© Michael L. Emery. All Rights Reserved. This document, as a sole property, and as an excerpt, can not be copied, reproduced, distributed, nor used to create derivative works, nor used in quote, in whole or in part, without permission of the author and copyright holder. You understand that the information contained on this page and in this book is an opinion only, and is not in any way legal advice,  nor medical advice.  In short, don’t even think of trying to rip me off, or I will tell your mother, glare in your general direction, or have my attorney contact you. Trust me, the small amount you make before my watchdogs catch you, will not be worth it once you get caught.  Please do not test me. Now let’s go have some fun!

     

 

 

 

 

 

             Being Yourself May Not Be Truly You

 

                         “The greatest mystery of life, is who we truly are.”

                           ~ Aramis

                           From: “The Man in the Iron Mask”

 

 

 

Many self-help books on self-improvement, dating, and influence say that you should “be yourself.” But what does that really mean? Who is to say what actually qualifies as you being yourself? I challenge that there are times when you think that you are being “yourself” that you are actually being anything but that. I challenge that many of the times when we think we are being who we really are, it is actually a result of three very key elements: The people who influenced us, the emotions we attached to things, and subconscious retention. 

 

All three are actually interrelated, they all fuel each other. But in order to truly unleash your inner Alpha, it is important to separate them, so as to more fine tune what needs to be changed, while holding onto what needs to remain.

 

 

Think of it like you a surgeon, one where you‘re operating on yourself. And in this “operation” the things preventing you from unleashing your inner Alpha are like a cancerous lump. A lump of things that do not serve the Alpha within you, and are infecting the life that has eluded you up to now. A surgeon does more than simply rip you open, cut out the cancer, and leave. The surgeon seeks all the areas where the “cancer” is, removes the places it is at, while leaving the areas that are not infected, and “stitching” you closed so you can heal and be better than you were.

 

The goal of this chapter, is to be like that surgeon.

 

So now let’s get scrubbed, prepped, and finally get that damn lump removed!

 

Look at any three friends that you have grown up with, or knew for more than 10 years as you were growing up.

You grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same school, maybe you were even taught by the same teachers, and had many, if not all, the same friends. Yet none of you were exactly the same way. You each had subtle or major character aspects different than the others. Sure, you obviously had many of the same qualities, behaviors, and beliefs, which is why you were friends for any extended period of time. But you always had that “one” friend who had more courage to do the really scary stuff the rest of you were too afraid to do. Like maybe that “one” friend was the only one “brave” enough to ring that neighbor’s doorbell and run, or was the first one who would try something risky, or never seemed afraid to stand up to the bigger kids. You also had that “other” friend who saw danger and panic in virtually anything you did. You know who I’m talking about? That was the friend who’s tag line seemed to be “we better not, we’ll get in trouble.” And the majority of you were somewhere in the middle, between sometimes doing scary stuff, and sometimes being too scared to do something. But when you really take a serious look at these friendships, you will notice that there were times when you were influenced to try or believe something that you did not want to try or did not believe prior to that.  And as a result of these moments, one-third of the reason you are the adult that you are today, was created.

 

Other influences in that percentage, include every single authoritative figure you have ever had, from birth up to the present.

 

As I stated in the previous chapter, beliefs change when new information is accepted. Which typically happens when the information comes from someone we view as an authority, someone we accept as being more insightful and more experienced than we are.

If you grow up hearing your father say time and time again, “You’ll never succeed in life!” there is a VERY good chance that you’ll become an adult who gets close to success, but for one reason or another, you stumble and don’t quite make it.

 

If a teacher you respect says to you, “If you don’t work hard, you’ll never get anything worth having.” then there is also a VERY good chance that in your adult life, when you receive great things you did little or nothing to attain, you’ll fail to see the value of it, and either lose it or lose interest in having it.

 

Am I getting through to you? Do you understand where some of your adult behaviors, beliefs, and actions might have been installed through things said to you by those authority figures in your life?

 

 

Not to pick on parents, but here’s a real life example to assist in showing you my point:

 

From the age of 9 through 18, Jackie grew up with an alcoholic mother. So Jackie’s father was the one who would end up cooking the food, getting Jackie and her siblings to school on time, help them with their homework, and make sure they were well taken care of. Her mother had been in the high ranks of a well known marketing company, and her father was an excellent architect. So Jackie began her first years living in a wealthy environment. But when Jackie was 9 years of age, her mother was in a car accident. As a result of the accident, her mother was no longer able to work at her company, nor able to function well even with part time work, and began collecting disability payments. Jackie‘s mother was someone who had always tried to make things work without needing anyone‘s help. This became a problem after the accident, since she was now having to rely often on her husband and children to help her with things. As a result, her mother began drinking more, and drinking more often. To the point that most of her days were spent drinking or passed out drunk.  This put a huge strain on the marriage, the finances, and of course, caused problems with the entire family. Which resulted in the family having to adjust to an environment of less wealth than before, and the kids having to help with the things around the house that mom was in no condition to do herself.

 

Flash-forward 25 years, Jackie dropped out of college just 10 credits shy of a degree. She quickly impressed her bosses at nearly every job she began (she‘d had 6 at this point), only to eventually do something that got her fired or demoted. Jackie began taking medication for depression, which she admitted to me she became addicted to, and often overmedicated so she could numb herself. This “numbness” affected her job performance, which affected her value with the companies she worked for. And after some very serious probing on my part, I discovered one of the reasons Jackie arrived at this place in her life. It seems that when Jackie was 11 years of age, her mother had gotten so drunk and so screaming loud, that neighbors thought she was being attacked by Jackie’s father, and he was nearly arrested. Once the police left, and her mother had passed out for the night, her father had a talk with her. He said, in part, “You are your mother’s child, so a part of her is you. But never become what she has become, become someone different.”

 

Since Jackie respected her father, and trusted her father (meaning he was an authority figure, get it?) she believed his words, thus accepting what he said. Well, the mind is there to help us, so when we accept something as true, it finds ways to support that, and to make it happen however possible.

 

On the surface, it would seem like he gave her good advice. But when you really look at what he said, you can notice an interesting mixed message. This is just my opinion, but he began by saying, essentially, that Jackie is partly just like her mother, but she should be that in a different way. 

In Jackie’s case, she became a part of her mother (opinionated, wanting to get things done without help from others, becoming addicted to something to numb herself) but different (using drugs instead of alcohol to get numb.)

 

I am in no way saying her father did anything wrong. I seriously doubt that he intentionally influenced her in the direction she went. But it does show how what can seem like encouragement to the ears, becomes something far less empowering to the mind.

 

And that brings us to the third element I spoke of, subconscious retention!

 

Subconscious retention does not exist. Which means it’s nothing you can see, touch, taste, or smell. In fact, I’m not even sure if “subconscious retention” is a real medical term that exists. I just thought of that name to describe what I am about to discuss with you (Hmm, maybe  I subconsciously retained having overheard it once during a psychology class!)

 

To me, in my reality, subconscious retention are those things we’ve retained inside our mind, which we either did not audibly hear, or was said during a variety of other things we were hearing at the time. And it is already a very well known fact (so far anyway) that the emotions we attach to events, influence how we behave when similar or repeats of the events occur. (e.g. You hear a certain song, it makes you feel a certain way, maybe even reminds you of a certain memory. Or, the first time you fell in love it was with a redhead, so you have a preference for redheads...some Psychologists would say the preference is related to your mother being a redhead, but I’m not a Freudian, so bugger that! ) So if that’s true on the conscious level, it just makes sense that it would be true on the subconscious level.

 

For example...

 

Let us pretend there is a little boy named Bobby. And let us further pretend that Bobby is in Kindergarten.  One day, while in school, Bobby is having recess in the sandbox. As Bobby digs through the sand, pretending he is a pirate seeking buried treasure, hearing the sounds around him but not paying any conscious attention, his teacher is scolding another little boy. That other little boy had just lifted up Mary Margaret’s dress, and he got told on! And just as Bobby finds a penny that had been hidden under the sand, Bobby’s teacher says to that other little boy, “That is very bad! You are not supposed to look under there, and you are not supposed to see that!” Well, since Bobby’s teacher is an authority figure, one he has been told by his parents (also authority figures) is someone he needs to listen to and obey, Bobby accepts what his teacher said. Granted, Bobby didn’t consciously hear the words, but subconsciously he heard every word. And since what he “heard” seemed to be referring to what he had been doing, Bobby retained the information, which influenced his future actions. Now, based on Bobby’s perception of which thing  he had been doing was wrong, he might begin to suddenly lose interest in playing in the sandbox, or he might play in the sandbox but not dig much or not dig at all, or Bobby might develop a bad feeling about pennies, or money.  There are a number of things that can develop from this, and virtually all of them will result in the adult Bobby having no idea why he feels that way. No consciously anyway.

 

Here’s another example...

 

There is baby Natalie, sitting in the grocery cart that Mommy pushes her in, as they move through the store. Then once Mommy loads all the things she is going to buy, into the grocery cart, she pushes the cart, with baby Natalie, to an open check-out counter. As Mommy is taking things out of the cart and placing them on the counter, baby Natalie sees something that catches her eye. It has lots of bright colors, and some funny looking creatures on it, and one day she will learn these are called balloons. Baby Natalie wants a closer look, so she tries to reach for it. But just as she does, in the check-out counter next to her, she hears an angry voice.

She does not know what the words, “Nathan, stop kicking your brother!” means, she only knows it is being said in an angry voice. Every time baby Natalie has heard an angry voice, it meant her Mommy or one of those other huge versions of babies, did not like what was happening. But baby Natalie does not cry, she just looks at her Mommy, who smiles at her, which makes baby Natalie smile.

 

As an adult, Natalie might carry this experience with her in a number of ways. She might have grown up having a dislike for balloons. She might have felt afraid of balloons. She might have only liked balloons when her Mother was around (strange, but possible). She might have developed a dislike for whatever colors the balloons were that day in the grocery store.

 

Dreams are another example of subconscious retention.  Especially if you have a reoccurring dream, and you’re not sure what it means.

 

A friend of mine, named Linda B. told me a very interesting story, about a dream she had been having for many, many years. Here it is...

 

 

“I used to have this dream, where I’m sitting in this boat, it’s like the middle of the night, and all around the outside of this boat are crocodiles. I want to jump from the boat, but I don’t want the crocodiles to hurt me, so I just stay in the boat. I’ve had that same dream for as far back as I know, and I never understood what it meant, or why I was dreaming it so much. But this one time, not very long ago, my aunt was visiting me, and during the conversation she mentioned something to me that happened when I was about three-years old. She said that my mom wanted to make sure that when I was put to bed, that I stayed there the rest of the night. She said that my mom told me that my bed was a boat, and that I had to stay in this boat, because if I climbed out there were things in my room that were like crocodiles, that these things could hurt me. When my aunt told me this, I’m sure I was  staring at her with this look of ‘Oh my god’ because I never recalled my mom telling me that. And that was why I had been having that same dream for so many years.”

 

The point is, we are often influenced in ways growing up, that as adults we have no conscious clue WHY we behave or react a certain way.

Think about that...find something you do, or a behavior that you have, that as you think about WHY you do it, your only answers seems to be, “I dunno” or “I’ve always been that way.”

 

I’m quite certain you can recall at LEAST one.

 

And as you realize THAT, it becomes more believable that maybe who you thought you were, was really who you accepted you had to be, in ways you never realized you had control over. So if you accepted these things, even though it was on a subconscious level, you can also UNaccept them. After all, there was a time when you accepted that pooping in a diaper was okay, but you don’t accept that anymore, because you found another way to do the doo. (Sorry, that was written with my subconscious mind, I wrote it without knowing why! HaHaHaHa)

 

On a very serious level, you need to do a complete mental check on yourself. You need to WRITE DOWN as many things that you can think of that you do because “I dunno” or “I’ve always been that way.”

 

Take as long as you need to, and write them all down. In fact, carry a pocket notebook and a pen, so you can write down things you recall later, as you’re doing whatever you’re doing at the time.

 

As you write these things down, you’re going to find that some are things which serve you, while other things hinder you. But even THAT is only as true as the “You” you are viewing it through.

 

What I mean is, there are things you have long accepted as being the best that you can do, the most that you can get, and the limits that you can reach. So depending on how old you are, you’ve spent many years living a life through THAT reality. The reality of “This is who I’ve become, because that is who I am, the good and the bad.”

 

But some part of you knows that’s not true. And the fact that you’re reading this is your own proof of that!

 

Think about that!

 

If you TRULY believe that you‘re already the person you‘re supposed to be, that who you already are is who you will always be, then you never would have read this book, you wouldn’t have felt the need to.  There are thousands upon millions of books on this planet, yet this is one of the books you chose to read. There’s a reason for that, and the reason is this:

 

Deep within, you know there’s more to you, and more that you want,

and you want to find it!

 

And I’m willing to bet that you’ve been trying to find it for some time. This is NOT the first self-help book you’ve read, is it?. This book is only the most recent of past self-help books that you’ve read.  And the only reason I know that, is because only those who sense they can be MORE than they currently are, would ever have any interest in a book like this one.

 

Billionaires don’t play the lottery, Fish don’t migrate to the desert, and people don’t read books on how to be less than they already are.

 

So now that I have your attention, maybe more so now than when you first began this book, it’s time to get into the more serious parts of our journey. I’ve told you stories, I’ve shared some interesting nuggets of knowledge, and I’ve (hopefully) made you laugh at least a few times. And now comes the part where you decide if you want to continue with me, or if you want to stay where you are, with what you’ve already learned from me.