Before we get to the subject of this post, a quick note that so many people have taken of advantage of the early, early bird discount to the How To Be Alive Master Class that I’m wondering if I will have to cap enrollment. For now, though, the early, early bird discount is still available, but it ends in only three days. Sign up before it ends here.
Meanwhile, here is an exercise I wanted to offer you that has helped me and many other become more effective in our quest for a happier life that helps the world. The exercise comes from the curriculum of the How to Be Alive Master Class:
Paint a Bull’s-Eye on Your Limiting Stories
To be a lifequester—someone searching for a happier life that helps the world— means to be willing to step away from the old and poisonous stories we tell ourselves that would otherwise force us to accept limited lives in a suffering world. Stories that make us feel meaningless and purposeless. Stories like:
- You don’t have control over your life or the world, so you might as well find whatever you can to distract yourself from what troubles you about them.
- You are tiny in the scheme of things, so there is no point in changing your life to help fix the world’s problems.
- Dealing with your own pain is hard enough, so don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to assist with other people’s pain, too.
- There is only so much happiness in the world, so you have to accept that your happiness comes at the cost of others’.
- And the biggest falsehood of all, the one upon which all the others are based: we are separate from each other.
The stories we tell ourselves about life are the posts and beams of the personal worlds we end up living in. Your stories are the illusions that make your personal Matrix appear real. If you tell yourself you can’t climb off the treadmill, then you can’t. If you tell yourself that nothing you do matters, then it won’t.
But here is how you can begin to paint a bull’s eye on your limiting stories (it’s one of the exercises we will discuss in the How To Be Alive Master Class):
Every time we tell ourselves a story about how we are less powerful than we truly are, we become less powerful than we truly are. Believing the story, we stop trying. We close down our capacities. Sometimes the limiting stories are so old and so deep that we live in them the way a fish lives in water and doesn’t even realize it’s there.
Writing down the answers to these questions will help you identify some of the stories you are living in. You don’t need to challenge them. Just write them down.
1. Write the names of three people you consider heroic. What did or do they have in their character that you believe you don’t?
2. What obstacles in the world and in yourself stand in the way of your changing your life in ways you want to?
3. What stops you from making a difference in the issues you care about in the world?
Now, recast the answers above by saying explicitly that they are stories you tell yourself. So:
4. Write “I stop myself from being more like [hero’s name] because I tell myself a story about how I don’t have _______________.” Repeat this for each characteristic you said you don’t have for each hero.
5. Write “I stop myself from changing my life the way I want to by telling myself a story about _______________.” Repeat this for each sentence you wrote down above.
6. Write “I stop myself from making a difference to the things I care about in the world by telling myself a story about _______________.” Repeat.
In the future, when your inner voice tells you a limiting story, repeat it to yourself a second time, adding “I have a story about . . .” at the beginning of the thought. You don’t have to decide whether or not the story is true. Just realizing that it is a story is a big step forward and paints a bull’s-eye on your stories for your later work.
I wanted to give that exercise to you as a gift. And I will give many more gifts in these newsletters. It is my mission to help engage people like you in the quest for ways of life that make us safer and happier and also help the world.
That is also why I’m launching the How To Be Alive Master Class. I think it will really help you. So wait why until the price goes up or until registration closes because it is over-enrolled? You might as well take advantage of the early, early bird discount which ends in only three days. Enroll here.
PS Did I mention that you get a free web-enabled version of the How To Be Alive book as well as $400 in coupons for my coming coaching programs as part of the class? Sign up here before the early, early bird discount ends.