where a man can build his strength and freedom

Would you like to achieve a success today?

Here we see a success, a young man standing outside with his arms crossed, smiling a proud and happy smile.

I set myself an ambitious goal in writing this post.
I decided to make sure you achieve a success today.

Why?
Well, just in case you haven’t had one recently
and are feeling discouraged.
So, are you game?

Depends what I have to do!!! you reply.
Well, you have to let me teach you
something essential to your happiness:
How to shoot down a lie!

Hmm, you say.
I do that all day on Twitter!
Twitter is full of lies
and I love to shoot them down!!!

I bet you do.
But I’m not actually talking about other people’s lies.
I’m talking about the ones in your own head.

My head? What do you mean?
Well, I don’t know exactly which lies you have in your head
but I’m sure you have some.

Let me list some of the more common ones:
You’re a loser.”
You’re too stupid to succeed.”
You will never have a good job.”
You’re too ugly to attract a partner.”
No one will ever want you. You’re going to be forever alone.”
You’re so f___ed up you have no chance of a happy future.”
The world is so f___ed up there isn’t even going to BE a future for you.”

My question

Are any of these lies (or variations on them) familiar to you?
Have you heard any of them in your head today?
IF you have heard NO such destructive accusations today
count this as your success.

(Hey–you wouldn’t even have realized you had it, unless I pointed it out. 🙂
Today, you have not been under any vicious judgments from within.
Congratulations!
This is a wonderful accomplishment.
Please skip ahead to my post
When I have a success, do I allow myself to celebrate?

But…
what if you HAVE been under attack from lies similar to these today?
How are you going to turn things around?

Expose and challenge the judgment

To have a success, you will need to shoot down these ridiculous judgments.
They’re not ridiculous! They’re true!! you protest.
Nah.
They’re just propaganda.
Enemy propaganda.
Every one of these statements is a royal crock!

They are as phony as the accusations dictators make
against anyone who stands up against their power.
Putin spews phony BS like this against Zelensky.
Zelensky is a Jew, and Putin calls him a Nazi
for standing up to Putin’s murderous invasion of Ukraine.

Unfortunately, we all have part of our own mind
that operates just like a sadistic dictator.
It throws destructive and false accusations at us,
attempting to defeat us and prevent our success.

If we begin to submit to the inner dictator’s lies, we get discouraged.
If we submit to them long and deeply enough, we become depressed.
Thus, the sooner we expose and challenge the BS, the better.

Here’s how we do it

Let’s look again at the attacks I listed above:
“You’re a loser.”
“You’re too stupid to succeed.”
You will never have a good job.”
“You are too ugly to attract a partner.”
“No one will ever want you. You are going to be forever alone.”
“You are so f___ed up you have no chance of a happy future.”
“The world is so f___ed up there isn’t even going to BE a future for you.”

Please note that all these ridiculous accusations are in the YOU form.
They are leveled AT your ego.
Your ego is your I. Your ego is your self.

Your first line of defense against these cruel judgments
—even if there is a grain of truth in some of them–
is to never, ever submit to them
by turning them into I statements.

If you do that, you are surrendering to the propaganda.
Listen to these statements when I put them into the I form.
HEAR the passive surrender:
“I’m a loser.”
“I’m too stupid to succeed.”
“I will never have a good job.”
“I am too ugly to attract a partner.”
“No one will ever want me. I am going to be forever alone.”
“I am so f___ed up I have no chance of a happy future.”
“The world is so f___ed up there isn’t even going to BE a future for me.”

By making the lies into I statements
–as if they are established fact–
our ego is now caught in a self fulfilling prophesy of defeat:
I THINK this way, I SEE this way, I ACT this way — I AM this way.

If you recognize that your ego is submitting like this
you must CHALLENGE yourself!
Ask yourself:
Why am I surrendering to a dictator?”
Why am I letting this vicious bully in my head
define and defeat me, and ruin my life?”
Why do I lay down and ACCEPT these cruel judgments instead of fighting back?

There is no just law anywhere
that says you have to give up, lay down, and surrender to a vicious attack!
Instead of surrendering, get mad.
Tell the inner bastard in your head to go to hell.

Yes.
You have my full permission to DO so.
I will even say it with you:
GO. TO. HELL.”

There.
I promised that you would achieve a success today.
You just did!
You shot down some highly destructive inner lies that were harming you.
You aren’t listening to them the same as you did before.

It will take time to defeat these lies.
I will continue to show you more about how to do that.
But now that you know you can fight back,
you will get better at it every day.

This is a big victory for you.
A success, for sure!
Looks like a good time to head over to my post:
When I have a success, do I allow myself to celebrate?