Audiobook: Pulling Your Own Strings by Wayne Dyer

[Music] hello this is Wayne Dyer and I'm here to talk to you about something that I think of as one of the most important things you can learn in your life how to pull your own strings pulling your own strings was a book that I wrote back in 1978 I think I appeared on about 3000 talk shows across the country talking about it over the years it was a best-seller for many many years and still to this day continues to be something that people who want to be more assertive and who do not want to have their strings pulled by others refer to on a regular basis I'm very proud of this book and talking about this again after all these many years is an interesting exciting kind of voyage for me because it's always good to remind yourself that you don't want to be a victim you don't need to be a victim that you have a right to your own freedom in life and that you have the absolute right to choose to live the kind of life that you want to unfortunately and this is the whole basis of this tape most people do not make that kind of choice most people in our culture allow themselves in one way or another to be victimized by people within institutions and family and organizations and jobs and and even strangers and clerks and bureaucrats and they say things to themselves almost from a resigned point of view it's just the way it is we live in a society that victimizes each other we have to play the game with there's nothing we can do about it it's just something that happens and it happens to all of us and I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to happen to you it doesn't have to happen at all in any areas of your life that there are specific strategies and ways of processing your world and your life that will allow you to get out of the victim habit and being a victim is truly a habit it is something that you have grown up with that most of us have grown up with most of us grow up with a set of beliefs that we have to fit in I remember my favorite poem of EE Cummings was one little line where he said to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you just like everybody else means to fight the greatest battle there is to fight and never stop fighting and that's basically what this is it's a an effort to help you to declare your independence in the Declaration of Independence itself Thomas Jefferson put it this way all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed and what this is about pulling your own strings is helping you to abolish the forms to which you have become accustomed there are many ways to be a victim some people just operate from weakness all their lives some people are victimized by the past or institutions or family and and I'm here to tell you in this tape that that pulling your own strings is really an attitude shift it shift away from having to be just like everybody else having to fit in having to do what you're told having to listen to other people as as the determiners of what your life is going to be being intimidated by others being bullied by others being fearful of what might happen to you if you were to live your life the way you want to I'm saying to you that you do not have to live that way that being a victim is a learned habit it is not your natural way of being it is just something that you have accepted and as long as there are people or institutions or organizations that will suffer those evils upon you and as long as you're willing to accept them and take that kind of abuse whether it's mental or physical or emotional or any other way that it can be expressed for you as long as you're willing to accept it and take it and to fit into that role there will be those out there who will indeed be willing to continue their role of putting you in your place so being able to pull your strings means changing around some expectations that you have for yourself and that's the very beginning that's the hardest part for most people because most people are victims not because the world is such a bad place and because there's so many bad guys out there it's because people have accepted that role and have a set of expectations about where they fit in in this world and very often they believe that they fit in underneath someone else's thumb or being dictated to by someone else or keeping quiet when inside you're bursting to express yourself that may be a role that you have learned and adopted and there are other kinds of victim traps as well you may be a very assertive aggressive outgoing person then still be victimized by a lot of the beliefs that you have your emphasis on making the place where you work perhaps more important then then your own life you may have placed oil tea to the institution of your love your choosing above the loyalty to yourself as a human being you may be making things more important than people you may be victimizing yourself physiologically by abusing your body with addictive substances or with the wrong kinds of foods or not the proper exercise you may be victimizing yourself through a type a behavior where you're always in a hurry and always facing deadlines and and never able to enjoy your life there's an old saying that I've always loved that so that nobody on their death bed ever wishes that they had spent more time at the office you know like oh if I'd only spent 15 hours a day instead of 14 I could die happily if I'd only you know made a little bit more money that isn't what it's about that people wish always as they get to the end of their life that they'd spend more time with the people they love that they agree arranged the priorities of their life so that they could live the kind of life that they want to and I'm here to say that you can what I've done on victim expectations what kinds of expectations do victims have well let me look at just a few of the major categories and the most important ones the first is in your physical capacities and capabilities what kind of expectations do you have about yourself physically the kind of human being that you are the kind of body that you have that that you have and that you've shown up in do you believe that it's limited you believe that it has to be sickly do you believe that you don't have the capacity to heal it to make it well do you believe that other people are stronger and can do things that you can't do the notion of your physical body and what you expect of it is something that you can really drastically change around it was only in my life when I really knew that I could I could get myself to maximum health super health if you will and I did that many many years ago changed around the expectations that I had to that I had to live out a life of a flabby lifestyle and since October the 7th of 1976 I have run a minimum of 8 miles every day and I've never missed a day and that is a lot of years and a lot of days into the 1990s without missing a day and it's only because I have an expectation that that's something that I can do it's nothing a compulsive behavior it is just a way of being it's no more compulsive than brushing my teeth every day something that I do as a way of life and I changed around a whole lot of expectations about my own body and how healthy it can be I've changed your own expectations about what I have to put into my body and therefore things like alcohol and drugs and and even caffeine and and salt and all of the kinds of things that we put into our body indiscriminately and poison ourselves with are no longer choices that I made not because I've got such great discipline and some kind of a superbeing not at all it's because I've changed my expectations around of what my body can do and once you get yourself aligned in a in a higher consciousness way about who you are and what you can do your body just takes over that is your body fulfills its own perfect destiny it is a temple it is a temple that houses your soul and houses your mind and keeping that body in maximum shape is something that any of us can do but you've got to change around your expectations and not be a victim of it there's also the whole notion of your mental capacities so many people believe that they're just average that they're only capable of of doing mediocre kinds of things that they're C students if you will that that they fit in the middle somewhere I believe there's a genius residing in you and that genius is waiting to awaken and the awakening process is really once again changing around your expectations shifting your consciousness from a belief that you are average whether you're mediocre or that you can only accomplish a certain number of things to shifting it to I I I am a creative genius I am here on this planet for a reason this whole the whole universe is part of a perfection a perfect system there's an intelligence to the whole system I believe the entire universe is part of a of a perfect intelligence that is making the whole thing work invisible though it may be and you are part of that if there's no accident there and you're here for a reason and when you get your life onto purpose you will find that your mental capacities begin to grow enormous Lee when you believe and expect that you are capable of handling anything and a mental capacity when you know that in your heart and in your soul then you no longer begin you no longer continue to think like a victim your emotional capacities this is something that people victimize themselves with over and over and over again every single day again notice the emphasis people victimize themselves with other people will only victimize you if you allow them to and I'll speak more about that later but your emotional capacities I believe that you choose your own feelings your feelings come from your thoughts and if you can learn how to control your thoughts and and understand that your thinking is what creates emotions in you then you can choose the emotions you have you don't have to be upset you don't have to be afraid you don't have to be anxious you don't have to be fearful in given situations it may be the way that you normally would react and maybe you'll continue to react that way but it's still a choice your emotional reactions are choices and when you know that then you'll be able to catch yourself when you find yourself immobilized or out of control or being pushed around or victimized by your own emotional reactions who are the victimizers who are the people out there that are manipulating and controlling us well I have a few categories here the number one on this category is the family as much as my family as important to me I don't think there's anything more important in my life I don't have to say I don't think I know there's nothing more important in my life than my wife and my children and they're all very very important to me I have seven of them each one of them is this precious and dear and has their own purpose and is on their own path and I try to keep that family life something that isn't going to later be the source of their being victimized emotionally if you look at virtually everybody in mental institutions across the country and take a survey or a poll on what it is that they couldn't deal with and why they ended up mentally unbalanced or incapacitated in some way you'll find that about 99 percent of it is from families families people telling each other how they have to be what they have to think how they have to dress what their value is ought to be what their religious and spiritual orientation ought to be what kinds of cars they ought to drive what kinds of food they ought to eat who they ought to talk to who they have to hate who they have to stay away from well they have to be victimized by if you will families and you have to be very very careful as a member of a family and understand that while it is the most important institution in our culture it is also the one that does the most damage and you have to know that in order to be your own person and not be having your strings pulled by somebody else you're going to have to stand up to family members whether their immediate family or extended family those the the ability and the willingness to stand up and say no I'm not going to be what you think I ought to be I have to stand up for it and be the kind of person I am that's what pulling you on strings is about not allowing anyone family or otherwise to be your victimizer the other big victimizer is the job a lot of people don't like their job a lot of people feel that they're not pursuing their bliss they're not following their their own purpose and why they're here and they find themselves being pushed around and even going to to work every single day and going home and being full of remorse and then every moores continues to grow and so on if you feel victimized by your job then you have to take some time to ask yourself why you're allowing yourself to to stay and do things that don't make sense to you or don't fit in with what your own view of why you're here is all about another big victimizer is professionals and authority figures people are intimidated so many people are intimidated by that whole teacher complex or that whole doctor complex they go into an a dentist office and the other ones paying the bill and they're the ones who's making this whole thing happen in that beautiful office you see there's because it's costing you a fortune to have a crown put on your tooth and you're calling him doctor and he's calling you by your first name when it seems to me it ought to be the other way around and being intimidated by authority figures whether it's medical people in sure it's nice to show respect to other people and I'm not saying you ought to be disrespectful but I'm saying you ought not to ever place anybody else's head above your own and people do this with authority figures all the time police and military and people who have money and all of these kinds of people in positions of authority can be a big category of victimizers bureaucracies are an enormous victimizer in our culture particularly in Western culture where we have to keep records for everything that we do the just just make an appointment with the Social Security Administration sometime or go to have your driver's license renewed or go down to the post office or go to an IRS and office and sit down and try to get some information and you find yourself being shifted around and around and here and there and everywhere and this kind of bureaucracy is something that a lot of people feel victimized by and I think it's unnecessary I don't think we have to experience it and feel it that way there are ways to deal with those institutions and keep yourself sane and I'll be talking about some of those and finally the biggest victimizer of all of course is yourself yep yourself despite all the people in the other categories the fact is that you are the one who victimizes yourself you are the one who makes these things more important than yourself who and you and you and the victim very often of your own training in your own history and your own values and your own behavior towards your body and your own behavior towards your mind your own self-portraits that you have inculcated over a lifetime so when you look at all the victimizers out there and you looked at all the people who are who are pushing you around perhaps or not you feel are responsible for a lot of your obsequious behavior and then always keep in mind that you are the product of the choices that you make as you go through your life and that instead of saying why is this happening to me and isn't this awful and why God are you putting me through this again begin to ask yourself the question what's in it for me what's the lesson what do I have to gain here and how can i transcend this and get past it when you do that you'll begin to move on to the next level which I call operating from strength and moving forward towards pulling your own strings in all areas of your life you want to develop an attitude a self-portrait in which you begin to visualize and image yourself as a tower of strength not weakness keep in mind that people respect strength not weakness I can remember in teaching for many many years at the university level and the high school level and even at the elementary level for a while but particularly at the university level in the graduate school I would give a an evaluation at the end of the course each year and each semester and I would get in a whole lot of most of the people who would fill out these forms would would write something and they'd all say something really nice he was terrific you were great it was a great course best class I ever had and I would just sort of flip through those you know very neatly until I'd get to the ones that were critical were the ones that were I felt helpful and honest not not nasty and not abusive in any way but people who weren't afraid to say what it is that they really felt and those are the ones I paid the most attention to it's interesting when you are looking for an honest opinion when you really want help you're going to go to a person who is not afraid to tell you the truth and while you know who the people are that you can go to when you want to be stroked or when you want to be made to feel better when you need help and you need an honest honest straightforward truthful answer you'll respect strength not weakness weakness is making somebody saying the thing that makes somebody else feel good strength is operating from integrity from authenticity from honesty and people respect that I know in my own life when when I really want to know what it is that I could do to improve something I know that my wife isn't afraid to tell me that there's a lot of people who are but people who work for me who don't want to tell me that who are gonna tell me the things that are gonna make me feel good and make them look good and so on but I know that my wife Marcy will not be afraid to tell me this is what you have to do or this is what's missing or this and sometimes I don't even like it then sometimes I rail against it but I always go to her when I want when I want help but when I want assistance because I know that she's not afraid to tell me the truth so people respect strength people don't respect weakness and that's something that you have to learn if you're going to be pulling your own strings in your own life that's operating from strength really means operating from effectiveness in your life it's almost like you have to develop a code of non victim ethics for yourself that says I am a valuable important significant divine creation I am here for a very short time while I'm here in form in the physical body that I'm in I am entitled to fulfill the purpose or the destiny that that I have been assigned while I'm here I believe in that and I'm here for a purpose and I'm going to get my life on that purpose and anyone or anything that gets in the way of that as long as I can behave towards them in a moral and just an honest way I can say to myself in my moral code of ethics you do not have a right to interfere no one has a right to interfere with anyone elses right to live their life the way they want to no one my right to swing my fist and flail my arms about stops with your right to not have your nose be punched alright so as long as you're not hurting anybody else in the process of operating from strength as long as you're not interfering with somebody else's right to do the same then whatever it is that you're doing is perfectly all right now there gonna be a lot of people who aren't gonna like that and I've outlined a few of those people already the family particularly are going to be a lot of people in there who are going to tell you that you shouldn't do it this way because it's inconvenient for them or that isn't gonna get them to they're not gonna have anybody to manipulate into control and if you go off and just do whatever it is you want to they might have to do a lot more than they've been used to doing they might have to clean up after themselves they might have to make some reason to take responsibility for their own life and you've been doing that all along so they will be spending a lot of energy in attempting to keep you from really asserting yourself and going on in doing what is significant and important for you in your own mind but you have to be effective you have to be what I think of as quietly effective and the way that you are quietly effective is you do not teach people not to victimize you with words let me emphasize that words are not the tools of the quietly effective person operating from strength it is behavior that counts you teach people with your behavior how you want to be treated and here we are trying to pull our own strings and be our own person and talking endlessly and ceaselessly and having these arguments and discussions and and it still goes on and it still goes on and you still find yourself the victim and you still find yourself picking up after others or not being respected or whatever it may be there's an old saying it's one of the secrets of the universe I hear and I forget I see and I remember I do and I understand and not one moment before doing is what teaches people how to understand you so it is in the ss of doing when someone behaves towards you in a way that is to victimize you like your children for example leaving their clothes around and you endlessly talk to them about not doing this any longer and you don't want them to leave your clothes on and don't you understand that I have to pick up your clothes and my clothes and that's not fair and you go through this tirade day in and day out and it still continues but when you take those clothes and put them in the trash or when you leave those clothes sit there and don't wash them for them so that the only clothes that get washed are those that are in the appropriate place or when you teach them with whatever it is that is effective quietly effective behavior with no words you let them know specifically I am NOT going to be your victim and this is true of virtually everything somebody who is yelling and screaming at you and whether it's your husband or your wife or one of your children or a clerk order and if you stand there and scream back it's just words against words and it doesn't mean anything but if you leave quietly leave the room and go into another room you're sending a signal I am too dignified and too valuable and too important a person I think too much of myself to stand here or sit here and take that kind of abuse so I will be leaving and you don't have to say those words you just do it and in every single expression where you are victimized through conversation or through words there is a way to teach people with your behavior that you are a person who operates from strength rather than weakness you must learn to never place anyone in your life it importance above yourself no one the Queen of England the President of the United States the generals that are in the in the Armed Forces the doctors who serve you the very rich people who live in the in the fancy homes and the suburbs the entertainers the sports stars all of these whoever they are the movie stars whoever these people are they are no different than you that's one of the great lessons I learned when I toured the country many years ago for this book confirm your erroneous zones and meta appearing on The Tonight Show many times and then Dinah Shore show and John Davidson all of these shows that were very very popular at that time and I met so many of the of the top bus stars and music and in entertainment and sports and in the recording industry and and it was always interesting to me that they would that none of them these were the people that were your heroes that none of them were any better than then I was I remember what President Carter said be when he was running for office and they asked him if he thought he was qualified to run for president he said well I really never thought I was until I met all the other people who were running and then I felt I was just as qualified as they were and that's always the effect that it has on me when I meet somebody who's in this high position of authority who's got and I meet them and I talk with them and I find out that they have the same the same difficulties in the same foibles and the same problems and and the same pimples and the little blemishes and they smell bad too when they wake up in the morning and they and they're and they're not any better or different than any of the rest of us and what you want to do is in your own mind which is where being a non victim always takes place of course is teach yourself that nobody out there deserves any more accolades or any more attention or any more respect than you do you are human you are connected to all the rest of us through that through that invisible intelligence that runs through all form in the universe and you are just as valuable and in God's eyes no one is any better than anyone else know that and know that that it's not only true in God's eyes but it's true in your eyes as well and keep that in your mind and then as you operate from strength you can try on a few of these strategies you stopped asking permission in your life you stop seeking permission when you're speaking instead of saying would you mind if I ask you a question say I'd like to know if and whatever the question may be instead of saying would you mind terribly if I return this for a refund say I'm bringing this back because I'm dissatisfied you can do that respectfully you can do that kindly and gently instead of when you're going out with and saying is it alright dear if I go out for an hour you say I'm going out dear is there anything that you'd like me to do for you while I'm out it's a declaration versus a question of of getting permission get the permission the idea that somebody else has to give you permission in order to live your life or do the things that you're entitled to do this is not at all a case for before being disrespectful at all of other people it's a case for just letting the world know and the people in it that are important to you that you have a right to live your life without being victimized this is as simple as that don't take it any further than that when you're talking to people if you want to operate from staying look right into their eyes when you talk to them when you look down and when you look from side to side you send out a signal the signal is I'm not as important as you are when you hem and haw and maybe and and all of that you are sending out a signal a signal is victimize me do whatever it is that you want to do to me and I'm here just for that purpose watch your body and your posture and your body language when you're speaking when you're and make it make a direct effort to look directly into someone's eyeballs I do that all the time when I'm speaking to people I speak in large audiences and when I'm through people will come up to me and I try to always make direct eye contact with that person it's it's the window to the soul then if you don't do that you're sending out a signal if someone asks you for a loan or someone asks you to do things there's something that you don't want to do like serve on a committee perhaps that you don't want to serve on instead of beating around the bush and playing the victim game and knowing that eventually by saying maybe and I'm not sure and call me in a week and all of that you know that eventually they're gonna get you that's an easy way to handle that two simple letters and oh right off the top no I'm not interested in that thank you for considering me and then when they come back with all of the reasons why you should be doing what they don't watch what they think you should do and that you don't want to do your response is I guess you just didn't hear what I said perhaps you didn't hear me when I said that I didn't want to do that and you never you never veer from that stance and it becomes like a a wonderful game that you're playing you know what they're you know what their game plan is their game plan is to get you to do something that you don't want to do or to loan you some money when you don't want to loan it then you know that they're not good for it or whatever it may be you know what their game plan is and what their objective is and all you have to do is just stay on course just stay on course and lo and behold after a while they stop that all of that kind of stuff stops because you were emphatic enough at the beginning to just simply say no if you're a nonsmoker and other people are smoking around you or anything like that and you feel that they're violating your right to have your lungs free from their their noxious smoke then you'll be afraid that to politely ask someone to do it test yourself give yourself an opportunity to test you're operating from strength behavior don't sit there and and inhale smoke for an entire evening in fact that's one of the reasons why it's it's become less fashionable for people to smoke and why fewer and fewer people are doing it which is wonderful because it used to be that the smokers were in them in the majority and the non-smokers we're the victims it doesn't have to be that way any longer and now you're seeing it reversing people are beginning to pull their own strings try calling some people by their first name instead of instead of yes Tsering and doctor this and professor that and Sir this and all that just to see what happens you find that that when you keep yourself level with other people if they calling you by your first name they're not any better than you because they have reserved but they have a title and that isn't necessarily a way that you show people respect you don't show people respect by what you call them you show people respect by how you interact with them and how you treat them as human beings and in calling your physician by his first name or whatever is or whomever maybe if it's a problem if it's not then do it anyway you want but if you're working on not putting and elevating other people in importance to you then you have to work on it in all kinds of areas and the thing that you fear the most you find that that those people that there's nothing there was nothing there to fear in the first place I prefer being called Wayne I don't like it when people call me doctor this or professor I don't need that and I and I when somebody comes up to me and says highway and how you're doing or whatever whoever they are I always feel that that's a person who's operating from strength I have more respect for that then I do for for the need for someone to place the title never be afraid to go over someone's head if you feel like you're being victimized whether it's in a store or in a business or in a bank or whatever it may be you don't have to do that callously but simply just don't assume that because someone has told you something that is gonna put you in a position of being a victim that you now therefore have to accept that there's always another way there's always another and as long as you keep an open mind to that and know that that there's someone else that you can go to there's some other avenue that you can take you'll find yourself less and less being victimized and in particularly when those people know that you're not afraid to do that I found that in in dealing with people at banks that I go directly to the person that I know makes Authority has Authority if I want something and it's much more effective than dealing with all of the people in the middle who are really paid to keep you from reaching the person who makes that decision in the first place when you're being interviewed for a job and when you're in a situation that might be troubling for you that's a good time to practice assertive behaviors you don't sever say things like I'm not sure if I could handle this instead you say I'm sure I can handle this I'm sure I could because I found in my own life that never been anything that I couldn't handle if I really put my mind to it you send out that kind of a signal but it has to come from an integrity from an honesty from a belief that that you know inside that there is nothing that you have to be afraid of it that you can't handle if you're given the sufficient training and finally refused to pay for poor quality and refused to tip for it as well stand up for that it isn't just an obligation to just turn over your hard-earned money to someone who is giving you poor service or poor quality you're entitled if if you pay for something to have the best you're entitled to that and it doesn't mean that you you have to treat other people in a supercilious manner in any way it just means that you're entitled to that and you don't have to be obnoxious about it and you don't have to be cheap about it I have found that when I'm dealing with waiters and waitresses and so on that that I I consider myself a very generous tipper I always have believed that if you're debating between giving $3 and $4 always go with the higher number because what goes around comes around and it's just a good way to be in it it's what your purpose is all about it's about giving and sharing and caring for others and if I'd if the service is poor I don't just leave nothing everything like I eat generally tell them I said see you're really having a tough time here tonight there's a lot of people and it must be and generally they will explain what's going on now there's a cook back in the kitchen who didn't show up or there's and and you can you can you walk out not feeling like you were victimized and so you could when you ask instead of just sit there and fume I could I was just flying on an airplane just the other day and I found we were 20 minutes late and the pilot had made no announcement and I feel victimized when things like that happen I feel that I'm I'm the one that he's flying here if that's the reason he's got all those bars on his uniform and someone because of people like me who are willing to plunk down several hundred dollars to go from Chicago to New York and here we are 20 25 minutes late and no announcement has ever been made about that we took off on time and I just feel that the passengers are entitled to know that so I just send a note to the stewardess and then would you ask the captain to please make an announcement on why we're late and sure enough in another minute he made an announcement he even apologized for not having done it so rather than sit there like a victim and feel like I don't know what's going on he said there was some storms of over Lake Erie or someplace and they had to veer around and they were going around and I was grateful I don't want them flying through those storms that's why I just want to know I believe that I'm entitled to that and rather than be angry and and and all of those kinds of things you operate from strength you quietly effectively get what it is that you're looking for and that's really the message here you don't have to be a victim ever and if you are you look at your own behavior rather than those who are treating you in some way that you don't like one of the big victim traps that so many people find themselves in is being seduced by what is over I always tell people what is over is over and you can't you can't change it you can't should have done it you can't would have done it you can't could have done it you've got to stop all that shooting on yourself if you will and what you want to do here is look at how you get to be victimized by things that have already happened like I can remember moving from Michigan to New York when I took a position as a professor at st. John's University in 1971 or 72 and I arrived on Long Island brand-new home it was on a Wednesday we had left on Wednesday we drove there we got there on a Friday afternoon I had a new little baby girl and we got to her home and there's no electricity so I called little Co the Long Island lighting company and I got on with him and I was this Friday afternoon now and I said to the girl who answered the phone I'd like to have my electricity turn now we've got a little baby and we need to have warm it was in you know October and she said I'm sorry sir you should have called on Wednesday so I put my finger up and down on the phone real hard about three or four times I said I says excuse me is this earth and she said of course it's Earth what are you talking about this is local I said well on earth where I've lived for the last 31 years you can never should have called on Wednesday on Friday you can't do that on our planet she said what you go through that one more time I said real easy I said on earth you can never should have called on Wednesday on Friday you can't do that it's Friday I can't should have called on Wednesday she said I think you better talk to my supervisor and it took me like three supervisors before I got someone who understood that I didn't want to be told what I should have done or what could have done or what I would have done I wanted my electricity turned on and I kept it very light and amusing and so on and sure enough someone was sent out that afternoon and I had my electricity turned out now I can call next Wednesday but I can't should have called on was and you can't should have called or should have done anything everything that you did in your life up until this moment is over it's done you've had to happen in order for you to get to the next level except that don't allow yourself to be victimized by things that you can't change things that are over your parents were the parents that they were your parents did what they knew how to do given the conditions of their life they didn't do it good they didn't do it bad they weren't right they weren't wrong they just were who they were and they did what they knew how to do and if what they knew how to do didn't fit in with what you think they should have been doing then learn from it grow from it don't be full of anger and hatred for them that's a that's the biggest victim trap you can get into being mad at somebody for what they did 25 years ago and besides they're a different person today anyway and probably wouldn't do it that way at all so what you want to do is is look at everything that you find yourself upset about or manipulated by are controlled by and change all of that shift it around shift it around to a new kind of consciousness and that consciousness is I can't change what's over so all of the things that that you did in your past and all of the all of the shoulds that people are imposing on you are things that you're gonna have to watch out for one of the big victim traps people are going to use is they're gonna tell you what you should have done if only you would have listened to me if only you would have done it before if only you would have done things the way I said and when anybody ever does that that sends off a signal in me there's a flag that goes up and I put it I put that as a mental flag and it goes right up into into my head and that flag it says I can't should have done it that way I already did it that's already over and if somebody starts telling me over and over what if only you would have listened to me I I will even ask them questions like how can I have listened to you now how can I do that explained how I can do that and usually that just stops them because they see that there's no way that you can have listened to them when that time is over if only you wouldn't have moved to Chicago in 1957 if only you wouldn't have done that you wouldn't be having all these troubles now how could you not have moved in 1957 when it's in 1991 how can you do that it's not possible so you have to be watchful for that and look out for the the victimizers who will resort to looking at what is over and try to keep you there victim by constantly putting you back there let's take a look at some of these tactics that quote victimizers unquote use to keep you from being all that you want to be keeping in mind that you're that you are at this point now refusing to be seduced by what is over it's over you're not gonna let anybody refer to it you're not gonna refer to it yourself you're just simply going to be in the present or in the future question why did you do it that way great victimizing stance gets you in the position of having to defend yourself it's already done that way instead of asking you what did you learn from what you've done and how can we repeat these errors in the future they want to get into the whys and what they're doing of course is looking for blame and as soon as they can blame you and you know assign some kind of fault to what has just transpired then you of course have a nice little victim another one if you had only consulted me first but it's over that's what you have to always remind yourself it's over sure you if you would have consulted them perhaps you would have been a different but you can never should have consulted them now when it's already over you can't consult them on Friday about about Wednesday you can't do that any longer next Wednesday yes not last Wednesday or we've always done it this way again a reference to the past things have always been done that way therefore you will continue to do them that way and if you don't do them that way then you are gonna have to explain yourself and as soon as I get you in the position of having to explain yourself you are my victim and I'm in charge or if you said it before why don't you mean it now you told me this before you told me you loved me and now you're telling me that you don't the assumption of course is that people don't change and because you say something a long time ago that it still applies today the now is the working unit of your life the past is a thought it's formless it's dimensionless you can't have it back in the physical world the only place you can have it is in your mind so that any reference to what was done in the past or what you said in the past is just usually an effort to get you to be there willing victim if you don't go there if you just know in your mind see you it's almost like a new perception of reality for you you begin to perceive reality the way it is now in the moment and all of that stuff back there is only just a learning it's only to be recalled if it's gonna be effective now if it's designed to get you to feel bad or to be manipulated you don't go there you simply don't go down that road [Music] the if onlys if only I hadn't done it that way whose fault wasn't that's a favorite you know let's look back and look at all the fault and all the things that that we can do to assign blame and you assign blame you get all the blame what I tell people to do is take all the things in your life that are wrong and that aren't working and assign blame to them you know I'm fat who's at fault Sara Lee all right or somebody like that and I'm broke and that's the Dow Jones fault and or it's the ayatollahs fault or it's some somebody else's fault you plus I'm blamed there and now look at your life and see if it's any different see if it's improved in any way and you find that blame or fault finding doesn't do anything except make the victimizer one more step ahead of you in the game all right let's look at a few strategies here for stopping yourself from being victimized by references to the past when someone starts telling you things that they've always been a certain way and we've always done things this way you could respond very nicely with would you like to know if I care about what you're telling me right now or do you think that what you're telling me right now is relevant do you believe that how we did it last Thursday or last year is really the issue here just it's like you confront it right away and as soon as you get that you disarmed the potential victimizer try to eliminate the should haves from your own life and from your own conversations your own vocabulary try to get that word what you should have or would have or could have sort of woulda coulda out of your life and understand that all of that is just a reference to keep you from being effective today and it's and it's just nothing but a blame assignor and so don't use it yourself and you'll find yourself not and you'll find yourself flagging it real fast when other people use it on you as well if someone asks you why you did something give a very brief one or two sentence response and that's it and don't keep going on and on and over explaining it because the more you over explain the more you're gonna find yourself victimized by them don't be afraid to admit that you're wrong when you do something or just simply say you're right you've got to you've made a very good point and I will learn from that and I won't do it in the future this is one of the great things that my wife and I are able to do with each other over and over again instead of having these arguments that are endless it's like you stop yourself right in the middle and you say you know you're right you made a good point I did I was a jerk I did behave stupidly and I'm not gonna I'm gonna see if I don't do that it it stops I mean I've seen my wife have her mouth fall almost onto the floor when I've just turned around and and stopped being pushy about it and admitted yeah you've made a good point and usually the person doing the most talking is the one that's wrong try to learn from the past rather than repeating it and making references to it all the time and silently forgive all of the people in your life who you feel have phobic demise you in some way that's such an important lesson to learn forgiveness that all of those people who behaved towards you in the past that you might still be hanging on today the ex spouse the child that doesn't call the person who borrowed money from you who hasn't repaid it the the parent or the grandparent who ignored you or abused you in some way that forgiveness is a very very powerful tool all of the spiritual masters who've ever come our way including of course Christ on the cross when someone threw a spear and soldier threw a spear into him his first words are forgive them for he knows not what he does that's such an important concept to get that he doesn't the reason that Christ was saying he knows not what he does is because he was really saying that when you throw a spear into me you throw a spear into yourself because we're all connected we're all one and the same thing is true for all the people who have thrown spears into you if you will over harmed you in some way it's like a snake bite if a snake comes along and bites you no one ever died from a snake bite the bite is just a bite it's just a wound that's on and you can't unbind a snake can't untie you what kills you is the venom that is pouring through your system and destroying you and the metaphor there is that what what what is destructive to you in this whole business of not being victimized by what is over is the venom which is your thoughts that you carry around the behavior is done you can't undo it you can't change it you can't get it you can't unab you someone you can't not abandon them now well if you already did you can't repay the money that you never repaid I mean that that's all done that's all you didn't do it that's over with but what you can do now just decide not to carry that around not to let their behavior destroy you Mark Twain put it this way he said forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it and you have to know how to do that because once you let it go and get rid of it I can remember someone was trying to sue me at one time over some silly little thing and I was angry and filled with rage about it and gonna really show them that they couldn't do it and and once I let it go and once I sent forgiveness out then send love where I was sending hate before I lost the food was dropped and I have all of the things that I worried about so much just you know melt it away and the same thing will happen with so much of the victimizing that you do get forgiveness into your heart and you'll find yourself a whole lot better off and not being victimized by all that stuff that happened years and years and years ago that isn't worth hanging on to anyway pulling your own strings another common way that people pull your strings instead of you pulling them yourself is this whole business of the what I call the comparison trap in a world of individuals comparison is a senseless activity you are unique in all the world no one can get behind your eyeballs and be you no one can experience you the only thing that anyone can experience you with is their mind everything else is a step removed their thoughts are what they have to experience you with and so too do you experience everyone else with your thoughts otherwise you are experiencing existential Alumnus existential alone this is really very different than loneliness see loneliness is experienced when you don't like the person you're alone with but alone this it's just in the way of things you can be in a crowd at the largest stadium in the world surrounded by a hundred thousand screaming people and you experience it uniquely no one can get behind your eyeballs and inside your ears and experience it in here at the way you hear you're red that you see the color red is your red then it can't be mine you can't see it the way I see it and this is a very important mental concept to get to avoid being victimized by other people because as you'll see in just a moment there are people out there who would who would compare you all the time and use this as a way of controlling and manipulating and getting you to to be them to behave in the ways that they want you to behave when you understand your existential aloneness when you know that you are unique and special in all the world then you stop the inclination to compare yourself to other people you stop constantly telling yourself that you have to be like others you can't stop constantly striving to to accomplish and achieve at the same level that other people have achieved that you get past this whole need to to keep up with the Joneses because that's a way of putting yourself into a victim trap that it's almost impossible to get out of you see even if you're in a if you're in a race with somebody else if you're if you're looking over your shoulder to see how you're doing in comparison to how the other person is doing then what you're really doing at that moment is saying that you are in charge of how I am feeling right now however you perform in my my comparison to you is what makes me happy or not happy and you've turned the strings over to somebody else this is a this is a really big area for most people most people find themselves unable to to isolate themselves from comparing themselves from other people children grow up in a world where they they we hear things about peer pressure all the time that that there's a lot of peer pressure that everybody has to fit in and if you don't fit in then you're an isolate you're isolated if you're isolated then you're a reject and if you're a reject then you're an outcast and and it all goes on to all of these horrible labels that we place on people we have to raise children to understand if there's no peer pressure in the war then that there are people out there who are saying do things the way I do them and then there are individuals will say where that got a mind of my own you want your children to have a mind of their own you too want to have a mind of your own you want to think for yourself you don't want to have somebody telling you constantly that that you have to do it because everybody else does it if you do things the way everybody else does what have you got to offer I mean if you're just like everybody else you have nothing to offer you're just one more sheep bleeting away you don't want to be that way you want to understand that yes there are standards and there are norms within a society and that we accept those as living standards but I don't compare myself to other people I don't have to go out into the world and and look at other people to determine how I'm doing in my life that's got to be an inner thing that's something that I that has to come from within and yet there are people out there there's many of them who are going to constantly compare you and use all kinds of techniques and strategies to get you to conform by saying don't you see that other people are doing that but the first thing you have to do before you can even eliminate other people doing it to you is to get you get rid of it yourself get rid of this whole notion that that I have to be somebody who other people accept or like in order for me to feel good and you don't want your children to be believing that well everybody else does drugs so you know that's what that's why I did it or everybody else is jumping off the cliff so that's why I jumped every everybody else is drinking and driving so that's why I do it or everybody else is not wearing any clothes to school so that's why I go naked I mean it's an it's an absurdity and if you if you're constantly comparing them to others then don't be surprised when they do it themselves raise them to understand that there are yes there are peers out there who will try to pressure you but if you buy into it then you are the victim you have to decide for yourself what is morally proper in and what works and doesn't work and what is effective and ineffective and not some invisible standard called peer pressure that is the biggest cop-out I've ever heard of let's look at some of the victim traps in this comparison business here's the first one why aren't you more like your brother well why aren't you more like your sister why aren't you more like Sally down the street you find when somebody else is telling you to look at yourself and ask you the question why aren't you liking the other husbands or the other wives or the other workers and so on that's that's a that's something that you have to send the flag up before and my response when anybody ever does that to me is if I'm just like everybody else what do I have to offer I'm not here to be like the guy down the street that isn't what I'm here for I have my own purpose he has his he's on his path I'm on mine and I'm not here to emulate him and you stop it you put a stop to it right there another common one is nobody else is complaining so you might have a reason to complain about some injustice but since nobody else is doing it then the victimizer will constantly reminding it we'll look around you nobody else is saying anything so why are you what's wrong with you as if everybody else's behavior ought to be good determining your own Margaret Mead had a wonderful line and one of her monographs back in 1934 she said don't ever think for a minute that a small group of people who are committed to social change can't make a difference in fact it's the only thing that ever has a small group an individual who has an idea who doesn't want to be just like everybody else can't really make the whole world change in fact that's how all change comes about it starts with an individual or a small group of people here's a great one what if everybody in the world behaved like you do what if everybody was like and it's like there's the comparison comparing you to everybody else in the world and then why aren't you fitting in or you should be satisfied with you hat with what you have everybody else is satisfied or don't make such a scene you're embarrassing me now around other people it's like the whole inclination to look at what other people are saying or thinking or doing is a reason for you to to quietly go away and be victim another one that's a favorite of mine that you see in our culture a lot if this is what God wants me to do a lot of people use God as a reason for why they're doing what they're doing as if God talked to them very specifically you know you hear the some of the serial murderers using the same kind of analogy know that God told me to do it be very careful of anyone who believes that God specifically talks only to them and to no one else and uses that as a reason why you should be doing what what they what they decide you should do so how do you overcome this what kind of things can you do to not be the victim of someone comparing you and controlling you through those kinds of comparisons first and foremost when you're in any confrontation where someone is using references to other people and expecting you to go along you have to remember that his comparisons have nothing to do with you he would say that to anyone just happens to be that you're the person who's there refused to be upset and you'll be well on their way to avoiding these often insulting efforts and victimization you have to know that your emotional reaction to those things is in you it's not in them it's in you and they come from how you process it if somebody starts comparing me to somebody else I laugh inside there was a time when I would get angry but I'm way past that now don't need to do that I see it for what it is I know what they're trying to do and I refuse to be compared to anyone in my life and that's and then I do that in my mind and as a result of doing that in my mind I then can carry it out in my actions when someone's giving you an argument like in a store when you're taking something back and telling you and this happens all the time well I'll start telling you about well it's just last week I had a customer where we had the very same thing and and certain there they go off on this long windy story and there you are getting ready to put on your little victim hat and you response with that very very nicely with do you think I care about the customer you had last week or why would I want to hear about how you dealt with other people I'm concerned about this here and now you keep it focused where it belongs remember that the victimizer is doing this to get you to go along with their program so you have to put a halt to it practice using sentences that begin with word you I very very helpful technique one of the most helpful things that I can ever give to you you want me to feel that last week's customer was an important thing to bring up so you feel if you start the sentence with you you're putting the focus where it belongs right back there if you put it on high you get into a defensive posture where you have to explain yourself if someone says someone is speaking very loudly and angrily towards you your responses you're really getting upset as you're telling me this all you really want me to listen to five stories about what happened last month when I want to talk about what happened here today you you this is what you're doing instead of I don't want to hear all this and I want it and then you get yourself all mad and all worked up and so on and you're in that defensive posture another good strategy is to label what the what the person is doing you just simply say you're upset and you're comparing me with someone else and that's an upfront statement the moment that you find yourself dealing with a clerk or someone who is not going to go along with what you want or isn't gonna help you out or is you know is a middleman to keep you from reaching someone who has Authority the minute that you sense it the second that that happens you stop talking to that person you say thank you very much I appreciate your time and you walk away and now you regroup and you and you start over and you say who is the person that has authority in here who is truly the person that can make this happen for me once you do that you'll find yourself going into the other you see what happens is if you go up through the chain of command that each higher level whether it's a refund policy or it's a bank loan or whatever it may be each higher level has got to defend the person below him he can't go he can't overrule that person that's what they're there for that's why they have that job so if you start out above it you start out going right to the person who can make a decision even if it's a little more cumbersome to do that you want to make that effort because the moment that you have gotten to two or three people who have now been defended when they'll get to the top person they simply have to defend all of the people that that he's got out there underneath them so avoid all those people in the beginning and send tell the person I've come directly to you because I underst you're the decision-maker here and and then you make they you know your case for whatever it is that you want Albert Einstein once wrote these words he said great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds the truly great people the ones who are going to really make a big impact in the world the ones who are making a difference in the world are always resisted by people who want to stay mediocre and who want to keep things average and want to keep things the way they've always been be one of the great spirits and know that the violent opposition that you're encountering is just other people's efforts to keep you at the status quo if you refuse to go there and use some of these strategies and refuse to compare yourself and refuse to look back and deal effectively from a position of self-esteem now he won't be victimized another major area of being victimized if you really want to pull your own strings you have to learn how to be quietly effective and get this you will never be understood the greatest understanding you can have is that you don't understand and bending your life and your energy and your relationships on trying to always be understood and have someone else agree with you and understand you is once your way to make sure that you're gonna be a victim for the duration of that relationship you don't have to prove yourself you don't have to allow yourself to be in a position where someone else is demanding to be understood by you there's some things that are very simple some very simple little clues that I use in my own life and then in pulling your own strings but I'd like to share here with you under the heading of being quietly effective and knowing you're never going to be understood first is that - rug is a virtue if you could just learn the art of the shrug like Ian rants title Atlas Shrugged and us holding up the whole world it is shrugs and the whole idea of not having to be in a position to to to defend yourself or to be understood or somebody's demanding something from you and when you could just sort of shrug your shoulders and say well understand I just don't understand and that's okay my wife and I do this to each other all the time she behaves she does this is the craziest things in the world and vice versa but she thinks what I do is crazy too I mean she believes in what she's doing and believes that that's the way a house has to be run for example she makes the beds first thing in the morning I mean that to hers it's just her way I have lived under the philosophy that that's not any healthier psychologically to get into a made bed than it is to get into an unmade bed but she makes the bed I don't understand somebody getting out of bed in the morning and making the bed but I don't have to understand it's not necessary for me to understand I don't have to get into it you're wrong and I'm right attitude toward it it's just a simple shrug if you want to make the bed that's terrific I don't even help you if you want to just let it go you don't have to I don't have to understand that she puts the glasses in the cupboard with the lips going down I put them facing up I don't understand that how could any put them buddy face them down but that's the way she does things and that's perfectly all right and you know something life is full of those little things everywhere you go you're gonna encounter people who do things their own way and that's really what makes the world go around that uniqueness that specialness in people so if you just shrug at it and stop telling yourself that I have to be right and I have to make somebody else wrong in all of my interactions with them just shrug just shrug quietly shrug your shoulders and say they ever right they're on their own path they have a right to do what they want to do and you don't have to be understood and when you get into that that that mindset of not needing to be understood all the time then you're not gonna be explaining yourself and having somebody else explain themselves to you over and over again endlessly being offended is of is a choice of to be a victim did you ever think how silly it is to go around being offended there are people who turn on the radio and they hear somebody speaking in a certain tone or saying a word that they don't like and they may have a whole vocabulary of words that they're offended by and if somebody says one of them right away they go off into a divot well it's just like letting somebody else's behavior decide how you're going to be emotionally I mean you can be the kind of person who goes down the street and your emotions are being pulled by everyone two strings are being yanked by everybody else's industry depending on what words they choose what symbols come out of their mouth this person says hell that one says damn this one says oh this one says caca that one says poopoo this one says wee-wee whatever it may be and you're offended or whatever synonyms you want to use for all of those functions for what what what it's like allowing yourself the right to process somebody else's behavior for what it is it's their behavior it's not yours if you don't like what somebody is saying on the radio tune the dial someplace else if you don't like the way somebody else is dressing turn your eyes someplace else don't feast your eyes on it if someone else wants to hear a rock music that you you think is disgusting then don't listen to it that's what this whole thing is about that's what the First Amendment to the Constitution is about well that's what free speech is about that's what free expression of as a human being is about that there's no code that is going to fit everyone and and choosing not to be offended is to choose not to be a victim people speak the way they speak I don't like some of the language that I see in the films I don't let my children go and see some of the film I don't like the violence that is on the screen rather than being offended by it and gonna being all upset about it and getting myself worked up and being a victim to the people who choose to display violence on the screens I simply don't go to those movies I don't have anything to do with them and and I don't miss them and I and I I happen to believe that it's part of the gratuitous violence that we find throughout the culture but I'm doing what I can to eliminate that but being offended by it being upset by it it's as silly as being offended by starvation starvation is a part of what the universe is about and so is my desire to change it and to improve it that's just as important and that's what I go with I go with what I'm for rather than what I'm against everything that you're against weakens you everything that you're for empowers you so the question is do you want to be empowered or do you want to be weakened everything you fight you'll be weaker for the effort everything that you're for will empower you when they ask mother Teresa if she would march against the war in Vietnam in 1967 she said no I won't she said but if you have a March for peace I'll be there and there's a big difference all of the people in the world who are against terrorists if they suddenly were for peace and worked for peace and devoted their life for peace there wouldn't be any terrorists left but all of us who are against terrorism want to fight them become more warriors more more need to have more hostility and so on in the world it's very important to know for yourself that whenever you're offended by the behavior or the actions of somebody else is morally right as you may find yourself to be in as reprehensible as you may find their behavior to be it still is letting somebody else pull your strings it is your emotions clanging up or clanging down depending upon what somebody else outside of you does and you just simply don't have to give them that kind of power and when you do and you find yourself offended and all upset and your blood pressure up ins and your also growing know that it's because you have given that kind of power to them not because of what the other people have done also it's important to if you want to be quietly effective and know that other people aren't going to understand you all the time is to stop analyzing your relationship to death I've said over and over again that relationships that work work because there is no work who wants to go to work all day and go home and get in the car and say okay now I've been working all day now I gotta go home and we'll work tonight I gotta work on my relationship and that's like the rest of the night until midnight you're working on your relationship in your dream about it and your whole life becomes an enormous job you see there's two ways to look at virtually anything one is the violent way and one of the peaceful way is the yin and the yang of the universe the the violent way is to analyze something when you take something and analyze it you tear it apart you break it open you you crush it you dissect it you pull it all apart and see what's in it so that's what people do with the relationship about analyzing is a very violent intellectual act if you've never thought of that and it's a victimizing stance it's violent intellectually in that it tears apart now the opposite of analyzing something is synthesizing that is bringing together looking at what holds it together what are the similarities what what is it that we have in common here how much do we enjoy each other what are we for if you're in a relationship and you understand that what you think about is what expands or as you think the social you be is true and you're thinking about what is wrong or what is missing in your partner then for you your experience of them will be what is missing or what is wrong because what you think about is what expands so what you want to do is get focused in your relationships on what you are for what do you like about that person and observe that unless you want the negativity to expand then focus your mind on that because whatever your mind is on will be your experience of them you can't get behind your eyeballs and be that person and be your spouse you only have your mind to be to experience your spouse with and if your mind is on what's wrong then that's what your your experience if your mind is on what's missing on what you don't like then that will be your experience and that's what analyzing a relationship almost always is about you do this and I don't like that and this is one and then that becomes your experience on it when I look at my wife after being gone for on a business trip or whatever I look at I look at the the divineness that is in back of her form I look at the that the thoughts the beauty that is in the invisible part of her and I'm just grateful that she's there rather than thinking about all the things that she's done that I don't like or will that we argued about or whatever I don't want that to continue to expand and so I don't want to analyze our relationship I just want to love her and be loved for what we are because Robert Frost said you love the things you love for what they are not for what they ought to be or what they used to be or what they can do for you but for what they are when you fall in love with someone you fall in love with what they are you don't look in their eyes and say you know you're really beautiful but if only your eyes were a different color then I could like you so much better or if only you were a little taller or a little shorter or a little your hair were a little this or that you don't do that you just go he's just so Gaga in love because you are loving what they are and then you get into a relationship and mature the relationship and now you're mature relationship is you know you should have done this and if only you did that and and that's what destroys it what you want to do is maintain that I love you for what you are and we don't have to analyze it when you're falling in love you don't analyze anything you just simply enjoy being with each other arguing isn't worth defending I know that people do it I do it sometimes I see it as a weakness when I do it it is not worth defending usually the person doing the most talking and the argument is the one who was wrong who was trying to overstate the case and I just was reminded of a cartoon that was in The New Yorker where a fellow said I'll tell you why I'm yelling yelling I'll tell you why I'm yelling I'm yelling because I'm wrong and it's like that that kind of admission that that you finally realized right in the middle of it that yeah I'm raising my voice because I don't know what else to do and I've just realized that I've been arguing isn't worth defending arguing really is saying you know if only you were more like me then I could like you much better that's behind almost every argument that we have if only you could process the world the way I process it we wouldn't be having any of these problems but that isn't what you fall in love with you don't want someone who's exactly like you that's redundant I mean who needs another you you've already got one of those what do you need two of them for you fall in love with what's missing in you and that's usually the opposite and so on usually the great loves are very much opposites and that's what you're attracted to and you'll find that working over and over again if you hear people saying oh we have everything in common you know we like to do everything together and we share the same you know then you can be sure that that relationship isn't going to last long because who needs somebody else to be exactly like you are already now you got a trident if there's such a word so one of the big victimizing traps that we're talking about here in this whole business about being quietly effective is I simply do not understand you and then you buying into that and saying well then I guess my role is to get you to understand and I'll do everything I can to get you to understand and there you go hook line and sinker you just took the big one you're you're you are on your way to being their victim here's some of the traps I don't understand why you do those things right away you're in the trap if you try to explain it how could you do such a thing I've never heard of such a thing how could someone with your brains and your background do such a thing now it's like adding a little bit of insult to it I'm not only shocked and scandalized but disappointed because you of all people I'm stumped you just have me perplexed that's a great one and now you've got to unplug them and you're gonna be a victim soon as you play that game please go over it one more time so I'll understand that this is a very favorite we've already been over to 642 times but one more time and I'll get it and that one more time you're going to become their victim if only you knew how I'm suffering now we add guilt to it all right you don't understand me and I'm suffering because I don't understand you I can't believe you're going to do that now not now not when then you can fill in the blank and this is like I don't understand how you could possibly be going to do something like that now you're gonna go out jogging now when all of the family is here you supposed to stay around and get fat like the rest of them or whatever and you just simply teach them that you are running your life and this is what I'm gonna do and you very well you can lean over and give them a big kiss and say yeah you'll get over it or whatever but you said you don't whatever you do stop to explain why you're going jogging now because you'll never get your jogging and if you do let's look at a few strategies here and how to avoid this I don't understand game and being quietly effective stop explaining yourself whenever you realize that you resent doing so the minute you realize that you are now in a defensive posture of explaining yourself because someone doesn't understand in any way stop instantly right there feel free to explain yourself if you're doing so but if you feel compelled to your strings are being pulled and the demands of others are controlling your life stop telling yourself that you are responsible for making people understand you that's the game they don't understand and that's how they get you to be what they want you to be don't feel that you have a need to get them to understand if they don't get it they don't get it and they probably aren't going to get it there's a lot of people who don't get a lot of the things that I do in my life my children don't understand a lot of the things I do they don't understand why I meditate I meditate every morning a lot of people think that's really silly but I don't care if they think it's silly and I don't have to get them to understand what I get out of it it is my way of going within and discovering a higher part of myself and I go there and now I have taught all the people in my life that that's the way it's gonna be and when a stranger comes along or a family member who isn't around and they think it's absurd then I'm gonna go meditating when everybody is going off to breakfast then I know I've got one more person who was trying to victimize me and get me to not do something that I want to do and I just simply don't go that way one of the great questions to ask when people are doing this to you is to ask the question do you think you could ever understand I mean if I explained it in a language or in words that that you really got do you think he would still understand or are you just simply stuck in not understanding and maybe you can know that the greatest understanding you can have is that you don't understand and that's okay try not to to allow yourself to be seduced into arguments one of the best ways to do that is to just use the center sentence the word you you want me to argue right now and I really just don't want to I just I don't really feel like I need to explain myself and that's enough don't get yourself seduced into it and learn to accept the that other people are going to label you in a certain way other people are gonna think you're weird I think others are gonna think you're freaky and strange and and that's okay there's a lot of people out there who think that about me and it's fine that's just their attitude that's their belief and I have no interest or need to get them to understand me I just want them to be leaving me alone I want them to stand out of my light if you will and and not keep me from doing the things that are important for me to do and whether you understand me or not is really a very little consequence and that's well that's the whole message of this section is to know that people are going to try all of their might with I don't understand and all of the little sub stations of I don't understand to get you to be their victim and do things the way they want you to don't buy into it and you'll find yourself not explaining yourself anymore all right let's take a look at a few more the ways that people are victimized keep in mind as we go through these this one sentence you get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you you get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you if you find yourself being treated in a way that you resent or that turns you into a victim ask yourself the question what have I done to teach this person that this is something I'm willing to tolerate what did I do the very first time somebody raised their voice to me or talk disrespectfully to me what did I do when one of my children disobeyed me and and now they do it all the time how did I teach them that I'm willing to put up with this no blame no fault no self-reproach Minh just an understanding that you have taught these people what you're willing to accept once you take responsibility for it then you can do something to change it if you're just blaming them then you're waiting for them to change in order for your problems to go away and that's like if you drop your key inside the house and you look outside on the street for it I mean why would you look outside when they when the solution is inside if you're if you dropped it inside you got to find it inside and what you have to learn to do is develop an inner candle flame that never flickers though the worst goes before you you must know that all the problems all the difficulties all the victimization that you may feel in your life all of the strings that are being pulled by somebody else are really things that you have allowed up until now and now you make a recommitment to your own excellence or your own non victim status if you will so you want to teach other people how you want to be treated you teach them with word with behavior not with words you you you become very aware of when they are trying to victimize and control you and you put a stop to one of the what great ways that people do this is by judging rather than accepting things for what they are they're great many things in the world that we talk about as if they were real but they are just only judgments you know the only difference between a flower and a weed is a judgment and that's true of people as well here's some things that don't exist in the world disasters luck a dumb bird a normal attitude a guarantee a dreadful dress a gorgeous hairdo terrible language a nice lady an awful sight a good boy a stupid person these are all judgments and you have to learn the difference between judging and what is real some of the categories of that where people dichotomize and judge are good and bad they try to put the whole world into what is good and what is bad based upon some perception I have and those things that don't fit into it the way I think they ought to be are bad and all the things that I agree with are good and so you find yourself going through your whole life running into half of the people or more who are doing things in a different way than you do and judging them all to be bad and therefore being their victim because they now own your emotional strings remember being a victim isn't necessarily a physical thing in fact that's very seldom the thing because we have laws to protect each other from being physically abused by each other it isn't as if somebody's putting you into a jail into a cell it is the the victimization is what you experience in your mind and in your emotions and this comes from judging from from categorizing from compartmentalizing people and putting them into the compartments and then when they don't fit with the behavior that you think they should exhibit you find yourself upset and worked up and angry and hurt good and bad and right and wrong and beautiful and ugly there's no beautiful people before there's no ugly people in the world people are just the way they are they look exactly the way they do the way they're supposed to look they're part of the perfect intelligence that is in all things in the universe that invisible intelligence that is within all of us but if you categorize people that way then you are finding yourself well potentially a victim it's really important to develop a a quiet mind when it comes to when it comes to all of this a quiet mind is a mind that is that is at peace a mind that doesn't judge one of the things you learn about judgment is that you do not define anybody else with your judgments you only define yourself as someone who needs to judge just because you label somebody else to be something obnoxious or nasty or hurtful doesn't mean that that's what they are that's just your judgment and that's your definition of yourself as someone who needs to judge people are not defined by your judgments people are defined by their own thoughts and their own actions that are subsequent to those thoughts so learning not to judge and I'm clogging your mind if you will of judgments and negativity and quieting your mind it's like if you could spend an hour a day in meditation the great French philosopher and scientist Pascal said that all of man's troubles stem from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone you sit quietly in a room alone and go within and discover that higher consciousness whatever you want to call it whether you call it God or soul or spirit or or Louise it doesn't make any difference what you label it if you if you go within and discover that and spend time each day inside of yourself just peacefully being there and asking the questions how may I serve and what is my purpose and what can I do to make this this life a better one and how can I serve people rather than be victimized by them or victimizing anybody else you find that they're developing that kind of a quiet peaceful serene mind is something that will allow you to to process the whole world in a more peaceful way and when you get to that point where you are aligning yourself spiritually or you are lining yourself with the invisible part of your humanity the part that defies form that doesn't begin and doesn't end when you align yourself there and that becomes your first priority you've started you start noticing that you don't get victimized as much I've really noticed that as I've gotten myself on a higher spiritual path today today in a more peaceful path for myself and more at ease with myself that I've begun to take much better care of my body that I noticed that when I don't expect people to be abusive towards me that I hardly ever see it anymore it's really rare that I see it I I know that when I get in the car and I have a 17 mile ride to go to my home from my office and there's a lot of traffic lights and there's a lot of traffic a lot of slow drivers and so on I know that when I visualize in advance in my mind that this is gonna be a very pleasant experience and I see myself if somebody's cutting me off in advance that I see myself not allowing myself to be upset and depressed by that I see myself going through that whole process of driving all the way home in advance is it before I've even opened the car and I sort of play it out in my mind and then I get in and I just allow that allow the physical now to follow the thought that I just had the visualization that I just had and sear enough somebody will get in there and cut me off or drive slowly or whatever and for me it's like I just see them as part of the perfection of it all their work exactly where they're supposed to be at that moment I'm no longer a victim I have aligned myself first with my mind knowing that I can create in my mind what I want and then not allowing myself to be victimized when those things occur and and as I do that I go through my life I find that that as I am more peaceful and I send out more harmony and more love and more forgiveness and more kindness and more of all the things I've been talking about on this date if you send that out more that's what you get back if you send out hostility and pain and suffering and and anger and wanting to make other people wrong and and wanting to prove yourself all that have you if you send out that kind of energy from yourself that's exactly what you're gonna get back send out love you'll get back love send out anger and impatience and that's what you'll get pulling your own strings truly is about looking within and knowing that no one can make you a victim without your consent no one

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Keywords: audiobook, dr. wayne dyer everything that happens is a lesson, tyler perry, own network, own, if loving you is wrong, love thy neighbor, maya angelou, oprah interview, napukan nga anghel, malaikat yang jatuh, interview, pali andjeo, pali anđeo, oprah winfrey network, the oprah winfrey show, oprah where are they now, full episodes, gevalle engel, super soul sunday, langennut enkeli, iyanla fix my life, oprah winfrey show, #oprahwinfreyshow, audiobooks, learn english audiobook

Id: WLJYCd4Wq6E

Length: 87min 58sec (5278 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 26 2020