or doesn’t work, love is the greatest healer.

Even if others are convinced you’re wrong, you can be emotionally free.

So if you get annoyed at your world and whatever bugs you about it, consider that there might be another perspective so that you can send love and give thanks, instead.

With gratitude,

Virginia

Edited from an excerpt of a November 19, 2018 Soulgoals’ Blog Post

Contact me to learn how a shift in perspective can dramatically improve your life:
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people who choose to share
their gifts or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck or could 
use new tools or support.

I help them ignite their Soul’s goals
and be richly compensated doing what
they love.

Copyright © 2021 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

What Do You Do? Follow or Be Courageous?

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

“I’m the man of the house (although he didn’t act like a responsible one, financially or otherwise), and you need to follow me and support me in everything I do.”

However, she wasn’t considered by him to be a good wife because she started to say no.

In the end, she lost her house that she bought before she married, lost her car, lost her savings, nearly lost her mind, plus the police showed up so often that they knew her by name – because when she disagreed, the beatings would begin.

For him, it was a personal affront that she wouldn’t agree with him.
 
She told me, “I was brought up to be compliant with my husband. But he was an idiot, and the results proved it. He was misogynistic and would never take any advice – but instead would do the opposite.

“I was going in two different directions. How can you follow someone if they’re taking you to a dead end, and all the time you know that direction is wrong?

“Even a rat has enough sense to jump off a sinking ship. I had to leave the relationship. I had to save my life.”

Just because people you “should” believe say something, demand your obedience to follow, repeatedly lie to fit their own purpose but call it the truth, doesn’t make it true.

The good news. If it weren’t for him, she never would have the clarity she has now to speak her truth, especially in a male-dominated industry where she works.

Her ex trained her to no longer be a wimp and not value others’ reactions more than trusting herself.

She knew better. But she allowed herself to be bullied by someone who was metaphorically blind and demanded unreasonable loyalty.

Eventually, she allowed herself to act on what she knew, what she had the courage to honestly see, and leave him.

Sounds crazy? You think you wouldn’t do something like that?

This is what belief systems can do. If a person believes something, even though the belief is false or doesn’t make sense or can be harmful, people often stick with it.

Her belief was she was taught to be compliant to her husband. See where that belief brought her?

While in my twenties and in a horrific marriage, I had a dream. For months later, although I couldn’t understand its significance at the time, I put its quote on my dresser.

FIND THE HEART AND RESCUE IT. 

Friend, what do you see? Is there something in your life where you know better, you’re ignoring it, but you’re following obediently or blindly anyway?
 
Courage. You can allow yourself to know what you know. Call it for what it is, even if only to yourself.

DON’T GIVE AWAY YOUR POWER.

• Think for yourself, not what others tell you or what you read on the internet.  If what you firmly believe in is showing cracks and not working like you thought it should, reconsider.
• See, and then take action according to what your gut and heart tell you, along with your logic, instead of what others say you should feel or do or be.

You may discover your personal honesty is the inevitable route to freedom.

“Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Time to reclaim your power?
Contact me to learn how at:
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people who choose to share
their gifts or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck or could 
use new tools or support.

I help them ignite their Soul’s goals
and be richly compensated doing what
they love.

Original Soulgoal Missive written in 2002   

Copyright © 2021 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

Is This YOUR Time of Freedom? Special 4th of July Message

In recognition of the Fourth of July, I’m reposting a previous blog, with a few changes, that received great feedback. Note that you can see some of the highlighted words etched into the wall behind Thomas Jefferson – “mind of man.” May you enjoy the spirit of freedom! Virginia

While living in Washington, D.C., I often parked my car, ran up 58 steps and gazed in awe at the towering and erect presence of one of the great men who founded the United States of America. Thomas Jefferson also served as our third President from 1801 to 1809.

Open around the clock, sometimes I visited the Jefferson Memorial late at night when I could be alone in this hallowed sanctum.

Standing amidst the white marble steps and building, my eyes would gaze at the 129′ bronze statue as well as excerpts of the Declaration of Independence, whose principal author was Jefferson.

However, the reason I kept returning was to slowly turn in a circle to read the inscription under the dome:

“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”  Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800.

I didn’t realize at the time how these words, which still bring tears to my eyes, would be emblazoned within me. They inspired my lifetime passion, “upon the altar of God,” to help others and myself live in freedom through liberation of the “tyranny over the mind of man.”

The definition of tyranny includes the oppression, often cruel, of people or a government over others. Another aspect of tyranny is an unreasonable or arbitrary use of power or control.

For me, there’s a twist to this. It reminds me of a quote by American Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry in 1813.  Most famously, it was quipped by cartoonist Walt Kelly on a couple of Earth Day posters when Pogo said:

The voice in your head, motivated by an insecure ego, can be your enemy and create the greatest form of tyranny.

These inner rants, such as you’re not good enough, you don’t deserve better and feeling full of regrets or fear, can be cruel, unreasonable, oppressive and arbitrary. If you allow this to dominate your thoughts and feelings, you relinquish control of your life to a limiting belief – because it’s a lie! 

Know that you have the power of choice! 

You can choose to listen to your inner essence/ soul/ spirit, whatever you choose to call the wise part within, instead.

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Especially those familiar with my teachings about making conscious choices, you might be interested in this. When I was thirty years old, I had the first sentence of the following quote by Jefferson on a wall plate of a light switch:

“Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself the alternatives of choice. Without the possibility of choice, and the exercise of choice, a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing.”

Pondering this message regularly, I knew there was more to it than I could understand at the time. I’m now aware of this:

We are free to choose. We are free to choose how we think and feel and believe! We are so free, we can choose fear or freedom.

We choose our thoughts, which impact our emotions, which create our lives. What hinders our freedom is allowing our minds to be tyrannized by any limiting beliefs. From anyone. From any circumstance or condition. From a part of our inner voice, our ego’s voice, that’s tyrannical.

 

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A client showed me a picture of a tow truck driver who quickly and skillfully used multiple cables to turn upright a parked truck that had been hit by a car and had completely flipped over.

The driver was very good-natured, and his demeanor radiated a cheerful attitude and peace.

Both of his arms stopped below his elbows.

He had a prosthetic leg, too.

He is a living demonstration of choosing his attitude and outlook on life. He wasn’t tyrannized by his physical condition and whatever caused it.

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We in America celebrate our country’s birthday on the Fourth of July, our Independence Day. It’s a time of freedom.

While talking with others about a life-changing break for freedom I made during the week of July 4th when I was 20, others shared their stories of freedom that happened around this time, too.

I broke free from a physically, mentally, emotionally and controlling abusive relationship. It took me seven times over two years to leave him without being hunted down and brought back. I made a decision to be free, and I started a new life the week of July fourth.

Soon the French will celebrate their day of freedom on July 14, Bastille Day. July is a time of freedom.

Tyranny or freedom? 

You can choose to hold in your mind’s eye the freedom and intentions that our forefathers envisioned while founding the United States.

What freedom and independence do you choose for you?

Start with freeing yourself from the tyranny of your mind, where no circumstance, nothing and nobody can touch you.

P.S. Know someone who might benefit from reading this? Please forward.I work with people who choose to share their gifts or business in a BIGGER way but don’t know how, feel stuck or would benefit from new tools or support. I help them ignite their Soul’s goals and be richly compensated doing what they love. http://www.soulgoals.com Copyright © 2020 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

Read This If You Don’t Like How Some People Treat You

The generation before my Soulgoal Blog was Soulgoal Missives. This week, while updating my PC’s software, this missive from July 24, 2002, popped up on my screen out of nowhere. It provided insight into a situation I’d just witnessed. It’s about understanding why people react to each other the way they do. Your issue may be different from mine during my college years, but the concept still holds. People respond to others’ energy.

Soulgoal Missive, Year 1, No. 23

Speak From Your Strength

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

Dr. Seuss

My wake up call started by accident, in spite of myself. It was the moment I realized that what I said and the way I said it affected the way other people acted and reacted to me. The chef in the restaurant, where I waitressed while in college, always intimidated me. If I said, “I’m sorry, I made a mistake,” I became an even greater target for him. One day I was so busy that I dashed into the kitchen with no time for apologies or excuses. I plunked down a dish of vegetables and said, “I wanted peas not beans.” Oh, I really didn’t mean to be what I thought of as bossy or imply that he made a mistake. And I really would have given him a story, an explanation about my error, if I had an opportunity. However, “I wanted peas not beans,” were the words that began to change my life. He thought he was at fault so he didn’t lecture me. He quickly replaced the order, and I had an epiphany. No, it wasn’t to trick people to take the blame for something I did. I had been setting myself up for him to pick on me, and I didn’t even realize it. I used to think that if I acted nicer or downplayed myself, then people would respond accordingly. They did – they were at the other end of a seesaw that I created. I was on one side with sweetness, so they balanced me out with anger, control, domination, or intimidation. Through my lack of self-confidence and under the guise of being nice, I subconsciously tried to manipulate others so they would change their behavior and be nice to me. It’s a technique that ultimately does not work. Instead, speaking our truth, coming from the center of our strength, getting out of our “story” and the drama it creates, is empowering. This not only makes life more fun and stress-free, it attracts the people and circumstances needed to accomplish our goals. It’s authentic living. Anything less gives our power away to other people. We often have so much trepidation about expressing our truth and what we feel inside that we diminish our effectiveness and ourselves. We place a fear filter over every experience – past, present, and future. We no longer see life for what it is. Instead, we warp our perspective and act less than we really are. I asked participants of one of my success groups about their last year’s goals – what they were and what they actually accomplished. A woman had a financial goal that she said she didn’t come anywhere near reaching. An earlier goal was to find the right career. As she spoke, she made herself sound like a failure. One by one the team members got into their “story” about how they didn’t do the things they wanted and underplayed their successes. “Yes, I accomplished my year-long goal of cleaning my desk, (giggle) but now it’s messy again.” (By the way, we saw her results earlier in the year and held a meeting at her house to acknowledge her accomplishment.) Their inner computers were programmed to make excuses, lack clarity and be afraid to let people know who they are, under the pretext of not wanting to sound like they were bragging. I gave them a second chance to tell us about their year. They were to report what happened and speak from the heart without the “story,” be emotionally neutral, and talk from a positive, broader perspective. We then learned that even though it was a bad year financially, during the second half she found a career she enjoys. In four months, she earned 65% of her annual income!  The reason the other member let her desk get messy is that she is so busy surpassing her business goal, which previously she thought was unattainable, that she didn’t have time to clean her desk. I reminded her that her goal was to clean the desk, not clean AND maintain it. When asked if she wanted to have that as a goal for next year, she said she didn’t feel that having a clean desk is a priority anymore. This is so different from what they first told themselves and then us. They said it felt very unusual to talk about themselves in a positive, accomplished way. We’re so trained by society to hide ourselves and the beautiful light we shine. We bury it and forget. What filter do you use to tell your story about your life, your accomplishments and what you expect for your future? Make yourself the hero/heroine of your dreams. Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to have the courage and confidence to exchange with a friend each other’s successes from last month or last year. Speak from your strength using a positive perspective. Report on your wins, benefits and lessons learned. Talk from your heart without the story, and be emotionally neutral. With a zest for Life, Virginia                                                                      Success Thought Be mindful of the words that you use and the actions that you live and who you are and how it is you use your power. In other words, as you say what you say, as you make commitments, as you form the power of your life, keep clear at all times that you are what you say you are, that you put your force behind what you say, and monitor that accordingly. Gary Zukav, The Seat of the Soul   Virginia Goszewska, the founder of Soulgoals, believes each person and business has a way to contribute to life. The coaching systems she developed that help people find clarity, take action and experience personal and professional success are based on decades of research and experience. As a regional manager with a worldwide, top ten, Inc. 500 company and at top-level executive positions of international corporations, Virginia received awards in sales, training, management and business development. From Southeast Asia to the United Kingdom, people around the world have benefited from her expert coaching, compassionate insights and common sense.  Virginia offers complimentary Break-Free sessions by phone, holds workshops, seminars, team building programs and is a keynote speaker. She can be contacted at virginia@soulgoals.com  or (512) 842-1231. Please feel free to forward this to friends and associates in its entirety.

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How My Client Lost His $100 Million Empire

Here’s a blurry picture that he took of me next to his Lamborghini in his parking garage. See the angled object to the left? The doors open up to reveal the steering wheel and car’s interior. It’s one powerful beast of a car to ride in.

 

I remember the day he told me that he “got it.” While driving after a team meeting, the words he’d been hearing woke him up. His imagination creates his world, and he controls his imagination. That was his turning point.

Joining one of my first Success Teams in 1995, he was so brilliant then that I sometimes took notes when he spoke.

He started as a small business owner and then moved out-of-state where he built an empire valued around $100 million in a cutthroat industry. His personal monthly take home, not including his business profits, was $40,000 a month.

Looking to pass on techniques that created his success, he flew me in to train his salesmen. Sitting at one end of the conference table, he introduced me as the reason he achieved what he did.

There’s a 1970’s commercial that says, “When EF Hutton talks, people listen.” When he finished talking, not only did everyone turn 180 degrees to hear what I had to say, I literally heard the swish as their heads swung in my direction.

That month, he hit his first million dollar month.

However, his focus changed, and he wanted to be free to fulfill… well, anything he wanted.

After that, we lost contact for three years. It wasn’t until his lifestyle behaviors, let’s say of wine, women, song and ego gratification, created such heavy, negative consequences that he reached out to me again.

Being very conscious of his physical appearance, he worked out a lot. He told me later that he knew alcohol put on weight… so he started to use cocaine instead.

With dramatic personality changes, he felt that as long as he paid people well, including close family members who worked for him, he could be verbally abusive and treat them however he wanted.

As time went on, things became very bad. That’s when he contacted me to fly in and work for him.

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Once, while looking for validation, he said to me, “Come on, Virginia, I’m your most successful client. Right?” For him, money was the penultimate symbol of success.

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The drugs rewired his brain, and I slowly began to acknowledge that he wasn’t the same man I once knew. Too slowly. I still bought into his reasoning, his excuses.

I still saw him as the awesome man he used to be. I’d known this man for decades and saw him through that filter. Even after I bailed him out of jail. Even as I was asked to sit outside his office the next day when I went to work and discovered the law put on locks to bar entry.

His family staged clever, false, illegal strategies against him. However, the way he reacted and handled it nailed his own coffin.

There was always an explanation that it was someone else’s fault. This included when he railed against the judge in a long letter to all his clients that the judge was in cahoots with the other side.

We were shopping in Whole Foods when he told me that, earlier in the day, in a court in another state, a judge officially stripped him of it all. His $100 million empire — gone.

This occurred during the time I invited him into my home to offer a safe haven and supportive modalities to help him get back on track.

At least, that’s what I thought was happening.

That week, I watched him sit in a chair in my living room, lost in a world of his own, angrily and vulgarly name-calling siblings who did him wrong.

On the fifth day of his visit, his welcome abruptly ended when he viciously shouted at me like a repeating rifle, in my own home where he was a guest, accusing me of trying to get him killed. How much were they paying me? How could I betray him like that? Why was I lying?

With a drug-addled brain, his former good discernment was replaced with a dark and out-of-control imagination. Earlier in the week, he shared with me how he was paranoiac, afraid and suspicious of people.

It reminded me of when I walked behind a man on a sidewalk in Times Square, New York City, who was having an angry conversation with someone who didn’t exist physically but was very alive in his head, like an endless, repetitive loop of a broken record.

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My client, my friend, became a cherry on top of my life lesson of the year, ranging from business to an intimate relationship:

See people for who they are and how they’re showing up NOW — not how they used to be, not who their words tell you they are, not as a fantasy of how you’d like them to be.

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I realized how I did this in a relationship, too. I saw a man that I was dating not for how he was showing up in the world. I believed the image he was projecting to me.

The worst part is that he believed his own lies.

Once, I told him, “I don’t trust you.” He replied, “You don’t trust yourself.” 

He was redirecting my attention so I would doubt myself, but I think he believed he was communicating some insightful truth. Later I realized: yes, he was right. I didn’t trust myself that he wasn’t a man to be trusted.

Not long after he spoke those words, drama from his emotional dishonesty overflowed into my life.

When I asked one of my teachers what those experiences were all about, he told me, “People hear and believe what they want to believe.” He added to see people for how they’re showing up, not how you want them to be or their potential.

That was my HUGE wake-up call!!

People Hear and Believe What They Want to Believe. 

I wasn’t paying attention to what is but living out of past images that were!

I see the same things in today’s world.

When politicians’ true colors start to show, some people remain in denial. They won’t separate their wishful thinking about who they thought the politicians were from how they’re actually showing up. Evidence to the contrary be damned.

May you wake up to SEE.  May you have the courage to set aside your filters, those oh so comforting protective mechanisms, to see whatever there is in your life that would benefit from your clear sight.

 

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to go beyond your self-limiting
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I help them be richly compensated
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