Hello and welcome back. For those of you who are new here, my name is Showleh Tolbert, I am a certified Master trainer and coach of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), and I specialize in transforming lives and we’ve been talking about How can I change my life and be happy.

So let’s continue to dig deeper.

Now, have you ever asked yourself, how did I end up here? I certainly have when the world around me was falling apart and my life was totally out of control.

You know whether we like or not, whether we are aware of it or not, at any given moment, the total of our conscious choices, plus, our unconscious choices, puts us where we are.

By unconscious choices, I mean the choices that are out of our awareness.

Let me give you an example so you know what I mean. Not only myself but also everyone that knows me considers me to be a strong woman. About twenty years ago I got married to a man that, looking from outside, was every woman’s dream. He was handsome, had a good job, educated, attentive in public, spoke well, was looking for a strong woman to be with, we believed the same things, had the same values, etc. etc.

So, it looked like a match made in heaven.

Oh, he had shared with me that he was abused by his step father in every sense you can imagine for years and he claimed his mom didn’t know about it and he wasn’t going to tell her despite a number of therapists telling him he needed to because he thought he was over the abuse. And another important piece of information he had shared with me was that most of his relationships had ended because it started with the girl-friend being a strong woman but then he ended it because as the relationship went on the person changed and gave up being strong and became needy.

To make the long story short it didn’t take long before the real, let’s call him Mr. X, came out to introduce himself. That was the beginning of six years of emotional and verbal abuse in our marriage and if you know anything about abuse, the scares created by emotional abuse are much deeper than physical or verbal abuse. Well Mr. X was well aware of the fact that when I said I do I meant it and I wasn’t the type of woman that was going to file for a divorce because I hated the “D” word.

Now, all the while we were married everyone around me was noticing that I was fading away, I was no longer the high spirited strong woman I once was. Oh boy, I felt so sorry for myself, poor me. I was being abused and it wasn’t my doing, I had lost control of my life and I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. I distinctly remember every night praying that I would not wake up the next morning because it wasn’t me that was abusing me, it was him and I couldn’t do anything about it.

By the way, I had a strong support group around me that verified my belief about “poor me”.

You see, as long as I was pushing the cause, meaning taking responsibility for allowing the abuse to continue outside of me, I can’t under any circumstances get the learnings, get the lessons, so, I can’t un-chose something that isn’t me and I’m not gonna get the choice.

So, I said:

What happened to me?

This Sucks! I Hate it!

How did I end up here?

And I have to say in his defense he didn’t lie, he was very truthful about his past. On the other hand, I unconsciously choose to ignore all the things he told me about himself. Now, I get how I created it unconsciously, now, how do I uncreate it? So I took responsibility, I began to see how I caused the pain in my life. I chose to be at the cause of it and then I decided to change that cause. So, on Christmas day, 2003, I chose something different. That’s a really important concept. “ I chose something different”

Now, was it easy? No, it took a lot of courage and determination on my part. I was willing to do whatever it took to take my life back.

Did I do it on my own? No. I hired a professional coach to help guide me, NOT advising me, pay attention NOT advising me, guiding me step by step to pull out all the resources I had within me to take responsibility and be at cause.

By the way, I am not saying that you created all the bad things that happened to you. What I am saying is, the sum total of our conscious choices plus our unconscious choices, put us where we are today. And that’s what I mean by results vs reasons or excuses.

So, One of the questions that you’re gonna have to answer for yourself is which side of life’s equation are you on, are you at the cause and creating the results you want or are you at the effect side and things are being done to you as if you had no control. Because as long as we are pushing the cause outside of ourselves, we are not getting results. I supposed we are getting results but not the results we want. Yeah?

Which side are you on?

You decide, you know what’s best for you.

I create all the things that happen in my life, I am in charge OR are you on the effect side, where things are done to me, things happen to me, I am the victim. You decide, you know what’s best for you.

Meaning, oh it’s raining outside, I’m tired, so, therefore, I can’t be motivated today, it’s just an excuse and won’t exist anymore. If you CHOOSE, you can be motivated, regardless of how the weather is, or how much sleep you had the night before.

You know people who are very successful in business, regardless of how the economy goes. You know, even if the economy is going down and it’s in recession, these people are very successful. So, what makes those people successful? And there are other people that are not successful in business even when the economy is booming?

My intention for you is to be inspired to change what is not working, to take charge of your life, personally and professionally to get results and learn how to be in charge and how to keep doing what they’re doing successfully regardless of the outside conditions. But that means that those people will assume the cause side, the responsibility, and the results of their actions and doing. Are you ready to take control, to change your mindset and be at cause?

So, why don’t you pretend that every experience that you go through, Is of Your Own Creation and you are Totally at Cause For It. Only to see How it is. It’s just a pretense. Try it on. Because if you never try it on, it’s just a theory and you don’t know how it is. See how it works. Would you agree to play this game? That’ll be great. It will give you a whole new experience.

Thank you for giving me your valuable time. I appreciate you. If you got value please be sure to subscribe and come back for a visit as we dig deeper into our behaviors and beliefs and ways we can permanently change what’s not working in our life.

If you are ready to grow personally or professionally; or you may have an interest in becoming a certified coach, I teach what I do or perhaps you may want to receive coaching, spend some time here, take a look around and then be sure to reach out to me by phone 949-522-1615 or email, info@nlpsuccesscoaches.com.

This is Showleh Tolbert wishing you well.

See you next week.