Why Own it All

​Dear Why Team member,
I hope this week’s message finds you well and owning all that befalls you.

Audio: 🗣

​Dear Why Team member,
I hope this week’s message finds you well and owning all that befalls you.
 
When I was a kid, there was a popular saying that sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but words can never hurt me.
 
Why was this an important and popular teaching back in the day?
Why did parents teach their children this saying? Could it be to protect them from the word's others may speak to them?
 
Sticks and stones can absolutely hurt our bones, but words?
 
Obviously, we have all been hurt by the hurtful things' others have said to us and about us - but is that not an opportunity for us to think about those words and decide ourselves whether those words truly apply to us?
 
There is a concept in psychology called projection; it’s common for people to project their own hurt onto others - seeing externally their enemy from within. Have you ever heard that hurt people hurt people?
 
I’m a fan of Byron Katie and her teachings - in many ways they are a modern approach to ancient teachings. I got to hear her in person about six years ago. She often shares that the prescription we have for others is meant for ourselves.
She calls it a turn around.
Take a criticism you have right now of another and flip it around on to yourself - find anything interesting?
 
Recently, I began reading “The Obstacle is the Way” by Ryan Holiday. I cannot recommend this book enough. Ryan builds on the insights of Marcus Aurelius, an Emperor of Rome, who kept a personal journey that survived antiquity. The book that contains his writings and musings is titled “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius.
 
Ryan’s book shares passages from Marcus’s journal - and expounds on them with great success stories of those who followed his advice.
 
The following is from Marcus Aurelius as printed in The Obstacle is the Way. Please take time to really think about what he wrote - it is off the charts empowering - not codependency on others and/or circumstances to line up with a person’s personal expectations.
 
“Our actions may be impeded…but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting.
 
And then he concluded with powerful words destined for maxim:
 
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way”
 
Marcus truly saw each one of his obstacles as an opportunity to practice some virtue: patience, courage, humility, resourcefulness, reason, justice, and creativity.
(All directly from Ryan Holidays book)
 
Dear Why Team member,
how else are we to develop these virtues if not from trial and difficulty?! Most people do not ask for character building experiences, but they most surely will come into every life - and then we have a choice:
Become a Victim or a Victor!
Become Bitter or Better?
Does life happen to us or for us?
We get to decide!
 
Why Own it All?
To grow through our obstacles, not just be impeded by them.
 
Do we want the road prepared for us or is it wiser to prepare ourselves for the road - and all its obstacles?!!
 
According to Nietzsche what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger - but many people today believe that words alone can make us weaker.
 
Life can be very hard, of course we would prefer life be easier, but what is to become of us if we are not grown through challenge?
 

“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for” 
- U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper
 
With no wind a tree is weakened.
 
I love a good trigger and invite them. They’re my triggers and no one else’s. How am I to grow and improve if I don’t face what’s in my face? How is my thinking hurting me, not how are others hurting me; they’ve just lined up some syllables and if I allow them to bother me? Why?
 
Stand tall and own it all!!!
 
I’ve spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on mentors and coaches to help me think differently – especially to help me address limiting thoughts. It is so empowering to know that I, alone, get to decide what I think about anything. I have a choice to own all my thinking and am immensely empowered when I do so. There is a saying that no thing bothers us, only how we think about a thing bothers us.
 
Byron Katie often says that no one can hurt you without your permission.
She’s talking about the words, not the sticks and stones. 
 
At the very least, I hope this week’s blog is thought provoking, also sometimes referred to as triggering :-)
 
Have the courage to think critically - not of others, but of your own thinking.
I try to add new insights into my life every day; never stop learning - it’s helpful to remember regularly how little we know. And certainly, don’t believe everything you think - the titled of my first book.
 
This week and beyond, own it all and be more empowered as a result.
If thoughts are bothering you, focus on the thoughts and why they bother you, not wasting time blaming the person who may have provoked them. And if more of us do this, no doubt the world will be stronger and better for it.
 
Make it a great week!

Steve Luckenbach