Why Me Inquiry

Welcome back books. So you just learn how to dream cast which is how to start pulling your future dream life closer towards you and bring it to you in the now. You learned how to raise your vibration level how to get into positive thinking for more than two minutes a day and how to have a better night’s rest which won’t hurt anybody. Now we’re going to look at putting the past to bed putting it to rest putting closure on it and also how you can reframe the challenges that are happening to you in the present to do so. I’m going to talk about my rape as an example. Let’s just say that another woman also named Hayley had the same experience happened to her. And at 17 she was violently attacked. She almost didn’t survive the attack. She underwent multiple corrective surgeries. She hemorrhaged for six months. She never knew she could have children. And she went through the exact same experience if she framed her experience as why me why did this happen to me. Why do bad things always happen to me. Nothing ever goes my way and completely worthless. I am totally unlovable. More bad things are going to happen. I’m just damned to have bad things happen to me and it’s hopeless. Doesn’t matter what age do bad things are going to happen. If she framed her experience in that way chances are she would also be left with some significant lasting impacts from the event that Haley would quite likely not be able to enter into a healthy adult relationship with a partner that Hayley might jump every time somebody came near her. She may not be able to receive love from her husband that Hailey probably wouldn’t have engaged in the right kind of relationship to then become a wife become a mother and have children because she would have made beliefs up about herself in that same rape experience that one. She had no control over her life too. Why bother trying because negative things are always going to happen. She would have internalized some error files error meaning they’re not correct but there are stories she told herself and your self always believes you that she wasn’t lovable and that she wasn’t worthy and in fact she would create a life for herself where over and over again she’s acting out the same play and any one she engages with in a relationship or work relationship. There are always going to prove her right and act in ways that reinforce her error beliefs that she’s unworthy and unlovable and it’s so it’s so profound when we realize that what we think literally shows up in our lives and how we think about things determines what we tell ourselves that they meant. It determines if we affect our self. It determines all of our future choices. This Haley is confident that I was raped so that I could heal so that I could be empathetic when other people endured sexual abuse or violent attacks of any kind. I’m confident that this Hayley was raped so that she can be a beacon of hope for people that are dealing with trauma and unsure of if they could ever have a great life on the other side. I’m confident that I was raised so that I could go through the fertility challenges that allow me to appreciate my children in a way that I don’t know if other mothers do. I’m confident that this Haley went through the challenges and the traumas that I did so that I could be someone who could be an educator could help people on their journey to heal people just like you. And when I look at what happened to me I have spent the last 20 years rather than feeling sorry for me. I’ve been feeling sorry for him. I put a perspective into my mind that says what kind of horrors did this man go through that would turn him into a person who could treat another human being the way he did. Framing it that way. He was the one that has the problem. I don’t have the problem. And when I look at not just the attack but all the other things that happened into my life I’m really clear that it’s not why me poor me it’s why was I Tozan. What was the lesson in this. What’s the blessing. Who do I get to become after I go through this. What was the growth experience that I needed to experience as a human person as an energetic person. What did my soul need to experience to grow. And how could the world become a better place because of me having gone through this. Folks you know that almost every charity every significant nonprofit organization was started out of one individual’s personal trauma and their battle to make sense of an enormous loss for example when a child is lost. Often an organization is started to commemorate that child so beautiful things can come out of very dark places and the why me inquiry is a series of questions that you ask yourself when you are dealing with something that seems awful and unthinkable something that is bringing stress and pain to your life whether it be in the present or the past. And we reframe the question. Traditionally people ask themselves why me poor me. We go into pity party mode we get we go to a dangerous place called victim land and once we’re there we often never come home. So when you reframe it instead of the why me it’s why me why was I chosen. This is the question to ask yourself why you why were you chosen to endure what you endured. Who thought you strong enough to be able to take it in stride. Why were you asleep or not noticing or appreciating certain things in your life and you needed a wake up call why did something so challenging have to happen. What could you possibly gain from the experience. Who could you possibly help. For having gone through this what book could you possibly write about your journey. What movie or documentary could be made about you. Because of everything that you went through. How many children or adults around the world could be touched by your story other people who have lost hope. How many of them could find their hope in you because of what you went through how you retell your story and how you use it as a pivotal moment to change the course of your life. I’ll give you another example. I have a condition in my me that does not allow me to bend my right knee if I kneel on it or if I do yoga pose like child’s pose and I go to stand up my leg is locked for about a week at a time. So it’s happened to me 132 times in my life where I couldn’t walk I neither in a walker or wheelchair or on crutches. This summer my leg locked again. And as I was sitting there almost entering the why me victim land. Oh my goodness I thought Little kids have got a baby to carry around. Why does this keep happening. I noticed my way of thinking I said to myself is it Hailey. Be careful what you think about and I ask myself this question I said OK. So so what if you were the lady in the wheelchair. What if your leg never unlocked. What if you could never walk again. And what if you were that happy bubbly excited mom and wife and coach and author and speaker in the wheelchair and you know what happened. I I owned it. I embrace that I may actually never be able to walk again. And I pictured that I would actually reach more people if I was in a wheelchair on stage than if I was standing on my two legs when they were working. I pictured that I would not only help people with all their limbs working but I can now work with people who were quadriplegics people that had been in accidents people that were born with severe birth defects. And I started to actually embrace that if I could never walk again I would be able to find the blessing in that mess. And that’s the secret service guys. That’s the secret sauce. When trauma is happening around you or to you when stress is all around when something seemingly horrible is happening you have a choice. You can enter victim land and go to the y me poor me. Why is this happening to me. Or you can enter hero land and you can ask yourself. Hold on I know this sucks. I know this is challenging. I know that right now I’m not loving it. And right now I don’t feel like anguishing for this. But you can ask yourself those questions and I promise you the situation will not have changed but the outcome will change how you perceive it will have changed your mood about it will change your likelihood to enter a depression or turn to substances about it will change and how you step forward in your life from that moment forward will be different. Just because you reframe the story. So I want you to know right now. You as a student you are powerful what you think about comes about how you think about your life shapes how you feel about your life and that shapes the choices and the outcomes. So no matter what happens to you. Let’s not be sorry for what happens to us. Let’s find the blessings in the mess. Let’s find a way to make whatever happens no matter how tragic. Let’s turn it into a positive. Having gone through cancer having gone through depression having come from the other side I have faith that you too can master the resiliency skills can start pulling your good life towards you putting the painful parts of your life behind you and choosing every day to be in a way that inspires you and inspires others. Come on back in the next lecture we’ll recap everything we’ve talked about today.