How to Embrace Our Tragedies and Make Peace with our Past

This is not easy.  It requires a willingness to see things differently, a willingness to be guided into the dark recesses in our past and make meaning of the experience.  In order for us to transform our wounds and heal our pain, we must find the courage to go back and extract the good that came out of those experiences, find the gifts in the wounds, and turn our suffering into blessings.  Whether it’s with me or another coach or therapist, the person you choose must have earned your trust.  They have earned the right to hear your story and they stand as a sacred witness to the encounter with the beast, or, as I like to call it, our shadow.  Now, there is no person who’s work best understands the necessity for going into the shadow and finding its gifts than the work of the late Debbie Ford.

The work of Debbie Ford was instrumental in helping me to integrate the shadow side of myself during my healing process, and she is one of my most honored teachers.  Debbie Ford’s life work was focused on understanding the shadow.  The shadow is something we all must face, all of us who suffer from Post-Traumatic Soul Distress.  For some, it’s the encounter with the Beast; for others, it’s those things about ourselves we don’t want to admit, or we hide from others, its secretive, it’s everything we don’t want other people to see or know about us.  It’s the thing we lie about to others, it’s what we lie about to ourselves, and it’s what we are hiding. 

The I Ching says:

“It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any self-deception or illusion, that a light will develop out of the events by which the path to success may be recognized.”

For time sake, I’m going to go through the highlights of the movie “The Shadow Effect” by Debbie Ford, which I have all my clients watch and which I encourage all of you who are reading this blog to watch as well before you go into the work with your shadows, with your traumas, with the pains of your past.  It will give you some awareness of things you may not have known before, and it will help ease the process as you navigate through the dark recesses, these secrets that you keep from yourself and from others.  I’m going to hit on some of the key notes from the film that I believe will be of so much value to you. My goal is when you finishing reading this post, you will have received valuable information you can immediately utilize in your lives as you begin to face your shadows.  Again, I don’t recommend doing this alone, find someone you can relate to, who understands and has been there, who gets it, who will stand with you as a sacred and honored witness as you travel through the Underworld and retrieve your light back.   

To experience one aspect of the soul you have to experience its counter-force.  The shadow comes from thoughts, from emotions, from impulses we find are so repulsive and are distasteful to accept.  So instead of dealing with them, we repress them, and it shows up as: drinking too much, cheating on your wife or your spouse, or getting into fights, screaming at your kids, verbally abusing your partners, and it can even get to the point where its dangerous, where you are thinking of taking someone else’s life. 

There are hundreds of millions of people living in denial of their own shadow.  And all of us are being affected by the collective shadow.  And this manifests as evil, as war, as terrorism, and social injustice. 

The birth of the shadow begins when we are very young.  When we don’t have the rational mind quite developed yet to filter out the messages that are coming in and we are shamed for behaviors that we do.  These messages get ingrained in our subconscious and, like a virus, it gets stuck there and sabotages our sense of self.  It wounds our otherwise healthy egos and then we end up suppressing these qualities, we don’t want others to see these qualities in us, so we build a false self around it.  

We build a false self around these negative ideas we have about ourselves to show everyone we meet that we are not this person.  We create these personas so that we can belong.  We build masks, and live life behind them, and they become our prisons.  When we deny ourselves an outlet for our dark side, it builds up and it builds up, and it becomes a very powerful force that is capable of destroying not only ourselves but the lives of others as well.

You are either going to use it or it is going to use you.  As my dear friend and healer, Miguel Rivera, who runs purification ceremonies for veterans says, “The Beast is a propellant.  If it’s not related to you, it will come after you.”  We must find a way to make friends with it, and by uniting the head with the heart, gain control of the shadow part of our own humanity, without allowing it to dominate us.  The purpose of confronting our shadows is to complete our initiation, our transformation.  We lost our innocence during the events which traumatized us.  These shadows of the past haunt us until we face them.  We need courage, compassion, and empathy for ourselves as we do this. The key though, is when we meet our shadows, we mustn't stay stuck, and we must find the meaning in the experience.  When we are able to identify the meaning these experiences had for us, we come to understand both good and evil and the part we played; we then can begin the process of transforming ourselves through integration of the lessons learned, which allows the charge of the past to fall away, as our souls become larger than the events that occurred, and we are wiser for the experience.  And then, we can use these experiences to bring about the greatest good for all within the community. 

Every quality you see in someone else is in you.  The sinner and the saint; someone who is worthy and someone who is unworthy; someone who is lovable and someone who is unlovable; someone who is brilliant; someone who is stupid; who is a winner; who is a loser; who is kind; who is mean; who is selfish, or who is selfless; who is forgiving; who is blaming; we possess it all.  We are everything.  Rather than confronting our own darkness, we project these unwanted qualities on to others.  When we project these unwanted qualities onto others, we lose bits and pieces of ourselves, and they hold on to some of our unclaimed light as well, because we projected it away.  What we judge in others or condemn is a disowned part of ourselves, and we attack it because it is the part in us that we hate.  And, this is a really important part to get, when we react to a projection, you become that projection.  When you react with an equal force to the aggressor, you become the aggressor.

I think it’s important here to understand what the difference is between a response and a reaction.  The root word of response is responsibility, it comes from a French word which means ‘standing on principle.’  So when you are responding, you’re coming from a place of being.  My being is stable, at peace, connected, creating harmony.  These are the principles that I stand for.  And when I’m responding, I’m responding from that space.  I’m breathing in, I’m checking in on an unconscious/subconscious level with my principles, and then I’m responding.

When you react, there is an action happening, which is re-enacting a belief system, an exchange.  A reaction is taking an action that has occurred before and happening again.  It’s an automatic way of being for us, for society.  It’s not principle based.  So, what you want to do is re-stand on principle, dig in deep, and find a principle that you connect with.  You are constantly looking at what do I stand for?  What do I stand for?  And as other things come up, and they are going to come up, you dig back into the work, the bliss list you created, the value system that you created for yourself.  Everything is an opportunity to reflect, to share, to connect with what you stand for.  Everything is trying to give you something, and this includes the yelling, the screaming, and the traumas.    

If we don’t face what’s in us that needs to be faced, the darkness, and shine a light in the dark, by ignoring these destructive patterns and impulses in you, you will self-destruct; you will implode, rather than explode. 

Traumas affect our brains, they change our brains functions, and consequently, this changes the chemicals and hormones released into the body, which is not a good thing.  So it’s important to express any kind of pain.  Without that expression and how we express it, it stays with us, it gets lodged in the body, and causes us to react and live unconsciously.  If these emotions and what you think, the things that have not been processed from the pains and traumas of your past, it will pollute your system.  These are the most toxic things to our bodies and lead to all the physical, emotional, and psychological impairments that show up later in life.  Our thoughts and emotions affect the organs of the body, there is indisputable evidence.  If we repress our anger, it might seem like it’s a good solution, but pretty soon we run out of places to hide.  By repressing our shadow, it can lead to destructive behaviors.     

We have to resolve the undigested emotions that are in our bodies and dislodge the stress in our minds.  We have to unearth, own, and embrace the very parts of ourselves that have caused us the most pain, and the moment we do, the light of our awareness will begin the process of transforming them.  Everyone has gone through some kind of trauma.  And if we dig deep enough, there is gold to be found in every experience.  Bad experiences can be enlightening experiences because they help us to be who we are.  They help us to be more compassionate, they help is to be forgiving, and they help us to be more loving.  So the gold that we seek, it’s hidden within the dark.  We have to embrace our totality, all that we have disowned, and when we do, we experience freedom, and we embrace it with love.  The more we move through the shadows of our past, the painful memories and experiences, the more light we reclaim.  And we do this kind of work, leading you through your Underworld to reclaim your light, to get you to the point of catharsis.  Which is the true moment of forgiveness.  You forgive yourself, you forgive others, and you are transforming that pain into the material to be used for the manifestation of, the full embodiment of, the greatest version of yourself, the greatest expression of yourself. 

You don’t have to carry this shame with you all alone, you don’t have to keep it secret, and there are people out there who are willing to shine a light for you so that you can see who you really are beyond the shadow.  You've got to fight your way out of the darkness. And I honor people in that way, in that most vulnerable level, because I understand, I've been there, and I will walk with you step by step to get you to the other side.  I took my own medicine. I’m not asking you to do anything I haven’t already done.  We will find what you have learned that gives value to your experience and helps you to transform those wounds into gifts.

Debbie Ford reminds us in the film, “Forgiveness doesn't happen in your head, until it happens in your heart.” 

I want to move forward now to one of the most important exercises I have my clients do when I work with them in healing the pain of their past.  This is just one of many tools I have to help you unlock the prison doors which keep you locked up in the painful recycling of memories, triggers, and images from the past.  I could spend several hours going over how to embrace your tragedies, it is a process one must be willing and ready to do, and have the commitment and dedication to do it.  You must want to heal more than anything, and be willing to invest the time into your own healing, for yourself and for others. 

When you look at your traumas, and when you work with me we will look at all of them, we are going to ask the question, ‘What would you like to re-shape?’  With just this one question, you give yourself the opportunity to re-shape all of your conflicts.  You want to look back at all the conflicts in your life and at the genesis of the conflict, where it began.  And then, you are going to write an essay about it.  At the top of the paper, you want to write ‘I am Whole.  I choose this experience just the way it is.’  You put this at the top of the page, and then you write about it and what you take from the experience. 

It’s important to take the time to find the gifts wrapped up in the tragedy.  Ask yourself these questions as you are going through this part of your life story:  ‘What is the gift?’  ‘How does it serve you?’ ‘What is it trying to teach you?’  What you are looking for is the gifts in the wounds. There is something to be found in there. 

It’s our secrets that keep us sick.  Unlock these secrets.  And while you do this resist all temptation to shame yourself.  Shame is what keeps us doing the same thing over and over again.  Shame is a destructive force, it is the most painful feeling connected to the feelings of unworthiness, it is the lowest energy of the universe.  A healthy shame is designed to support us when we are behaving well or badly.  However, when it becomes negative, it will destroy.  The antidote for shame is true empathy.  Shame cannot survive empathy.  You must have compassion for yourself as you work through these dark places, and have someone there whose empathy and love is totally unconditional and non-judgmental to guide you through to the other side.

The only thing we have to heal within ourselves is to tell the truth.  To become an honest person we must own our shadows, we must own our own darkness, and bring the light of truth to the darkness.  When you shine a light in the dark, the darkness goes away, because ultimately the darkness is nothing.  It is merely the absence of light.  Tell the truth from your whole heart, speak the truth of your experience from your whole heart, and as the adage goes, ‘it will set you free.’

The gold is in the dark.  There are things there to be found which can help you to detoxify the toxic emotions that have kept you imprisoned by these events.  There is something there to teach you, there is something there to reclaim.  Trust in the process as you write your story out, trust in the things I am asking you to do.  This is one of the most effective ways in which I healed myself, by examining the areas in my life that had traumatized me and found the lessons to be learned.  When I got the lesson, it broke the emotional and psychological stranglehold these events had on me, and like a river of ice which suddenly breaks, the water began to flow again, the ice began to melt, and the flow and joy of life returned.  This process works.

I want to say something about emotional triggers.  Emotional triggers, whenever you feel triggered, these are alarms – they are cues to your shadows, they are cues to the secrets of your past, they actually have nothing to do with what is going on in front of you right now, it has something to do with what happened in the past.  It shows you something that you need to uncover and reclaim about yourself.  So, when the triggers come up, start identifying them, and go back to where it originated.  Put down the internal bat, and investigate where and how this began, how it has affected your life, and uncover what it is trying to teach you.  One of the keys for this process to work is you must take full ownership of your life, all of it.  Being at the source of your own life, you are finally able to make the changes necessary to bring about the things you want to experience.  And to clear up the past, you must own up to the part you played in it, and that, on some level, you created it.  This will be different for each individual.  We are not the same, your story is yours, and your traumas are yours.  You know you have grown beyond what has happened to you when you can stand up and say, ‘This is my past.  This is what happened.  And I am better for the experience.  It has given me everything I need to be the greatest version of myself today.  I am grateful for it all.  I wouldn't change a thing.’

The most commonly suppressed emotions turn toxic when we suppress them.  You've got to take on the self-hate, the guilt, the shame, the anger, and see it for what it is.  All the hurt, the hopelessness, the sadness, the jealousy, anger, and hate – you want to ask yourself when confronted by these messengers, ‘what would I have to see, what would I have to know, to digest enough of my history that is stored in my body so that when new emotions open up, new feelings, that they aren't triggered by the 42 events in my past’.  You've got to look at your negative emotions not as enemies, but as friends trying to tell you something.  They are trying to guide you, help you, and support you into becoming something better, something greater. 

Another great question to ask yourself when you look at these events is ‘what do you think you made it mean about you when this happened?’  Did you shame yourself?  Did you think of yourself as a bad person?  A failure, a reject, a killer?  The story is emotionally charged by the meaning you have given it.  You want to understand what you made it mean about you, and why you no longer believe this to be true utilizing universal spiritual truths based on love, peace, and forgiveness as the new baseline for your life.  Eventually, when you have purged the story out on paper, the next step is you want to reduce these painful stories to their elementary facts.  You made it mean something about you that was going on back then, and because you haven’t fully digested it, it keeps coming back, until you get it.  

We all have a unique recipe.  You must learn to love those parts of you that you have disowned; you have got to integrate them back into you.  Discover, as you are writing about your traumas, the good that came out of it.  How did you grow?  What did you become good at?  What lessons did you learn?  What are you grateful for?  What wisdom can you gain?  There is life wisdom to be gained.  

We learn our lessons in the valley, not on the mountain top.  And, if we don’t learn how to forgive ourselves and others, the train stops.  So look at the life wisdom you can take away from the experience.  What was this experience designed to teach you?  What is the lesson to be learned that you can extract from the experience and turn into a blessing?  What did you gain?  What qualities did you develop?  What relationships opened up to you as result of this experience, and what do you know now as a result of having this experience?  How can this new wisdom contribute to your future?  And how can it alter the way you see yourself, the way you see others, the way you see the world? 

These questions, along with the ones I spoke about earlier, you need to ask and answer for yourself as you examine the traumas in your life.  This is challenging work.  Ease into it, be gentle and kind with yourself, when emotions come up, and they will, feel them, let them out and run their course, and when you come back to a place of balance and equanimity, return to the work, get to the cause and source of all your pain, and uproot it.  Go at your own pace, and leave no stone unturned.  The reward of total freedom, peace, and release from your past awaits you on the other end. 

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Charlie Pacello is a PTSD, Depression, and Healing Trauma Recovery Expert and Life Coach, a former US Air Force Lieutenant, and creator of the program, 'Lt. Pacello's Life Training Program.'  He can be reached by visiting his website at www.charliepacello.com

The Opportunity of Adversity - The Amie Mullins Story

How do you look at adversity in your life?  Is it something you become afraid of, try to avoid, or fear?  Or is it something you use as a means to becoming the greatest version of yourself?  Well, I want to tell you the story of Amie Mullins, and how she was able to overcome the extreme challenges in her life and prove to all of us, that in spite of what life may have dished out to us, and the experiences we may have had, we still have it within us to reach our fullest potential and excel in whatever we put our minds to. 

Amie was born without fibular bones, and had both of her legs amputated below the knee when she was just an infant.  She learned to walk on prosthetics, then to run – competing at the national and international level as a championship sprinter, and setting world records at the 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta.  At Georgetown, where she double majored in history and diplomacy, she became the first amputee to compete in NCAA Division 1 Track and Field.  This is her story.

This information all comes from the video in which I share with my clients and most of this is in her own words, because what she has to say is so invaluable I want you to have it now.  In the video, Amie stands on the stage and talks to us about being disabled.  She reads us the entry in a thesaurus of the word ‘disabled.’  Here it is:

Disabled:  An adjective.  Crippled, helpless, useless, wreaked, stalled, maimed, wounded, mangled, lame, mutilated, run-down, worn-out, weakened, impotent, castrated, paralyzed, handicapped, senile, decrepit, laid-up, done-up, done for, done in, cracked up, counted out.  See also hurt, useless, weak.  Ant.  Healthy, strong, capable.

When Amie first read this in the thesaurus, she laughed, it was so ludicrous, but then she got choked up around the word ‘mangled.’  Amie had to stop and collect herself from the emotional shock and impact the assault from these words unleashed.  Print date of this thesaurus was from the early 1980’s.  Thank God she didn't read that as a child growing up.  From this entry, it would seem that Amie was born into a world that would perceive someone like Amie to have nothing positive whatsoever going for them.  When, in fact, today she is celebrated for the opportunities and adventures her life has procured. 

Amie decided to look up the updated version of this entry for ‘disabled.’  She looked in the 2009 Edition of the Merriam-Webster Thesaurus.  Unfortunately, it wasn't much better.  Here are some of the entries for ‘disabled’ in this one:

Disabled: blind, deaf, mute, paralyzed, quadriplegic, immobile, immobilized, ailing, diseased, ill, sick, unfit.  Some near ant: bouncing, chipper, fit, healthy, hearty, robust, whole, wholesome.  Ant: able-bodied, nondisabled.

Amie found these to be very unsettling, and she was right, these are unsettling words.  They carry a lot of power.  But it’s not just about the words.  It’s about what we believe when we label people with these words.  It’s about the values behind the words and how we construct those values.  This is something I really want you to get.  Our language affects our thinking, and how we view the world and how we view other people.

Many ancient societies believed, including the Romans and the Greeks, that to utter a curse verbally was so powerful because to say the thing out loud brought it into existence.  So, if this is true, what reality do we want to call into existence?  Do we want to call into existence a person who is limited or a person who is empowered?  By casually doing something as simple as naming a person, a child, we might be putting lids and casting shadows on their power.  Wouldn't we want to open doors for them instead?

The person who opened the door for Amie was her childhood doctor, Dr. Pizzatillo.  He had the perfect disposition to work with children.  One of the things Amie had to do as a five year old child was work with these thick elastic bands during her physical exercise repetitions.  Amie hated it.  She tried as a five year old child to bargain her way out of doing the exercises but to no avail.  Dr. Pizzatillo came in one day and told her, when she was having a very difficult time, ‘Wow, Amie, you are such a strong, powerful little girl, I think you’re going to break one of those bands.  When you do break it, I’m going to give you 100 bucks.’  This was a simple ploy to get Amie to do the exercises.  And, it worked.

What he effectively did for her was re-shape an awful daily occurrence into a new and promising experience for her.  His vision and declaration of her as a strong and powerful little girl shaped her own view of herself as inherently strong and powerful person well into the future.  This is an example of how adults in positions of power can ignite the power of a child. 

But if you think back to the previous entries I wrote out for you from the thesaurus about ‘disabled’, our language isn't allowing us to evolve into the reality that we would all want: the possibility of a person to see themselves as capable.  Our language just hasn't caught up with the changes in our society, much of which has been brought up as a consequence of technology.  Just take a look at all the medical marvels that we have:  people can get titanium knees and hips, prosthetic legs, there is laser surgery to correct vision – think about that for a second.  This is amazing.  Look at our social media networking platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc – this enables us to self-identify and own our own dispositions about ourselves.  Technology is revealing to us what has always been a truth: that everyone has something rare and powerful to offer our society.  And this above all: our human ability to adapt is our greatest asset.                    

People always wanted to talk to Amie about overcoming adversity, and to Amie, this phrase never sat right with her.  Implicit in this phrase – overcoming adversity – is the idea that success or happiness is about emerging on the other side of a challenging experience unscathed or unmarked by the experience.  As if her successes and achievements in her life came about by side-stepping or circumnavigating the presumed pitfalls of living a life with prosthetics, or what other people perceive as her disability.

But the fact is we are changed.  We are marked by a challenge, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually, or all of them combined, and what Amie suggests in this video is that this is a good thing.  Adversity isn't an obstacle that we need to get around in order to resume living our life.  It’s a part of our life.  It’s like your shadow, it’s always with you.  Now this is not intended to diminish any of your struggles.  You may have experienced absolute horrors in your life, incredible conflicts and destructive violence, on either an emotional or a physical level, or both; you may have seen things you wish you’d never have seen; you may have done things you wish you’d never had done; you may have experienced extraordinary pain in your life; I am not in any way diminishing the significance of a person’s struggle with PTSD, depression, and trauma.  But the question is not whether you are going to meet with adversity, but how are you going to meet it?

Our responsibility is not simply shielding those we care about from the challenges of adversity, but preparing them to meet it well.  We do a disservice to our kids, our friends, and our loved ones when we make them feel they are not equipped to adapt.  There is a very important distinction between the medical fact of Amie being an amputee and the subjective societal opinion that Amie is disabled.  Truthfully, the only real and consistent disability Amie had to face in the world was ever thinking she could be described by the definitions of being disabled.  In our desire to protect those we care about from the truth of their medical prognosis, or a prognosis on the expected quality of their life, we have to make sure we don’t put the first brick in a wall that will actually disable somebody. 

Perhaps the existing model of looking at you and seeing what is broken in you and how do we fix it serves to be more disabling to an individual than the pathology itself.  By not treating the wholeness of a person, by not acknowledging their potency, we are creating another ill on top of whatever natural struggle they may have.  PTSD is normal, honorable, and inevitable in environments of intense conflict.  It’s a sign of your own humanity.  You should have been wounded by these events and you need to take the time to heal and mend your wounds, share your story with those who understand and can guide you back to yourself, who can help you to transform the pain of those memories and turn those experiences into gifts.  I've said this before, and I will say it again.  We will continue to re-live the same traumas over and over again in some form until we transform them.  You accomplish this transformation by connecting to your wholeness. 

However, when we don’t treat the wholeness of a person, when we don’t acknowledge their potency, what happens is we are effectively grading someone’s worth to our community, so we need to see through the pathology, and into the range of human capability.  Each and every one of you reading this blog can overcome, heal, and transform your pain.  I've done it.  I know how to do it.  And you can do it as well.

There is a partnership between those perceived differences and our greatest creative ability.  It’s not about devaluing or degrading these difficult trying times as something we want to avoid but instead, find those opportunities wrapped in the adversity. 

Here’s Amie’s idea what to do when adversity confronts us, and I agree with her 100%.  She says ‘it’s not so much about overcoming adversity, but opening ourselves up to it; embracing it; Dancing with it.’   

Adversity is natural, consistent, and useful and when we look at it in that way we are less burdened by the presence of adversity. 

Charles Darwin has a great quote about the essence of the human character.  He says, “It’s not the strongest, or the most intelligent, it’s the one that is most adaptable to change that survives.”  Conflict is the genesis of creation.  The human ability to thrive and flourish is driven by the struggles of the human spirit through conflict into transformation.  This is our greatest human skill: transformation and adaptation.  It’s not until we are tested that we learn what we are made of and maybe, that’s the gift of adversity - a sense of Self; a sense of our own power. 

When we look at it this way, we can give ourselves a gift.  We can re-imagine adversity as change.  It’s just change we haven’t adapted to just yet. 

So many people talk about being normal.  We often hear people saying, “I just want to be normal”, or “Why can’t you be normal?” as if being normal was the ultimate desire to be cherished.  But what is normalcy?  There’s no normal.  There’s common, there’s typical, but there’s no normal.  We must change this paradigm from achieving normalcy to possibility or potency, and then we can release the power of so many people, children and adults alike, and invite them to engage in their rare and invaluable abilities with the community. 

Anthropologists say the one thing we as humans have always required of our community members is to be of use, to be able to contribute.  And there is a vast potential in the Human Will.  This is our X factor.  Unless repeatedly told otherwise, and given a little support, a child or an adult will achieve.  There is a difference between the medical condition and what someone might do with it.  No prognosis, whether it’s an amputee or a person with PTSD, can account for how powerful this could be in the determinate in the quality of someone’s life. 

At 15 years old, if you would have asked Amie if she would have traded her prosthetics for flesh and bone legs, she wouldn't have hesitated for a second.  She aspired for that ‘normalcy’ back then.  But if you ask her today, she’s not so sure.  And it’s because of the experiences she’s had with them, and not in spite of the experiences she’s had with them. 

All you need is one person, one person, to show you the epiphany of your own power, and boom, you’re off.  If you can hand someone their own key to their own power, our spirit is so receptive, if you can do that for someone, and open a door for them at a crucial moment, you are educating them in the best sense.  You are teaching them to open doors for themselves.

To Educate.  The root word of educate is ‘educe’ which means to bring forth what is within to bring out potential.  So my question to you is: What potential do you want to bring out?

There was an interesting case study done in the 1960’s England called the ‘Streaming Trials.’  What they did was they separated ‘A’ students from ‘D’ students and for 3 months, they gave the ‘D’ students ‘A’s, told them they were ‘A’s, they were bright, and at the end of the 3 months, these students were performing at ‘A’ level.  The heartbreaking flipside is they told the ‘A’ students they were ‘D’ students, and that’s exactly what happened.  They failed.  Others dropped out.  A crucial part of this case study was the teachers were duped too.  The teachers were simply told that these are the ‘A’ students and these are the ‘D’ students, and that’s how they went about treating them and teaching them. 

What does this show us?  It shows that the only true disability is a crushed spirit.  A person who has a crushed spirit doesn't have any hope, they don’t have any curiosity or a deflated curiosity, they don’t see any beauty in life, and it deprives a person of his or her innate ability to imagine. 

If instead we could bolster the human spirit to keep hope, see the beauty in themselves and in others, and to be curious and imaginative, then we are truly using our power well.  When a spirit has those qualities, we are able to create new realities and new ways of being. 

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Charlie Pacello is a PTSD, Depression, and Healing Trauma Recovery Expert and Life Coach, a former US Air Force Lieutenant, and creator of the program, 'Lt. Pacello's Life Training Program.'  He can be reached by visiting his website at www.charliepacello.com

Promises to Make to Yourself for 2015

2015 has just begun, and we all want to start it off on the right foot.  We set new resolutions, plans get underway to make changes in our lives, and we often discover after a month or two has passed, we have fallen behind on what it is we set out to do for the upcoming year.  So, how can you keep focused on the year ahead?  Drawing up a list of promises to make to yourself is one of them.  I've provided a list of 12 promises which I believe will help you to set the stage for 2015 as one of your best years yet.  It's a list which has helped me immensely.  I encourage each of you who read this blog to print it out and post it where you can look at it daily.  Whenever I'm being challenged by life as to what I ought to do, I take a look at this list, and really let it sink in.  It has a way of grounding me back into myself, and helps to keep me focused on the things I want to experience in my life.  

To be honest with you, I struggle with knowing what to do sometimes.  I get so lost.  This list was given to me by Dr. Sarah Larsen, one of my mentors, and a dearest friend.  It has helped me stay focused on ways to focus my energy until I was beyond this.  These are simple but powerful statements you can gift to yourself everyday which can truly make 2015 a year unlike any other.

Repeat after me: “I promise…”

1. “I will not hold the past against myself.” – Your problems, your weaknesses, setbacks, regrets and mistakes teach you if you’re willing to learn, or they will punish you if you’re not.   So let them teach you, every day.  Take everything as a lesson learned.  If you regret some of the decisions you have made in the past, stop being so hard on yourself.  At that time, you did your best with the knowledge you had.  At that time, you did your best with the experience you had.  Your decisions were made with a younger mind.  If you were to make these decisions with the wisdom you have today, you would choose differently.  So give yourself a break.  Time and experience has a wonderful way of helping us grow and learn to make better choices today, for ourselves and those we care for.
2. “I will own my life and never deny responsibility for it.” – Through the grapevine, you may have learned that you should blame your parents, your teachers, your mentors, the education system, the government, etc., but never to blame yourself.  Right?  It’s never, ever your fault… WRONG!  It’s always your fault, because if you want to change, if you want to let go and move on with your life, you’re the only person who can make it happen.  It’s YOUR move to make.  It’s YOUR responsibility.  Own it!
3. “I will speak kindly and consciously to myself.” – Wait, what did you just say to yourself?  Were they the inspiring, encouraging words you would speak to a friend?  Or were they the belittling remarks you might shout to an enemy if you had no heart.  Or the negative assessments about life you would utter if you had no faith?  All day long we speak silently to ourselves, and a part of us believes every word.  So stay mindful, and ask yourself, “If I had a friend who always spoke to me in the same way that I am speaking to myself right now, how long would I allow that person to be my friend?”  (Read Loving What Is.)
4. “I will listen to what my heart and soul is telling me.” – When something feels right, that means it is right for you (at least it is worth looking into).  And if you genuinely feel deep down that something is wrong, it probably is.  Pay attention to your authentic feelings, and follow where they lead.  When you’re following your inner voice, doors tend to eventually open for you, even if they mostly slam at first.
5. “I will live a life that feels right to me, not one that looks right to others.” – Give yourself permission to follow the path that makes YOU happy.  And realize that some people in your life will refuse to walk beside you as you embark on this journey; they simply won’t approve no matter what you say, and that’s OK.  Sometimes when you commit yourself to creating your own happiness, it clashes with the perceptions of others.  Sometimes when you gain something great, you have to let go of something else.  And sometimes this ‘something else’ is a relationship that only wants you to do what they want you to do.
6. “I will let go of relationships that are obviously not meant to be.” – Most people come into your life temporarily simply to teach you something.  They come and they go and they make a difference.  And it’s OK that they’re not in your life anymore.  Not all relationships last, but the lessons these relationships bring to you do.  If you learn to open your heart and mind, anyone, including the folks who eventually drive you mad, can teach you something worthwhile.  Sometimes it will feel weird when you realize you spent so much time with someone you are no longer connected to, but that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.  You are exactly where you’re supposed to be.  We all are.  (Angel and I discuss this in detail in the “Relationships” chapter of 1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently.)
7. “I will not let any situation permanently steal my smile.” – Even when times are tough, take a moment to pause and remember who YOU are.  Take a moment to reflect on the things that have real and lasting meaning in your life.  And then smile about how far you've come.  Honestly, nothing in this world is more beautiful and powerful than a smile that has struggled through the tears.  Any fool can be happy when times are easy.  It takes a strong soul with real heart to develop smiles out of situations that make us weep.  No matter how long it takes, it will get better.  Keep going.  Tough situations build strong people in the end.
8. “I will celebrate and appreciate the life I have.” – Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.  Don’t be one of them.  Take a breath of fresh air.  The past is behind you.  Focus on what you can do today, not on what you could've or should've done yesterday.  Remember, for everything you've lost, you've gained something else.  Appreciate what you have and who you are today.  Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful.  Count your blessings, not your troubles.  It costs nothing to be positive, and it changes things for the better.  Your thoughts are yours to control, so make good use of them to give your actions and your life a powerful advantage.
9. “I will realize and use my power to make a difference.” – The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.  Don’t do this.  The world needs you.  In a world filled with doubt, you must dare to dream.  In a world filled with anger, you must dare to forgive.  In a world filled with hate, you must dare to love.  In a world filled with distrust, you must dare to believe.  And once you do, I promise, you will find that power you once thought you lacked.
10. “I will dedicate myself to personal excellence.” – Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.  And excellence is never an accident.  It’s the result of high intention, focused effort, intelligent direction, skillful execution, and the vision to see obstacles as opportunities.  It’s also important to note that excellence cannot be judged by looking at where you are at any given point in time, but by measuring the distance you have traveled from the point where you started.  It’s about being diligent and making progress – either a step forward or a lesson learned – day in and day out.  (Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.)
11. “I will keep stretching myself beyond my previous level of comfort.” – Just because you’re struggling doesn't mean you’re failing.  Every great success requires some type of worthy struggle to get there.  Know this!  When you’re struggling, that’s when you’re growing stronger and smarter.  The more time you spend there, the faster you learn.  It’s better to spend an extremely high quality ten minutes growing, than it is to spend a mediocre hour running in place.  Every day, you want to practice at the point where you are on the edge of your ability, stretching yourself over and over again, making mistakes, stumbling, learning from those mistakes and stretching yourself even farther.
12. “I will embrace the changes I know I need to make.” – Life is a balancing act of holding on and letting go – of staying put and moving on.  We strive to make the right choices, but how do we know when it is truly time to move forward with our lives?  The signs aren't always easy to accept, but they are there and you know it.  Relationships, jobs, and even the cities we live in have expiration dates.  Sometimes we hold on to what’s not working out of fear that we won’t be able to adapt to necessary changes.  And thus, the outcome is always the same: more pain, immense frustration, and lasting regret.  Be smarter than that.  Embrace the changes you know you need to make.

Happy New Year everyone!

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Charlie Pacello is a PTSD, Depression, and Healing Trauma Recovery Expert and Life Coach, a former US Air Force Lieutenant, and creator of the program, 'Lt. Pacello's Life Training Program.'  He can be reached by visiting his website at www.charliepacello.com