Men'sWork Online
Introduction
Part One - The Warrior
Part Two - What you want
Exercises 1

How have you explained to yourself that you don't have what you want?

It can be said that our experience (and consequently our life) is determined by how we interpret or explain experience.

If I explain not having success in something because of a "lack of talent," I won't feel like doing what it takes to get the success. My failure will be from "lack of talent." Explanations are beliefs.

If we keep doing what we're doing we'll keep getting what we're getting. To get a different result we have to do differently.

Misconceptions

At times when growing up, conditions caused us to learn some misconceptions about ourselves and our needs. We may have experienced that having needs is selfish and wrong.

Our needs still exist but have been suppressed. So they get expressed in indirect and negative ways, rather than direct positive ways.

These negative expressions can be in the form of shyness, anger, hostility, resentment, lying, fear, abuse, cheating, frustration, co-dependence, etc.

Not only do we associate wanting with selfishness (a sin), we have have learned to express the opposite of what we want. We say what we DON'T want, with the hope that it will get us what we want in some roundabout way.

Of course this doesn't work very well. We don't usually end up with what we really want, but we can say, "at least I'm not selfish!"

It's tough to say what I DO want instead of what I DON'T want, but that is a big part of the battle for achieving self mastery.

It's easier to see the futility in that focus if I put a little distance from myself. Consider the case of a boss who keeps telling me that I did this wrong and I did that wrong.

After a while, I just want to throw my hands up in the air and say "I'll do anything you want, but just tell me what in blazes it is that you DO want me to do instead of what you don't want!"

That need for positive 'DO' direction is at least as important internally as in the external example of a complaining boss.

Consider kids too. It works so much better to say, "hold your milk with two hands," than to say "don't spill your milk."

Adam and Eve were told, "You can have anything you want, but just don't touch that apple tree."

Then the apple tree becomes the one magnet in the whole garden. When I concentrate on what I don't want, then I am likely to create exactly that.

A friend hates cigarette smoke. Wherever she goes, it seems that someone lights up just to torment her. She gets so aggravated by smoke that she is always alert to its presence, always sniffing the air and watching for it, always trying to see where it is and to feel persecuted and victimized by it.

Most of us also don't like the smoke but choose to be a bit more oblivious to it, and by our lack of attention to it we don't give it power over us. A strong awareness of something helps to amplify its effect, so we should save our attention for desirable things.

Alan Friedman

Exercise 1

The following exercise is adopted from the brilliantly simple yet powerful technique developed by Nathaniel Branden called Sentence Completion:

Repeat the following sentences and with each repetition complete the sentence with the first thought that comes to mind. Repeat the first sentence at least ten times then the same with the next sentence. Repeat this exercise at least twice daily for two weeks.*

"If I expressed what I truly thought and felt..."

"If I really went after what I wanted..."

Execise 2

Almost all decisions a person makes throughout the day, conscious or not, are to avoid pain of some kind. It is imperative to find out how we are avoiding pain. If there is one way we can sabotage our successes it's procrastination. Procrastination is one way to avoid pain. What are we putting off doing that's good for our self-esteem?

Repeat the following question as many times as you can remember daily for two weeks. The exercise is to just notice what you're avoiding. Just noticing it can change it.*

"How am I avoiding pain today?" or "How am I avoiding pain right now?"

* Note: these exercises are meant to be used only for self-exploration and not to be acted out. Just simply noticing what comes up can often change things.

-- next: work in progress: The King