C.A.R., The Vehicle to Your Dream - Part Two: Association, Emotional Responses

A. Is for Association

In my previous blog I shared a story of a student in my class who wound up with a pretty back headache (Check it out here: https://discoveringyourgreatness.blogspot.com/2018/08/car-vehicle-to-your-dream-part-one.html).  When the young man in the class threw the ball and suffered the consequences of a ball to the head, he had to make a decision:  What will I make of this moment?  Will I blame Mr. Thomas for the event because he told me he wanted me to throw the ball?  Will I make excuses out of embarrassment in front of the class?  Or will I learn a lesson about my choices and the consequences of those choices?  He was going to write a story about the event, but the story he would write was entirely in his own hands.

Associate the events in your life to the story that serves you.  We can’t control all the events in our lives.  The events we cause from poor vision, like a ball to the head, we can take responsibility, ask for forgiveness, forgive ourselves and learn.  However, we do write every story, and if a story isn’t serving us, we must change the story!  We can associate the appropriate story that serves us to the event. 

Carl Jung writes, “Until you make the unconscious conscious it will rule your life, and you will call it fate.”  One of the greatest dangers we face regarding our perception of who we are (positive or negative), what the world is (friend or foe), and how we live our lives (faith or fate), rests in not allowing our minds to run on its default setting because the mind on its default setting will always go negative and protective.

The proactive person not only has a plan, establishes goals, and practices positive affirmations, she also consciously writes stories that serve her around every event in her life.  She intentionally associates a story that moves her closer to her Dream, and consequently her Greatness.

Proper Emotional Responses

            Associate the proper emotional response to an event.  Have you made a mistake or failed?  If so, how did you feel when you did this?  Here’s the big question:  How long ago did this happen?  If not recently, are you still filled with guilt?  Do you still feel bad?  Do you find yourself feeling regretful?  Are you trapped in your past?  If the answer to any of these is yes, then examine the story you’ve attached.

You may need to change the story.  If you have done everything you can to correct your mistake, then you most definitely must let go of your guilt and inappropriate feelings because they do not serve you.  Forgive yourself.  As long as you hold onto these feelings, you are paralyzed by your past.  You cannot live right now.

            
             Emotions can either line up with what is true, or they can be completely false.  Your emotions are not bad things, though many of us will do just about anything not to deal with them.  You must accept how you feel, but don’t stay there.  Say, I am angry or I am hurt or I am sad, and admit you are human.  Emotions are actually blessings because they alert you that it is time to grow by remembering what you know to be true.  And that’s a great thing!

            

             When intense emotion comes on us, many times physical activity helps resolve that intensity.  Go for a walk, hike, run or bike ride.  All the chemicals released when emotions overwhelm us will dissipate sooner through physical activity, and we can let go of the raw emotion much more easily.  As we exercise, we’ll find that the heart will begin to clear and our minds will begin to reflect on the event, seeing how the event that brought so much emotion will serve us in the future in similar moments.

            

              Create processes and protocols in your life.  Staying with a process or protocol when difficulties arise and negative emotions come, will help you release those negative emotions because daily processes are not sentimental.  They are simply activities with an intentional vision and a plan.  For example, when someone offends you, if you have a process in place like The Listen and Learn Technique, you can move systematically through the five-step process to grow your understanding of who you are and what you are learning.  Remember, protocols and process protects you and others from the Adversary’s lies.

Here’s what we can hold on to from emotional responses to our failures or offenses: the lessons we have learned.  With what we’ve learned we can adjust our activity when a similar moment arises.  If we have wronged someone, we apologize.  If it happened a long time ago and it is not possible to apologize, we say to ourselves, “I am sorry.”  Then, let it go.  We listen, reflect, learn, apologize, and move on better prepared for the next moment.

            

             Remember in The Lion King, Simba tells Rafiki his past regrets, believing he is responsible for his father’s (Mufasa) death; Simba has attached a story to Mufasa’s death based on his emotional response rather than the truth that Scar, Simba’s uncle, was sinister and cunning. Rafiki smacks Simba on the head with his staff.  Just like the student and the rubber ball, rubbing his head, Simba yells at Rafiki:

Simba:  What did you do that for?

Rafiki:  It doesn’t matter.  It’s in the past.

Simba:  Ya, but it still hurts.

Rafiki:  Oh, yes, the past can hurt, but the way I see it you can either run

              from it or learn from it.[i]

Simba learns from it.  He exchanges his story for a story that serves him, returns to Pride Rock to face his uncle, Scar, and overcomes his obstacle-opportunities, becoming king.

When we make a mistake, it’s appropriate to feel disappointed and regret for a time.  However, at some point we have to let go of the feeling, hold on to the lesson, and move on with adjusted behaviors.  Successful people do not take failure personally, internalizing it.  They say, “Well, I missed that one,” or “I made a mistake.”  Those with a calling associate events with the proper emotional response.  They don’t blow their mistakes out of proportion.  They realize the past is over and unchangeable, but today can be different.

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[i] The Lion King. Dir. Rob Minkoff and Roger Allers. Perf. Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons, James Earl Jones, Whoopi Goldberg, Niketa Calame. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, 2011. DVD.