Untitled - Fearless Living Training Program

Welcome to Week Seven: Honoring Your Core Needs Video One: Excuses By this time [in the training], you have uncovered your Wheel of Fear. I am certain you have started recognizing all those darn Fear Response that you do day in and day out, keeping you stuck, overwhelmed and frustrated. You’ve also uncovered the antidote to the Wheel of Fear: the Wheel of Freedom. I know you’re claiming those Proactive Behaviors. They are going to help you anchor and claim, and really own your Essential Nature, that part of you that you have been denying. I really want you to know, regardless of your doubt right now, or worry, or that “Do I have the right Wheels, I don’t know?” concern, remember, as I said the last two weeks, use what you have. As we go through the next Fearbuster Exercises, I want you to practice identifying those Fear Responses and identifying what Proactive Behaviors can be done instead, right now. Use what you have, start embodying it. I know you are going to have insights, and I absolutely know you are going to have transformation. This is the good news: I know you have more awareness; I know you have more ability to see yourself when you’re acting in fear; and you are starting to know the difference between how Proactive Behaviors feel versus how Fear Responses feel. This week we are going to be uncovering additional Fear Reponses. And we all do this one and it’s so, so, seductive. This is one of the most seductive Fare Responses we have on the Wheel of Fear. It is excuses. You have excuses, I have excuses, and the Wheel of Fear keeps sharing them with us all day long. I want to compare excuses and complaining. Complaining is, well, you and I know when were complaining. We complain about the weather. We complain about the traffic. Complaints can feel so superficial. I can say to you, “Quit complaining,” and you respond, “Yeah I have been complaining a lot.” But excuses, excuses, they feel real. Excuses feel real. People will come up to us when we complain and say, “Hey, you’re sure complaining a lot, gosh.” But people won’t come up to us and say, “You’re making a lot of excuses.” That takes a lot of courage to say that to another human being. I waited to talk to you about excuses until now. I wanted you to have the foundation of your Wheel of Freedom and the foundation of your Wheel of Fear, so that you could have more freedom to tell yourself the truth about your excuses. Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

Living with excuses is letting the past predict the future. And excuses, they always have a seed of truth, and that’s the insidious part about them. My parents’ murder- suicide: did my father kill my mother? Yes. Is that true, is that a fact? Yes. Did my father commit suicide? Yes. Is that true? Yes. Is that a fact? Yes. What I did with that information though, what I did for 20 years, is that I used that information as an excuse to keep me stuck, to keep me overwhelmed, to keep me frustrated. The Wheel of Fear traps us inside of our excuses, because they’re based in a seed of truth. That’s the seduction of excuses. The excuses you have really, really, did happen to you. They actually occurred. Or if they haven’t occurred, you have plenty of evidence from others that they might. The problem is that it is only true in regard to the way it shaped your life in the past. The reason you keep excuses alive now, actually keep buying in, believing them over and over again, is because the Wheel of Fear has convinced you that some version of whatever happened in the past will happen again. I’m going to stop and talk about my parents murder suicide, because you might be thinking, “Well, Rhonda, you don’t really think murder-suicide is going to happen again?” Well, I may not necessarily think that murder-suicide is going to happen again, but after my parents died, whenever I wanted to take a risk, whenever it was super scary, my body would react in a way that almost felt like I was going to die if I took the risk. Now, I believe that’s true for everybody in his or her own way. I mean when you are taking a Stretch, Risk or Die those dies, really do feel like you could die (emotional death). Because of my father murdered my mother and committed suicide, it just feels more real to me, more possible. People really did get murdered around me, and they did commit suicide around me, and I couldn’t stop it, I didn’t stop it. So my excuse, whenever I wanted to take risks in life in the past, always had a feeling tone that something bad was going to happen and that bad, for me, was somebody was going to die. And it really felt that way for me. In my fear-based past, I wasn’t conscious of that, and then I eventually did become conscious of it, and I’m very conscious of it now. Whenever I’m having that feeling in my body that something bad is going to happen, I always ask myself: “Okay, does it feel like somebody is going to die?” And the answer is when I’m in the die zone, “Yes, somebody is going to die.” Now, I know that isn’t true. And it isn’t going to happen. But it is the feeling I have had in the past. (I am telling you this story to give you some relief about what your motivation might have been to generate excuses in your past. Feelings can be overwhelming and paralyzing. I don’t know what feeling you have had pop up when you are taking risks. You might have felt “desperate” or “lonely” or “crazy.” The feeling is different for each of Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

us. I want you to honor yours. Give yourself compassion. The feeling that comes up for you when you are about to take a risk stems from your Wheel of Fear and that feeling can give you permission to make up some really top-notch excuses about why your life is the way it is.) This is how my Wheel of Fear tricked me into staying in excuses: it’s never me that’s going to die, it’s always other people that I love that are going to die. [Unconsciously I thought I was keeping people alive. Once I recognized my excuses, I could see my way out by taking Proactive Behaviors.] The Wheel of Fear uses everything you know against you; this is how it manufactures excuses, it uses everything against you. All your education all your personal experiences, all your past experiences, all your values, your family life, everything you know; your spirituality, your knowledge, education, wisdom, every book you’ve read. Everything you’ve done is either in service to freedom or to fear. And every moment you must decide, what are your actions in service to? For 20 years after my parents died, they ran my life. The overwhelming feeling that somebody was going to die would overtake me, and because somebody had died [the seed of truth], nothing was worth the risk to me. So I kept small. I would start breaking out, start taking risks, and then that feeling would happen and I’d be like, “Oh no.” That feeling would manufacture an excuse for me, because our feelings are what manufacture excuses, and those feelings stem from our Wheel of Fear. When we buy into those excuses that feel so real, and I really want you to hear that, I get they feel real, what the excuses also do is it take away any sense of personal responsibility, any sense of personal accountability, any sense of personal power, that you could actually make a difference in your own life. When you have excuse after excuse running your life, of course, you’re tired, exhausted and burnt out. I mean, what new energy could you have if you are always dragging the past into the present, through your excuses. Of course you’re exhausted. Excuses give you permission to ignore your values, ignore your beliefs, ignore your commitments, and ignore what you want to be true to right now. When you don’t live up to your values and commitments and dreams and the things that you want now, your beliefs, you don’t have your integrity. And then you feel secretly, silently, and maybe even consciously, like a big liar, and then you have to create even more excuses so that nobody finds out. I say that because I really want you to see how the Wheel of Fear uses those excuses, how the Wheel of Fear brings up the past and says, “Oh, you know, she’s about to take a risk right now.” or “He’s about to take a risk right now. I better bring in that excuse.” Then we hear ourselves using the excuse, and again, because it’s based in that seed of

Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

truth, it feels okay, we can make sense of it, feels rational. And then we make that excuse real to us and we start living our life as if that excuse IS true. After my parent’s murder-suicide, I was accepted into a elite private high school, called Interlochen Arts Academy. For a small time girl in Michigan, this is a big deal. When I was on the way down to Interlochen I got into a car accident. Now, that car accident became a really good excuse. I didn’t end up going to Interlochen. My Wheel of Fear told me it was a sign. I took it as a sign that I should not go to Interlochen. So, I got accepted into a private elite high school, was going down to get my placement in the school, got in a car accident, and never went to Interlochen. Now, one of the reasons that my fear-based excuse making worked is I had no support team. (We will be talking about your support team in the weeks ahead.) So I got in this car accident, are you with me? This car accident gave me excuse, and that excuse gave me an permission to stay where I was. That [lack of support team] continued to reinforce that people didn’t care about me, because my family and friends did not know what to do after my parents death; they basically did not, emotionally or financially, in any way, support my sisters and me. So, I stayed where I was, and where I was, was not necessarily the best place for me, because I really wasn’t getting support. I ended up going to college. In college, I had a dream of being a singer, but remember, Interlochen was a private music school for singing, and because I didn’t go to Interlochen, I did not go to college for music even though that was my dream and not only music, but also theater. I never went to college for theater or music because I didn’t go to Interlochen. And because I didn’t go to Interlochen I believed [because my Wheel of Fear told me this that I] didn’t deserve it, I hadn’t earned it. Excuses sound like this: “Well I lost my opportunity, so I lost that opportunity, so I can’t make a new opportunity, so I guess I’m just lost.” I go to college, but I don’t go for music. No I have an excuse for that. I don’t go for theater, oh no, I have an excuse for that. I go for business, and basically start flunking out of college. Now you have to remember, that in high school I was a straight A student, but by the time I got to college with all of my excuses, I allowed myself to practically flunk out. I was in college six years with lots of excuses about how I couldn’t go to class and how I couldn’t study, and how I couldn’t do this or do that. I left college three classes short from graduating. It’s only been since becoming fearless that I’ve actually finished my degree. The point I’m making is that every choice (every decision) we make, [when we are run by our Wheel of Fear], the decision is based on our excuses. It’s chosen by our excuses, almost as if that’s the easiest way to choose, the easiest way to pick, because then you don’t have to face yourself, you don’t have to see your fears. [Your Wheel of Fear can stay hidden, underground.] Even though you and I know that our excuses are based on our Wheel of Fear. [Now, we will be able to more readily see our excuses.] Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

After my parents died, for twenty years, I used their death to justify any excuse I had. I did it so much that when I was in college, I couldn’t get into a college course - I can say this, but I could never have said this a decade ago before Fearless Living because it would have been so embarrassing - and I went to the registrar and basically begged to get into the course. She said, “Oh, you can’t get into the course, it’s too late.” I literally looked at her and said, (it’s embarrassing to say this even now) “You’re not giving me this course because my parents are dead.” I walked around the world thinking everybody knew I was an orphan. And again, I knew logically they didn’t, I didn’t tell anybody, but I still felt like it was true. Excuses are the same reason heavy people, people that are obese or overweight, or people have gastric bypass surgery… one of the reasons they gain weight back again is they’re not comfortable in a skinny body, in a thinner body, in a healthier body. They don’t know what to do with the vulnerability, the attention, etc, etc. So their excuse is: it’s too scary all this attention coming at me; all these things coming at me is too much for me; it’s easier, it’s simpler, it’s better, to gain weight back. I’m not saying they consciously think those thoughts but their hidden Wheel of Fear gives them an excuse so they have internal permission to gain their weight back. And no one had the courage, or awareness, or even permission, to call me out and say, “Hey, Rhonda, you’re using your parents death as an excuse.” And that even included myself. I didn’t know I was using their death as my big excuse. Everything I said to myself seemed so rational. I wasn’t aware that I was using their death. And I languished there for 20 years. Wanting more but not knowing how to have more, not knowing how insidious excuses are. I absolutely believed that I was not responsible for the way my life was turning out. I had no real support team. Oh, I had drinking buddies and work buddies and fun buddies. But I hadn’t built up a true support team. [I didn’t know how. I didn’t know I needed one] I didn’t know what one was. We are going to be talking about how to build your support team in Weeks 8 and 9 so stay tuned. You will have more support soon. In my client Jared’s case, he didn’t want to take a risk of going for his dream of starting his own restaurant because there were all too many ‘reasons’. It’s expensive to open a restaurant, I mean, we can all agree to that, and most restaurants fail, and there are facts to prove that, and on it went. All of those reasons were based in some seed of truth. That is why excuses are so seductive; they are based on some sort of seed of truth. So Jared took the seeds of truth, applied them to himself, and figured he could not make his dream happen if other people had failed, if other people lost money. He based all that on the fact that when he had tried to become class president when he was a


senior in high school, he lost. He also lost his college girlfriend. He had a lot of loss in his life. Like we all do. The Wheel of Fear used those losses, plus the facts about the restaurant business, and churned out for Jared, one big excuse: “NOT YOU JARED! Not you. It’s not your time. You can’t have a restaurant.” He, unconsciously of course, figured he’d just lose again, fail again, so why try? A risk for him would only lead him to disappointment. And that way of thinking, that thinking in fear, became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m talking about excuses now, after the Wheel of Fear and Wheel of Freedom, because I think right now, you’re able to be more honest with yourself than ever before. You have more ability to tell yourself the truth than ever before. Complaints were easy to see before we identified the Wheel of Fear and Wheel of Freedom. Excuses are not necessarily as easy to see, because again, they have a seed of truth. I want to suss out those excuses. I want you to tell yourself the truth about your excuses, because what excuses do is they excuse you from fulfilling your potential. Excuses stem from your unfulfilled expectations, and seeds of truth based on facts that the Wheel of Fear has gathered up all these years, and of course, add to that the broken dreams of our past. Like I said, excuses feel so real. They feel like they are true. You really don’t feel like you have time to exercise. You really don’t have time to start dating. You really don’t feel like you have the money to open your own business. [And you can show me your bank account to prove it.] And you feel like you really don’t have the energy to switch jobs. You really don’t have the money to take a vacation. It feels that way. But all of those excuses are lies. [You can decide, based in freedom, what is right for you. But making life decisions based on previous excuses, and your Wheel of Fear, is no way to live.] My motto: Invest in the life you have, to get the life you want. Invest in the life you have right now. Quit investing in your excuses, quit investing in your Wheel of Fear, and quit investing to make the past be true now. The past has no power over you if you really understand, if you really are willing to embrace, that the past is the past. The only reason you think it has power over you is that you actually look back and think it’s going to recur, so you drag it into the present. The past is the past. You were a different person then. You’re a different person than before you listened and watched this video. You were a different person just a half hour ago. What if you actually gave yourself credit for shifting every moment, every hour, and actually started paying attention to the life you have right now? This is your life right now. You live in the house you live in, the apartment, condo, whatever you live. You live Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

with the people you live with, or alone. Whether you have pets or not and whatever job you have. One of the big excuses I hear over and over again is, “Well, Rhonda, I am going to really give my all when I find my purpose. When I find my purpose, Rhonda, I’m going to give everything I’ve got.” And you know what I say, “You better give everything you’ve got to the job you have right now,” because if God’s [spirit, Jesus, fate, i.e. if you believe a higher power ‘assigns purpose’] looking around at who to assign a purpose to - if you’re working twenty percent until you get the ‘right’ thing, until you get the ‘best’ thing, until you get the thing that’s really ‘meant for you’ and you’re only operating at twenty percent - do you think God is going to come down and give you a purpose? Do you think God’s going to come down and say, “Psst, here’s a job for you?” No, he’s waiting for you to get involved right now, to invest in the life you have right now. If you are not investing in the life you have right now; if you are not soaking in all the lessons; if you are not soaking in the growth; if you are not soaking in the opportunities; if you are not soaking in everything you’re supposed to be learning right now to get to the next spot of growth and transformation; if you’re not investing in the relationship you have: quit waiting for it to change, quit waiting for it to get better. No, you invest right now. Quit waiting for anyone to do something different. You go first. You’re watching this video [and you are in this training program], you, go first. [If you are practicing being fearless:] You go first. When you’re in fear that’s the last thing you want to do. You want everyone else to go first, because it’s easier isn’t it. No more excuses. I want you to think about investing in the life you have right now. No more excuses not to invest; such as, “Well Rhonda, I don’t really like the job I have.” You’re not going to like it if you’re not investing, and you’re not going to learn what you need to learn if you’re not investing. I had a client. His name was Mark. When Mark first started coaching to me and he hated his job. He wanted to become a life coach. He said, “Rhonda, I’m just going to become a life coach. I hate my job.” My response: “Awesome. Wonderful. That’s great. Come into our Coaches Training Program.” I’ve trained over 500 coaches. And Certified Fearless Living Coaches are the best in the world because they’re the only ones that know how to master fear. So, of course, I said to Mark, “Yes, I’d love to have you in our training program and there’s one catch.” He said, “What?” And then I told him, “Before you become a Certified Fearless Living Coach, you’ve got to love your job.” And this is what happened: Mark did love his job. He loved his job when he ended up quitting it to become a full time Certified Fearless Living Coach, and he now has a full time practice. I just really want you to hear that. I hear all of your excuses right now. I hear them all right now: “Rhonda you don’t understand my job, my boss.” I get it. I get it. I get that Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

there are things that are difficult. It’s not about changing them. It’s about giving yourself an excuse so that you don’t have to show up fully and completely as you. Quit using the way your boss treats you as an excuse not to show up fully. Quit using the chaos at work as your excuse. Quit using how your mate treats you as your excuse not to fully invest in your relationship. Quit using excuses that cover up, and act as if they’re rationalizations, and they’re logical, and they’re really good reasons to stop you from owning your life. This is your life. This is your life. This is your life. This is your life. And nobody is going to live it but you. Nobody in all the history of the world can live your life. Let’s do a Fearbuster Exercise right now. I want you to grab the one called “Excuses Journal.” I’m just going to give you the directions. Then, I will end this video and meet you at the next video, because you’re going to need some time to complete this Fearbuster Exercise. Left hand column: “List all your goals or desires of things you’ve wanted to accomplish.” You don’t even have to do the right column right now. Just think of all the goals you’ve had over your entire life, all the desires you’ve had, and all of the things you didn’t make happen. What were some of your desires, and dreams, that you haven’t accomplished? Its time to claim that now, it’s time to own that. I know somebody out there is thinking, “But I don’t want to look at that Rhonda.” Well, if [an unfulfilled dream comes up, if you can remember it, it’s still somewhere inside of you. We want to clean that out this week. You’re going to heal it. You’re going to let it go. But first you have to own it, you have to claim it, you have to admit, “Oh yeah, this still haunts me.” After you complete the left hand column, move to the right hand column: What experiences or circumstances have stood in your way? So what have been your excuses? What experiences or circumstances have stood in your way? Now you’re going to see a word there called your “Badge of Honor”, but ignore that for right now, we’re going to talk about that in our next video. Right now, list all the things you’ve wanted to accomplish in your life, but haven’t. All the dreams that you quit going for. And then I want you to tell me all the reasons (Some may be legitimate reasons) or excuses you’ve used to rationalize it. It’s going to take a little bit of time. Take your time. And when you complete this Fearbuster Exercise, meet me over at the next video. I’ll see you there. Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

Fearbuster Exercise: Excuses Journal List goals, desires, dreams that you have yet to achieve…

What stops you from accomplishing your goals and/or desires? Excuses, stories, beliefs…


Fearbuster Exercise: Integration Exercise REFLECT: Ask yourself… Excuses excuse you from fulfilling your potential. What potential of yours have they thwarted? Journal your thoughts.

REFLECT: Ask yourself… List your top 5 excuses. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

REFLECT: Ask yourself… Summarize what you have learned about excuses:

REFLECT: Ask yourself… How could giving up excuses change your life?


Welcome to Week Seven: Honor Your Needs Video Two: Badge of Honor In Video One [of Week Seven], I asked you to complete the Excuses Journal. I asked you to list all of the things, all of the goals and desires, that you’ve wanted to accomplish, but haven’t. I asked you to list all of the experiences, the circumstances, the people, the excuses, you’ve used, and the rationalizations and reasons that you’ve used, to let yourself off the hook for accomplishing these, or validate why you didn’t go for it or to give yourself a way out. Another way to think of excuses is a lovely phrase that I use called, “If only.” If only my parents hadn’t died. If only I would have gotten into Interlochen Academy. If only I hadn’t started drinking. If only I could have had a baby. If only I didn’t get divorced. If only I would have married my college boyfriend. If only. Excuses tie into our regret. If you have regret, I guarantee you that there’s an excuse behind that regret, and you have probably said to yourself, “if only.” If only that wouldn’t have happened; if only that would have happened; if only I would have said this; if only I wouldn’t have said that; if only I could change it; if only it could be different. I want you to take another minute and look at your Excuses Journal again and ask yourself do you have any, “If only?” “If only” usually points you to another excuse. You’re not crazy or bad because you’ve had excuses, it’s not like you’ve purposely been trying to hurt yourself or cover it up. Remember, excuses are really seductive, really insidious, because there’s a seed of truth in them. So it’s really tough to separate a real true reason from a fear-based excuse. This is the difference; this is how you know there’s a difference between a reason and an excuse. A freedom-based reason means you have accepted it, you don’t have regret, and you have a peace about it; whatever it is. There is a peace that you have when you think, “Well I didn’t go here,” or “I didn’t do this.” There’s a level of acceptance. You don’t beat yourself up about it; it doesn’t haunt your thoughts; you don’t go back over it when you’re taking a Stretch, Risk or Die; it doesn’t come up to haunt you again. You don’t use it to hurt or harm yourself, you don’t use negative self-talk about bringing up the past. So yes. Are there legitimate reasons why you’ve done things in the past that are based in freedom? Of course, and how you know that is they’re based in freedom is you have a level of acceptance, they don’t haunt you, you don’t worry about them, you don’t wonder if, you don’t say, “If only.” When you are haunted by the past, when you have regret, when you say, “If only”, then, I bet there’s an excuse somewhere lurking. Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

What I want you to start seeing is that for every excuse, there’s a Proactive Behavior that you could have done or that you can do from now on. Because again, excuses let you off the hook, you don’t have to learn new skills, you don’t have to face somebody, you don’t have to dig deep and figure out how you have to grow in this moment. You just grab an excuse. See, excuses don’t help you fulfill your potential. Excuses thwart your growth and transformation and they put you in blame mode. So if you’re saying some, “If only’s”, I guarantee there’s an excuse in there. Go ahead and take a minute now, and just look over that Excuse Journal. Go ahead and pause the video, and just look one more time, “If only.” Go ahead and do that now. Now that you’ve double looked at your Excuses Journal, and you’ve answered maybe some more “If only’s” (things that haunt you when you’re really trying to shift your life), its now time to face the costs, the costs to you regarding your excuses. What has it cost you? Maybe it’s cost you self-esteem; maybe its cost you relationships; maybe its cost you your confidence; maybe it’s cost you your ability to dream, allow yourself to dream, to have a dream. Maybe it’s cost you a family member, a close relationship. Maybe its cost you your ability to give yourself a break – compassion - maybe you don’t think you deserve compassion, you can’t give it to yourself because of A, B, C and D excuses. See when we use an excuse, there’s a cost associated with that excuse. So I want you to get your Fearbuster Exercise out now: Cost Journal. I know it has the word “Badge of Honor” up there, we’re going to get to that in just a minute, but what have your excuses cost you, what have your excuses cost you? Go ahead and pause the video now, and complete this exercise.

Fearbuster Exercise: Cost Journal What are your excuses (could be seen as stories or beliefs) costing you?


Okay, so you’ve been doing your costs right? Because again, those “If only’s”, those excuses have costs. Now I want to help you identify what your Badge of Honor is. The Badge of Honor, in the world of Fearless Living, is really a badge of fear, really a badge of excuses. The Badge of Honor is your number one excuse. So when you look at your Excuses Journal and you look at your Cost Journal, what is your number one excuse? Of all the excuses, where do you think they all stem from, or what’s the one excuse you lean on the most? This is what I call your Badge of Honor. When anything gets too tough, and too rough, and too hard, you just take that Badge and slap it on and say, “I can’t possibly do that because this happened to me.” Now again, you might not say that out loud to anyone, but inside that’s what you might be saying. Rhonda’s Badge of Honor: “I can’t possibly have a relationship that works; I’m an orphan, the daughter of a murderer. How can I ever have a healthy relationship?” When I’m wearing my Badge of Honor, the thing that I lean on when the going gets tough and I don’t get going, when I’m stuck in fear, a Proactive Behavior for me is to remind myself what my Badge of Honor is so that I can make a new choice. My Badge of Honor, in that moment, what my Wheel of Fear has given me permission to use, is that I am the daughter of a murder, that his blood runs through my veins and I am an orphan. When things get really hard for me, when I’m having my pity parties, with my brie cheese in bed, that’s what I’m saying to myself, “Hey Rhonda, you can’t have this, you can’t have that, because you’re an orphan and your father killed your mother.” That’s my big giant excuse. We all have one. I’ve done this exercise with tens of thousands of people. I’ve heard everything from horrific abuse Badge of Honors, to ones like: “My mother never gave me time,” or “I was in a bad car accident in high school,” or “I didn’t have a father” Other examples I’ve heard: “My boyfriend broke up with me in high school.” So again, it doesn’t matter what your opinion of it is. I know people, when they think of my murder suicide, they think, “Well that’s so big.” The Badge of Honor is not about big or small, its not about shock value, or drama. It’s about telling yourself the truth about what you go back to, time and time again, when life’s not working for you. I, when I’m in the dark days in my Wheel of Fear, when I’m in that Stretch, Risk, and Die Zone, and can’t seem to get myself out quickly and easily, yeah, I’m the daughter of a murder and I’m an orphan. Yours might be that the first boy, the first girl, you fell in love with rejected you. And that’s heartbreaking. It might be that your mother didn’t give you time, or you never did anything alone with her, or she never talked lovingly to you. It may be that your Badge Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

of Honor sounds like, “Of course you can never lose weight because you were only fed fried food.” That could be your Badge. Just think what your number one excuse is, the excuse of excuses, just think for a minute, when your life is, down in the toilet, not working well, what do you say to yourself, what are the things you always lean on? Those are a part of our Core Negative Feeling, those are the things that give us permission to self destruct. Now, I want you to claim your Badge of Honor. I want you to claim that you wear it sometimes, that you let yourself off the hook, that you’ve used it that way. I absolutely believe you must give yourself a break. Letting yourself off the hook, and giving your self a break, are two different things. I absolutely want you to give yourself a break, but I do not want you to let yourself off the hook. Giving yourself a break is giving yourself compassion, seeing your innocence that you didn’t know better, you didn’t know any of this stuff before you watched this video. Maybe you might have had an inkling of it, but maybe nobody put it into words for you so it made sense. Sometimes that’s the key that turns everything on. Somebody describes it in a way that it just makes sense. So, what is your Badge of Honor? I want you to go ahead and write it at the top of your Cost Journal. And if you’ve already filled out your Cost Journal, there’s not another speck of room, then I want you to turn it over and I want you to write the cost of your Badge of Honor. It might be some of the very same things you’ve already written. Or it might be new things, but what is your Badge, what is the thing that you lean on? Tell yourself the truth. What is your Badge of Honor?

What is the cost of your Badge of Honor?

You’ve completed your Excuse Journal and your Cost Journal; and you’ve identified your Badge of Honor, the number one excuse you have. Yes, it has cost you, but it doesn’t have to keep costing you. You can let it go. I know that seems almost impossible right now, but in videos to come we’re going to do a Fearbuster Exercise to help you let it go, so the Badge of Honor no longer holds a sacred place in your life. Instead you’ll have a lot more freedom, a lot more freedom to be you. I’ll meet you at the next video.


Fearbuster Exercise: Integration Exercise REFLECT: Ask yourself… Name you Badge of Honor. How has it impacted your life?

REFLECT: Ask yourself… List your top 3 “If Only.” 1. 2. 3.

REFLECT: Ask yourself… What do you say to yourself about your “If Only” list?

REFLECT: Ask yourself… Do you want to make any “If Only’s” a reality now? If yes, brainstorm three ideas to start taking action.


Welcome to Week Seven: Honoring Your Needs Video Three: Core Needs You have identified the costs of your excuses and your Badge of Honor. In the videos ahead, I’m going to share some exercises to help you let those go. But before I do that, I want to give you some insight into what’s motivated you, what’s inspired you, what’s given you permission to have your excuses. That’s something called needs. We all have needs; every single one of us has needs. Now, when I was growing up, in the self-help movement everybody was saying there’s no such thing as needs, there’s only wants. I disagree. You have needs and you have wants. Abraham Maslow talked about the pyramid of needs. You can’t really work on personal transformation if you’re starving. You need security, you need shelter, you need food, you need water, before you can start thinking about how to change your life. We all have needs. Not only do we have basic needs, we also have needs that drive our feeling of emotional safety, not just physical safety, but emotional safety. We all want to feel emotionally safe. And we have what I call your Core Need. Think of the Core Need as - you know how expectations are the oil that keep the wheel spinning - Core Needs are similar to that. Core Needs are a huge motivator on our Wheel of Fear, or a huge motivator on the Wheel of Freedom, because Core Needs can absolutely be used for fear or freedom. Core Needs are basic to our humanness, they’re part of our humanity, they’re part of who we are, they just are. You need security. I need security. They drive our behavior even if we’re unconscious of our needs. They drive our behavior, based in fear most of the time when it’s unconscious, and they give us permission to make those excuses. Core Need is one of the driving factors, one of the things that give you permission, that inspires you, to actually have those excuses that we just got done talking about. I want to talk about your Core Need, because you have one. You have a Core Need that drives your behavior. That Core Need drives your behavior in ways, when your unconscious about it, that you’re not happy about; things that you’ve done that you might be embarrassed by. I’ll give you a quick example, I had a client, and her name was Vicky. Vicky came to me, and said, “Rhonda, I’ve got to decide whether to open my own business or go back to get my masters degree. I’ve got to decide right now.”


My reply, “Okay, why do you have to decide right now?” I always ask people that when they say, “I have to do it right now.” It’s like, “Okay, why right now?” Here’s the rest of our conversation: Vicky: “Because, well, I can’t waste anymore time.” RB: “Okay, and why can’t you waste anymore time?” Vicky: “Well I’ve wasted too much time.” RB: “Okay, well, how have you wasted so much time?” Vicky: “Well, I’ve just wasted a lot of time. You know when I was in college, well, it took me a long time to get my college degree because I followed this guy around who was in a band. I just followed him, and I’d take a quarter off here and there and I would just follow him around. I wasn’t staying focused on my dreams and what I wanted.” RB: “Oh, okay, so how is that a waste of time?” Vicky: “Well, it wasn’t helping me get to where I want to go.” RB: “Okay, well, what was it giving you?” Vicky: “Well we didn’t stay together so it gave me nothing.” RB: “Okay, what did it give you at the time?” Vicky: “I don’t know.” RB: “Did he give you acceptance?” Vicky: “I suppose.” RB: “Did he give you love?” Vicky: “I thought so.” RB: “Well, at the time did you feel loved?” Vicky: “Yes.” RB: “Did he give you a sense of freedom, being on the road traveling?” Vicky: “Well, yes.” Then we started to identify her needs. She started identifying that the waste of time road trip that she kept taking with her college boyfriend was fulfilling some of her Core Needs, fulfilling her number one Core Need, which was love for her. She didn’t know this at the time, because she didn’t understand how fear worked. She didn’t know how to get that need met. So she tried to get it met out of fear. She compromised herself. She gave up her boundaries. She didn’t know how to say no. She did whatever he wanted to do because she just wanted love. I looked at Vicky and said, “That’s not a bad thing. You did what you thought you had to do to get your Core Need met.” And oh, by the way, that’s what all of us our doing. All of us are just trying to get out Core Need met. In that moment, she realized, she was willing, I should say, to see herself as innocent, to give herself a break, and to forgive herself. To forgive herself for what she had deemed: a waste of time. Forgive herself for her lack of discipline in those times, as she was labeling it now. When you can see that as a human being it’s natural and normal to have needs, that it’s a part of who we are, you can give yourself a break. Yes, we have needs, and to start becoming responsible for those needs is a fearless act.


Normally [when we are in fear], we make everybody else responsible for our needs being fulfilled and then we get to blame them and get mad at them for not [taking care of our needs]. We don’t know how to express our needs because we don’t even know they’re there. So we just feel thwarted and frustrated. In this exercise we’re about do, I’m going to help you discover what your Core Need is. I want you to work with it throughout the week, give you more time to discover it. What need do you have, what needs do you have? Again, like I said, we all have a need for food, shelter, physical safety, emotional safety, but how that plays out in your own life is as unique as your Trigger and as unique as your Essential Nature. Once you start recognizing your Core Need, knowing that Core Need becomes a Proactive Behavior on your Wheel of Freedom. Instead of it becoming a Fear Response on your Wheel of Fear, you actually can choose to get your Core Need met on your Wheel of Freedom. Now, I got to tell you, that’s freedom. That is freedom. So, you have an exercise called Core Needs, and it has a list of needs. Fearbuster Exercise: Core Needs I’m going to read through each Core Need and if that need is really important to you, you know on a scale of 5-10, i.e. 7,8,9’s, I want you to circle that need. If it’s not really calling you, and it’s not this sense of urgency, then maybe it’s a 1, 2, 3, 4, don’t circle it, because we all have most of these needs, but I want to find out the needs that are really important to you, really drive some of your behavior. One of my needs, it’s not my Core Need, but its one of my big needs, is fairness. I have a big need for fairness. And boy when that need is on patrol of fairness, and I’m in fear, I am not a pretty sight. But when I recognize that I’m having a need for fairness and I access my freedom, I can actually have discussions; I can actually figure out ways to get that need met. When I have a need for fairness and I’m in fear, everything feels unfair, and everybody’s getting treated better than me. Now you don’t have to know where these needs come from; don’t psychoanalyze yourself. You don’t have to figure out why. Just start owning your Core Need right now, live the life you have now. I’m going to read each of them to you and I want you to circle the ones that scream out: I have to have that. Other ways to think about this Fearbuster Exercise: You can also think of an important relationship and when you are in conflict, what would you need from that person in order for your needs to be met? Or what do you always say to yourself, under your breath, when you feel like life isn’t working in your favor? What one thing must others give you in order for you to feel free?


Fearbuster Exercise: Core Needs

Respect

Safety

Fun

Acceptance

Space

Rest

Friendship

Openness

Honesty

Understanding

Health

Support

Family

Harmony

Trust

Commitment

Solitude

Faith

Fairness

Belonging

Love

Structure

Abundance

Power

Peace

Joy

Be heard

Financial Stability

Success

Community Change

Be understood

Predictability

Control

Express Feelings

Be Included Responsibility

Choose your 5 most important needs most of the time. Narrow them down in order to define your Core Need.

Top 5

Top 3

#1

________________ ________________

________________

________________

________________

________________

________________

________________

________________

My Core Need means:


I want to talk about a couple of these needs. There’s a need called “Be understood.” I know some of you circled it. Everybody likes to be understood. It feels great doesn’t it? I want you to ask yourself: do you really have a need to be understood, or instead, is it to be agreed with? It’s very different. What I find is that most people who want to be understood, equate it with agreement. Can you have a discussion with somebody, and if they don’t agree with you, can they understand you? Or if they understood you, do you believe, they’d have to agree? If you think if they understood, they’d agree with your opinion, or your desire, or your want, then I think your using being understood as a Fear Response and manipulating other people with it. The same thing happens with the respect. I want respect, and I want you to have respect, and I want us to respect each other. I’ve just known way too many people in my life that use the word respect to manipulate somebody else to do what they want. If you’ve ever used, “You’re not respecting me,” because the person isn’t treating you exactly how you think you need to be treated, and you’ve never told them that, or your really trying to get them to do what you want, then again, I don’t think you have a need for respect. I think you have a need to control. Be attentive to the trickster fear giving you permission to have needs; such as, respect, or be understood, when really your need is you want control, you want agreement. So be attentive, be attentive. Look at your list again. If you have ‘be understood’ and ‘respect’, you can totally have ‘understood’ and ‘respect’, I’m just giving you a little insight into how those two can be so manipulative. I want you to really ask yourself, “If you could only pick 5 needs, which five would you choose? Then I want you to get it down to three and then I want you to get it down to one. I want your Core Needs to get down from five, to three, down to one. And then at the bottom I want you to complete the stem sentence: “My Core Need means.” I want you just to define your Core Need for yourself. How would you know your Core Need’s being met? How do you know when that Core Need is coming up for you? Just write some, off the top of your head, thoughts about it. Great, so you have your Core Needs, and you got it down to one. I know, just like the Wheel of Fear and Wheel of Freedom, some of you are like, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” Your Core Need, unlike your Wheel of Fear and Wheel of Freedom, (notice the Trigger always stays the same. It will stay the same for the rest of your life. Your Essential Nature is yours and yours alone for the rest of your life), may change. This year, this month, your Core Need might be trust, but three months from now your Core Need may shift to community. So your Core Need shifts with you. I always like to think of Core Need, as you deepen your awareness of fear and freedom, your Core Need deepens as well. You really get to a deeper and deeper heart of what’s driving your behavior.


Core Needs, again, they’re part of humanity, they’re part of our human reality. You have needs and I have needs. It is just part of being human, you can’t deny them gang. Which one drives you, which one motivates you, which one inspires you, which one gives you permission to act? And again, that could be acting on your Wheel of Fear or your Wheel of Freedom. If you’re confused which Core Need is yours, guess. I love guessing. Just guess, and practice that Core Need this week, practice seeing your Core Need in action. Now Core Need for some people is really where the light bulb turns on, it just turns the whole process on. It makes the Wheel of Fear and Wheel of Freedom make sense. The Core Need, for so many people, is the moment when they say, “Yes, I get it. I see that need.” I want you to pay attention this week, your homework, as always is to start paying attention to what we talk about this week. In the next, 24, 48, 96, hours, etc., I want you to start identifying your Core Need and how is it being met, or how are you not being responsible for it, how are you making it other peoples responsibility for it being met. You are ultimately responsible for getting your Core Need met. If you’re responsible, you’ve got to get on that Wheel of Freedom in order to ask for support, in order to be vulnerable and tell somebody that you have this need. How could they help fulfill it? You’re responsible for getting your Core Need met, but I really want you to hear this, because this is a real trickster, because this is what messes with people, because you’ve been told or you’ve heard, “Oh, take care of your own needs.” That phrase takes away any permission to ask for help, to care for others. Other people are going to support your Core Need being met, but this is the trick, the person who may support your Core Need being met, may not be the person you want to support your Core Need. Meaning, you might want your mate to help you with your Core Need, but you know what, they’re not going to. Let’s talk about sex. I don’t know if you do, but I believe in monogamy. If I had a sexual need and my partner couldn’t fulfill it, for whatever reason, I would not go outside of the marriage in order to fulfill that Core Need. I would take care of that myself. Yet, there are other needs that we want to be fulfilled by our mate, or we want from a family member, we want from our mother, we want from our sister, we want from our brother, we want from our mate, or want from our children, and you know what, they’re not going to support us getting that need being met. We’re going to have to go someplace else. [Usually, someone we love wants to support our needs being met. Yet, due to their own inability to get off their Wheel of Fear, they might not be able to give us what we want, i.e. support in our needs being met. Please be aware if you have decided, because of Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

your own Wheel of Fear, that you are only willing to ask one specific person to help you. Your needs are your needs. And you must be willing to do what is necessary to take care of yourself. I want you to think of your needs as your center point. When our needs are met, it is much easier to stay in freedom. When we ignore our needs, the Wheel of Fear isn’t too far behind. Be attentive to the trickster fear.] And in that moment, your loved one not supporting you and your Core Need, it can plant a seed of resentment. Oh, resentment. So, if you’re feeling resentful, you’re probably looking to one source and one source only to fulfill your Core Need. You are not taking responsibility for your part regarding requesting, asking, that person to help your Core Need to be fulfilled. If that person is unable or unwilling to help, then ask yourself, “Who can help me in getting my needs met?” Be open. [Quick example: If you have a need for love, (we all do), your first step might be smiling at people in your environment. That small step will give you smiles back giving you a sense of being loved. Many people, when they think of a Core Need of love, only think of L-O-V-E. As in, love everlasting, intimate partnership. Love has many forms and can be given by many types of people. If there is only one way to fulfill your Core Need, you will consistently be driven by fear in getting it met. Be open. Think of the Core Need being fulfilled in increments instead of forever.] The last Fearbuster Exercise I’m going to leave you with is “Freedom from Need.” [Please complete the exercise fully after this video is complete. Be sure to give some thought to your answers. Bottom line: I want you to be aware of your Core Need and how the Wheel of Fear has been trying to get it met versus how could the Wheel of Freedom get it met. And be sure to list Proactive Behaviors that could support you.] I want you to know your needs. I want you to honor your needs, because these needs are just part of being human. You’re not wrong to have needs; it’s just part of who you are. I’ll look forward to seeing you at the next video.


Fearbuster Exercise: Freedom from Need My Core Need is:

How has your Wheel of Fear attempted to meet your Core Need?

How could your Wheel of Freedom support your Core Need?

What Proactive Behaviors could support you in turning your fear-based Core Need into a freedom-based Core Want?


Fearbuster Exercise: Integration Exercise REFLECT: Ask yourself… Name your Core Need. List three ways to get that need met? Core Need: 1. 2. 3. REFLECT: Ask yourself… List three people who can support you in getting your Core Need met. 1. 2. 3.

REFLECT: Ask yourself… If you paid attention to your Core Need, whether it was being met or not, how could that change your life?

REFLECT: Ask yourself… What needs are you afraid to admit that you have?


Welcome to Week Seven: Honoring Your Needs Video Four: Forgiveness And yes, it’s all about forgiveness. I think forgiveness is something that we all want to talk about, we all know that we need to talk about it, but it’s a scary topic. When I teach, whether it’s a room of a hundred, or a thousand, or ten people, it doesn’t matter how many, I always ask, “Is there someone that you have not yet forgiven? Is there some grudge that you’re hanging on to from the past? Is there some hold still on you based on a previous situation in your life?” I would say 90+% raise their hand. Someone always ask me at some point, “Well what about me? Can I include myself in forgiveness?” Yes! Is there some reason that you haven’t forgiven yourself for something? When we get to excuses and Core Need, this is the time to talk about forgiveness. Excuses are insidious and seductive because they are based on a seed of truth. They are slimy and slippery to see, yet, we blame ourselves for having them and think we’re wrong or bad when we discover we have been using an excuse. The Wheel of Fear just beats us up for having excuses but we can’t even see them. Excuses thwart us in our life. Then, one years, two years, five years, ten years, two decades later, we beat ourselves for “What if?” or “If only? Then we’ve got our Core Need. We start identifying our Core Need. We start seeing all the places, like my client Vicky from our previous video, how she had this Core Need driving her. She had not forgiven herself for the decision she made. She had not forgiven herself because she didn’t understand it. She didn’t realize that she was being driven from her Core Need to feel loved. Now feeling loved, as I told Vicky, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to feel loved, but feeling loved from that place of desperation, from that place of “I have to compromise myself because you can’t love me the way I am”, well, that’s all based in fear. Whenever anyone - at any time - starts recognizing he or she’s Core Need that is great news! When you see all the places that you have acted out in ways that you’re not proud of, on your Wheel of Fear, and become aware of every excuse you’ve given yourself over the years; It’s time to start forgiving. Not only forgiving yourself, because, yes, I know many of you are thinking, “Well I’m the only one I have to forgive.” That might be true. But if there is anyone that you harbor a grudge against; anybody that you have negative thoughts about; anybody that you blame for anything in your life; anybody that you think should have done more, should have been different; anyone that you feel like you were held back by, that you couldn’t be you because of them; Then there’s probably some forgiveness for the other person too. Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

Lets talk about forgiveness. Forgiveness is not a one-time only event. Forgiveness is time and time and time again. I like to say forgiveness is a daily event. I don’t mean you do all these terrible things that you need to forgive your self or others for all the time. I’m just asking: Do you have the frame reference of forgiveness? If you allow forgiveness to be a part of your Proactive Behavior list, things that you do on a regular and readily basis, then you have a lot more space to immediately get back into your own bones, and get back into your own life, and get back into your own body. [You don’t have to fight with yourself to earn back the right to have your life daily.] Some people will do things, not purposely, but you’ll feel like it’s purposely, but can you forgive, can you see their innocence? That’s difficult for many people. Seeing another’s innocence, plus seeing your own innocence, is difficult, at best. I know it from personal experience, as well as experiencing it with my clients. It took me twenty years to forgive myself for my parents’ death. Now the day they died, I was planning, at the time, to become a minister. I was the president of the youth group at my church. I had actually created the youth group. And God and me were like ‘this’. For Christmas that year, I had knit everyone sweaters and scarves and stuffed pamphlets about Jesus and God in their gift box. That’s how devoted I was at fourteen years old to God. When my parents died that day, I actually believed, because of my frame of reference and wanting to be close to God and wanting to be like God, wanting to like Jesus, wanting to be in that space; I thought I forgave them right away. The night my parents died, I went skating at the local ice area, because it was a Sunday and every Sunday I went ice-skating and I decided to do it. I know it sounds kind of crazy, now looking back at it, but it’s the only thing that I knew to do is do what I’ve always done. So I went skating that night and my friend Julie comes running across the ice rink and wails in my arms, “How can you forgive him?” How can we forgive?” And I said, very matter of fact, “Well, I do. I forgive him. I forgive my father for killing himself, and killing my mother.” At the time, I had just a inkling of what forgiveness meant. I had a theoretical understanding. I didn’t have the embodiment that I have now or the understanding that I have now. What I know now is an understanding that as we live our life, as we bump up against our Stretch, Risk and Dies, as we bump up against this curve, there is a place to forgive. For instance, the day that I got married I had to forgive my father again for taking my mother. The day I got divorced I had to forgive my mother again. I can’t tell you how Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

many times I’ve forgiven my mother and my father and each time I thought, “I did it. I forgave them.” Every time I did at the level of awareness and understanding I had. See you only have as much awareness and understanding and capacity as you do in any one particular moment. Because I hadn’t ever been married before, I didn’t have a previous experience of forgiving my mother and father for that particular experience. Forgiving them before that moment was very different than forgiving them for the moment that I was getting married. And when I got divorced it was a different moment. I want you to think of forgiveness like an onion. Every time that you expand, every time that you move out of your comfort zone and you move into your stretch zone or your risk zone or your die zone and you hear your excuses or your hear how your past is telling you one thing or another or you want to blame somebody for not giving you a break, it’s time for forgiveness. I’ve probably forgiven my father 50 times, I’ve probably forgiven my mother 32 times and I’ve probably forgiven myself 100 times. It was easy to forgive my father. I know that might seem shocking, but it was actually the easiest person to forgive. Because I can see how my father killed my mother out of fear. Now can we say he knew what he was doing, was he mentally unstable? I don’t know. We want to say that, don’t we? It makes it better or easier to swallow, to understand, but that’s not really the point. Sometimes the perpetrators are the hardest people to forgive, but for me forgiving my father was the easiest of the three. Because my father did the act, I saw him do the act of murder, I became committed to understanding the act, no matter how crazy that sounds. Based on my own spiritual upbringing, my spiritual philosophy and my own desire to have compassion and innocence, I, after time, could really see the pain my father was in; the deep pain, embarrassment, shame and humiliation. He had a belief (I’m guessing) if my mother divorced him and my father was left alone, that he really did believe somewhere inside of him, that he couldn’t live. Now, of course, we all know that’s not true. But I know how fear can grab you and take hold of you and make you irrational. It doesn’t make [what he did] acceptable, I’m not saying that’s as excuse for him. I’m just saying I understand. In the end, my father was the easiest to forgive. My mother was more difficult to forgive because I had put my mother on a pedestal after her death. After they died, it was my mother who I craved, who I missed, who I yearned for. It was my mother who I wanted by my side. It was my mother who I wanted to bring me dry toast when I was sick and 7-up, rub my head and tuck me in. I wanted her to hold me when my husband left. It was my mother that I wanted.


It was harder to forgive my mother because I had to face how my mother contributed to her own death. I don’t mean she caused her death, I’m not saying that, my father killed my mother and it was wrong. Taking a life in that way is always the fault of the person pulling the trigger. In other words, my mother could not have provoked my father to kill her. He make that choice all by himself. What was hard really for me to face was the fact that my mother stayed in that abusive relationship way. My mother accepted that abusive behavior for way too many years. Now do I know if she would have quit accepting that behavior ten years before would he have killed her? I don’t know that. But I had placed my mother on such a pedestal that I couldn’t, for a long time, see how she too was flawed. She too had fear, that she too was human, that innocence and compassion were called for. I loved my mother, and I love my mother. I love my mother right now. But in order to forgive her, to really truly forgive her I had to see her as a women just like me, wanting love, not knowing how to get it any other way. At times, putting her husband before her children. I had to forgive my mother for when my father strangled me when I was twelve and she didn’t take me out of the house or she didn’t kick my father out of the house. I had to forgive her for that. And that moment, for many years, was overshadowed by that fact that my father killed her. [I didn’t want to look at how she contributed to their abusive relationship. I didn’t want to forgive my mother for anything she had done before she died, because I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to admit there was anything to forgive her for.] Yes, my mother let him live in that house and kept me in that house after he tried to strangle me. Forgiving my mother was the second most difficult person for me to forgive after that fateful day. The third most difficult person to forgive was myself. Forgiving myself took twenty years. I remember the day that I finally decided to forgive myself. What I had to realize was that I no longer had to put being a “good daughter” before choosing me and my life. This is why we don’t forgive. Being unforgiving gives us a false sense of connection. On my Wheel of Fear, I’m connected to my mother and I’m connected to my father as long as I’m the good daughter. I’m a good daughter because I’m miserable that my parents died. I’m a good daughter because I can’t be happy because they’re dead. For twenty years that was my driving force; be a good daughter. Now was I happy at times, of course I was. Did I think this all the time? Of course, I didn’t. But now looking back on it I’m very clear that for twenty years, from the time I was fourteen years old until I was thirty-four, I lived my life in struggle and suffering because I did not believe I deserved to have freedom because my parents and my dear Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

mother were dead. And if was a good daughter I absolutely could not forgive myself. And I had to sacrifice and I had to struggle in order to prove that I loved them. Refusing to forgive us a false sense of connection to another being, it keeps the connection (we falsely believe) alive. My mother and I are closer than ever right now and my father and I are closer than ever. I know they’ve been gone many decades, but that doesn’t matter. I feel their presence around me. It gives me comfort. But when the Wheel of Fear was talking and I was listening to the Wheel of Fear I thought the only way I could stay connected to them was sacrificing myself. So I couldn’t forgive myself, I couldn’t forgive them, we had to stay connected. My struggle justified and proved their death was a horrible act. If I wasn’t happy, then it proved it was a horrible act because she the result: my life in shambles. But if I forgave them and forgave myself and was able to live my life and be happy than how could I ever use that excuse again? How could I ever say “See what happened to me,” because people might say, “You look like you got over it.” This is how seductive the Wheel of Fear is. The Wheel of Fear actually stops us from forgiving in order to give us that false sense of connection, gives us permission to punish ourselves or others thinking that punishment actually has value. Being unforgiving, holding a grudge, is like drinking poison and thinking the other person is going to die. You are drinking the poison of unforgiveness, drinking the poison of grudge, confirms: I’m going to hold this grudge until the day I die; I’m going to hold on to this to make sure they know how much they hurt me so everyone can see how much it cost, to know the pain; I’m going to show them. Whenever you are going to “show them”, you’re drinking the poison, they’re not dying, you are. Your energy is dying, your spark is fading, your light has a shadow on it, and again, I realize it’s scary to forgive, but you must. Forgiveness is the thing that cuts the cords between our anger and our love. You can still have the love, but you must cut the cord to anger. You must cut the cord to blame. You must cut the fear-based cords. The one way to do that is through forgiving; forgiving yourself and forgiving others. I want you to think right now of people in your life that you are refusing to forgive. Maybe some of the people you’ve written down in your excuses journal; Some people that you know you’re holding a grudge against? Or when life isn’t working for you, their name pops in your brain and you think the “If Only.” Examples of “If Only”: “If only that didn’t happen to me, it’s their fault. If only they didn’t do that to me. If I had passed that grade but they wouldn’t help me. If they didn’t have leave me.” Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

Hanging on to them through fear will not make you feel loved and will not make your life more valuable and will not validate the pain you had and will not validate the pain that you have now. I want to briefly, before we go to the first exercise on forgiveness, I want to tell you the four stages of forgiveness. There are four stages of forgiveness. The first stage is denial. The day my parents died I thought I forgave them. I was in complete denial about the pain I was in and the heartbreak I was in and the loss I was experiencing and the anger and bitterness. I was in complete denial. That’s the first stage of denial. The first stage before we get to forgiveness is we deny it’s happening to us. The second stage is anger. We get good old angry. I got angry at my father for killing my mother. I got angry at my mother for staying with my father. I got angry at my mother for keeping me in that house after he tried to strangle me. I got angry. And I got angry at myself for wasting my life, as I said, for years. I got angry that I didn’t save her. I got angry that I didn’t stop him. I got angry. The third stage is acceptance. Then I had to move into acceptance in order to complete the cycle of forgiveness, to prepare myself to be ready to forgive. And again your going to do the next exercise in any one of these stages, it doesn’t matter what stage your in, I just want you to start recognizing that there’s stages. So anger is a part of forgiving. I worked with one client who had some horrific things happen to her growing up and she never once got angry because she had no permission to get angry. She was told she couldn’t get angry. So one of the things we worked on was just getting angry. I know that seems kind of like, “Wow Rhonda, helping people get angry.” Yep. She had to get angry. She had to feel the unjust nature, had to feel the unfairness, had to let that free in a safe environment with me, not hurting or harming anybody else. So that she could eventually move into acceptance. I moved into acceptance. My father did kill my mother and my mother did keep me in that house when I was twelve and I didn’t save either one of them and I am the daughter of a murderer, so yes I’m an orphan and I’m the daughter of a murderer. And I had to accept that. And when I could accept that I experienced a deep freedom. The resistance to move into the next stage was released. Last stage of forgiveness is compassion; Compassion for your self, for the perpetrator, for others involved. But this is not only compassion for your self, I also have deep compassion for my mother and deep compassion for my father. When I can look at both my parents and myself with compassion, I’m free. Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

I’m on my Wheel of Freedom by taking the Proactive Behavior called forgiveness. Think about the person or people that you are holding a grudge against, i.e. you are drinking their poison and thinking they’re going to die. Forgiveness is never about the other person; it’s always for you. It doesn’t mean you accept the behavior, it doesn’t mean you think it’s right. It wasn’t right that my father killed my mother. It wasn’t right that he committed suicide, that was wrong, but forgiving him sets me free. Forgiving somebody who hurt or harmed you before doesn’t mean you have to be friends, doesn’t mean you have to invite them to lunch, doesn’t mean you have to get together again. I think that’s one of the big misconceptions, the big fallacies of forgiveness, the misunderstanding about forgiveness; Is that you actually think you have to be friends again. Forgiving them and inviting them back into your life are two different things. Forgiving yourself and forgiving those individuals in your life that have hurt or harmed you is for you, to set you free. You quit drinking the poison, you cut the fear ties, when you forgive. I want you to think of somebody right now that you are ready to even contemplate, even a little bit, willing to forgive. See, I believe that you have to be willing to be willing to be willing to forgive, just ever so slightly. I want you to grab a blank piece of paper right now and I know you have your pen and paper so grab that now. On the top of this blank piece of paper I want you to write “Dear” and the name of the person you’re thinking of that you are ready to forgive. “Dear mother”, “Dear father” “Dear (our own name).” Could be a teacher from elementary school; it could be your boyfriend in fifth grade, It doesn’t matter, your not going to mail this, your not going to send it, this is for you and you alone. But it’s time to write the letter. Start the letter: Dear (the name of person you are willing to forgive) and you can say “I’m willing to contemplate even maybe just a little bit forgiving you. Or “I’m willing to forgive you”, you can start off that way. Or you can start off with “I’m really angry.” You have to go through the anger before you can get to the forgiveness. I just want you to write a letter to that person and tell them that what they did is not okay, whatever is not okay with you. I want you to keep writing it until you’re pretty much emotionally exhausted. I want you to feel emotionally exhausted so that you know you’ve gotten everything out of you; so get all the tears out, the anger out, the denial out, just get everything out. And you can end the letter with, whatever feels comfortable for you. It Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

might be something as simple as “I’m willing to even contemplate thinking of, maybe, one day, forgiving you”, to “My heart is more open to forgiving you now,” or maybe “I am willing to forgive you” or “I forgive you” or “I have forgiven you.” Whatever’s true. Just give yourself a voice in this letter. This is going to take some time and I want you to have all the time you need. So we’re going to end this video now and you are going to write the letter right now. Don’t put it off. Write the letter right now. It might be a paragraph, might be a page, might be four pages. You might use a pen, might use a crayon, might use magic markers. It doesn’t matter. Write it now. And I’ll meet you, when you’ve completed your Forgiveness Letter, over at the next video.


Fearbuster Exercise: Integration Exercise REFLECT: Ask yourself… Please share your experience of writing your Forgiveness Letter.

REFLECT: Ask yourself… List the top three people/groups/events you know you must forgive. 1. 2. 3.

REFLECT: Ask yourself… What would you have to give up in order to forgive your three people/groups/events?

REFLECT: Ask yourself… What would you gain by forgiving those three people/groups/events?


Welcome to Week Seven: Honoring Your Needs. Video Five: Forgiveness Contract You’ve just completed your forgiveness letter, and remember, it didn’t have to be pretty, it didn’t have to feel right, it just needed to be written. I want to give you a couple clues or hints about what might be going on within you right now as you move through forgiveness. Some people might be feeling ecstatic and free, like a huge burden’s been lifted off and space has been created, which is fantastic. Some of you might be like, “Oh my gosh, how am I going to have a relationship with this person if I forgive them?” You might be really worried about what you’re going to do with this information, or what you’re going to do with this unforgiveness, or forgiveness. For some of you, it might have brought you deeper into a place of, “Oh, I really have to forgive them more.” Or, “I have so many people to forgive.” There are a lot of feelings you might be experiencing. All of that’s normal. You’re opportunity, your choice right now, what I suggest that you do, is give yourself a lot of compassion right now. Give yourself compassion. I’m going to give you a couple more exercises on forgiveness, because for some people, the letter doesn’t work for them. I would say that’s a rarity, but once in a while the letter doesn’t bring it home. I want to give you some other options that you can use when the letter doesn’t work for you, or you’re not ready for the letter. Please, don’t mail the letter. What you might want to do with the letter is: You might want to keep it for yourself; or you might want to burn it; or bury it; or you might want to rip it up; or you might want to do one of those things, all the while saying, “I release.” That’s the letting go ceremony I talk about in Chapter Seven in my book, Fearless Living. If you haven’t listened to the book narration of this chapter, please do. I go into detail about the letting go ceremony for my parents and what I did on the 20th anniversary of their death to help me let go. Hint: What I did is I wrote down many things. I wrote gratitude’s; wrote many things of hurt, and pain; wrote letters of thanks; and wrote letters of forgiveness. Next, I ripped them all up, put them in a big pot and burned them. After that, I buried them. When I walked away I said, “I release my parents and I release me. I am set free. This is my life now. My parents will no longer decide for me how I’m going to act; they will no longer influence my decision. From now on, my life is my own.” I know it’s hard to believe, but I actually felt a shift inside when I turned away from that pot and that burial and walked away. I felt different, I felt free. My life radically changed that day because that’s what forgiveness can do to you, and Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

for you. It can radically change your life. It is absolutely a Proactive Behavior, and like I said, you don’t forgive somebody one time, you may have to forgive them 100 times. For some people, forgiving them once will be fine, but if you continue to hold ill thoughts about them, i.e. wish them evil, blame them; you need to forgive again. So again, sometimes you will forgive a person one time, sometimes you will need to forgive ten times, sometimes it will be a hundred times. Sometimes the forgiveness process takes a day, sometimes it takes a decade, and all of that is okay. You may think, like me, that you have completely forgiven somebody, and then two years later, you’re going to find yourself angry again. It’s okay, that’s normal, its natural, there is no one-time forgiveness trick. I really want you to hear that. I think that causes a lot of people pain, and it’s a big myth in forgiveness that there is a ‘one-type fits all’, one way to do it, and you should be done. No! It’s not the way it works in real life. I’ll probably still need to forgive my parents in the future, and I think I’ve completely forgiven them. I bet in three to five years there will be something else that comes up [where I will feel a need to forgive my parents], and that’s okay. Forgiveness allows you to accept, release, and make peace with people and circumstances. I want to go over the Fearbuster Exercise called, “The Forgiveness Process”. It’s another way to write a forgiveness letter. If you have had a difficult time writing the letter, or you don’t feel complete, then you can use this process. It takes you through a series of stem sentences that you will answer and complete, so that you can write a forgiveness letter. Whether that’s writing a letter to yourself, or to another.

Fearbuster Exercise: Forgiveness Process Step 1. Write a letter to yourself using the following sentence starters. Don’t hold anything back. Remember, this writing is to help you let go. You will not be sharing it and you may rip it up. What hurt me most was….. I blame myself for… What scared me was…


What I really needed was… What I most regret is… I take responsibility for… What I learned was… I forgive myself for… Step 2. If there are specific things you can do to take responsibility for your actions. make a plan to do so. Step 3. State the situation. Speak your intention to let it go. State your name and claim that you are releasing yourself from the situation. I ____________ am willing to release _____________________________________. (name) (State the situation.) This is a great tool to use with those people on your list that you’re still punishing, or holding ill will towards, or blaming, that your not free of. Use this letter to really go through the process, of hurt, blame, scared, need, regret, responsible, learn and forgive. This is a great option. In step three you’re going to see I that ask you to state your intention. I, Rhonda, (whatever your name is), I am willing to release (whoever you’re willing to release), whether it’s yourself or another human being. I’m willing to release them. That’s an additional exercise that you can do at any time when you’re feeling unforgiving. You can do it now, today, or you can just have this in your tool kit. Another exercise that I want to share with you, and this is one that all of us need to do right now, is called the Forgiveness Contract. Grab it now. You are going to write your name on the top.

Fearbuster Exercise: Forgiveness Contract I, (your name) __________________________, am willing to forgive myself. I am willing to forgive any individual or group I believe has hurt, harmed or betrayed me. Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

I forgive myself for all the times I let myself down or ignored my own needs, wants and desires. I forgive any judgments or unrealistic expectations I have made of myself, or others. I am willing to see the good in myself, and others. I am willing to restore my essential nature through forgiveness. I am willing to claim my sense of wholeness as I forgive. No longer do I wasted precious time or energy staying stuck in an unforgiving mindset. Instead, I am willing to forgive for my sake. As I forgive my fear dissolves. As I forgive, I am free. Your Signature: _____________________________________________________ Witness: ___________________________________ Date: ___________________ Take a deep breath, and say, “And so it is.” Claim this for yourself, it doesn’t matter if you believed it or not, it doesn’t matter if you believed half of it or not, just claim it; you’ve got to start practicing. I want you to get your pen, I want you to sign it, and I want you to date it. If there’s a witness in your house that you feel comfortable asking to witness for you, great, otherwise, put my name, I’ll witness for you now. Good work! Forgiving is not an easy task, and you are on your way to forgiving yourself and others more and more and more. Forgive those actions you’ve taken to try to get your Core Need met, to forgive yourself for those excuses you’ve made, forgive yourself for your Fear Responses, and your self-destructive behaviors. Forgive. Like I said, forgiveness isn’t just once; it’s a daily event. You might have a lot of different feelings right now, fear might be coming up for you big time, you might be afraid to forgive because of what that means to that relationship. You might feel lost; you might feel lonely in your forgiveness. Again, all of that is normal and natural. Some people might feel a relief of burden after they’ve signed this forgiveness contract and written their forgiveness letter, they might feel completely free and energized, and that too is normal. There’s no right way to work your way through forgiveness; there’s no one way that you’re going to feel. Everyone feels different things based on where they are. Congratulations! You have made great strides. Now forgiveness is a healing action, a healing tool in your toolbox, when it comes to excuses in your entire life. In the next video, I want to talk about another exercise to take your life back, to give up those excuses so that you never, ever believe any excuse ever again. I’ll see you at the next video. Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

Fearbuster Exercise: Integration Exercise REFLECT: Ask yourself… What shifts have you experienced in your life right now as you have moved through forgiveness this week?

REFLECT: Ask yourself… Are there any people in your life you are afraid to forgive? If yes, why?

REFLECT: Ask yourself… How could the principle of “forgiving daily” show up in your daily life?

REFLECT: Ask yourself… What actions could you take on a daily basis that would support an attitude of forgiveness?


Welcome to Week Seven: Honoring Your Needs Video Six: Life Log You’ve moved through building your awareness about excuses. You’ve learned some things about forgiveness, and you have moved through the forgiveness process. Again, I want to congratulate you for that. It is courageous, fearless, work. Now, I want to give you another tool to support you in never having another excuse again. To help you start sussing out whether your excuses are true or false, whether they’re created by fear or freedom. This Fearbuster Exercise is called a Life Log. And if you go through my Fearless Living Coaching program, if you become a Certified Fearless Living Coach, you will be assigned to do the Life Log for twelve weeks. I know I haven’t described it yet, but what I’m about to tell you, you might hear yourself say, “Twelve weeks?”

Fearbuster Exercise: Life Log (Download the Life Log separately) I’ll tell you why I ask my coaches, as they’re going through the Certified Fearless Living Coaching Program, to keep track of the Life Log for twelve weeks. Because when you start keeping track of your Life Log, when you start keeping track of how you spend your time, what you do is you find out how you live your life. Because I absolutely believe that the way you spend your time does define your life. You tell me that spirituality is important to you and yet there’s no reading time for spiritual books, or there’s no prayer time, or meditation time, or communion time; I don’t know how spiritual you are. There’s no time spent on it. Your time is your greatest commodity. It is the greatest way to give. It is the greatest gift you can give to another human being. We all know on our deathbeds we don’t ask for, “Oh, I wish I made more money at work.” We say, “I wish I had more time, more time.” Time is our greatest commodity. And yet we just throw it away. We don’t think about how we want to use our time. For most of us, we feel like time is running us. Time is absolutely your choice, and again, I get that you don’t think that, but time is your commodity. You get to use time the way that you want to. How you choose to use your time is how you define your life. You tell me that your children are important, you tell me that your relationship is important to you, and you don’t make time for those children, one-on-one time, or group time, or one-on-one time with that mate of yours. Then it’s not important to you. I know you want it to be, but you’re not acting like it. You’re not living as if it is true.


The Life Log can be a big eye opener. This is what I know to be true, I have not met a person that isn’t shocked and surprised by their Life Log results. Everybody thinks they know how they use their time. If I asked you, right now, what you did yesterday, how you used your time, you might say, “Well, I went to work and then I did this and then I did that and then I did this,” and you’d think that you had a really good idea about how you spent your time, and you probably do. You probably do have a somewhat good idea of how you spent your time. But what I notice is my clients find four to eight extra hours a week. Now, some clients have found up to twenty or more hours a week of time that they didn’t know they had. What would you do if you had four extra hours a week? What would you do with eight extra hours a week? What would you do with twenty extra hours a week? It doesn’t mean you have to work more. How could you relax more? How could you love more? How could you enjoy more? How could you share more? How could you belong more? How could you connect more? So, twenty hours more a week, what would happen to your life if you actually found twenty hours more a week? It could radically change your life, that’s what. As I’ve said in the previous videos, if you have not listened to the book narration of this chapter in Fearless Living, I strongly urge you to do so. Because I go into detail about my clients and the ways that the Life Log has enhanced their lives, and changed their lives, and I really want you to hear those examples. Right now I’m going to describe to you what exactly the Life Log is. Your Life Log is a twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week journal. And what are you going to do with it? You are going to tell me what you do every thirty minutes, that’s right, every thirty minutes. I hear the sighs of, “Ugh, what, how, I can’t, are you kidding?” I know. I hear that every time. I say every thirty minutes and the whole room gasps. “Rhonda, I can’t possibly do that. I don’t have time to keep my Life Log, I don’t have time to keep my time.” I’ve heard it all. If you want to find four to six more hours a week or maybe, twenty hours a week, than do the Life Log Fearbuster Exercise. If you’re happy with how you spend your time in your life right now, fabulous. What I know to be true is that there is probably an area of your life where you’re frustrated right now. Whether its career, whether it’s love, or whether it’s friendships, or whether it’s play, or whether it’s your spiritual life, or whether it’s your personal development, or relaxation. There’s probably an area of your life right now that you’d like to improve on. [Use the area of your life that you have been using throughout the Course.] Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

Some areas are career, family, intimate relationships, social, spiritual, personal growth, physical fitness, creativity, so any of those areas, or any other area of your life. If you’re not ready to do twenty four-seven, for thirty minutes, then start with one area of your life. If you want to start focusing on your career, then great, keep track of your Life Log while you’re at work. If you want to keep track of your personal time, because you don’t feel like you’re using it wisely, or you’re not getting everything you want done in that area, or don’t feel connected to your loved ones, then keep track of your time when you in that area. You don’t have to do twenty four-seven if it just feels too hard in the beginning. I do want you to get there at some point, but in the beginning, if you want to do one area of your life, maybe its career, keep track of your hours when you are at work. If it’s your personal life, keep track of your time after work and before work. You’ve probably already printed this out, hopefully you have, and you’re going to see that it starts at six o’clock in the morning and there’s a little slot next to every thirty minute interval. I want you to keep track of things in a simple way. For instance, let’s say that you are getting ready for work. You don’t have to say, “Shower, wash my hair,” you don’t have to write all of that down. Instead, just say, “Getting ready.” Jot down how long how long it takes for you to get ready. Is it forty-five minutes? Is it an hour and a half? Is it fifteen minutes? How long do you take to get ready? Driving to work, you can just write down “driving to work”, you don’t have to write down, “Getting in my car.” Don’t be so specific, instead, just write down, “Driving.” Then, jot down a quit note how long it takes you to prepare for work, i.e. getting in the office and doing all of that stuff, and then the work itself. Now, again, if you’re keeping track of this for work, to get more efficient and to start taking more responsibility for where you’re getting stuck, then you do have to keep track of meetings versus phone calls, versus telephone time, versus Internet. You have to keep track of everything so that you know how much time you’re spending on the Internet researching, or on the Internet Facebooking, or Twittering, or researching for fun, or for personal. You have to keep track of that. If you’re satisfied with your career, or your job, you can just say, “Job.” Lunch. If you’re wanting better health, better physical fitness, better health and wellbeing, make sure to write down what you ate so that this can also become a food journal. Write down, “Lunch.” Be as specific as your commit is to change that area of your life. DId you eat your meal in ten minutes or did you eat your meal in an hour and a half? It’s good information to have.


Then, what about after work? Maybe you get home at 6pm. What do you do? Do you get the kids ready, do you organize the house, how much time do you take to make dinner, or do you go out for dinner? How do you spend your time? The more specific you are, the more you’re going to start seeing where your life is falling through the cracks. I know me, one of my big time suckers, is you can’t put me in front of the TV. I do not watch a lot of TV, and when I do watch TV, this is what happens: I channel surf. I channel surf a hundred times in a half hour. None of those shows changed, but oh, I just keep looking. I don’t even have five hundred channels. I have probably fifteen channels, so I can really scoot through those fifteen channels really quick and I’m back to the beginning again, but I keep looking. That’s a big time sucker for me; I can just get mesmerized by the TV. Some people fall asleep to the TV, like my sister Linda. I get mesmerized. I can watch it for hours. I’m watching it like this: click, click, click (The sound of a remote control). Now that’s not really the best use of my time. Watching my favorite television show once a week that might be a good use of my time. If I see that I’m watching three hours a night, and I’m not a TV executive, I’m not producing television shows, or directing television shows, three hours a night, five nights a week, or seven nights a week, may or may not be the best use of your time. Depending on your values, depending again on what you want to make happen in your life. If you want to do more things in your life you have to diversify, just like anything else. This is what I know to be true, when people start keeping track of their time, it is eye opening, and it is shocking and, it is life changing. There is nobody, there has been no client I’ve ever had, that hasn’t done this and been awestruck and discovered extra time. This is another way we’re going to eliminate those excuses. I started doing this Fearbuster Exercise years ago, when I was an actress in my twenties when I thought, “I’m just not doing enough for my acting career. I’ve got to treat it like a forty-hour a week job.” I kept track of every single thing I did in my Life Log when it came to acting, whether I was rehearsing, singing, or whether I was memorizing lines, or whether I was calling up an agent, or whether I was doing my resume, every single thing I did. I created the Life Log because I would beat myself up, “I’m not doing enough.” The first week I did the Life Log, I found out I was working sixty hours a week. “Wow, I’m working a lot more than I thought I was.” Not only will this open your eyes to where you are not using your time to the best of your abilities, or in the areas you value, but it also opens your eyes to where you are Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

doing more than you think you are. It is amazing. I know your response will be, “Wow, I never knew that I was this compassionate. I always talk to so-and-so whenever they’re having a difficult time. Wow, I am really there for somebody. I’m really a good friend.” We never give ourselves enough credit. That’s why I’m going to be giving you gratitude’s, acknowledgements, and your Life Log in one document (to be downloaded separately). You can carry this with you every day, put it in your purse, your wallet, put it inside of your iPad. You can carry this with you and fill it out as you go. Throughout the day you can be writing down your gratitudes, and your acknowledgements, and your Life Log, and also your Intention Statement. Write your Intention for the day, write your gratitude’s, your acknowledgments, and fill out your Life Log, and your life will become more and more your own. Every day will be your day. You’re going to keep track and this is what you’re going to discover. At the end of one week, and again, I urge you to do it for twelve weeks, but at the end of one week you’re going to start seeing your shifts and changes. You’re going to start pausing before you take an action; pause before you turn on the TV, or pause before you do something that you realize is a time waster for you, is not in line with your values, your commitments. You’re going to be pausing more because you have to write it down! People tell me all the time, “Rhonda, I just quit doing it because I didn’t want to write it down one more time I was so embarrassed I was doing it.” Great. You don’t want to write it down one more time, awesome. You don’t want to write down another drink, if you had to write down your third drink for the night and you don’t want to write it down, awesome, fantastic, you’re taking responsibility. Now, at the end of your first week, and every week, you are going to fill out the categories sheet. You are going to write down how many hours you spent in career, how many hours you spent in family, intimate relationship, social, spiritual, personal growth, physical fitness, creativity. Then there are some blanks because you’re probably going to have areas that you want to keep track of. That way you are going to start seeing how much time you spent in your career, how much time you spent in your intimate relationships, how much time you spent in social, and you’re going to be able to know, “Wow, these my commitments. This is what I value. This is this how my life looks.” After you discover how you are spending your time, you have the choice to change it. The Life Log gives you an overall indication of how many hours you work a week, and breaks it down into how many hours you spend in each category; examples: how many hours spent with your intimate partner, how many hours in physical activity. If physical fitness, becoming healthy, is important to you and your well being, and the time you spend on it is zero for three days in a row, and then you up it to three hours on the fourth day, and then it falls back to zero again. You might want to shift that so your life aligns with your values more consistently. Copyright 2011 Fearless Living Training Program 877-663-3270 www.FearlessLiving.org

Taking back your time, means you are taking back your life. I want you to aim for completing twenty-four hours, seven days a week in thirty-minute increments. If you aren’t ready for that, or don’t want to commit, start with one area of your life. If you want to focus on career and getting your career better; keep track of how your spending time devoted to your career. If it’s your relationship that you want to improve on, that you want to be attentive to, keep track of your time when you do anything related to your relationship. If it’s your children, keep track of that time. If it’s relaxation time, great, keep track of that. Start somewhere, and then week after week expand it so you build up to twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for a minimum of four weeks. I know that might be a month from now, but start now. Start in one area so you can build up that muscle, and, remember to jot down notes. I’ve had people ask me, “Well, Rhonda, what if I’m in a meeting from 1pm to 3pm, do I have to write down meeting, meeting, meeting every half-hour?” No. Just write a line through those two hours and jot down, “Meeting.” Sleeping. No, do not wake yourself up in the middle of the night to write down, “I’m still sleeping, still sleeping.” No. Ten o’clock at night you just write sleep until you wake up at six or seven the next morning. Put a line from whatever time you go to sleep until whatever time you wake up. Bundle things together like getting ready and driving to work. A great category to write down, if you drive a lot, is actually driving; keep track of your driving time. That’s a big eye opener. You might decide that listening to audio books, or listening to this Course on audio, might be valuable for you. It’s value to listen to the information several times so that you embody and integrate faster. If you have a lot of driving time, how are you using that driving time? Let’s take a breath. Great week. Excuses. Forgiveness. Life Log. You’ve done a lot of great work this week. I want to congratulate you. You are on your path to being fearless and I know right now, more than ever, you are experiencing more and more of your fearless self, more and more of your Essential Nature. I can’t wait to hear about it, so please, make sure you leave a comment about what you’re discovering as you complete your Life Log. Please share about your forgiveness work. Let me know how forgiving someone or yourself has shifted you, has opened you up or whatever occurred for you. If you need support at any time during this week, as always, I regularly visit the Comment Section to answer any and all of your questions. I’m here for you, ask me. I’d love to support you. With that, have a great week. I’ll see you next week.


Fearbuster Exercise: Integration Exercise REFLECT: Ask yourself… How could keeping the Life Log change your life?

REFLECT: Ask yourself… What areas of your life do you want to keep track of? 1. 2. 3. REFLECT: Ask yourself… If you keep track of those areas, what do you think you will find out about yourself?

REFLECT: Ask yourself… What is your resistance to keeping the Life Log? How could you shift it?


Welcome to Week Seven: Honoring Your Needs Video Seven: BONUS Forgiveness Exercises

Fearbuster Exercise: I Forgive You In your own handwriting, write down in the left hand column – one sentence at a time – the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the person/event/group that you are choosing to forgive. After writing down one sentence, and one sentence only (or phrase), move to the left hand column and write, “(Name), I am willing to forgive you.” Doesn’t mean you are fully willing to forgive. This is an exercise to help you unload the burden of your thoughts and feelings while at the same time claiming what you want to be true, but may not quite be ready for. This will help you release the past and forgive. If it is difficult to write, “I am willing to forgive you,” you may write instead: “I am willing to be willing to forgive you.” Feel free to add as many “willing’s” as you need. Repeat as many times as necessary. Move to a blank sheet of paper for ease. Write one sentence (or phrase) related to how you think or feel about the person/event/group. Example: NAME, I am so angry.

I am willing to forgive you… NAME, I am willing to forgive you.


Fearbuster Exercise: Willingness Contract I, __________________, am willing to embrace forgiveness of myself, and others, as a way of life. As I forgive, my burdens are dissolved, my fears are erased and I am free. I no longer drag the past into my present or pull the future into my now; instead, I am willing to live in the present moment knowing this is where I find peace. Therefore, I am willing to see each and every situation anew. I am now willing to consider any challenge as an opportunity to forgive myself, and the individuals before me. I release my concept of “right” and “wrong” and willingly surrender the need to “be right”. I am willing to let go of my perceptions that separate me from another. I am willing to release any judgments or expectations I have of others and myself. I no longer look for evidence to condemn but rather I step beyond my comfort zone and embrace forgiveness to see the love in every situation. Each moment, I let go of all that no longer serves me. I am willing to look for the powerful opportunity and positive possibility in every seeming challenge. I am willing to practice compassion daily. I am willing to release fears, doubts and worries that inhibit my full expression. I am willing restore my soul through daily forgiveness. I am willing to see the best in others and myself. I am willing to acknowledge and express the truth within. I am willing to live in the light. I am willing to love myself as Spirit loves me. Each moment....”I am willing to see things differently.” AND SO IT IS! In Loving Thanks … Signed: _____________________________________________ Dated: ______________________________________________ Witnessed: __________________________________________ AND SO IT IS DONE!


Untitled - Fearless Living Training Program

Untitled - Fearless Living Training Program

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