Hi there. Here we are with lesson number one. And this is going to be advocate versus adversary. What do I mean by that? Well, I'm going to read you a little portion of this book. And don't forget this book written by myself.

It is 12 steps toward identity. And it is downloadable on the programs you have there. So each lesson has one chapter of the book attached to it, just download that you can read along with that, or of course, do that as you go through the different lessons and lectures. So I want to read just a couple of pages of this to begin the process here. The vast majority of clients that I work with are often unable to immediately identify that they live in a personal world of self sabotage, that instead of having a friendly internal voice, guiding them in positive directions or with positive inner self talk, they are bombarded with negative messages about who they are or not, and that they are lacking worthiness or deserve ability. Have a truly fulfilling existence and all that entails.

It doesn't take much self serve, searching to establish whether or not we carry within us, a mentor or a tour mentor, a friend or foe, an ally or an enemy, an advocate or an adversary. Those who lead lives of healthy self allegiance self fidelity and positive, friendly inner self talk, though not ego centered, are those who have a deep appreciation for the world around them, their experiences of it and their own roles within it. Good mental health is the acceptance and appreciation of the moment to moment unfoldment of the self and the blessings opportunities and possibilities of becoming a positive role model family and community member. Many people at times feel caught in a state of perceived meaningless existence. This can lead to a state of despair and adaptation to life circumstance by an alcohol and drugs or other addictive, obsessive or compulsive behaviors. thirst for wholeness, and enable drive towards self actualization, response to a lack of meaning and purpose or a natural desire to transcend the suffering itself.

That was written by Jeff Thompson, who wrote a long days long nights journey in today, it has been suggested that the act of acceptance allows the individual to transcend the suffering itself, and that suffering is inevitable as part of leading and authentic life. So let's take a look at what that means. Because we've spoken about mental torment, your beliefs, your interpretations of things, your perception of things, that all adds up to the actions and your beliefs and behaviors and ends up working either for you or against you. And as I've said, nearly all the clients that come in to see me will suggest that certainly they're in a state of self sabotage. Are they living meaningfully or are they living intensely, I would ask you to ask yourself the same question. So I have an exercise It is one in which we can understand the dilemma.

And so I call it the family belief system. First is the personal belief system. One is looking at the egocentric type of beliefs that we inherit from family or culture, etc, up until usually about the age of six years of age. And the other is the more experienced the more mature aspect of us those lessons that we've learned during the course of our lives no matter how old we are. So we have to look at what transpires here, how do we operate, and often we'll operate differently to ourselves than people we love or close to will often operate with a system that is loving and kind and gentle and compassionate to other people. But when it comes to ourselves, we can be pretty harsh.

We can also look at how to do that, how do I operate that with a client so I'm going to show you a little bit of an exercise right now just based on a very few words and when you consider how many words impact as you will see what I'm getting at here. So we have to look at how do we move from superficiality to authenticity. We're going to be getting into that over the other lectures as well. It requires honesty, open mindedness, open mindedness and willingness. So you can use the acronym howl for that. And that helps us lead or move towards awareness to understanding and choices.

And again, we're going to get further into that. But right now I'm going to show you something I'm going to show you an image or a picture of a board that I've used just an example that I actually use with clients on how to look at the family belief system, how to look at the personal belief system and notice the differences. So as we look at this, you'll see I've written the top some words that are just about love, trust choice, respect, anger frame. Ship money, alcohol and drugs. On the left hand side the family belief system on the right hand side the personal belief system. This was done by a client.

So if you look on the family belief system in other words he inherited belief system, you can see that lab men sex and food that there was no trust. They never knew choice that respect was demanded a father that anger It was more like rage and controls and they didn't have friends. When it came to money and our alcohol and drugs, obviously there was a reason that person was here. So they didn't get into detail about that other than to say it was in the family system and it was accepted. Now when we look at the personal belief system on the right hand side, you can see the difference when the person said, Well, what I believe love is is it needs time, support. And trust comes from acceptance, healthy torture, and choice and being consistent, being honest, being assertive, providing options information and consequent See, his respect comes from that as well as listening and boundaries that we have healthy expression and friendship is the same as love, etc, etc, healthy expression of anger that was by the way.

And so you look at what happens if you look underneath a bill of family belief system, you see that it's, it's conditional, the loving is conditional, or the demands there that conditional upon you fitting in a certain way. So it's, if you look at Black and whiteness, that's pretty black. If you look at the ego state that will come from that it's a frozen ego, and it because it makes one reactive. On the other hand, the personal belief system, you can see that love is unconditional. So it's the opposite that will be white, and the person ends up responding rather than reacting. So that's just one example of what that can mean.

So we come back to what can we do about that we talked about therefore, it can lead to awareness, understanding and choices. Therefore it can also contaminate or illuminate. That's what we can do for other people. And that's what has happened to us, we're either contaminated to some degree of toxic thoughts or beliefs, or we're illuminated and we have healthy self confidence. So the impacts of our governing beliefs are based of what you've seen on that chart. And so with that example, I would urge you to maybe write one down or you can take a look in the book, you will see I put a listing down there as well as what that would look like.

So you have to ask yourself, what beliefs and operating system do you actually live by because most people live by the personal one when it comes to their loved ones. But when it comes to themselves, they usually resolve back to the one that they grew up with. And that creates the paradox that we know one thing but we do another and after all, the goal in the end is to come to a place of healthy congruency and integrity. So I'm going to just read out one Another thing here as well for you, I just want you to understand again some of the concepts here. If we look at the determination of four intrinsic rewards, they are having a sense of meaning and purpose, a sense of choice, a sense of competence and a sense of progress. observation, awareness and self questioning can allow us to feel fulfilled in each of these four areas.

Desire when you discover your mission, you'll feel its demand it will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it. discipline. Discipline is a bridge between goals and accomplishment, determination, the price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand. One factor that provides optimism and optimal joy and is to constantly be fascinated being all of the world around you the people, places potential In the limitless palace of possibilities, be present and in the quantum and notice a differences in your experience of daily interactions and activities when you gaze through a lens of fascination. This is especially true when you are learning something new and feel any doubts about your ability or compare yourselves to others with more experience or knowledge on any given subject.

Thanks very much. I look forward to moving on to that second lecture.