Fearing the Future ... I am what I fear!Written by Edward B. Toupin
When we were children, we were fearless. We would stick our hands in fire, chew on beetle bugs, and eat that dirt. But, over time, we learned those things that we should not do through experience and from "parental voices" --- those baseless fears passed down through generations. Later in life, we learned that fire burns, beetle bugs are "yucky" and dirt is not nutritious. But, we also learned all of things that our parents learned, including their fears and phobias, and integrated those lessons into our own "belief systems."Our belief systems are basis of our personalities and foundations of our directions in life --- they are rules by which we live. In essence, our fears, desires, and values define each of us. We are what we believe --- including our fears. However, consider what your current fears are that prevent you from moving forward. Realize that these fears are of things that we were taught and those things that we learned on our own --- in past. Fear is based on past experiences and not on those things that we have not yet encountered. With that, we only fear what we've "already experienced." The "fear of unknown" is doubt in future based on circumstances that we've encountered in past. Since we are what we believe, we can change who we are by enhancing our belief systems. To overcome your fears, you must first determine if fear is based on something learned through experience or taught to us by parental voices. Fears that are taught or passed down to us can be more prominent than those we learn from personal experiences because we don't know why we fear such things. We can overcome fears through rational thinking if we're able to learn why such situations occurred that caused fear. But, if we don't know basis, we won't look further because we fear what we "might" find.
| | Lunacy at its Finest ... Crazymakers and Intimidators in your life!Written by Edward B. Toupin
Did you ever run into that person that just nags and picks and scares you into submission? How about that person that appears to turn your world upside-down? What about that person that literally sucks energy right out of your soul? Believe it or not, these people do exist and they can affect you in ways you never thought possible.--- Crazymakers --- A Crazymaker is someone who feeds on negative energies and tends to pull everyone around them into major melodramas. They are type of people who have to either be savior, "I told you so", or center of a situation. They will do anything to take a calm and easy situation and turn it into a disaster to place them in middle. They will then come in and act as though it was your fault just to feed off of your negative vibes and become hero. Then, when you confront them about their ways, they feel as though you're projecting your own weaknesses onto them and they suddenly begin to behave like a psychologist. Or, they will turn from their brutal ways into a simple victim and wonder why world hates them so much. I have known several Crazymakers in my life and, sadly, in my early years, I fell for their behaviors simply because I was not wise enough to know what they were doing. They worked hard to gain my trust and then turned around and created so much turmoil that it was as though I was caught in a tornado. I turned from a confident individual to a half-witted cow caught in updraft of spiraling winds! There are several ways to deal with a Crazymaker, but best way is to simply let them roam in their self-loathing world --- you need to simply stay away. But, you have to be quick enough to identify these types of people because, amazingly enough, they strike fast and hard and minute you falter, they jump in like vultures on a dead carcass. --- Intimidators --- While Crazymakers go out of their way to achieve power through chaos and negative energies, Intimidators go out of their way to achieve power from fear. These types of people are calm and cool on outside and mean-spirited on inside. They tend to work against you to instill self-doubt and act as though "they have you pegged." They do this using pre-determined scripts into which they try to place you so that they can control your moods and direction. In end, as you become frustrated and fall into their scripts that define whom "they think you should be," they too increase their levels of angst to keep you down and under their spell.
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