Action
Changes
Things
Right action leads to right thinking. Not the other way around. It’s not enough merely to know or understand. You don’t get to experience swimming by sitting at the edge of the pool. And once you’re in the water, if you want to stay afloat, you’ll need to move your arms and legs rather than just think about it.
Action is also what will enable you to make the journey from the head to the heart. So throughout this journey you’ll be reminded to ACT.
The exercises that each chapter contains are actions in their own right. They are an integral part of the journey as they help you to action what you’re learning.
For decades I tried to work things out in my head. I lived with a mountain of self-help books by my bed. I’d read a chapter or two until I found an insight that made me feel momentarily better. Then I’d recommend it to someone else as a brilliant read. I thought I could get rid of my pain by understanding and knowing. I’d lie awake at night looking at things from every angle, stuck in analysis paralysis. In the end, a combination of whisky, sleeping pills and tranquilizers was the only way I could get any peace from the constant noise in my head. It was revolutionary to me when someone suggested I move a muscle to change a thought. I thought I had to wait for my thoughts to change before I could act. Now I know it’s the other way round. Right action creates right thinking and self-esteem to boot.
JN
I have to say that even though I was introduced to these practices decades ago, I still find the doing of them hard. Even though I know what’s best for me and have experienced first hand the difference they make to my entire life, my brain still wants to forget that I feel better when I practise them daily. Maybe it’s the fact that they work that makes the challenge greater – my ingrained, stubborn self-sabotage doesn’t want me well, or maybe it’s my internal rebel that says, ‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ or perhaps it’s just plain laziness. Whatever my resistance is, the fact is, when I do them, they work.
GA
Commitment
There’s only one thing you need to agree to for the principles in this book to work. It’s a commitment to be willing. Willing to try. Willing to pick yourself up when you mess up (which we all do) and to try again.
Anyone can make this commitment. It doesn’t require education, status or wealth. And it certainly doesn’t require perfection.
Nothing in this book needs to be done ‘right’ or ‘perfectly’. The P-word, perfectionism, should be banned. It causes all of us monumental problems – in society’s expectations of us and the demands we make on ourselves. We are not cardboard cut-outs. We are individuals. That means each one of us is complicated and real, with our own unique and often messy layers of emotional wounding.
Your head will present you with a thousand excuses, but you can and will find the time. You can and will find the space. You can and will find the courage. That which is no longer necessary to your well-being will fall away.
The Nine Principles that follow are for you personally and also for the world you inhabit.
They are not just for your yoga mat or your place of worship. They are for the big decisions and for the small. They work just as well in helping you choose how to vote as they do in the grocery store aisle as they do in your intimate relationships. Nothing is too important or too mundane for them to have an impact on. Don’t keep them just for crises – they will work in every aspect of your daily life. We promise.
This is a journey towards love.
Prepare to be amazed.
Principle 1
Getting Real
‘To be oneself, simply oneself, is so amazing and utterly unique an experience that it’s hard to convince oneself so singular a thing happens to everybody.’
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
Honesty is the guide that leads us home. It returns us to our true selves and enables us to live authentically, courageously and congruently.
Most of us do our best to tell the truth. We might tell the occasional white lie to avoid hurting someone’s feelings or exaggerate a story for the sake of effect, but aside from that we try to be honest.
And yet, there is one person we lie to on a regular basis, perhaps even without realizing it – ourselves.
We all do it. We tell ourselves we’re OK when we’re not. We tell ourselves we don’t mind when we do and that we can’t when we can. We say yes when we mean no and no when we want to say yes. We override our instinct in the name of being practical or polite. We bury our dreams and then help others fulfil theirs. We disguise, shave and shape ourselves to conform to an artificial feminine ideal only to suffer the consequences: depression, relationship problems, anger issues, addiction and despair.
WE’s First Principle takes us inwards. It involves digging down beneath the surface of who we think we are, in order to reclaim our true selves.
It’s a process that involves discovering and discarding the lies and myths we’ve accumulated over the years, which have resulted in us becoming estranged from ourselves. It requires courage, commitment and self-care.
Most of us are called to this journey when we hit an obstacle in life – a relationship that’s ended badly, a betrayal or disappointment, or when one of the distractions or addictions we use to cope stops working. When our lives are ticking along and appear to be functioning, it’s easier to ignore that niggle deep in our soul, pleading for our attention.
But wherever you are in your life, and whatever is happening, WE’s First Principle will bring an enormous sense of relief and freedom. There is nothing quite like being able to say, ‘This is who I really am,’ and to feel truly glad about it.
Losing ourselves
‘Severe separations in early life leave emotional scars on the brain because they assault the essential human connection: the [parent–child] bond, which teaches us that we are lovable.’
JUDITH VIORST
From early childhood most of us start to lose touch with our authentic self.
Our instinctive need to be loved, feel safe and belong leads us to adapt. Sometimes consciously, sometimes not, we shift in response to our parents’, teachers’ and peers’ perceptions of who we are and what we should be. And in the process we naturally abandon parts of ourselves.
The extent to which each of us does this largely depends on how well we are cared for in our early years. We rely on the world we’re born into to reflect back to us who we are. If the message we receive as babies and toddlers is that we’re loved and ‘enough’ just as we are, we’ll have a much greater chance of developing a resilient sense of self. The less secure we are during those early years, the more we adapt ourselves to try to get that missing approval.
We create false selves to ensure our emotional and sometimes physical survival – sub-personalities that are almost us but not quite. They help us to get our needs met at a time when we are too young and dependent to have any other choices. The problem comes when we continue to rely on them long after they’ve fulfilled their useful purpose. Often they become so habitual