“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
A strong positive mental attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug.
Whether or not you or someone you know has a personality disorder, healing your personal fears by strengthening your Will helps. However, some of the fears you have, initiate from those around you, and sometimes, by those closest to you, as they attempt to inflict fear, obligation and guilt (FOG) in subtle, or not so subtle ways, including but not limited to emotional blackmail and manipulation.
Whether your fears originate from your own mind and heart, or whether your fears originate as a projection from others that you consciously or unconsciously agree to accept, the remedy is still the same. Heal your Will by strengthening and using it.
Obviously, you do not need the permission of anyone around you to strengthen your will to make decisions based on truth and integrity, not on what others tell you to think, say, and do.
One of the continuing education courses I took for CEUs, was on personality disorders, and possible solutions. As I thought, people with personality disorders rarely improve with medications. Whether people took medications or not, what improved their situation was their own drive and wish to improve.
People did not improve when they chose not to, no matter how intensely those around them wanted them to improve. Addictions to drugs, alcohol, drinking, gluttony, gambling, lying and underhanded dealing in life are the crutches people with personality disorders use to cope with their dysfunction. Notice that they think the problem is with the other guy, not themself.
You can only heal your own addictions yourself, and only then, if you want to improve.
Why do I say if you want to improve?
There is a hidden trap that can sabotage you if you do not fully realize what is going on. On a surface level, you know when you feel bad, your self-esteem is low, or you know you need to do something because you know you do not like the way you are feeling. Living a life with this kind of intense stress shows on the face of the person trying to hide this very thing. It is a dead giveaway. That is when the self-sabotage usually appears.
Self-sabotage infiltrates your thinking. Often the next step in the thinking process is that you review your past failures, even though you tried as best you could to overcome them. You acknowledge how hard you really did try, and then failed, again. After enough of this lying to yourself comes the thought, “Why bother?”
The key to healing and/or minimizing aspects of personality disorders as well as the addictions that so often accompany them, is in your next thought after that. You can break into the negative stream of self-destructing coping behaviors.
The first order of business is to tell yourself to STOP. Stop in your tracks. You CAN take control of your thoughts. You CAN do this.
You think your thoughts, always. Your thoughts do not think you.
Improving how you feel is a three-step process:
- Desire to feel better
- Decide to do something about it
- Know that you are not a victim
Step One, desire to feel better. This comes naturally, no matter how sick you think you are, unless you have beat yourself up beyond recognition. Realize you are still “in there” and you can feel better. Yes, when it comes to the coping behaviors that you have learned like addictions, which always backfire, know there is another way to healing your mind and your habits. Get back that desire to feel better. Know that this is possible.
Step Two, decide to do something about it. Yes, you can. Today, like any other day, you will decide what to do with the next 12-24 hours. Even if an interruption or surprise happens in your day, you will decide what to do with that. You have been deciding what to do with every action you have ever made, good or bad, all of your life. Today you can realize that you can decide to do something different, like beginning the healing process to feel better.
Step Three is HUGE. YOU ARE NOT A VICTIM. You are not a victim of your life. Life did not happen to you without your consent along the way. Life is not always kind or loving. That does not mean that the answer to being hurt along the way is to become hateful, angry and bitter. That only increases the trouble you are currently having. Once you realize that you are not a victim of your life, you can then take the necessary steps to make it better.
Many of the postings in this blog are self-help tools that benefit everyone who wishes to try them. They work 100 percent of the time. The only time they will not work is if someone stops doing them.
In this case, focusing your attention on healing your Will, not giving in to everyone else’s ideas of what you should do in your life, makes your Will stronger. When your Will is strong, family, friends and everyone else, cannot pull your emotional strings as if you were a puppet dancing across life’s stage at the whims of your puppet-master family, friends and others.
These dysfunctional habits of having or accepting fear, obligation, guilt, emotional blackmail and manipulation in your life, often occur to you slowly. You may wonder if something is wrong with you, or why you constantly fall into these traps. It is not until you become aware you are living your life by walking on eggshells that you say enough is enough and strengthen your Will.
You must be in balance to be healthy. Strengthen your Will. It is a human quality for you to use. You are not a doormat. This is how to use the Eternal Universal Life Force Energy that you were born with. It fuels your Spirit/Soul. This Energy always was and always will be regardless of any faith or lack of faith you may possess. This is how Energy works. This is how human nature works.
All personality disorders benefit from healing the Will. Even if you are a person with no personality disorders, you will benefit from strengthening your Will.
Strengthening your Will is not the same thing as turning into a bully, or bowling people over with your words or actions. If you are going to try strengthening your Will, go easy on yourself as you start first observing yourself. Then try positive, life-affirming new behaviors of finding your voice and asserting yourself. You will find a way that will work for you.
But remember, it takes twenty-one days to change a habit. Stay with it and you will bloom where you are planted because you deserve to feel better.