Take Charge of Your Life

 Take

Charge

of Your

L  I  F  E 

As a tribute to the late Dr. William Glasser you are invited to attend a free presentation based on his book Take Charge of your Life. The focus in this course is application to one’s personal life. It is involves the empowering notion of making our own choices in every area – thinking, feeling, acting, relating, responding… The concepts are easy to learn easy to apply and produce amazing results.

Learn How to Get What You Need

• Gain effective control over negative feelings such as anger, guilt, depression and choose more positive thinking behaviors
• Become more self accepting and less critical of others
• Learn specific techniques for resolving conflict - inside oneself or with others
• Add happiness and connect better in important relationships

The sessions will cover…

• Knowing what you can control and what you have no control over
• Needs, wants and things that are important to you
• Relationship habits
• Perceptions that shape our reality
• Behavior choices

Date: Friday, June 6, 2014 

Time: 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM (lunch on your own) 

Location: Hotel Indigo - 211 Clay Avenue - Waco, Texas

Preregister to receive a downloadable Participant’s Manual

Mona Dunkin, 254-749-6594

mona@monadunkin.com

For June and July 2014 schedule this introductory course to be presented to your business, school, church or civic organization.

• There is no limit to the number of participants.
• It can be taught in one 6-hour session, two 3-hour sessions or three 2-hour sessions.
• A limited number of spaces are available. 
• Call today. 254-749-6594 Mona Dunkin 

Dr. Glasser has written many books based on human behaviour. He will always be remembered for founding Reality Therapy Psychology, resulting from his experience and research in a mental hospital and a correctional institution. He described how he believed people chose their behaviour and could therefore alter it. Counselors, psychologists, social workers and educators enthusiastically welcomed his work and began implementing it in schools, clinics and correctional institutions. As time passed Dr. Glasser developed an educational reform program now known as "The Glasser Quality School". Dr. Glasser's Eulogy

To schedule Take Charge of Your Life for your business, school, church or civic organization, please contact Mona Dunkin, 254-749-6594.  A limited number of spaces are available.  Call today. 

Miscommunication

“I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure
you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” Bonnie Libhart

What?

Communication is sharing information with another person in such a way that they understand not only what you say but also what you mean.

We speak in words but think in pictures. When what we say does not match the picture of the one with whom we are speaking, we have a miscommunication.

Example, my grandchildren and I returned from swimming and I asked them to hang their wet suits on the swing. The picture in my mind was the porch swing that we had just passed while entering the house.

Later as I was gathering laundry, there were no swimsuits on the swing.I inquired about the swimsuits; they insisted they were on the swing.

And they were.

They were on the swing they pictured in their minds - the swing set in the yard.

I chuckled as I thought of my friend Bonnie’s amusing transfix of words about how what we say is not always what is heard. If we do not give and or get corresponding pictures, then we have not understood one another.

Sometimes those miss-matched-pictures of miscommunications are humorous, sometimes they are irritating and sometimes they are dangerous.

Perhaps the three most common communications errors are 1) talking too much, 2) listening too little and 3) failure to understand. The failure-to-understand-coin is two-sided; incorrectly assuming we have spoken accurately and thus, equally incorrectly assuming the one to whom we have spoken has heard what we meant to say.

When instructions are given, there is always a speaker and a receiver. Know that things are not always as they seem. Consider the context. Consider your audience (i.e. age, life experiences). Be gracious. Rather than insisting your communication was 100% right on, be willing to see it from the other person’s point of view.

What I say, plus what you hear. What does it equal? What I have said? What you have heard? Neither? Where is the break down? Was it with the receiver? Was it with the sender? Both?

If your message is not getting across, spend time thinking and learning how better to express yourself. If you are not receiving information well, spend time thinking and learning how to seek understanding.

In both instances be patient, gracious and develop empathy. It’s worth the effort.

A good place to start is with St. Francis of Assissi’s prayer:

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, To be understood as to understand, To be loved as to love… ”

Take Charge of Your Life

Noted Psychiatrists, Dr. William Glasser, suggests the term “mental health” be replaced with “responsibility”.

Responsibility is the ability to get one’s needs met without depriving others of meeting theirs. When needs are unmet we feel unfulfilled and fail to live at optimum wellness. We are not taking charge of our lives.

In 1998 I attended a lecture given by Dr. Glasser in which he intimated that certain physical and mental maladies are chosen. I took issue with that; I mean, anyone who would choose pain and misery and unhappiness would have to be crazy!

He went on to explained our basic needs and how we are driven to have them met. Our health – physical as well as mental and emotional - is dependent on how our body responds to our actions, our thoughts and the way we feel about things.

This led me to do some deep thinking. I ask myself some hard questions: Was swallowing my anger inflaming my joints? Was my angry not only harming relationships but also my physical heart and blood pressure? How am I hurting myself?

I believe in God and wish to be responsible with the freewill given me. I began to pray. “Lord, I do not want to hurt others but neither do I want to harm myself.”

I began to practice the genius of Dr. Glasser’s wisdom. When we begin to lovingly notice our disconnecting habits of thought and actions we can then choose to turn our attention to matters that leads to greater health and happiness and improved relationships. Only when we come to a conclusion for our self are we willing to make changes or take charge of our own life.

Oh, and my health today? Thanks for asking. Peace reigns, relationships flourish, business is good, movement is pain free, most meds have been cut in half and I am releasing weight every day.

How about you? Are you ready to take charge of your life?

Well here’s the deal. William Glasser International has unveiled a new course titled, Take Charge of Your Life, an introduction to choice-theory psychology. The focus in this course is application to one’s personal life. It is involves the empowering notion of making our own choices in every area – thinking, feeling, acting, relating, responding. The concepts are easy to learn easy to apply and produce amazing results.

Dr. Glasser died in August at his home in Los Angeles, CA. This course was developed to provide a living tribute to Dr. Glasser’s vision to “Teach The World Choice Theory.” www.glassersunbelt.com

For the months of June and July 2014, the Faculty of the William Glasser Institute is offering this introductory course at no charge to the participants. There is no limit to the number of participants. It can be taught in one 6-hour session, two 3-hour sessions or three 2-hour sessions.

To schedule Take Charge of Your Life for your business, school, church or civic organization, please contact Mona Dunkin, 254-749-6594. A limited number of spaces are available. Call today.

As A Seed Grows

Growth is a natural by-product of a seed being planted in harmony with nurturing elements.

Some seeds are released only through harsh circumstances. Ego is a seed shell of one’s identity held in place until circumstances breaks the hard outer covering so the internal nugget can emerge and grow from form into substance.

Ego is designed to keep you the same while giving the illusion of change. Ego set point returns to identity. Example, you make positive changes in your life and have a measure of success. A setback happens and you zombie out in front of the TV. You don’t even know that you have just reinforced your set point of only earning so much. Or the weight battle treadmill; lose, gain, lose, regain. All ego identity set points.

So you stop. You gather information. You listen to other ideas. You go in another direction, change jobs or get a new mate. Like a thermostat set to kick-in or off to keep the room at a certain temperature, so too the ego holds on to a ‘set points’ to keep us from changing. That is not “just the way you are”.

That is the way the neuro pathways of your brain have been laid down as your internal set point. They were laid down through habit of thoughts and actions. The more they are traversed, the more ingrained they become.

Even when the habit road is rutty and rough and difficult, your habit thought says you can’t and your habit action stays lazy.

Your soul’s set point is not small. That is why you know deep down in your knower that you are more than what you are currently being. Failure to thrive is not your soul’s set point; it is your ego’s set point.

Unless a seed dies it cannot bring forth fruit. When a seed dies – if it had conscious awareness – it would put the brakes on and become devastated because it was falling apart. But the shell has to be removed before the interior nugget can root and grow.

Can your ego identity change? Sure. Your ego identity changes as you nurture it to identify with a new stage of development.

That becomes your new set point. And then you grow into another identity set point.

No matter how broken the body, the soul is never broken. There is a part of you that is always whole and complete. A corrupted damaged seed will grow in cultivated soil. Accept your defeats with grace and self-compassion and begin again. Be your own master gardener and nurture your own soul.

Getting Even

No one likes being treated unfairly. Holding on to negative memories, as Author Eknah Easwaran suggests, “crowd together and form a mob”. This mob-like mentality contributes to resentment as well as unkind behavior. All-too-often the response and outcome is one of the following:

Natural Response and Unintended Consequences
Get even - Does not even the score/offense and makes you just as bad as
Revenge - Injures another and puts you below him and eventually destroys you
Hate - Puts you below your enemy and boomerangs onto you.
Ignore - Gives you a one-upmanship attitude of arrogance and self-righteousness.
Pity - Victimization. Sets you up to be used and abused again and again.

Aretha Franklin sang, “What the world needs now, is love, sweet, love. That’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” Certainly a show of love to an offender is to forgive. To ‘get even” in a way that is beneficial for offended and offender.

Supernatural Response and Result
Forgive - Sets you free. Releases the offender to see his/her wrongs and allows for needed restitution

Why not take the high road to getting even? Rather than focusing on the perpetrator’s shortcomings, choose to think back on his/her good qualities. Acknowledge that everyone is flawed and fabulous; the offender as well as yourself. The idea is to literally change one thought for another thought.

Just as a carpenter uses a smaller nail to drive out a large one, so too we can use a positive thought to drive out a negative one. Take a step beyond positive thinking to re-thinking our common humanity. Take one’s self out of the middle of the conflict and become an objective observer that sees pluses and minuses on both sides. And graciously give the benefit of the doubt.

This strategy may take practice and I think you will find it well worth the effort.

Here’s a hint: Switch your verbiage from “It’s so hard” to “It’s not easy”. Say those two phrases out loud and monitor your body’s response. Seeing it as “so hard” tenses for the difficult, whereas “it’s not easy” relaxes and seems doable.

Set a mental watch to be aware of your thoughts. When you start to slide into old patterns, early awareness keeps you from going all the way back to square one. Eventually, ‘square one’ gets closer; say, ‘square 9’! And all your relationships are more harmonious.

Note: This approach has broad applications – to yourself, others in generals, to those in particular, to your problems, to your work, to health, to the world as a whole…. You get the idea. And may your song of love be sweet.

Forgiving the Past and Moving On

 

New Years and  “Auld Lang Syne” - the song about choosing to let bygones be bygones and to get on with life while choosing to value the personhood of the individual.

Often we hear “just forgive and forget,” yet I suggest that the human spirit is incapable of forgetting severe hurts and indiscretions of the past, whether done to you or committed by you.  So what can we do? 

 

Make restitution where possible.  Some times an apology does wonders for healing the past.  I have seen instances where people have carried regrets and grudges for almost a lifetime, only to find restoration at the very end.  It is never too late, but why wait so long?  Whom do you need to contact today and apologize to?  Whom do you need to release today from hurts?

 

Prayer the universal prayer: “Lord, I ask that you forgive and release all those who have hurt and harmed me.  I pray that you forgive and release all those whom I have hurt and harmed.” 

 

Pay for it.  I do consulting work for a Federal Prison transitional housing and every week meet people who are paying for their past through fines and incarceration.  Some hold on to the proclamation of injustice. Those who see the justice in it have a newfound peace and a new foundation upon which to built and restore relationships. 

 

“People tend to see only the stubble fields of transitoriness but overlook and forget the full granaries of the past into which they have brought the harvest of their lives: the deeds done, the loves loved, and last but not least, the sufferings they have gone through with courage and dignity.”  Dr. Victor Frankl in Man’s Search for Significance

 

Redeem it.  At least to a degree.  Redeem comes from two Latin words combining “back” and “again”.  Hence, to redeem is to buy back, or to retain a possession, or to fulfill a promise.  It is to be rescued from wrongs and its heavy price. The thief can become an honest productive citizen. The lazy person can become productive.  The unscholarly can return to school.  

 

I saw a movie where an absent father became a doting grandfather.  When the hurt son asked why his father was now being so attentive, the man replied, “I feel God has given me another chance.”  In the process, the father and son formed a closer relationship with each other and with the lad. 

 

Forgive it.  And forgive yourself in the process.  Do not waste time and energy on unresolved issues.  Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.  Let go of the past, good and bad, and move into freedom.  It takes courage to be an overcomer.  It takes timidity to hide and to place blame. 

 

Forgiveness is to know your worth and value regardless of the infraction by you or against you. Forgiveness is to quit rehashing the event and re-feeling the emotions. Forgiveness is to give up your right to get even for having been hurt or misunderstood.

Forgiveness is a great way to start 2014.  Happy New Year. 

 

Need trainer?  Mona Dunkin leads individuals and companies to greater levels of success. Contact her at mona@solutionprinciples.com  View training topics at www.monadunkin.com