Breaking yourself down, so you can learn to pick yourself back up Part 2 of 3 Acknowledgement

While traveling along the road to Self-Mastery, you're going to hit a speed bump or two. In part one you identified several areas in your life that needed to be improved. Now we will take your answers from the three questions and truly acknowledge and embrace their effects on you. The end result of this section for you should be a much more open-minded and empathetic perspective of all of these areas and a greater sense of hope and faith that you will conquer there control over your life. Now let us review the three questions:

What would I be doing that I'm presently not doing if I was the perfect version of myself?

At the start of my transformation when I asked myself that question I thought of things like:

• Developing a exercise routine

• Finding a diet and sticking to it

• Begin reading books on self development

I'm going to safely assume that you've known that you should have began these changes before today. When you asked yourself this question, did you feel a little ping in your gut, maybe a small feeling of guilt for not already taking action. If so that is a good thing. It means that you are having a healthy emotional response and you really want to make that change. If not that is okay, just make sure that you DON'T allow these positive changes to be seen in your mind as a OPTION but instead as a NECESSITY for you to grow into the great person you know you can be.

If I where the perfect version of myself, what actions and behaviors would I have to eliminate from my life?

No one in this world is born perfect and fortunately for most of us we are taught the difference between right and wrong and possess a built-in guide known as a conscience. Common actions and behaviors most people want to rid themselves of include:

• Smoking

• Drinking to excess

• Procrastination

• You possess what some call a moral compass. You may feel that your day to day actions go by unchecked but your unbiased subconscious mind is keeping track of everything. Consistent actions that go against your core beliefs of what is right and wrong will inevitably result in feelings of anger, frustration, and sadness. It will also make you more susceptible to fear and doubt. When you ask yourself this question ensure that you trust your bodies response and no matter what false justification you've tried to give yourself, make the decision to acknowledge its negative effects on your life.

The final question is without a doubt the bread and butter of this discussion. It is most important with this question that you drop all of your pride, all of the emotional walls you have built, and eliminate the power these experiences have had over you.

What negative experiences have occurred in your life that hold negativity in your heart?

In these post I will be honest and give you nothing but information that I feel will benefit your life. I dealt with a traumatic experience when I was younger that affected my life for nearly 10 years until I began my journey.

On December 3rd of 2005 I was walking into my kitchen to grab something to eat, when I noticed that my mother and grandfather where in my sisters room. I walked into the room to see what was going on. I remember that day so clearly. The sun was shining on her face from her window and she had this blank stare that seemed as though she was staring right through you. The day before, she asked my mother if she could stay home from school because she wasn't feeling well. Of course my mother said it was okay. But when that night came, she asked my mother if she could go to the roller skating rink with her friends (since her birthday was coming up), my mother told her no. She told her, if she was too sick to go to school then she was too sick to go to the roller skating rink with her friends. After hearing that my sister angrily went straight to bed. Now there she was lying there with this blank stare. I immediately walked up to her and yelled "STOP PRETENDING, YOU ARE MAKING MOM WORRIED"! After that I walked out of the room and took a quick nap before I had to go to work. Unfortunately for me I overslept and I had to rush out of my house and I didn't have time to say goodbye to anyway. While I was at work I got a call from my brother. He told me that my sister needed to be rushed to the hospital and was now in a medically induced coma. She was asleep for her 17th birthday and we made the decision to pull the plug a day later. In addition to the traumatic experience of losing my sister I also had to live with the fact that my last words to her where "stop pretending, you're making mom worried". Not, can I get you anything? Is there anything I can do? I hope you feel better or most importantly I love you. How does one get past such a thing. As human beings, we find it very easy to focus on the negative things in our lives. It took me nine years to finally see and acknowledge the positive aspects of my relationship with my sister. The times that I was a supportive big brother, the times that we use to play together, and the times that I protected, loved, and cared for her. My sister was an amazing person. The kind of person that would make you soup if you were sick, whose radiant and loving personality always made people want to be in her presence, the kind of person who would be devastated to know that her brother was filled with anything but love when it came to thoughts of her. So once I was able to come to this realization, I was able to positively move on and ultimately become a better and stronger person from it. A person who would no longer allow himself to see the negative aspects of his circumstances but instead open his heart to all the love and blessings that life bestowes upon us each day. That is to truly acknowledge. The question you must ask yourself is, how can I turn my negative experiences into one of my strengths? The negative experiences we're addressing in this section involve someone taking negative actions toward you and you taking negative actions towards others. They are both experiences that can lead to regression if not addressed and properly analyzed. You need to not only look at these experiences from your own eyes but from the others involved as well. Once you have gathered that information you will be able to implement the final section of stage one, forgiveness.