Looking Through the Fog

Some years ago, well before prison and any physical incarceration, I had become a certified life coach. It was not because I actually wanted to be a life coach as a profession, but because I had plans of being a businessman, and I felt it would be excellent communication skills to have. They taught all these techniques of how to help a person open up and peel back the layers of themselves in order to reach their inner self. How to write scripts that would take them through visualizations, which would help encourage the release of repressive thoughts and promote relaxation. Affirmations that centered on them being the best they could be, which is all positive stuff. However, I find it ironic that I possessed all these skills well before my life turned upside down, and yet never used it for myself, I must ask why?

This brings me to what I said in the introduction about this not being a self-help book, but probably more said to be an anti-self-help book. All self-help books in one form or another seek to help the reader become the best version of themselves. The methods of doing so will vary based on the approach of the particular author, but they typically involve affirming the inner strength of self to accomplish this. As with the methods I was taught in life coaching classes, this is all positive reinforcement. There is one problem that remains with this approach though, and that is believing that the real source to a better you, is you. This gives us more credit than we deserve for our creation and our purpose for being.

I've had conversations with people in the past who were of the mindset of secular humanism, which centers around the non-theistic belief that man is the only determining factor and the purpose of himself. That he makes his own destiny and that he is the author and finisher of his own path. How arrogant is it to believe that we are that powerful? If that is the case, why do people always ask why they are here, and what is their purpose if they are the ones solely responsible for their creating it? By no means am I stating that self-help books are not beneficial, because I do believe they have their appropriate place. I just also find that most are incomplete. This is based upon my personal belief of what the first step of self-help truly is. Which is not tapping into your inner animal, or unleashing your natural strength from within. It's not even learning to love yourself first, which is actually a good one. I believe the first step to self-help is honestly, realizing first and foremost that you are not enough. Yeah, I know that may sound as if a person would be lessening their self worth if they did that, but I learned the hard way that I had to decrease, to be increased. I often speak of my mindset and actions over the last few years leading up to my incarceration. It represents a time of such reflection and learning, but also a time of me becoming the worst version of myself. Not that I ever was a terrible person, because that was never the problem. The problem lied in my perception of what was important in life. I felt that everything should revolve around me, and that was the pride and ego manifesting. Then I wanted everything I saw, and that was the greed growing.

After I had to close my company and my world began to fall apart, I wanted the pity of the world around me because I felt I had been done wrong. Even after enduring all of that, I was determined to fix it myself, and I was going to do it my way, but instead became more lost and disconnected. It wasn't until 3 months after incarceration in September 2011, with my new awareness, that the realization began to manifest. What I realized was, no matter what I thought I had accomplished or could accomplish, no matter how many things I bought my wife and no matter how much I tried to be a good dad, as long as I relied on myself for success in that, I would never be enough. I had to come to understand that I am not my source and that I have never been, and nor will ever be. Any book (self-help or other), any coach, mentor or counselor that is telling you that, is misinforming you. A person being rich doesn't make them enough, nor does being famous or accomplished. The world may admire, respect, and hold them in high regard because of those things, but that still doesn't make them enough. Although all of those things are a lovely status symbol, there are countless rich, famous, and accomplished people who are yet miserable. Why? Because they are still not enough. For me to begin to help myself, I had to first surrender myself as a creation of a much mightier creator; become accountable for my misgivings and accept that I didn't know it all. Also, that I was created for a purpose beyond means of reasoning.

That place of brokenness, nothingness, and humbleness laid the foundation for the increase to begin to start taking place for the true me. I finally realized that I couldn't do it on my own terms and any kind of way I wanted to because that was not God's will for me. I won't even begin to attempt to explain why God allows some to appearingly succeed, while others path are impeded because of separation from Him. All I know is that we were all created for our own unique purpose and time. So what is required of me at this moment may not be the same that is required of you, but we are all created to be in relationship with Him.