[Music]
at times in our life all of us will
choose to be strategic in terms of how
we relate to the rest of the world to
other people
the primary reason for this is that we
live in a time-space reality that is
governed by the law of cause and effect
this means that everything has a
consequence
for this reason we have to learn how to
choose those consequences consciously
to understand more about this in depth i
urge you to watch my video titled why
you should consciously choose
consequences
but just like being honest and authentic
comes with consequences
being strategic also comes with
consequences
and it's only when we genuinely realize
this and can look at the positive and
negative consequences of being honest or
the positive negative consequences of
being strategic that we can consciously
make the right choice for ourselves
about whether to be honest or whether to
be strategic
for the sake of this conversation you
can imagine that in any situation or in
life in general
you have
two options
one we can be honest and authentic if we
are honest we are thinking speaking and
acting in accordance with the truth and
with what is real for us
we are being genuine
sincere and we are in a state of
integrity when we do this we are
engaging with life from the inside out
we're being straightforward and that we
are bringing our truth out into the
world
two we can be strategic
if we are being strategic we are
thinking speaking and acting in
accordance with a plan or method that
guarantees us to be able to avoid
something we don't want or gain
something we want
when we do this we are engaging with the
world from the outside in
we first assess the outside world so as
to come up with a plan for what it would
take to avoid what we want to avoid or
get what we want to get and then we
adjust ourselves as necessary
it is very difficult to preserve
yourself
and to be honest in a society where the
process of socialization teaches a child
that certain things are acceptable and
certain things are not acceptable and
therefore there are going to be major
consequences for things that are
unacceptable and major rewards for
things that are acceptable
that
way of socializing
creates a dynamic whereby it's
more common that a child learns to give
up themselves
they learn that honesty or staying true
to themselves is not the best policy in
life
they learn that the only real way
they're going to be able to avoid things
that they don't want and get things that
they do want is if they adopt the more
successful
game of strategy instead
as a result of all of this in adulthood
so many of us are living from strategy
instead of from authenticity so many of
us are being strategic instead of honest
both with ourselves and with others
but so many of us began to relate to
other people into life itself in a
strategic way so early that we do this
subconsciously so many people are living
in the state of constant strategy they
don't even realize it it's only obvious
to the people around them
the reason that we can continue to do
this on a subconscious level and get
away with it is that we decided a long
time ago that what we value most
is to be able to control our life
experience
therefore if we're being strategic
we notice that we can avoid things we
don't want to experience and we can
experience things we do want to
experience we have control over that
equation therefore when we're acting in
a strategic way
we perceive ourselves to be acting in
accordance with our core value
therefore
when we are being strategic
because being strategic is acting in
accordance with that core value we
perceive ourselves to be
being true to ourselves even when we are
being dishonest and inauthentic
so that you can further understand what
i mean i'm going to give you two
examples
debbie grew up in a home with a very
domineering mother
and when her mother divorced her father
her father left to a different city not
only that he had a job where he was not
around
pretty much ever
so she was stuck in that home with that
very domineering person
and whenever she expressed an opinion
that her mother didn't lie or whenever
she had a personal truth or a like or a
dislike that didn't agree with her
mother the punishment was isolation
on top of this whenever her mother or
father made any decision she was not
considered in that decision
it's almost like
you don't
consult your pet when you want to go to
the movies you just leave them at home
therefore she felt very out of control
feeling unaccepted by her mother and
unloved by her father she developed so
much shame that debbie decided the most
important thing was to prove to herself
that she was a good person and to be
able to control her life
in order to feel like a good person and
to be able to have enough control over
her life that she could guarantee she
could avoid pain and gain pleasure
debbie became a very strategic person
debbie blocked out any awareness of
anything about herself that could
possibly make her feel like a bad person
and if she was ever in a situation where
somebody reflected to her something that
might make her feel like a bad person
she would immediately reject that
reflection and instead flip the whole
dynamic through deflection and make it
about them being bad and wrong instead
debbie decided to do humanitarian work
with her time and energy specifically
because doing so made her feel like she
was such a good person and made other
people see her as a good person
problem is she hated the work itself and
so if she didn't get enough credit or
enough praise or enough approval or
enough gratitude she would get
frustrated she would quit with that
humanitarian organization and just jump
to go join another one where she hoped
to gain those things
debbie was also completely fully locked
into the so that pattern
if you want to know more about this
pattern you can watch my video titled if
you want to be happy don't do this
debbie also became a very two-faced
person
she was definitely deceitful and not
straightforward
she would say pleasant things about a
person when she was in front of them and
unpleasant things about them when she
wasn't
even when other people accurately
pinpointed her truth based off of her
actions or on things they'd heard that
she'd said behind their backs she'd
refuse to admit to it or to reveal that
truth she would deliberately manipulate
people to believe she was completely in
alignment with them when the reality is
she was not she would be openly
considerate of other people and meet
their needs
but because she wanted to obligate them
to consider her and to meet her needs
she would enter into relationships with
men who didn't know themselves well
and then she would help them to realize
that their truth is actually the same as
her truth and that what they want is
actually the same as what she wants
debbie had lost touch with her personal
truth and refused to face it she would
refuse to share what personal truth she
did know if there were any negative
consequences for doing so so the reality
is no one was ever really in a
relationship with debbie they were in a
relationship with a carefully crafted
facade designed to be able to control
her environment avoid pain and get what
she wanted and needed
ultimately she caused herself and
everyone that she came into contact with
indescribable levels of pain
two eric was raised by a transient
stream of nannies his mother died when
he was very young and his father
honestly had no space in his life for a
child except for if that child was doing
something in the moment that somehow
puffed his ego
eric realized very early on
that he would never truly be loved and
that his needs would never truly be met
unless he found perfect alignment with
his father
he needed his approval
because of this need to please his
father he gave up on being true to
himself in favor of employing whatever
strategy guaranteed him this he dressed
in a way that would please his father he
was praising an affectionate with them
he took up his father's favorite sport
he joined in on political rallies that
belonged to his father's favorite
political party he told himself that he
and his father were best friends he
married the girl he knew his father
would love
and then because this strategic way of
being is what he learned to do in
relationships rather than being
authentic and honest he just repeated
the same damn pattern with her
he wore exactly what she wanted him to
wear he adopted all of her social
friends and didn't bring any of his own
with him
uh he convinced her that all of her
interests was his interests as well that
everything she wanted was something that
he wanted as well
he wrote down all his dark feelings in a
journal which he never shared with
anyone
when she started putting pressure on him
to get married he went ahead and
proposed
and when she decided it was time to have
children he said you know what i think
that would be a really great idea
ultimately eric did get what he wanted
he definitely had pleased his father
he definitely had pleased his wife
but it came at the cost of his entire
identity
the cost was never finding out what his
personal truth was beyond i want this
person to love me
when eric was 40 years old he had a
midlife crisis
because he'd been living in this
strategic way his whole life
he couldn't keep it up nobody can
there's an expiration date on being able
to be happy and do that
as a result of this he completely
flipped on the people in his life
overnight he started acting like the
victim like everyone else around him had
controlled him into doing and being
something he didn't want to do and be
like he was living their life instead of
his
he started acting as if they were
controlling him for their best interests
he cheated on his wife
because his actual truth is
he didn't want a monogamous relationship
he wanted an open one
he stopped engaging with his kids
because he didn't really want kids in
the first place he just thought that if
he said that he didn't want a monogamous
relationship and didn't want children
his wife would end the relationship of
course when he finally did tell his wife
this she had a nervous breakdown and
moved back in with her mother
then eric decided wait what's true for
me is
i don't want to actually have my life be
about my father's political party so he
joined the entire opposite political
party
and he stopped showing up at his dad's
house
for holidays
he cut off the relationship entirely and
became estranged from him and this took
a serious toll on his father's health
during this process he was expressing
problems he had with his father and
problems he had with his wife
years after those problems occurred
well after anything could be done about
them
long story short
because of this strategic pattern
eric blew up every relationship in his
life
causing himself and everyone around him
immeasurable levels of pain
there are consequences for being
authentic there are consequences for
honesty but i don't have to tell you
about those consequences in this episode
do i because you've been living it long
enough to see them what's important to
understand
in this episode is that there are
consequences severe consequences
for living in strategy as well
to understand more about this in depth i
ask you to watch my video titled are you
only honest when you feel like there are
no consequences
i can't say to you today that strategy
is always a bad idea and that
authenticity and honesty is always
better
what i can say is that we are so
unconscious
about this dynamic between honesty and
authenticity and strategy that so often
the two are diametrically opposed
what i can say is that it is not
possible to be stuck in this condition
of being constantly strategic and to be
happy or to have real relationships at
the same time
and so if you want a life that is quite
honestly worth living you have got to
see
feel hear and understand what your
personal truth is
from there you've got to look at what
the positive and negative consequences
of being honest and authentic are and
the positive negative consequences of
what being strategic are
and from there you need to powerfully
make a conscious choice about what to do
with your truth
have a good week
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i want to thank you personally
for the bravery that you have to step
into awareness
i'll see you in the next video
[Music]
you