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Energizing Self-Trust

7 Steps for Reclaiming Your Power

A Book Review by S. Tariq Masood

On 12th May 1990, Star Trek: The Next Generation, in its third season released the 23rd episode “SAREK”.

Spock's father Sarek, a legendary 200 year old Vulcan ambassador, boards the Enterprise to finalize negotiations with a race of beings that only trusts him. His two personal aids who accompany him on the Enterprise continually monitor, stabilize his mental state and advise Sarek maximum rest in view of his debilitating health. Only Sarek insists to remain active to oversee the details of these sensitive negotiations.

Vulcans are known to exhibit no emotions. According to them … “We dispose emotional states. They are illogical. When there is no emotion, there is no motive for violence.”

Actually, Vulcans are not devoid of emotions; they've simply learned to suppress them from the early childhood. This behavior becomes a part of their physiology which gives them (arguably) greater problem-solving abilities, less confusion about personal issues and no conflicts over irrational concepts that cannot be proven.

The very next day, for reasons unknown, crew members of the ship exhibited unprovoked aggression, even towards personal friends and colleagues. After numerous such incidents, the Enterprise crew got concerned, investigated and finally concluded that ambassador Sarek is inflicted with the rare 'bendai syndrome', which causes old Vulcans to lose their most-prized emotional self-control. In such a state, they telepathically “spill” the intense emotions everywhere they go. These strong emotions then get absorbed by humans affecting their behavioral response and needless fights and arguments ensue.

As a temporary solution, Captain volunteers himself to mind-meld with him. This way Sarek would have Picard's emotional control for the duration of negotiations. Sarek is reluctant at first warning Picard that this would cause him to be overwhelmed by extremely powerful Vulcan emotions. Knowing the risks, Picard remains adamant and Sarek grudgingly agrees.

After the mind-exchange is performed by Sarek, Captain Picard, who is a human, is indeed overpowered. Under the deluge of extreme emotions Captain exhibits a personality change and pours out the contents of Sarek's anguished soul; accumulation of his suppressed emotional experiences, his regrets of never showing Love to his son Spock or his late wife. Captain cries uncontrollably and remains in agonizing depression having received Sarek’s mind. In the meantime, a restored and rational Sarek, who has exchanged the emotional stability from the Captain, successfully concludes his negotiations.

Book Review & Personal Thoughts

The above example was necessary because that is exactly what happens in real life when profound emotions are deliberately suppressed or snubbed. In his fifth book, ENERGIZING SELF TRUST: 7 Steps to Reclaiming Your Power; author J. Lawrence Maerz has sacrificed all pretensions to literary style to secure felicity of diction. He has an important message to deliver and does it sagaciously without any nebulous writing. He conscientiously starts from the origin where the “bent” occurs in our emotions which changes our outlook on life. He presents his readers practical solutions which even a layman can comprehend.

We are all creatures of emotions, passions, circumstances and accident. What the mind will be, what the heart will be, what the body will be; are problems that are shaped to the drift of life. Think about it for a while and you will be surprised to know how much of your life has been a mere drift; polluted with hive consciousness spewing out clichés with boring regularity.

The writer is a psychological counselor, professional speaker and has been an investigator of EMOTIONAL TROUBLESHOOTING subject for many years. His most recent 5th book is an attempt to give to his readers the principles; fundamental to advanced, derived from his own investigations, painstaking research work and experiential knowledge of adult and child psychology. He recognizes and advocates the need of personal accountability and coaches his clients on achieving “balanced emotional states.”

Excerpts from ENERGIZING SELF TRUST

7 Steps to Reclaiming Your Power

“We have spent many years building emotional inertia that has led to our arrival at the place where we find ourselves now. We all feel that there were pivotal points in our lives where, if we had gone another way, we might not be where we are now. We see those experiences as choices we had to make based on circumstances. But those choices had everything to do with how we felt about ourselves at the time. And how we felt at that time had everything to do with the way we were taught about how the world perceived us, our values and worth as an individual. The underlying point is that we have allowed our value and worth to be determined by people outside of ourselves, thus continuing the training we received in childhood.”

“We still see ourselves now much the same way we believed the world saw us then, except that, now it is a long history of reinforcement through repeating the same beliefs and patterns we were taught, over and over.”

“The way the world sees and responds to us is deeply rooted in our opinions of ourselves. This is our personal inertia. The way the world values us is well integrated in our psyches. It could be compared to a systemic infection permeating the body and the only way to eliminate it is to kill the host it survives on.”

Mr. J. Lawrence Maerz advocates the use of positive affirmations but with a serious warning. There is a thought, and a “sponsoring thought”, which runs parallel or directly behind the first thought. For instance, if I am using an affirmation to germinate a new belief inside my subconscious mind and saying… “I am a great communicator. My clients appreciate what I say, give me business and referrals.” The sponsoring thought could say...

a) Don't kid yourself
b) Your clients back out at the last minute
c) You will lose AGAIN
d) You are not good at closing deals
etc. etc.

The sponsoring thought then becomes an adversary. It incinerates the initial thought instantly along with any positivity. Why? Because it drags past emotional experiences into the present moment and how we identified ourselves with the judgments that were placed upon us when we were growing up. Since we never let go of those outdated beliefs, the emotional navigation brings us vis-à-vis with a darker side of ourselves. It is when we choose to cloak our shining self in the present moment covered in the rags of FEAR of the past. The bottom line is that our thoughts and the sponsoring thoughts must not collide with one another. Once both stand in congruence, new beliefs are formed and life begins to change.

Conclusion:

Humanity is hemmed in by so many influences that, from time immemorial, no real effort has been made to gain control of the emotions and impulses that run loose in the world within. It has been, and still is, easier to let things go rather than exert a degree of personal will to direct them. The dividing line between success and failure is found at that stage where aimless drifting ceases.

With so many simultaneous realities and parallel possibilities than our minds could conceive or the pen could write in figures; we choose to keep ourselves locked in a status-quo. ENERGIZING SELF TRUST: 7 Steps to Reclaiming Your Power releases readers from the dogmatic labels and bondage of the past. Through practical exercises, the book helps readers usher into a new mindset where you start to understand the bludgeoning of “shadows” and finally eliminate the victim-based mentality which infests the soul.

Depression, isolation, loneliness, anxiety, irritability, helplessness, impoverishment and failures which frequently repeat themselves - all represent mental inertia. They are not diseases but only states of mind. They have an origin; symptoms to a much deeper cause. Eliminate the cause and the whole picture changes. Whenever we “spill” fear based emotions in key moments or areas of our lives; disappointments follow. The only way out is to accept the responsibility of correcting the misconceptions and commit to doing something different to get a different result.

ENERGIZING SELF TRUST: 7 Steps to Reclaiming Your Power provides a working model of belief management by virtue of which things can change for the better. It is not an overnight transformation; rather a gradual process which hammers your mind to courageously cross the line and experience what lies on the other side of the fence.

Please visit author's websites:

http://johnmaerz.com/

http://awakeandthinking.com/

J. Lawrence Maerz fourth book: A MILE IN YOUR SHOES: The Road To Actualization Through Compassion is about child rearing practices which stigmatize and leave behind a mark of shame. It is also a must read work.