Discouraged about Business or Life?

A client came to see me who felt the proverbial wind was out of her sails. During her session, I wrote beliefs she sadly communicated:

• Nobody is attracted to me because I’m fat.
• People will have to know me before they like me, but I’m not going to have people attracted to me because of my appearance.
• I often feel invisible – people may not remember me by name. 

At first, she resisted my writing her beliefs. Later, when she looked at them objectively, she knew they didn’t make sense.   Her beliefs implied she valued the shallow opinions of strangers more than she valued her own.   She realized she acted aloof, before others could be aloof to her, as a protective, preemptive strike. Even if she gave them a chance to act differently, they felt her fear and behaved in a way that justified her belief. Either way, her self-fulfilling prophecy echoed her unconscious whisperings.   She plugged her energy circuits into what strangers might think about her.   I heard writing is God’s way of showing us our sloppy thinking. Our thoughts and feelings become more translucent when we read them later. Writing is a tool to break our hypnotic spell of what’s not real and wake up.     Fearing others gives away our power.   I knew a man who was emotionally volatile and acted like a human powder keg ready to go off at any time. Once he called me on a Saturday at midnight and demanded I never talk to his wife again. She called me several days earlier to ask me a benign question about a discussion group of mine they planned to attend. He threatened me by saying he knew where I lived, and their house was a two-minute car ride from mine.   At first, I backed off afraid he would explode and harm me. Then, I realized that by avoiding him through fear, I gave him my power. I stopped my dealings with him because I chose not to associate with him. Therefore, instead of avoiding him because of fear, I kept my power.   The same is true in the business world. Fear of rejection may be present when making a sale or communicating an idea to others. What if they don’t like our product or idea?   What if they do?     Illusions can create pain.   The moment we spotlight our attention on our illusory perspective, the hypnotic effect is broken. We become present.   “But you don’t understand. Nobody loves me. Look what happened to me. My mother abandoned me as a child, and I spent my life feeling empty.  My husband divorced me. I have no control of my life, and I’m a victim of circumstances.”   All that really happened was that her mother left, and her husband divorced her. How she chose to interpret those experiences, the spin she put on the story, and where she gave up her power was her choice.   Dave Thomas of Wendy’s fame was born out of wedlock, put up for adoption, lived in squalor as a child, and was on his own before age 15. By not plugging his energy into a story of a woeful childhood, he left a legacy as both an entrepreneur with a restaurant empire and a world-class champion for adopting children with the Dave Thomas Foundation.   Where do you plug your energy circuits?   Continuing to look at life in a non-supportive way is addictive.  To see yourself as “less than” is a habit that you have the ability to shift. You CAN change your perspective. How? Choose to. You are so powerful that you can choose to see you and your life in an even more empowering way… and watch as you renew yourself to reflect your new mindset.   Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to identify what depletes your energy.

• What do you plug your energy into outside of yourself? Is it a person, thing, group, belief, past experience or idea?
• When you do this, what or who controls you?
• Are you blindly believing what others tell you is true?
• How does this relate to your energy depletion of discouragement, anger or other emotion?
• If not this, what does?
• What’s another way you can look at this?
• What can you do to get on a new track? Go a step at a time to do this.   

Success Thought:

Recognition of your addictions requires inner work. It requires that you look clearly at the places where you lose power in your life, where you are controlled by external circumstances. It requires going through your defenses… Once an addiction has been acknowledged, it cannot be ignored, and it cannot be released without changing your life, without changing your self-image, without changing your entire perceptual and conceptual framework. We do not want to do that because it is our nature to resist change. Therefore, we resist acknowledging our addictions.
 
GARY ZUKAV, The Seat of the Soul

With a zest for Life,
 
Virginia

Tired of feeling the way you do?
Contact me for a free consultation 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 Email was sent in 2003

Copyright © 2021 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

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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.

Copyright © 2002-2020 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.