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Category: Emotional Mastery

  • The Difference Between Passion and Addiction

    The Difference Between Passion and Addiction

    Believe it or not, addiction is often mistaken for passion. This is because both can make a person feel energized, excited, and powerful, but it’s important to decipher between the two so you can ensure that you’re pursuing a passion, not an addiction.

     

    What’s the difference?

     

    One of the most fantastic explanations for the difference between passion and addiction comes from Dr. Gabor Maté’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, in which he writes:

     

    “The difference between passion and addiction is that between a divine spark and a flame that incinerates. Passion is divine fire while it enlivens and makes holy.

    it gives light and yields inspiration. Passion is generous because it’s not ego-driven, while addiction is self-centered and a thief. Passion gives and enriches.

     

    Passion

     

    Passion is a source of truth and enlightenment; addictive behaviors lead you into darkness. You’re more alive when you are passionate. And you triumph whether or not you attain your goal.

    But an addiction requires a specific outcome that feeds the ego; without that outcome. The ego feels empty and deprived. A consuming passion that you are helpless to resist, no matter what the consequences, is an addiction.”

    “You may even devote your entire life to a passion, but if it’s truly a passion and not an addiction, you’ll do so with freedom, joy, and a full assertion of your truest self and values.

    In addiction, there’s no joy, freedom, or assertion. The addict lurks shamefaced in the shadowy corners of her own existence. It is passion’s darksome outcome and, to the naïve observer, its perfect mimic. It resembles passion in its urgency and in the promise of fulfillment, but its gifts are illusory; it’s a black hole. The more you offer it, the more it demands. Unlike passion, its outcome does not create new elements from old.

    It only degrades what it touches and turns it into something less, something cheaper. The question to ask yourself is, ‘am I happier after pursuing my addiction?’

    Addiction is centrifugal. It sucks energy from you, creating a vacuum of inertia. A passion energizes you and enriches your relationships.

    It empowers you and gives strength to others. Addiction consumes, and passion creates. First the self and then the others within its orbit.”

     

    In essence:

     

    • Passion needs truth; addiction needs deception
    • Addiction pursues the outcome, while passion pursues the process.
    • Addiction kills the spirit, while Passion illuminates the spirit.
    • Passion can be stopped; addiction must be maintained
    • Addiction is all-consuming, while Passion has balance.
    • Addiction creates disconnection and isolation while it creates connection and community;
    • Passionate people are enriched by others, while addicted people are consumed with themselves
    • Passionate people accept responsibility and criticism, while addicted people refuse responsibility and deny criticism

     

    The process vs. the outcome

     

    If you listen to people who have achieved a lot, you’ll find them insisting that their achievements are based on passion. Often, it’s not. The outcome, not the process, consumes them. Additionally, That becomes evident because there is no balance, joy, or fulfillment outside of their pursuit.

    Therefore, the process leading up to the outcome is filled with stress and anxiety, not enjoyment. And it will only be in the outcome where they’ll experience a few moments of joy and delight; it’s this feeling that they’ll chase. It’s high, and it’s because they’re putting themselves through turmoil to get to that point.

    Finally, when successful people eventually reach their end goal, they will start feeling a sense of emptiness where that high no longer exists.

    That’s not to say you can’t pursue your passion and be successful. You can. The difference is that sense of joy. It’s essential to be self-aware enough to realize where you stand. You must have balance.

    Whether it’s your relationship, career, or hobby, think about the differences between passion and addiction. Take honest stock of your life. Is your pursuit robbing your soul or fulfilling your soul? And most importantly, how is it affecting the people in your life? If you are abandoning your spouse or friends, or children for your passion, it is most likely hiding intolerable pain.

    To discover your autherntic self and true passion, my book, Your Journey To Success shows you how. If you are struggling with addiction and need help, you can schedule an appointment, enroll in my masterclasses or joing my private group here: http://kennyweiss.net/coaching/

     

    Enjoy The Journey??

     

    To learn more, watch the video here:

  • What Are We So Stressed About? It’s Just Fear!

    What Are We So Stressed About? It’s Just Fear!

    Estimates from the AMA and the CDC conclude that stress accounts for between 70-95% of all illnesses and diseases and our daily suffering. However, I believe the problem persists partly because helping professionals are not accurately communicating what a person experiences when “stressed.”

    Therefore, the solutions we promote and provide are ineffective in alleviating the growing epidemic of stress.

    Stress

    “Conventionally, stress is defined as a transactional process arising from real or perceived environmental demands that can be appraised as threatening or benign, depending on the availability of adaptive coping resources to an individual.” (1) emphasis added.

    “When we’re startled or acutely stressed, the “fear center” of the brain, called the amygdala, activates our central stress response system.” (2) emphasis added.

    In the amygdala’s view, a threat can be a person holding a gun to our head to a memory of something that has frightened us in the past, to even experiencing something new. Whether a threat is real or perceived does not matter to the amygdala. That is why it also relies on the hippocampus to draw on previous emotional memories stored physically in our body and brain cells.

    How we communicate and attempt to alleviate stress?

    Can you see the problem with how we communicate and attempt to alleviate stress? We are not telling people that when they feel “stress,”.

    They are actually experiencing the fear reaction and, many times, just reliving adaptive coping responses from previous unprocessed hurtful emotions.

    Therefore people are not getting the proper solution because we haven’t told them they lack the required Emotional Authenticity skills to navigate their past unhealed emotional pain and stress/fear responses.

    Adding to the problem is how the helping community advocates talking about stress. Because practitioners call it “stress” instead of fear, it leaves the individual with the impression that stress randomly happens to them, and they are powerless to stop it without medication.

    That has led to something even worse. By not using the correct term to define what a person is actually experiencing. The public infers that they are stressed because we are all super-achievers. Ask yourself what you assume when your friend opines they are “stressed?”

    The universal implication is that they work 50-70 hours a week, take their partner out on five romantic dates a week, volunteer at their child’s school three hours a week, and oh, by the way, they must meditate, workout and donate time to their favorite charity.

    In other words, They are stressed because they are accomplishing so much and probably more than we are.

    Self-deception and false empowerment

    By not calling stress what it is, we are advocating self-deception and false empowerment.

    As practitioners, we are responsible for creating this false narrative of stress and robbing people of health and well-being by not removing fear’s stigma.

    Instead, we are perpetuating the myth that to be afraid is to be weak. And where did we first learn to be invalidated as weak? Childhood! In Dr. Gabor Mate’s book, Scattered Minds, he shares this.

    “Even the most benign parenting,” writes Allan Schore, the seminal psychological researcher, and therapist, “involves some use of mild shaming procedures to influence behavior.” (3)

    In nearly every instance, the stress/fear response replicates and repeats the perfectly imperfect hurtful moments from childhood.

    As professionals, we are not making them aware of this, and by not doing so, we impede the healing they deserve. Why are we so afraid to tell the public the truth that everyone is frightened all day, every day?

    Today I propose addressing that shame by giving the public the accurate terminology and solutions they deserve to heal the primary source of stress; fear initiated by unhealed childhood pain that persists due to a lack of Emotional Authenticity.

    It has been my experience that all stress/fears get expressed in one of three ways:

     

    1- The fear of rejection

    2- The fear of inadequacy

    3- The fear of powerlessness

     

    To help you remember these fears, just think R.I.P. Rest In Peace!

    Rejection

    The fear of rejection is one of our deepest fears. Feeling rejected sabotages our desire to belong. If you’ve ever applied for a job that you were counting on and were not hired or had your romantic interest rebuffed.

    you know that feeling all too well. When we feel rejected, we feel unlovable, alone, or worth less. These feelings were first learned in childhood.

    The CDC lists “early adverse life conditions” (4) as the number one source of all mental health conditions. As perfectly imperfect parents, we all had moments when we could not be there for our children.

    That is not a sign of bad parenting; it is just a testament to how complicated life is for us all. But, those wounds carry on into our adult lives, and our brain seeks to repeat them if left unhealed.

    If you are unaware that you experienced pain in childhood, I offer one question to bring clarity.

    “Do you have any secrets from your primary caregivers? Anything you have felt, thought, said, done, or believe and don’t want them to know about?”

    We all do. This is significant because, as a species, we will literally die if we don’t physically and emotionally attach to another human being. Do you see how that question informs us about our childhood?

    The two people that we should be able to count on to accept us unconditionally won’t. The internal thought we have all adapted goes something like this:

    “I can’t tell my parents this! if they knew what I actually thought, felt, believed, or have done, if they really knew who I am, I feel certain they would reject me.”

    What could be more fearful than that?

     

    Inadequacy

    The fear of inadequacy is about feeling like we don’t have the knowledge, skills, or tools to accomplish something. It is an underlying sense that we may not be capable or good enough?

    Let’s say you did get that job you wanted. But, arriving on the first day, you don’t know if you possess the knowledge, skills, or tools to get the job done? And what about office politics?

    Who do you need to align with or avoid? Can you see now why stress is so out of control? By not calling stress what it really is, as professionals, we have left everyone inadequate to address their fears.

    Nearly every individual lacks the knowledge, skills, and tools to become an expert in healing their painful childhood and emotions.

     

    Powerlessness

    The fear of powerlessness is about anything we do not control, and our sense of safety is gone. Think of powerlessness as an I can’t statement.

    For example, “I can’t get someone to hear me, understand me, like me, love me, give me a raise, or recognize what I do.” How many times did we feel those feelings in childhood? Powerlessness is probably the most devastating of all the fear reactions.

    Since we are an organism looking to survive, feeling powerless is primal and can leave us in a constant state of hyperarousal. The chemical cocktail of that prolonged arousal is the primary source that leads a brain and body to become diseased.

    Now that we have a more transparent framework for the stress/fears we are experiencing, I offer some knowledge, skills, and tools to address these fears.

    To conquer rejection

    To conquer rejection, we need a new understanding that at no time are we ever rejected. A person may say they prefer blonde over brunette, steak over fish, republican over democrat, short over tall, less experience over more experience.

    Whatever it may be, their decision has nothing to do with us. Do you see in every instance, they are just choosing what is best for them.

    Even when they try to blame us, it has nothing to do with us. That person has just decided they would prefer something or someone else.

    Therefore, if we choose to believe we have been rejected, we have lost containment of our inner feeling reality and placed the decision on whether we have inherent worth into another person’s hands. To conquer the fear of rejection, we need Emotional Authenticity over our childhood pain and codependence recovery in self-esteem and boundaries.

    Conquering inadequacy

    Conquering inadequacy is the most straightforward fear to overcome. All that is required is to become an expert and gain the knowledge, practice, and develop the resulting skills until they become familiar and valuable tools.

    For instance, If you were leaving home, heading to college, and worried you’ll be lost on campus, arrive early, walk the buildings, and become familiar with the layout.

    Most relationship failures fall into this category. I find it fascinating that a person must have a license to cut our hair, something that will grow back perfectly on its own no matter how bad it gets butchered.

    But, we don’t take a single class on being a parent or having a relationship. The single most important and “stressful” adventures of our lives, we are lacking the necessary knowledge, skills, and tools. As my mom used to say, “we just wing it.”

    When it comes to redefining stress more accurately, we might consider a new way to look at the existing knowledge and contemplate it (skills) until our brain becomes acquainted (tools) and accepts the unique proposition.

     

    The solution to powerlessness is the most involved because there are many ways we need to address what creates our feeling of a loss of control.

    The main contributors for our loss of control are:

     

    1- Focusing on what we can’t control vs. what we can control

    2- The inability to say no

    3- The inability to trust the process of life.

    Focusing on what we can control

    When my client is stuck obsessively ruminating on all of the things they can’t control, I suggest that they grab a piece of paper. On one side, list all people, places, and things they have no control over. On the other, using the same categories, list all that they can control.

    For instance, there is absolutely nothing we can control in another person. But, we do have control over our thoughts, feelings, choices, and behaviors.

    So, when we feel powerless over others, all we have to do is focus on what we can control, our thoughts, feelings, choices, and behaviors.

    Learning to say no is one of the most empowering experiences we can have. I provide all of my clients with these simple criteria to ask themselves before saying yes to anyone or anything.

    I remind them that if saying yes violates any of these, it would be best to say no. If not, they are choosing to “give” themselves away and create their powerlessness.

    Therefore, they must own any result from saying yes and never blame or place responsibility on the other person.

     

    No Is the most loving word we can say to anyone formula:

    • Does this request go against my morals, values, needs, wants, negotiable’s or non-negotiable’s

    • If I say yes, will I feel resentful now or in the future?
    •  I feel they owe me, or will I keep score?
    •  I throw it back in their face that I did this for them?
    • Do I have the reserves to say yes?

     

    You see, if any of these conditions surface now or in the future, it lets us know that we were only saying yes because we were hoping to control the other person in the future.

    We did not do it freely. We may have done it for recognition or wanted something in return, or we went against ourselves? In some cases.

    We may have been too tired, but we did it anyway. In other words, we said yes when we wanted to say no, we created our powerlessness, and we are trying to take the anger at ourselves out on the other person.

    Anger in any form and at any time is fear, and most often, the fear of powerlessness.

     

    Not Trusting The Process of Life

    By nature, much of life is just unpredictable and out of our control. Many times in life, there is not an immediate solution. It requires something else to happen first.

    For instance, I had spent over 20 years reading, researching, and working with counselors to heal my addictions and childhood pain.

    It wasn’t until the divorce from my second narcissistic wife that all the pieces fell into place. As we all do, I picked a similar person to one of my parents to relive my unhealed trauma.

    I needed to experience the intense grief tied to my childhood, which could only come from my experience with her. She was the gift that created my freedom.

    I owe my life to her. Therefore, If you find you have taken action on everything possible but still find yourself in a powerless place, I suggest this five-step process.

     

    From Powerless To Powerful Formula

    1. Gather information
    2. If information is not definitive, wait for a life experience to bring clarity.
    3. While waiting, take action on what you can control
    4. Re-evaluate after each life experience
    5. Make empowered choice

     

    As helping professionals, If we want to help others conquer their stress, it might require addressing our fears of rejection, inadequacy, and powerlessness by providing the public with misleading and innocuous terminology.

    And, prescribing pills instead of giving them the knowledge, skills, and tools to gain Emotional Authenticity and heal their childhood pain?

     

    After all, fear is just an emotion. Why are we so afraid of it?

     

    * Disclaimer-

    The information provided is introductory only. In no way does this reflect the complete explanation of the fear process.

    Nor does it provide the complete process required to heal childhood pain, achieve Emotional Authenticity, or successfully navigate all the subtleties of the fear response.

  • How To Stop Self Sabotage: Conquering The Worst Day Cycle

    How To Stop Self Sabotage: Conquering The Worst Day Cycle

    Welcome back! Today we’re talking about self-sabotage: what creates it and how to get out of the cycle.

    The first place we need to start is: what creates it? What makes the need and desire to self-sabotage is: we were told directly or indirectly that we had no worth as a child. what creates it and how to get out of the cycle.

    Think about it: underneath the self-sabotage is the belief that we don’t have the value to achieve it. In those self-sabotaging moments.

    we have a feeling that tells us we don’t want to take a particular action even though we know it will help us achieve our dreams.

    That sense of dread or procrastination was placed into us and stopped us from doing what we want. That feeling of anxiety or procrastination is a shame.

    It is the feeling that we will be bad if we claim what we want.

    Where does this come from?

    How does this happen? Over 80% of the people I talk to say their parents and childhood were great and perfect. I can appreciate that – personally.

    I believe every parent wants nothing but the best for their kids, even in imperfect parenting moments.

    But the fact of the matter is: our parents make mistakes. And a lot of them. I’m going to prove that to you.

    Here’s the first step to get out of denial about our childhood. Science shows 70% of the messaging we get as a child is negative, disempowering, and self-sabotaging.

    Think about that. Over 2/3 of what we heard from our parents was negative.

    Even a simple divorce causes actual brain damage and the feeling of abandonment. If we believe there were no imperfections in childhood, that means we think we were raised by a perfect human being – a God.

    That’s not possible! Finally, to get into the reality of childhood,

    I’ll ask you two questions to prove you suffered trauma or less-than-perfect parenting that still affects you:

    1- When you were a child and felt sad, lonely, or scared at anything your parents did or said, did you discuss it with them and voice it?

    No way. They probably yelled at you to get into your room and to not backtalk.

    2- Do you have any secrets from your parents? We all do. Do you see how traumatizing that is? It means that if I were to share who I really was, if they knew what I really thought, felt, or did.

    I believe they will reject me. Ultimately we don’t feel safe with our parents. That’s horrifically traumatizing! They are the two people we should feel the safest and secure with, yet we believe our truth is not allowed.

    This trauma creates what I call The Worst Day Cycle. There are four stages to it: trauma, fear, shame, and denial.

    Everyone is caught in this dynamic. Every choice in your life revolves around this cycle, and I’m going to walk you through it – it’s at the heart of self-sabotage.

    The cycle is created because we have two needs as a species: attachment (physical or emotional to someone else) and authenticity (the pursuit of who we naturally are).

    The previous questions show that our power was squashed if we were to speak our truth or pursue who we are.

    We weren’t allowed to follow our authentic selves.

    Because we don’t want to lose attachment – our survival depends on it as a child.

    In the pursuit of attachment, we lose our authenticity.

    We all downplay, deny, and justify what happened to us. We do it to stay alive.

    It’s the moment shame and denial are born.

    In those less-than-perfect moments, a big chemical explosion in our brain and body is created: fear. That chemical release becomes a chemical addiction.

    It takes a lot of energy for our brain to do anything: 25% of the calories we consume go straight to our brain. In addition, the brain doesn’t process right or wrong but rather known and unknown.

    If we’ve lived and experienced it, our brain will repeat it even if it’s wrong. The traumatic feelings got known in childhood, and the brain chooses to relive them in its effort to conserve energy.

    It’s an emotional chemical addiction that keeps us stuck. The fear we get addicted to is always one of three things: the fear of rejection, inadequacy, or powerlessness.

    Think of that moment when you went to express yourself as a child. Rejection. Inadequate. Powerlessness. It’s an overwhelming cocktail of horrifically painful emotions that get stuck in our bodies.

    The overwhelming nature of these feelings sends us into shame.

    Shame is the feeling that there’s something wrong with us – it’s internal.

    “Come on; you’re so stupid!” We learned we must be bad, wrong, stupid, or defective in some manner, either directly or indirectly, through our parent’s actions or expressions.

    This is why we self-sabotage. As a child, we were powerless, and we couldn’t argue with our parents. Now we’re adults. We get to pick where to live, where to work, who to marry. What’s the greatest way to get our power back?

    To choose things that don’t work because we get so much attention (attachment) from others. Because our brain and body were trained to repeat the miserable feeling of not liking ourselves – stuck on the emotional, chemical loop.

    We pick terrible relationships or careers to relive that pain against ourselves. It is a subconscious attempt to get our power back because I chose.

    Until we heal the original wound, this is precisely what we do: your life story is proof of it.

    Do you see how the terrible person you’re with or your bad job reminds you of the same chaos, confusion, uncertainty, and belittling dynamic in childhood?

    If you’re in denial, you won’t see it, and I urge you to seek professional help. We need help to see the tie-ins if we want to stop the cycle.

    The shame piece is our attempt to remedy how we were told, directly or indirectly, that we didn’t have worth.

    Who we were meant to be was squashed, so as a child, we develop a false persona to create attachment and survive.

    I tried out for two professional sports before deciding that neither of them was for me.

    I was only trying to gain my father’s attention and get back at my brother by repeating the agony. My brother was shooting at my head when I stopped the frozen tennis balls as a kid, therefore I became a hockey goalkeeper.

    it would make him mad. To get my power back as an adult, I relived the abuse against myself. I continued the cycle as the person in control.

    You’ll see this in every aspect of your life.

    Ask people about their careers, and you will hear how they are reliving the unhealed pain of their childhood.

    People in finance will tell you stories of money problems. Salespeople never felt a sense of worth, insurance people, no safety. The correlations are so transparent.

    All we do is relive it until we heal it. Gallup has done polls for years that show only 7% of people are happy in their careers. Now you know why.

    They are all reliving the pain and trauma from childhood against themselves; they are stuck in The Worst Day Cycle.

    This self-victimization kicks us into denial: this process shows us we have to admit we don’t know who we are. We have careers and hobbies but don’t honestly know what we like.

    Many of you will say there’s no way you’re starting over – that you can’t admit it to yourself. You may say I’m wrong.

    But science disagrees with you: 95% of our adult life, thoughts, feelings, and choices are all derived from the emotions placed into our subconscious as a child.

    Remember: our brain seeks to repeat what it knows. You may disagree with my premise, but your life story shows you the proof. You can’t outrun yourself.

    I know it’s hard to hear.

    It all comes down to imperfect parenting, but parents are not to blame – for centuries, we’ve never been taught these topics and their effects.

    Our parents don’t know any better. How can we blame – where does it end? Back to the first cell or Adam and Eve?

    Waste of time. Everyone is perfectly imperfect, and no parent can be blamed for doing something they weren’t even aware of. Many parenting skills we thought were good at the time were only later seen as abusive.

    We didn’t know. We always do the best we can with what we know at the time.

    It’s daunting enough to admit we are reliving a subconscious program, but there’s more.

    Can you see the second reason we self-sabotage and relive the cycle:

    if we accept the truth and pursue our authentic self, we give up attachment to our parents. If we heal, admit our secrets, become what we want, and succeed, we lose attachment.

    Remember, we became all of those things so our parents wouldn’t leave us. This may not make sense at first but think: what happens in a riot? People are mad at the police and government but destroy their own neighborhood and themselves.

    This is proof of the worst-day cycle. How do we celebrate as a culture? We get drunk, stoned, over-eat, victimize, destroy, and self-sabotage.

    Then, we repeat the self-sabotage and go into denial, saying these things aren’t true,

    I’m not forgiving myself for the suffering I’ve caused myself in the past?

    I didn’t make up a phoney identity to get attention; I’m comfortable with myself.

    Are you sure? What happened the last time you got drunk? You woke up hungover the next day, tell your kids you can’t play, boom.

    the kids feel rejected, and now the cycle has passed onto them. They can’t comprehend hangovers, only that mom or dad abandoned them.

    Do you remember how they tried to modify their behavior to get your attention/attachment and love? Can you now see how you did the same thing in your childhood?

    We’re all perfectly imperfect

    we can’t stop the cycle. But we can take ownership of our actions and choices and do the work to conquer the cycle. As a society, we need to talk about it openly with ourselves, friends, and family.

    We need to make it OK to end the cycle. If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll see we do all of this – everyone. I know it’s scary, but this is how we get our self-esteem back.

    If we can’t admit the truth, we have low self-esteem – we need to confront the pain, darkness, and pain.

    It hurts, but you will be in reality and gain self-esteem. It’s the recovery process.

    It’s how you get your authentic self back. You did the best you could with the information you had at the time. Now that you have new and better information, you can do something about it.

    This may be the first day in your life you actually have a choice to pursue your greatness: therefore, you are not to blame for any of your imperfections.

    You can’t be blamed for doing something you weren’t even aware of. But now you have a choice

    will you relive that pain against yourself or make a change to learn about this, do the work, recover, and end the cycle?

    If you want to make that choice, the process is pretty simple: become an expert in the worst day cycle. To do that, pick up my book.

    I lay out the exact process much more profound than I just did. Next, gain Emotional Authenticity. My book will help give you the tools to achieve Emotional Authenticity.

    Step three is to get out of denial and admit your trauma. Step four, become an expert in your fear, shame, and denial.

    Every person who’s done this process has reclaimed their authentic self: it has never failed. When there’s no denial, there’s truth, self-esteem, self-love, and authenticity. Or, as I like to call it, Our Greatness.

    Enjoy The Journey! ??

    CLICK THE IMAGE TO PURCHASE YOUR COPY TODAY
  • How To Stop Feeling Powerless

    How To Stop Feeling Powerless

    Hello and welcome back! Today we’re talking about how to conquer powerlessness.

    I’ll be talking about what creates the feeling of powerlessness, the two forms of powerless, and the solution, so you have the knowledge, skills, and tools to conquer powerlessness and have the safety in your life we all deserve. This topic comes from a loyal follower, Kim. If you’re a faithful watcher and reader, please get in touch with me about ideas – all of this is meant to help you.

    Let’s get started with where powerlessness originates? Life. Let’s face it. The process of life is overwhelming. There is so much to learn and navigate, from figuring out how to be a parent to relationships to careers. We all go to school for decades to gain knowledge and skills, yet at the heart of powerlessness is a lack of knowledge. If we don’t have that knowledge, we don’t know what to do. That’s an overwhelming powerless position we are all in. That’s why I’m always saying there is one solution to these problems: become an expert. Gain the knowledge to develop a skill that evolves into a tool that operates in your life to conquer the problem.

    Powerlessness is just a fact of life, but where do we learn the deeper essences of it? Childhood. Parenting. Let’s face it: everyone’s human and perfectly imperfect. We have all experienced less-than-loving moments in our childhood.

    Client Childhood

    A client was once telling me her childhood was great. She got in touch with me because she’s dating men that abandon her. One man forced her out of the car in a snowstorm – she had to walk home. I dug into her childhood: she was raised by a single mother. She said she was abandoned by her mother and raised by her loving aunts. I was struck. Do you see what she said? “I was abandoned by my mother BUT…” There’s the minimization. We justify and condone it. We suppress and repress. She is picking men that let her relive the dynamic of her childhood. Did her mother consciously choose to abandon her?

    Of course not; she had no choice but to go to work. This is what I mean – we are all perfectly imperfect. Her mother had to put food on the table, but her absence left her child feeling abandoned. While my client was telling me of her relationships, she was actually describing her childhood. She just didn’t know it. That’s why she keeps picking those men. This happens to all of us – it’s called The Worst Day Cycle. We all must get over denial and into the truth that we all experienced less-than-nurturing moments in childhood, and they are all replaying in our lives until we heal them.

    My Experience

    I experienced this myself. When I was 10, I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. I found my mom passed out naked on the toilet. It’s the day I discovered she was an alcoholic. I was horrifically powerless. I spent my teenage years throwing out alcohol, trying to control her drinking. If you’ve lived with an addict, you know this doesn’t work. On the other side, my father always had to be right. He would argue and gaslight me. It was his defense mechanism from his less than loving childhood. It made me totally powerless when I had no way to challenge him. He would make rules and then change them so he could never be wrong – I was utterly powerless. Childhood is the ultimate birthplace of powerlessness – if you look, you will see your current powerlessness is precisely like your childhood.

    There’s another aspect of parenting most people don’t consider. Throughout childhood, all we are told is “no.” What do we have to do in those moments? We have to agree. Almost all the time, they’re telling us good things! Wishing to protect us, but they’re like my father many times – they don’t want to be wrong. We learn that if we ever say “no,” we’re bad. This has devastating consequences.

    If you want to dig deeper, check out my book Your Journey To Success, where I go into the power of saying no more deeply.

    We have two forms of powerlessness: The first happens when we focus on what we can’t control rather than what we can. The second form of powerlessness is the inability to say “no.”

    To solve the first example, the first thing to do is:

    1. Get a piece of paper.
    2. On one side, put what you can control.
    3. On the other, put what you can’t control. You may want to have separate papers for each topic.
    4. List out everything.

    There are millions of things we have no control over. Yet, we keep trying to control them, which is our problem. Do you see what you can control? Ourselves. Our thoughts, feelings, and actions. That’s it. So we create a list to see what sort of things we can see, think, and feel to regain power. There are a million things. Meditate, go on a walk, participate in hobbies that bring joy, work on something that fills your soul. Here’s why: when we get in the powerlessness of what we can’t control, we go look at the list of what we can control. We should constantly be reminding ourselves what we do have control over and take action. To stop replaying what we can’t do, focus on what we can control at that exact moment.

    Learning Process

    When I was learning about this process, I was going through a divorce. My ex was a narcissist and stealing all the money, so naturally, I was worried. My counselor said one phrase: what can you control? I replied, “the credit cards and the business.” I made a plan with what I could control. I opened up new accounts and moved everything over. I took control of anything that was mine. I focused on what I can control. I stopped playing the victim and saying there’s nothing I can do. That’s just not true! It’s all a choice. The second I shifted, my feeling changed, and I became empowered. I saw ideas and solutions and executed them with my behaviors. Powerlessness is gone. Everything turned around. My business was saved.

    There’s one aspect to the “what I can and can’t control” that takes a tremendous amount of patience. Sometimes when we’re doing everything right and the problem isn’t going away – that means there’s a life experience waiting for us, and there’s nothing we can do until that happens.

    30 Years Spent of Powerless

    I’ll give you an example: I have spent 30 years working on myself. The majority started 17 years ago when I met my mentor. Over ten years, I saw him probably seven years straight. I was working my tail off, but I couldn’t get out of all the pain. My life was better, but there was some pain I hadn’t healed. During this time, my second wife and I got engaged – my counselor was also a pastor. I asked him if he’d marry us. He said he’d think about it and get back to me. My fiancé at the time was seeing his wife, who was also an expert in this – we were learning the same tools and language, helping our relationship. The following week he says he thought about it and thinks my fiancé and I have a lot of pain to work through, but he’d do it.

    Initial Thoughts

    My initial thought was that he’s exercising boundaries and letting us fix it ourselves. Instead, he’s appropriately codependent-guarded. What I didn’t realize (and I don’t think he did either) as if it hadn’t been for my second marriage and nearly killing myself, I would have never figured all this out and found peace and freedom. I needed to break myself so severely for me to get peace finally. The divorce was so desperately nasty it made me stop controlling things. I was hyper-vigilant as a kid, trying to figure everything out before it happened. That level of control was killing me.

    I had done all the recovery work but never given that piece up. Being suicidal made me realize I would die if I didn’t give it up. The following two years were spiritual unloading. I saw all the answers. If you’re doing all this and it’s not working out, you may have a life experience waiting for you. Sit back in your chair and let it come. Focus on what you can control, then let it come.

    Solution two is: saying “no.” I’m going to give you a couple of magic phrases, and by the end, while, you’ll see they work every time and put an end to people-pleasing.

    The first thing to do when a request comes in for anything is say,

    “Let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you.”

    You don’t have to say yes right away – you owe them nothing. It’s your life and decision, so buy yourself some time. Then you have time to work through the process. Now you ask yourself three critical questions:

    1- Will I ever keep score that I did this for them?

    2- Will I ever throw it in their face that I did this for them?

    3- Will I ever have any resentment that I did this for them?

    They all mean the same thing, but each person has their way of expressing it – so one of these will work for you. These feelings of resentment are from childhood. We are stuffed with resentment, keeping score and throwing it in their face from childhood. If we ask ourselves these questions and decide we would never do these things – we can say yes. And do it freely – we won’t feel powerless.

    If you’ve gone through the process and recognize you may hold whatever it is against them, you use magic phrase number two,

    “I’ve thought about it, and it just doesn’t work for me.”

    Isn’t that beautiful? How do you feel when someone says no to you? You feel attacked because of childhood – you felt attacked back then, and it’s the same thing now. If you use this phrase, the other person isn’t attacked because you make it about yourself. No matter what they say, they can’t talk you out of it – which is a prevalent defense when someone says “no.” If someone asks you, “why not?” or “what does that mean?” you can simply keep repeating the phrase. While, It’s magic! I don’t care what they throw at you – keep repeating it. They’re not your mother or father. Even if they are, you’re an adult now. You get to make your own decisions and simply say, “it just doesn’t work for me.” You don’t owe them an explanation unless you want to give it.

    Can you feel how powerful that is? It’s not condescending or rude, and it has nothing to do with the person making the request. For instance, If you say yes, you will resent them, which will create a block to intimacy, and you will be the only one to blame. Realizing that is power, love, and kindness. That is why I always say, “No” is the most loving thing you can speak to someone.

    Your solutions to feeling powerless are ways to help you overcome it and live in the empowered state we all deserve. Kim, thank you for a beautiful question. If you want to learn about something, send it to me.

    As I always say:

    Enjoy The Journey! ??

    CLICK THE IMAGE TO LEARN MORE

    Are You Ready to Break The Chains of Fear and Achieve Your Dreams?

     

    Fear is a natural human emotion. But it doesn’t have to hold you back from achieving what you want in life. You can learn how to use it as fuel for success, rather than letting it keep you stuck in place.

    This class will teach you everything about fear that no one else will tell you – including how to conquer any type of anxiety or fear quickly and easily with the right tools.

    It also includes new perspectives on anger, rejection, and self-sabotage that will transform your life forever!

    You deserve the best possible version of yourself – one who lives without fear or self-sabotage holding them back from their potential!

    Let me show you how to take control of your emotions and start living an empowered life today! I’m here for you every step of the way

     

    Sign up now for this empowering master class so we can help make your dreams come true!

    The sooner we start the journey together, the sooner your dreams will become reality!

    How To Break The Chains Of Fear And Achieve Your Dreams
    The Greatness University Kenny Weiss

     

  • 7 Steps For Balance And Stability In Your Life

    7 Steps For Balance And Stability In Your Life

    We all have moments in our lives where we feel unbalanced – so today, I’m sharing the seven steps to get the balance back in your life. I’m also going to discuss the science behind why I’ve chosen these steps, so make sure to read to the end.

    The first question to ask is: what is a lack of balance? This awareness leads right into step 1.

    Steps

    1. Go to my website and get the Feelings Wheel – I provide a free download. Over the next several days, use it to keep track of your feelings. I suggest stopping five times a day and asking yourself what you are feeling. Sensitive, trusting, indignant, etc. Whatever it is, you may be feeling? The first step in this process is to become aware and to do that. We must track what we feel.
    2. Ask yourself where in your body you feel this feeling? Is it your neck, shoulders, chest, or stomach? Make a note of that.
    3. Ask yourself what happened just before you felt unbalanced. If you’ve felt it for a while, what happened a day or two before that? If it’s just this moment, what triggered it? Make a note of that.
    4. Ask yourself how do you respond once you start feeling unbalanced. Ask yourself five questions: Did I sabotage myself? Did I get needy or manipulative? Did I do the opposite, shut down and run away? What coping skill did I use to help medicate this unbalance away (work, relationships, etc.)? Make a note of what’s positive and negative.

    Steps

    1. Ask yourself when your earliest recollection was of having this feeling of unbalance? You’ll draw not only on the feelings you categorized but also where you feel it in your body. Once you see the earliest instance, you will see the repetition, triggers, and common responses.
    2. Ask yourself how you are repeating this thought and feeling? Now you can see how the imbalance has shown up repeatedly in your life. More importantly, you have just discovered something I call The Worst Day Cycle. We all repeat the pain from the past until we heal it.
    3. Now that you’ve gained awareness become an expert in healing the feelings of imbalance that have plagued us all for days, years, and decades.

    Now I’m going to dive into the science of why learning this process is so important.

    Our subconscious is formed in childhood, and it is made up of the most intensely emotional experiences we have. Modern science shows that 70% of all messages we received in childhood (whether from family, friends, teachers, coaches, etc.) are negative, disempowering, and self-sabotaging. These experiences create an emotional chemical addiction in our brain and body. Add in what we have all been taught about emotions? Don’t have them, don’t talk about them, don’t deal with them. Now you can begin to see why you repeatedly feel unbalanced emotionally.

    It becomes even more evident when we acknowledge how the brain works.

    Because it takes tremendous energy for our brain to do anything, it is constantly seeking to conserve energy. Its solution is to repeat what it already “knows” by reliving what has been placed in the subconscious. Our brain repeating what it knows is a problem because remember what has been placed in the subconscious? The most emotional experiences we have from childhood– 70% of which were negative, disempowering, and self-sabotaging. If you have pursued CBT, thinking positive, or any thought-based solution and haven’t achieved much success, now you know why. To bring balance into our lives, trying to change our thoughts won’t help. Modern science shows almost every thought we have starts with a feeling. We need Emotional Authenticity.

    Negative Childhood Experiences

    Finally, because of our negative childhood experiences and the brain’s design, studies show that we are not present in 95% of our daily lives as an adult. Daily our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are just the subconscious patterns our brain learned in childhood. We think we are in the moment and making decisions, but we’re not. Our brain is inherently biased to repeat the same negative, disempowering, and self-sabotaging messages we received as a child. We all are completely unaware that our pain from our childhood is still running our adult lives.

    Now you can see the value of the seven questions I gave you. They bring science to life and prove to ourselves why we have repeated the same negative, thoughts feelings, and behaviors our whole life. As adults, all of us are reliving and replaying the painful moments from our childhood. We are all stuck in The Worst Day Cycle.

    Emotions

    Sadly, because we have consistently downplayed emotions and the impact of our childhood, most are completely unaware that they are stuck in pain from the past. This lack of teaching and awareness has us all living a life out of balance.

    The solution is to become an expert in healing the pain from the past. The first step is to create a new emotional and chemical addiction in our brain and body to replace what was implanted in our subconscious. Our brains need a new “known.”

    If you want the entire process, I lay out how to achieve this awareness, shift and heal those feelings and create a new “known” in the subconscious brain in my book, Your Journey To Success, and my online courses.

    Enjoy The Journey� ?

    Are you feeling stuck?

    Is your life just not working out the way you hoped?

     

    You’ve come to the right place.

    The Greatness University is a safe space for you to get back on track and achieve your dreams by offering online masterclasses that provide you with the knowledge, skills, and tools to become the greatest version of yourself!

    Through developing Emotional Authenticity, you will accept your perfect imperfections and attain self-love! Break the chains of fear, put an end to people-pleasing, and say no with ease! Break free from toxic relationships by learning to set and negotiate healthy boundaries and create the lasting love and connection you deserve.

    You deserve to be happy and have a life where you feel safe enough to show up as your authentic self.

    And we know that it takes courage – but we also know that it’s worth every single step on this journey.

    You deserve a life free from toxic people, pain, and frustration. It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting out or have already walked a long way down this path – our courses will help you take the next step in your journey to the greatest version of yourself. Join us today!

     

    It’s YOUR turn to be Great!

    Enjoy The Journey!

    Greatness U
    Guiding You To Be The Greatest Version of Yourself!
    The Greatness University Kenny Weiss

     

  • How To Stop Holding Yourself Back

    How To Stop Holding Yourself Back

    Hello and welcome back to the journey! Today I’m sharing with you how to stop holding yourself back. To do this, I’m going to explain the three main ways we hold ourselves back, then give you five solutions to turn that around and allow yourself to reach your full potential.

    How we hold ourselves back:

    1. Fear of success. I know that sounds crazy! We think it’s because we’re scared to fail. I write about this in my book: no one on this planet has ever been afraid to fail. It’s not humanly possible. Think about it – in every area of your life, you know exactly what to do for your relationships, career, etc. You lay in bed and think about these things, knowing your life will get better if you do them. But what happens? A feeling comes up, and you say you don’t feel like doing it. Right there, we’ve all chosen failure. We are scared to death of confronting that feeling because we’d succeed. I wrote about the whole process in my book, the science behind it, and the cycle that creates it. If you want to get deeper, I encourage you to pick that up.
    2. We get too much benefit from holding ourselves back. When our relationship breaks, when we lose a career, or when we are struggling financially: all we have to do is post on social media, and 300 people say, “You poor thing! I can’t believe this is happening to you.” All those people are offering solutions. I get attention and power by holding myself back, which gives me freedom because they want to fix the problem more than I do. We don’t have to be responsible for our life. Others become more invested in fixing the problem than we are! Attention, power, freedom, no responsibility. I go into much more detail in my video, The Ten Surprising Benefits of a Broken Heart. I encourage you to check that out.

    How we hold ourselves back:

    1. Learned helplessness. This trait was discovered by accident in a laboratory doing experiments on dogs. There was a flood, and the dogs got trapped in their kennels. When the water rose, it got up to their chin. If you or I were in a situation like that, we’d try to escape. The dogs couldn’t. So when the water went back down, and people went in to open the kennel doors, the dogs wouldn’t leave. They had collapsed and given in to the futility of not being able to do anything. That’s what most people who are holding themselves back do: they don’t see the point. They think they’ll never be successful, make money, have someone love them, whatever it may be. They have collapsed and are stuck in learned helplessness like those poor dogs. That’s the essence of the worst day cycle. If this is you, you are stuck from trauma that’s never been healed. If you want to know more about recovering from the worst day cycle, watch my video How to Stop Self Sabotage: Conquer the Worst Day Cycle.

    Now let’s get on with the solutions:

    1. Make a choice (I’M DONE!). We have to make the choice that we are done holding ourselves back. While it sounds simple, we don’t act on it because choices are motivated by feelings, not thoughts. We can tell ourselves all day, but we have to feel it. Remember what stopped us from having success? A feeling. It’s the same thing here: learned helplessness. We have a patterned feeling that’s draining us. We have to…
    2. Create a substantial emotional shift. Depending on your personality type, I will give you several possibilities of what might motivate you and create that dynamic shift for you to change.
    3. Ask yourself, “How much has it cost me?” Make a list with categories: financially, relationally, emotionally, spiritually, professionally, intellectually—every area of your life. You could start with monetary amounts but work up to other emotional aspects like a broken heart or lost relationships. When I did it, I discovered millions of lost dollars, low productivity, careers taken beneath my skill level, divorces, emotional consequences, the list goes on. The costs were astronomical. We have to have an emotional shift that recognizes the cost of staying stuck is more significant than the payoff we are currently getting. Totaling it up will bring us into reality and see that the benefits don’t outweigh the costs.

    Solutions

    1. Future cast the cost. Ask yourself: one month, six months, 12 months, and five years from now. How high will the cost be then? How much will the cost be years from now? And even worse: now that you know the solution, could you live with the burden of knowing you could’ve ended it and chose not to? Feel that cost. That’s huge and overwhelming. Maybe you aren’t motivated that way, so flip it to the opposite. Ask yourself, what if you could never feel all the painful feeling of being stuck again. If the feeling wasn’t even possible: what thoughts and feelings are left over? Can you feel that? You feel lighter. You’re no longer carrying the weight of those costs. You’re free of it. You feel strong, sexy, safe. Can you feel that emotional shift if you choose to do the work?
    2. Ask yourself what the smallest thing you can do to move you towards the solution. Some days for me, it was literally just getting out of bed. Some days it was taking a shower. I knew it was the best I could do that day, and it gave me a sense of moving forward. Change isn’t this big thing. It happens in little moments.

    One of the little ways we can motivate ourselves to change and get out of that learned helplessness is titration.

    Here’s my suggestion:

    1. As you’re sitting in the pain of holding yourself back, flip to that feeling of wondering who you would be without it. You’ll feel a sense of relief.
    2. Spend 30 seconds in the pain, then 30 seconds in the freedom of no longer holding yourself back. You can do that by taking action or by dropping those thoughts and feelings.
    3. Keep bouncing between the two, pulling yourself in and out of the cage.

    You’re slowly titrating yourself. Finally, you’re getting a taste of it. The pain will start to feel lighter and smaller. The good will feel stronger and more prominent. This taps into James Clear’s Atomic Habits. He talks about the way change happens is through small, 1% changes. The cumulative effect of that makes us become something new and allows us to achieve what we want.

    There are your solutions – I hope this helped you. And as always:

    Enjoy The Journey! ??

    Are You Ready to Break The Chains of Fear and Achieve Your Dreams?

     

    Fear is a natural human emotion. But it doesn’t have to hold you back from achieving what you want in life. Instead, you can learn how to use it as fuel for success rather than letting it keep you stuck in place.

    This class will teach you everything about fear that no one else will tell you – including how to conquer any anxiety or fear quickly and easily with the right tools.

    It also includes new perspectives on anger, rejection, and self-sabotage that will transform your life forever!

    You deserve the best possible version of yourself – one who lives without fear or self-sabotage holding them back from their potential!

    Let me show you how to take control of your emotions and start living an empowered life today! I’m here for you every step of the way.

     

    Sign up now for this empowering master class so we can help make your dreams come true!

    The sooner we start the journey together, the sooner your dreams will become a reality!

    How To Break The Chains Of Fear And Achieve Your Dreams
    The Greatness University Kenny Weiss

  • How To Heal From Your Past

    How To Heal From Your Past

    Hello and welcome back! Today I’m talking about how to heal the pain from our past – I’ll be laying out the entire process. Before I get started, I want to disclaim: there are a ton of modalities out there. They’re all great, and they all work yoga, acupuncture, mindfulness, etc. It’s all part of the process. But I’ve seen in my experience personally and with clients that what I’m about to share must be in the recovery process. You can’t skip this. You won’t get the full benefit of the other modalities without this – this is the foundation to heal the pain from the past.

    Here are the steps to the awareness process:

    1. Download a feelings list – I have one on my website. The text has been highlighted to take you directly to the site. Keep this with you, and for the next several days, check in. See how you feel and pay particular attention to any negative feelings. Start getting attached to what you’re feeling – this entire process is a feeling process, not a thinking process.
    2. Where in your body are you feeling this? You may feel it in the same spot every time or in different areas. Please make a note of it.
    3. What’s your first memory of having this feeling? Most people will remember it from 1-5 years ago. Please write it down. Think of the subsequent memory before that: same thing, some life event. Keep going back. Eventually, you’ll arrive in childhood where something happened. This is where all this pain comes from. For many people, their childhood was so traumatic they don’t remember much of it, which leads me to…
    4. When we don’t remember our childhood, that means your childhood was filled with trauma that you dissociated. Many people struggle with admitting this. You may not remember a specific event, but you may remember a feeling. That’s fine. Think of the emotion and the age you were.
    5. Recognize you developed an emotional chemical addiction to this pain from your childhood. You can see now that you’ve repeated this pain all your life. It’s proof your childhood was less than perfect.

    Steps to the awareness process:

    1. Recognize The Worst Day Cycle. We repeat the pain from our childhood. Our brain and body create an emotional-chemical addiction to traumatic feelings and store them in our subconscious mind. All our life, our decisions are based on this programming. Studies show that 70% of what we experienced in childhood is negative, disempowering, and self-sabotaging; we keep repeating it. We want to shift the emotion and subconscious away from this and make a good foundation instead.
    2. What are your mantras? When we make a mistake, we think we’re stupid and wonder what we were doing. We all have these mantras: “What’s the point? F*** it!” etc. This keeps us replaying in that trauma. Write these mantras down.

    Now that we are aware, we have to start the5-step repairing process:

     

    Step 1:

    Grief and empathy. Many of us have never grieved our parents’ perfect imperfections. We’ve never been in the reality of how hurtful those moments were. Now that we are aware, we must grieve. Allow yourself to cry and be sad. It’s unfortunate! It still affects you directly. Don’t minimize and suppress it. Permit yourself to feel the pain. Have empathy for yourself and your parents. Our parents are not bad people – they are doing the best they can.

    They didn’t have all the information, so they made loving mistakes. Give the pain back. Use your mantra as a guide. Use the painful experience and how the mantra ties into it. Feel yourself, reach in, and grab that phrase. Pull it out. Say you love the person that put it there; you knew their heart was in the right place, but it was hurtful, and you will not carry the pain anymore.

    Step 2

    There is no blame or shame. It’s empathy – no one ever taught us this. We extract the pain from us and give it back.Reclaim your inherent self. When our parents roll their eyes or get exacerbated, we separate from ourselves and lose who we are. We have to reattach to ourselves. The first step in this is rage. We never got to express ourselves or defend ourselves.

    We went along as a survival mechanism. Here’s how to express anger: write a letter. You won’t send it. This is just for you. Make it really, really focused. Get into the feeling if you felt humiliated, discarded, insignificant, ignored, abandoned. List it out – this goes back to your feelings list. It will get in touch with the sadness and rage.

    Step 3

    I suggest you get really judgmental – it’s OK in this situation. Use profanity. Let yourself rage. Release it. Get it out. You’ve been carrying it for too long. Studies show that chronic fatigue, chronic pain, migraines, arthritis, cancer, obesity, and so much more are from the suppression of rage and despair. Please permit yourself to deal with the anger. It might be difficult – you might feel like a “bad child” for giving the pain back. It was challenging for me, it still is, but this work must be done. The pain is not yours. The process never ends. Go back to the letter if you need to.

    Step 4

    Next, you have to release it physically – we store trauma physically. This is how illness and disease are formed: the breakdown of a cell during the repeated firing of an emotion that’s never been processed. I suggest reading When the Body Says No by Gabor Mate. A great example is Lou Gehrig’s disease. Just a simple questionnaire can predict it – no tests are needed. Lou Gehrig himself played 2000 games without missing one with 17 fractures in his hand.

    Yet he’d take care of a rookie who had the flu. Some people can’t say no and constantly try to help others – they suffer physically from it and can’t take care of themselves. You have to release the rage physically. Take a baseball bat to the bed, punch a steering wheel, go to a rage-house! Please let that anger rip and let it out. The exhilaration is freeing. You may have to do this several times.

    Step 5

    We need to start reorienting the subconscious and creating a new neural pathway to make a best-day cycle. I call this the “Feelization” step. Sit in the feeling of being powerful. What does that look and feel like? Ask yourself what you would think and feel if you could never feel this negative thought and feeling ever again? What would be left over? All my clients say free, light, strong, safe, powerful, quiet, protected, etc. Sit in that feeling. Let your body get addicted to that new neural pathway: a sense and essence of who you’re meant to be. We can’t picture our authentic selves and who we’re meant to be for many of us.

    But, all of us have someone we respect – look for a person, place, or thing that makes you think, “Yeah, my authentic self is like that.” It could be a mountain, an art piece, a famous person, or someone you know. Ask yourself, “Is that the best version of me?” Think of what it would feel like for you to exemplify and own the best part of yourself. Sit in that. Start feeling and firing the chemical reaction. We’re trying to create a massive chemical explosion to make an imprint in our subconscious mind of who we are.

    Final Step

    The last piece is self-forgiveness. Many of us have a hard time forgiving ourselves because we’re just noticing the worst day cycle. It shows us the first time something happened, we weren’t responsible, but we chose to relive it in adulthood. It shows us we are responsible. Because you haven’t been taught, you are not to blame. It’s not about blaming but about getting into the reality that we do this to ourselves. It can feel horrible because of that original traumatic experience. Trauma leaves shame. It makes us feel worthless. But we need to forgive ourselves. We are always doing the best we can, even in those moments when we can’t get ourselves to do what we want. You’re the best you can be, and you can’t be blamed for doing things you aren’t aware of. As we know more, we can do more.

    Now the choice is in front of you: this is the first time you’ve had the choice. No one has taught you this – you are not flawed or defective. But now you have a choice: decide if you want to go back and heal the pain from the past. You are an infant today. You get to choose what sort of life you want to live now. You’re forgiven for what you did previous to this. There may be consequences from our past, but we don’t have to shame ourselves for it. How could you have done better? Forgive yourself, love yourself. What’s the best way to love yourself? Learn the skills and tools to turn this around. That’s how we regain our authentic selves and discover who we are meant to be.

    Forgiveness

    Forgiveness is ownership. It’s not your fault someone may have been toxic, but we are responsible for letting them into our life. Our inability to accept that responsibility is our inability to forgive ourselves. We are shaming ourselves when we don’t admit that truth. We’re keeping the cycle going and victimizing ourselves when we don’t take responsibility for our thoughts and actions. We must clear out our worst-day cycle and shame-based feeling. We must forgive ourselves.

    If you want to see more about this process, I coached a client live. The video is called 23 Minutes to Forgiveness – please watch it. She couldn’t forgive her ex-husband because she couldn’t forgive herself. I walk her through the process to realize and accomplish this. I ask questions to lead her to the answer – and she arrived at it. If you want the same experience, watch that video.

    Once we have the new neural pathway, really double down on your breathwork, mindfulness, manifestation, yoga, all of it. It will skyrocket! When you shift the way you feel, you will be blown away by the success of all the modalities.

    I hope this helped you – if you think it could help others, please like, share, and leave comments.

    Enjoy The Journey!

    Learn more here:

     

     

    Are you feeling stuck?

    Is your life just not working out the way you hoped?

    You’ve come to the right place.

    The Greatness University is a safe space for you to get back on track and achieve your dreams by offering online masterclasses that provide you with the knowledge, skills, and tools to become the greatest version of yourself!

    Through developing Emotional Authenticity, you will accept your perfect imperfections and attain self-love! Break the chains of fear, put an end to people-pleasing, and say no with ease! Break free from toxic relationships by learning to set and negotiate healthy boundaries and create the lasting love and connection you deserve.

    You deserve to be happy and have a life where you feel safe enough to show up as your authentic self.

    And we know that it takes courage – but we also know that it’s worth every single step on this journey.

    You deserve a life free from toxic people, pain, and frustration. It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting or have already walked a long way down this path – our courses will help you take the next step in your journey to the greatest version of yourself. Join us today!

    It’s YOUR turn to be Great!

    Enjoy The Journey!

    Greatness U
    Guiding You To Be The Greatest Version of Yourself!
    The Greatness University Kenny Weiss

     

  • How To Turn Any Insult Into a Blessing

    How To Turn Any Insult Into a Blessing

    In this day and age, it seems like there are more insults than ever flying around. But what if I told you there is a way to turn them into blessings? What if instead of getting angry at the person who insulted you or feeling bad about yourself for being so sensitive, you could turn their words into deeper self-love? Even better, the solution will end the strife and create deeper empathy and connection for you both!

    I know that sounds impossible, but I will show you a foolproof way that works every time.

    The first thing to recognize: whenever we’re insulting somebody, there’s always denial and projection at the core of our insult. Let me explain how denial and projection work: whenever we judge, blame, criticize, or hate anyone and anything, all we are ever doing is talking about ourselves. A piece of ourselves we are not aware of, and ultimately we haven’t forgiven.

    It may be true that this other person is doing something we disapprove of, but the only reason we can see it in them is that same perfect imperfection is operating in us as well.

    It happens in one of two ways: directly or indirectly.

    Discovering how we are directly caught in our denial and projecting that onto others is very simple to uncover. What if I said to you, “I can’t stand men who wear bright-colored suits and decorate their house in all these bright colors”? Who am I describing? Myself! Look at my videos, see how I dress and decorate. Sometimes when we criticize others, we’re directly doing it to ourselves. Unless our denial is severe, that’s easy for us to see.

    Discovering how we are indirectly caught in denial and projection is more challenging to see and requires a bit of self-discovery and practice.

    I’m going to give you the secret and tell you about the day I discovered the indirect. I’ve always had this frustration with the way people drive: merging on the highway to slow, people in the left lane going too slow, and various other ways people don’t abide by the rules of the road. I would scream, exclaiming others’ stupidity. One day I was at a light and found myself yelling at this truck in front of me,

    “Why won’t you go? I hate stupid drivers!”

    I paused to remind myself that the screaming, judging, criticizing, and blaming I was doing were really about me. But I was confused and thought out loud,

    “This can’t be about me. I would never do what he is doing?”

    That is when the secret finally came to me. I reminded myself that modern neuroscience now shows that the old paradigm is wrong. We don’t actually become what we think. Instead, we feel before we think in almost every instance, and therefore, we all become our emotions.

    I then pondered

    “What am I feeling, and what emotional words am I using to communicate what is inside me?”

    Specifically, I asked myself,

    “What is the emotional content of the words I am using to judge, blame and criticize him?”

    It was “I hate stupid drivers.” Do you see it? “Stupid.”

    Maybe you don’t know my life story, so here is some insight into how I discovered my indirect denial and projection. I have struggled with multiple addictions, married two narcissistic women, one of which was physically and verbally abusive, played two professional sports I never wanted to play, filed bankruptcy, and at one point nearly took my life.

    As the awareness hit, I felt this blow deep in my stomach when I recognized,

    “I’m literally the dumbest person I’ve ever met. Look at all of those stupid decisions. No wonder I can’t stand the way people drive. I have no clue how to drive my own life!”

    I was never aware that I was using the way other people drive to scream back at me until that moment. Nor was I aware that I was begging myself to do even deeper work to heal my pain. But, most importantly, I was desperate to send myself the message that I am not stupid, just perfectly imperfect, and I must learn to forgive myself.

    I am happy to share that now, I rarely notice if a person doesn’t follow the rules of the road. By healing the pain from the past and forgiving myself, I’m done with shaming and inflicting pain upon myself.

    I want you to have this same freedom, so now I want to show you:

    The 5 Steps To Turn An Insult Into a Blessing.

    1- Everything we judge, blame, hate, or criticize is an attempt to help ourselves, see, admit, and heal the pain from our past and forgive our perfect imperfections.

    2-Look for the emotional content. Focus on the emotional words you are using to criticize the person, place, or thing? You may not be doing the exact thing, but the emotional words allow you to see what you are doing.

    3- Look for the metaphor. In my case the way others drove was a metaphor for my life decisions. I couldn’t “drive” my own life.

    4- Once the awareness arrives, recognize you are trying to communicate to yourself how passionate you are about healing the pain from your past and you are imploring yourself to put a plan in place to achieve that recovery.

    5- Give yourself grace and forgiveness. We are all perfectly imperfect, and as a society, we have never been taught how to be a parent, have a relationship, or been given these essential life skills. Our parents were not taught either. Life and relationship skills are the least taught and, therefore, most deficient in us all. None of us can be blamed for doing the best we could with the information we have been given. If we do step four, we can change that because as we know more, we can do more.

    But, that is only half of the process. What about when someone insults us? How Kenny, do we turn that into a blessing? I am so happy you asked. To show you that, I’m going to share a comment I received on Facebook on one of my videos about a year ago. The watcher said the following:

    “You are an esoteric, egocentric con man trying to convince yourself that you are something other than a garden variety personality, coupled with an average wit. Unfortunately, those you would most like to convince of your worth are the ones that most easily recognize how basic you are.”

    And here was my reply:

    “I would agree that yes, I can be egocentric. It’s something I’m always working on. You’re also correct that, unfortunately, I do have an average wit. My older brother is much funnier than I am, and I’ve always been jealous of that. I also think it’s true that I was quite the con man, especially when I was younger. It was just the best I could do. I didn’t have any self-esteem, so everything had to be a con. I know that I’m very thankful that you see so much of me. It’s always a tremendous gift when somebody invests their valuable time in seeing all of me.”

    Why did I choose to respond this way? For one, I felt defensive which let’s me know the commenter is correct. I do struggle with my ego, and I do wish I had a better wit. So I owned my perfect imperfections! It is no different than saying I have blue eyes and the sun rises in the east. Healing the pain from the past and forgiving ourselves allows us to hear the truth from others. As I always say,

    “When we learn to forgive our perfect imperfections, they can’t hurt us with them anymore.”

    I chose not to respond to this portion of his comment, “those you would most like to convince of your worth are the ones that most easily recognize how basic you are.” Because for me, it did not ring true. I know that because I did not feel defensive about it, I felt nothing. So, that means one of two things. It is not accurate, or as I progress on my healing journey, I will become aware that he was correct. But, since it is not valid for me at this point in my journey, I just allowed him to have his reality.

    While the commentator correctly saw imperfections in me, his authentic self is desperate for someone to make him aware of the five steps to turn an insult into a blessing so he could finally not only hear but heal and forgive himself. To understand how the insulter is trying to communicate to himself, just flip the “you” into an “I”.;

    “I am an esoteric, egocentric con man trying to convince you that I am something other than a garden variety personality, coupled with an average wit. Unfortunately, those I would most like to convince of my worth are the ones that most easily recognize how basic I am.”

    What is the lifelong quest of the human being? Connection, authenticity, and vulnerability. This man could not have been more authentic and vulnerable, and all he is missing is a society that advocates teaching us basic life skills. That is the blessing. Insults, criticism, blame, and hatred of any person, place, or thing is each individual’s attempt to share the deepest darkest, most heartbroken, and perfectly imperfect part of themselves.

    3 Steps To Never Miss The Blessing.

    1. Own your side of the street- Look for defensiveness and allow yourself to accept truth.
    2. Turn it around.
    3. Empathize and appreciate.

    What the commentator said about me had truth! At first, I was upset – of course, I was, I am human and because of my ego problems, in moments I am insecure. But when we get that defensive reaction, it is a sign of denial which means we are trying to hide from the truth. So I paused, asked myself what was true, and forgave myself for being perfectly imperfect in those areas. His so-called insult gave me the blessing of loving and forgiving myself more. So how could I be even remotely upset at him? Remember, when we shout at others, we’re really screaming at ourselves – and when others scream at us, they’re doing the same.

    This gets to step 3: empathize and appreciate. When people insult, they share a deep, dark, perfectly imperfect part of themselves they’ve never healed or forgiven. This man isn’t these things – those thoughts were placed in him as a child, and he’s carried them his whole life. My heart breaks for him! He doesn’t even know that’s how he sees himself. He’s in tremendous pain, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

    Can you now see the blessing that insults provide us all? Either a person is seeing our perfect imperfections which allow us to heal and forgive ourselves more deeply or the insulter is expressing their unhealed pain and being incredibly vulnerable with us. Connection and intimacy are now possible for us both.

    Imagine if both political parties and activists on all sides were aware that while there may be a fault on the other side, the perfect imperfection they are most desperate to change resides in themselves? Imagine if in a relationship, both parties knew this as well?

    Enjoy The Journey!

    Learn more here:

    If you are looking to gain self-love and self-forgiveness so that you can turn any insult into a blessing, I have developed this masterclass just for you!

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    If you want to gain Emotional Authenticity so that your thoughts are not filled with painful emotions, I have created this masterclass for you!

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  • How to Build Self Confidence

    How to Build Self Confidence

    Self-confidence is an elusive process, in part because of how we, as a society, have framed what confidence is. We’ve always sold it as an achievement. But the difference lies in a human doing and a human being. A human “doing” is looking for self-confidence (usually) externally. They don’t feel they’ve achieved it unless they’ve made a certain amount of money, bought a certain car, have a certain spouse. True self-confidence is a human “being.” This means the core of who I am is sound, and I believe and feel safe in myself regardless of external “doing” things.

    I thought pro sports would give me everything. I had to do a lot of work to discover self-confidence, so I’m sharing the 7 things I did and continue to do to get that human “being” sense. Let me be clear: I have days where I think I’m killing it and days I don’t. But, I always go back to these. I am perfectly imperfect, and I am confident and safe in who I am.

    1. Ask yourself, “what’s the smallest thing I can do at this moment.” I know this is a “doing” thing. Still, it’s important because ultimately, what gives us the most self-confidence is when we act within our morals, values, needs, wants, negotiable’s, and non-negotiable’s. When I take action on something central to my core being and don’t go against myself, I feel good about myself. I trust and believe in myself. Do something small to move you in the direction to gain the sense that you are of worth. When we don’t do these things, it’s because we don’t have confidence. Instead of looking at the full picture and being overwhelmed, break it down. Sometimes for me, it’s literally just getting out of bed or taking a shower. That at least moves me toward my authentic self.
    2. Find one thing you love about yourself. We all have something that, at our core, we really love. For me, I love my imperfections to be shown to me. If I am imperfect, I have an opportunity to grow and be better. The more mistakes I make, the more excited I get because I can grow.
    3. Learn to love the mirror. This may sound narcissistic, but virtually no one is comfortable looking in the mirror and smiling. People will shave or do their makeup in the mirror, but they aren’t even looking at themselves. They have no memory of seeing themselves. With true self-confidence, we can look in the mirror and be OK. I encourage you to start here and get comfortable seeing yourself. The mirror shows us our soul, so spend time in front of it, getting comfortable with saying, “I’m OK just as I am.”
    4. Learn to say no. We were all raised as kids to not say no, so we became people-pleasers and controllers. We give ourselves away because, ultimately, we don’t value ourselves. “No” is the most loving thing we can say to anyone. If we do something that goes against what we stand for, eventually, we will resent the person who asked us to do so. We’ll throw it in their face. It’s something we do to ourselves that we blame others for. Saying “no” lets us retain our value.
    5. See insults as a gift. I know this is a tough one, but it goes back to what I love about myself. When people critique me, it allows me to grow. I go into depth on this in my video of How to Turn Any Insult Into a Blessing – the single most important video I’ve done. If you watch any video of mine, it should be that one. An insult is a doorway to accepting ourselves fully and really building intimacy with others. This perspective changes your life forever.
    6. Become an expert in your imperfections and unhealed pain – this one changed my life. We all have pain in our life and from our childhood. The avoidance of pain creates more pain. For centuries we’ve been taught not to admit our pain and cover it over with false positivity. That’s not self-confidence. Self-confidence comes from the ability to look at our imperfections, face our pain, and accept all of us – every aspect. That’s why my life story is all over the internet – I admit I am a train wreck! I admit I am an expert in dysfunction, yet I have joy on my face. I make peace with it. That’s self-confidence. Make peace with your imperfections and pain, and you will have freedom. Most importantly, you will be a human being.
    7. Forgive yourself. The navigation of life is overwhelming, and we aren’t taught these skills and tools. In every moment of our life, we are always doing the best we can. As we know better, we can do better. We all have this experience where we know the right thing to do, but we can’t get ourselves to do it. So we end up not forgiving ourselves. But that just means we were on the journey and in the process. We knew what to do at the time, but we hadn’t turned the knowledge into a skill and the skill into a tool we can use. We are just on the journey. Eventually, we will take action on it. It was the best we could do at that moment, and that’s why we can forgive ourselves. It opens the door to accepting our imperfections (knowledge) which will allow us in the future to convert it into a skill and then a tool we can take action with.

    There are the 7 tips I have for self-confidence that I use for myself and pass onto clients. I’ve seen it work and I hope it helps you. Leave your comments: what do you do for self-confidence? What’s important to you?

    Enjoy The Journey!

    Kenny Weiss

    Would you like to develop the knowledge, skills, and tools to love and accept your perfect imperfections? If so, I have designed this masterclass just for you!

    Would you like to develop the knowledge, skills, and tools to love and accept your perfect imperfections? If so, I have designed this masterclass just for you!

    CLICK THE IMAGE TO LEARN MORE
  • 10 Empowering Questions To Ask Yourself

    10 Empowering Questions To Ask Yourself

    Welcome back to the Heal The Hurt Podcast! Are you sick and tired of feeling sad, frozen, stuck, and powerless all the time? I’m going to help you put an end to that today. I’ll give you 10 empowering questions to ask yourself to turn to when you’re feeling sad or powerless – it can help turn the feelings around.

    10 Questions

    Before I get into the 10 questions, I want to share why we sometimes feel disempowered: where does it come from? When we’re in that place where we can’t find an answer for anything, we are stuck focusing on what we can’t control rather than what we can control. Maybe it’s your relationship, job, or kids. But we can’t control what other people think, feel, and do. There’s so much to life we don’t have a solution to because it’s out of our control. When we switch out of thinking about people, places, and things we have no control over and flip our thinking to focus on ourselves and what we can control: we shift out of disempowerment. That’s what these 10 questions will accomplish: focusing on what you can control.

    What causes this habit? Partially how our brains developed: our environment millions of years ago was full of scarcity and fear, so we were trained to be afraid constantly. As a result, our brain was always conditioned to see the negative first. The good news: we’ve shown with neuroplasticity that we can remove this from a species. We don’t have to stay stuck in negative bias: it’s the basis of my book Your Journey to Success. Of course not. But we can work, and there is hope.

    Disempowerment

    What keeps the disempowerment going is our childhood. Think of all the times you were asked and forced to do things that went against your own inclinations and desires. Many of those things our parents did were good for us, but many times our parents, because of their own disempowerment, pass on the habits to us. If your mother or father grew up with an addiction in their household, and thus a precondition to be afraid, it may have been projected onto you with helicopter parenting. That takes our inherent power away to explore the world and make perfectly imperfect decisions. This is why you see kids go off to college and start making poor decisions: they were never allowed to make and recover from basic mistakes. So again, protection is good, but there’s a way to protect with boundaries.

    I use the metaphor of a backcountry two-lane rain for this protection dilemma. The centerline is double yellow; you aren’t supposed to cross it. As an infant, the mom and dad are the two yellow lines, and the child is allowed to explore in the small space between. It’s appropriate to be highly involved at that point. As the child grows, our role is to move those lines to the white lines on the side of the road by the shoulder. We allow them to explore, cross that double line and make a mistake.

    Consequences

    We want them to bruise a knee or suffer the consequences of a poor grade: they’re minor mistakes, and they can learn and navigate getting back on their side of the road. Parents who disempower their child stay as the yellow lines, constantly hypervigilant. When we over-protect and strip our children of power, they end up suffering more than if you had let them make mistakes. Into early adulthood, the soft shoulder should open, and the parents are the fence farther away.

    The children are making bigger decisions and mistakes. In general, the consequences are things they can recover from, so they learn and don’t make more serious mistakes in adulthood. We remain the fence to protect them from life or death situations. For instance, at this point, we don’t tell them how to get out of a situation – we are advisors and ask them how they will.

    Let’s get into the 10 questions to turn things around.

    The goal of these is to create a massive emotional shift: we become what we feel, not what we think.

    1. What can I control? Make two lists: one of what you can completely control and one of what you can’t. This is a living document – you will discover more things in the future. For example, when you’re in a depressed state, you’ll have this list to go to.
    2. I’m excited for me to find a way to _____. Fill in the blank. When we’re powerless, we see all the problems and how things won’t work. You may not have the answer with this method, but you’re excited about something to cross your path. One morning I remembered this question and told myself I was excited. Excited about the project and about solving the problem. That day I almost immediately found the answer I needed – when we are disempowered, the solution comes right by us, and we don’t see it. When we’re empowered, we see it.
    3. What can I start saying no to? When we are powerless, we allow behavior and things that don’t work for us. We may be trying to be nice and help others, but we often don’t have the reserves. We get stuck in people-pleasing and guilt, but it robs us of our inherent power. If you feel guilty, resentful, and inclination to keep score, or want to throw it in the other’s face: you’ve been saying yes to things you need to say no to.

    Next Questions

    1. What brings me joy? This popped up the other day for me. I felt disempowered and went shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond to stroll and get myself moving.  It’s the little things in life that bring us joy. For me, it’s lying in the sun, going on walks, and buying hangers. There’s always something in life that brings us joy. What is it for you? Make a list! This is an empowering perspective: nurturing ourselves and meeting our needs and wants.
    2. What do I love the most about myself? This can be tough for some people but really think about it. Aren’t you a great friend? Maybe it’s your spirituality, your career, your eyes, your nose, your smile. There’s always something about us that we really love. This creates an emotional shift, moving us out of the disempowered position and into truth. We are all lovable and perfectly imperfect. We all have many wonderful things about us that we often don’t give ourselves credit for. So start looking in your life and making a list.
    3. What is my best skill? What do I do really, really well? There’s something each of us is really good at, whether that’s an activity, career, parenting, willingness to learn, communication, pursuits of growth, etc.

    Next Questions

    1. What is something I’ve always dreamed of doing? We see all the things we can’t do. But we all have dreams. While, Many times we lose sight of them – but think of how good it feels to dream. You’ll start looking for solutions in the empowered position. What have you always wanted to pursue? Start focusing on that. Sit and dream. Change the way you feel.
    2. What skill do I need to learn to achieve that dream? Maybe you want a dream marriage or a great friendship or to play the piano. What skills do you need to learn these things? The best way to achieve what we can control is to develop new skills. While this first requires knowledge, and then we turn that knowledge into a skill, then our skill becomes a tool. Then your tool can help you achieve your dream.
    3. What’s the smallest step I can take today? Even the dream may feel overwhelming! So stop focusing on what you can control: maybe the smallest step you do today is Googling. Read one article. You’ve already started the journey and living in what you can control. The greatest chemically-producing way to shift the way we feel is to learn. It’s the single greatest way we feel self-esteem: learning and education. It will really shift you out of the disempowered position into a sense of achievement.

    Next Questions

    1. From Byron Katie, a brilliant woman: What if I never had this disempowered feeling ever again? Think about when you felt disempowered: what would be leftover if you could never feel that again? You’d feel light, strong, safe, joy, happy. Byron reevaluates bad experiences and how most people say they never want to experience something bad that happened to them ever again. Many successful people say they never want their kids to experience the suffering they did, yet the suffering created the success! The more kids suffer, the more successful they become. This question gets rid of the residue of disempowerment. Our authentic soul is behind this question. Those feelings and moments are always temporary – they lead us to solutions and aren’t bad. When we choose no longer to see them as a disempowering problem, while, that’s when we see our authentic self and greatness to achieve anything and everything we want.

    There are your 10 commandments. I hope this helped you – please share if you feel it would help others. As always,

    Enjoy The Journey!

    Kenny Weiss

    If you would like to break the chains of fear and achieve your dreams, I created this masterclass just for you. CHECK IT OUT!

    How To Break The Chains Of Fear And Achieve Your Dreams
    The Greatness University Kenny Weiss