Ron’s control had worked for him to a certain extent. He was financially successful. He had all material things a person could want – a beautiful home, a vacation home, a boat, and all electronics a person could ever use. He had a wonderful family, and he had good health, other than his pain. Yet he was often miserable.

The problem Ron was facing was that having control was far more important to him than being a loving person with himself and with others. As a result, Ron felt empty inside and was constantly looking to others to fill him up. He had no interest in taking responsibility for his own feelings – his own pain and joy. He wanted others or things to make him happy.

Imagine how a child would feel if you put him into a box and told him he could never laugh or cry. This is what was happening with Ron. His Inner Child – his feeling self – was in a box, not allowed to laugh or cry. Laughter and tears are our natural ways of releasing feelings. Without God-given gifts of laughter and tears, our feelings get blocked up inside, eventually causing our muscles to go into painful spasms. This is what was causing Ron’s pain. He could no longer put a lid on his feelings without feeling physical pain.

It was a tough battle for Ron. At those moments when he let go of control and opened his heart to love, pain went away. But his terror of being rejected or controlled was generally more powerful than his desire to be loving with himself and others, and he would close up in face of his fears. He feared that if he opened to his feelings, he would be weak and would be seen as weak, which he feared would lead to both rejection and engulfment.

Ron wanted something he could not have – illusion of safety that being so controlling gave to him, while not suffering from physical pain of being so controlling.

After much hard work, Ron finally saw that being loving to himself by letting himself experience his laughter and tears did not cause weakness, nor rejection and engulfment he feared. In fact, by being more aware of his feelings and allowing himself to express them, Ron learned that he actually felt safer and more powerful than when trying to control everything.

Laughter and tears are great gifts that allow us to release our feelings in healthy ways.

Feel your power. It is a powerful resource to success.

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Internal Dialogue

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All day long, everyday, we talk to ourselves. Sometimes we even talk to ourselves out loud. When we talk to ourselves, what we are really doing is giving out commands to our subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is a very powerful tool and it can carry out its orders efficiently and effectively.

We've been listening to ourselves talk for so long, we have just learned to hear past it. The noise of our inner dialogue can usually and can only be heard if its screaming or if someone points it out.

This discussion is telling us what we need, how we want it, and what we will and will not do in order to get it. We assume, we don't know what we want, until we begin to listen. Until we begin to stop long enough to ask what it is that our internal dialogue wants or needs.

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Success Begins Here

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These are three toughest keys to behaving our way to success. Are you listening to yourself? Are you listening to people who are already successful? All excellent questions to ponder on from time to time. To check in with our self frequently to see where we stand on them. They are keys that are continuously evolving as we mature and will not actually stop. They require gentle nudging, gentle understanding, gentleness all around.

(c) Copyright, Catherine Franz, 2003, 2004. All rights reserved.