September 22, 2025 • 31 mins
In this episode, Michael Fox explores one of the most powerful mindset shifts you can make: moving from victimhood to empowerment. Instead of asking “Why is this happening to me?”—you’ll learn to see every challenge, setback, and opportunity as something happening for your growth, evolution, and success.
Through personal stories, practical strategies, and deep insights, you’ll discover how to embrace life as your greatest teacher. This shift will help you reframe obstacles as stepping stones, cultivate gratitude in the face of difficulty, and unlock the freedom to design the life you truly desire.
If you’ve been feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or questioning your path, this episode will help you see the bigger picture and remind you that life is always working in your favor.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (01:04):
We're going to talk about a topic that I've been
recently focusing on a lot withclients, and I feel like it has
had a significant impact withthem, and I thought to myself
why not share this with you sothat you can have a significant
impact in your life as well?
So what I want to talk abouttoday is the idea that life is
(01:32):
happening for you.
What do I mean by that?
I mean that every event thathappens in your life, both good
and bad, it's happening for you,not to you.
What do I mean that it'shappening for you, not to you?
What do I mean?
That it's happening for you?
That there is a gift in theevent that occurs in your life.
(01:57):
Let me start off by sharing astory that has happened in my
life so that I can get thispoint across.
So that I can get this pointacross In the past, there were
so many people in my life thatwere these A-type personalities.
They were the ones that were inmy face, telling me what I
(02:19):
should do, how I should do it,what I should be doing, and I
wasn't necessarily asking forthem to tell me what to do, but,
for whatever reason, thispersonality type kept showing up
and what I would do is I wouldeither leave the relationship
with that person, I would try tohide and not see them and I
(02:41):
would avoid them like the plague.
But what kept happening was,every time I would go to another
job or another group of friends, there would always be that
replacement person with theA-type personality that was
coming into my life and causingme upset and pain, and I didn't
(03:04):
want to be around that person.
I didn't understand it.
I felt like why is thishappening to me?
And that's a question that isthe wrong question to ask, but I
didn't know that at the time.
What I've discovered is thatwas an event that was happening
for me.
It was a gift, it was anopportunity to say why is this
(03:26):
person showing up in front of me?
Why are they telling me what todo and what is it that I need
to learn from it?
And after reflecting andlooking inside, what I
discovered was I needed to beable to say things that I needed
(03:47):
to say and set boundaries, butI was too afraid to do that.
I didn't know what they wouldthink about me.
I didn't know what they wouldsay about me.
So instead of setting aboundary, instead of speaking up
, I would let them walk all overme or just be very quiet when
they were talking.
But that wasn't for my greatestgood.
(04:08):
God was putting that in frontof me, that situation, so that I
could have the ability to lookinside, reflect and say what is
this trying to teach me?
And the incredible thing aboutthat story is, once I realized
that was what was going on andonce I started to speak up for
(04:29):
myself and once I started to setboundaries, what do you think
happened to those A-typepersonalities that were
constantly showing up in my life?
They stopped showing up, theystopped appearing.
Because I did the workinternally, I reflected and
(04:49):
realized that's not happening tome.
That's God giving me a gift andsaying here is something for
you so that you can improveyourself and you can better
yourself and you become a betterperson.
And rather than me pointing thefinger at that A-type
personality and getting myselfall upset, I reflect and look
inside and say to myself whatcan I do here?
(05:17):
How is this showing up for meand how can I make a difference
for myself and in my life, andwhat can I learn and how can I
grow so that I can get to theother side of this.
But again, if I didn't look atit from that perspective, that
A-type personality would justkeep showing up and keep showing
up, and I would be saying tomyself why is this happening?
I don't understand.
Why am I attracting these typeof people into my life?
(05:38):
God knows everything and Godsays, michael, here's an area
that could be improved upon tomake you an even better, more
caring, more loving, more closerto the true person that you are
inside, and so I'm going to putthese things in front of you as
(06:00):
a gift, so that you can startpracticing and start learning
and start getting better andstart making the necessary
changes so that you can becomemore of who you truly are.
Now, when I say this, when Isay life's happening for you,
and I give you this example,what do you think?
(06:23):
Does that resonate with you?
Can you see how that can be oneof the reasons why things keep
showing up in your life?
You can avoid them all you want, but they're going to keep
showing up until you're willingto reflect internally and make
changes internally that areneeded.
(06:43):
Now I want to hit on one thingright up front, which is this so
many people when I present,this life is happening for you,
not to you.
They'll say something like thisto me Okay, mike, that's great,
but if my son is killed, how isthat life happening for me?
(07:05):
And here's what I'm going tosay to you.
And here's what I'm going tosay to you.
And here's what I've said tothem.
When you start martial arts, youstart off as a white belt.
The reason you start off as awhite belt is because you have
to learn the fundamentals, thebasics.
You've got to practice thefoundational skills so that you
(07:27):
can upgrade to the next belt.
I can't take someone that hasnever done any martial arts
before and expect that if I sayto them I want you to fight a
black belt, that they're goingto be able to fight that black
belt or at least have the skillsof that black belt.
They're just not at that level.
(07:48):
Have the skills of that blackbelt, they're just not at that
level.
So when someone says, mike,what if something happens to my
son and gets killed?
How's that life happening forme?
What I'm saying is we don'twant to start at the black belt
level.
Starting at the black beltlevel is a situation where your
(08:09):
son gets killed and we don'tstart there.
We want to start with the basicstuff, the smaller stuff, right
, like having an A-typepersonality constantly coming in
front of you.
That's where we want to startthis process and as we practice
and as we grow and as we getstronger and as we get better,
(08:32):
we'll be able to handle moresituations.
But don't put yourself in ablack belt situation when you're
a white belt.
It's important that while we'relistening to this, we're
starting with that premise inmind.
The Kabbalah is a spiritual book.
It's about spirituality, andone of the things that he said
(08:56):
was when your soul is going tocome into the body is going to
come into the body.
What it does is it picks allthe people, all the places
you're going to live, all theevents that are going to happen
in your life, and the reasonthat the soul picks all those
things is we have these areas inour life that we need to work
(09:23):
on.
Maybe, as an example, I feellike I'm not good enough or I'm
not smart enough, something likethat, and I come here to this
world with that belief or thatfeeling.
It's built into me, and so oursoul picks out all these
different events and people toplace in front of us so that
(09:45):
we'll have the ability to workthrough these different
situations, so that we getstronger and we become again
more like God.
The soul has been through manylifetimes and in each life it's
working to move more towardslove, and when we come into the
(10:09):
body we bring some of these Iwouldn't say deficiencies, but
some of these beliefs are builtinto us, and so these events
that are going to unfold in ourlife are there to help us there,
to guide us there, to teach us,so that we can become again
(10:30):
more loving, more caring.
We can become that person whowe truly are, instead of the
mask that we sometimes put onand wear and pretend around
other people because we'reafraid if they see who we truly
are, they may not like us.
And the goal is that we stripaway these masks and we remove
(10:55):
them and we just be the personthat we truly are.
It's way easier to be ourselvesthan to pretend to be someone
else.
Let's use a couple hypotheticalsituations here.
Have you had a relationship inthe past and you keep meeting
someone who's treating you aspecific way and then you break
(11:19):
up with them?
Or they break up with you, orthey cheat on you or you cheat
on them and you go into the nextrelationship and the same exact
thing happens again.
Why do you think that'soccurring?
Is it that you just attractthese terrible people into your
life based on what we'rediscussing?
Why do you think that'shappening?
(11:40):
Because there's something inthere in that relationship for
you, for your growth.
So I'm going to give you areally personal example, which
is a relationship that I had inmy life which ended in divorce,
and I remember when I was inthat relationship, thinking to
myself consistently I washelping her, she was the one
(12:06):
with the issues, she was the onewith the problems, and that was
my thought process during thatrelationship, and I wasn't
willing to look in the mirrorand see what did I have to do
with this, the mirror and seewhat did I have to do with this.
(12:27):
She was actually a huge gift tome.
Besides giving me my son, who'sincredible.
She was a gift because I wasable to eventually not right
away, but eventually turn insideand look and see how I was
being very inauthentic in mylife.
At the time, I was wearing themasks like I was perfect and I
(12:49):
had no problems and I was hereto fix everyone and help
everyone, but that wasn't thetrue me.
So if you're in a relationshipwith someone and you're not
being your true self, they'regoing to feel that they're going
to act in a certain way whichgoes against you continuing to
(13:10):
act the way that you're actingthat inauthentic way of being
which was who I was being.
So here I am pretending andbeing this person who I think
will make her happy.
Yet I wasn't being true tomyself, I wasn't being honest
(14:07):
with myself, I didn't haveintegrity with myself and
therefore there's no way thatrelationship could continue to
work, because what happened wasafter the relationship ended,
after blaming her andcomplaining and making all these
(14:28):
excuses how it had nothing todo with me, I really took a look
in the mirror because thatwasn't doing anything for me.
Pointing the finger wasn'tworking, didn't make me feel
better and what I realized wasme being authentically myself,
(14:48):
meaning if I screw something up,I admit to it, if I'm not happy
, I can be unhappy and be okay,and I can sit in unhappiness and
be present in it and not haveto try to change it because I
need to appear to be a certaintype of person once I started
(15:12):
becoming authentic and true tomyself, which again took me some
time because I had been inpractice of doing it the other
way.
I wrote a book.
It's called Removing the MaskBecoming who God Made you to Be.
It's on Amazon.
There's a little plug, right.
But the really purpose of mebringing that up is because we
(15:35):
come to this world we'reactually perfect.
When we're born, we'reperfection.
And then we start to be toldcertain things by our teachers,
our friends, our family thatwe're not good enough.
We're not, we could be betterand we start to put on masks and
pretend to be something thatwe're not so that we'll make
(15:57):
other people happy.
The problem is, while we'retrying to make everyone else
happy out there, who's the oneperson we're not making happy?
It's ourselves.
(16:29):
So once I made the decision tostop pointing the finger, stop
blaming, stop complaining andreally start to look inside and
see how I was responsible forthe situation that I was in by
life, because after I did that,I was able to attract a
relationship that wasunbelievably healthy and things
were really good, and the reasonthat occurred is because I was
healthy and so I would attractwhat I already am, what I
(17:00):
already am, I promise you ifyou're struggling with something
right now, meaning the similarthings are happening in your
relationship.
You're consistently losingmoney or not bringing in enough
money.
Your job or your career keephaving struggles.
You're never able to advance.
There's things going on.
You're health and wellness.
You're overweight.
(17:21):
You're struggling.
The reason these things arehappening is because God's
giving you a gift.
God is saying here's anopportunity for you to work
through what's really going onunderneath it all.
What we're dealing with on aday-to-day basis is perfectly
(17:45):
designed curriculum for our soul.
It's like going to school everysingle day.
Everything that's presentingitself to us is happening for us
.
It's a gift, and I want you toask yourself this question If
you were able to turn and lookat life through this perspective
(18:08):
, through these lenses, whatbegins to happen in your life on
a consistent basis, do youthink you would potentially feel
more peaceful as you're workingthrough and seeing internally
the things that you can workthrough?
Or are you going to try tocontrol others and try to make
(18:29):
them change so that you're happy?
What do you think the chancesare that you'll be able to make
other people change?
It's hard enough to makeourselves change, so the chances
of making someone else changeis very slim.
So why not work on the bestperson that we can possibly work
(18:49):
on, which is the person thatstares back at us in the mirror
every single day?
That's why we're here in thisworld.
We're here so that we can workthrough all this stuff that we
come here and that has been withus for many lifetimes and we
may have advanced and we may bedoing great, and maybe we
haven't, maybe we're earlier onin the journey.
(19:11):
It doesn't matter where we are.
The gift is it's a gift andit's a practice, and you take
where you're at and don'tcompare it to anyone else,
because it doesn't matter whatthey're going through or where
they're at in their journey.
There's no comparison.
You're in your journey, you'rehere for your growth, you're
(19:33):
here to work through your stuff,and the sooner we can look at
life through these lenses andthe sooner we can practice
realizing that this is happeningfor me.
Then, the next time someonecomes and says something
negative to you and you gettriggered by it, perhaps that's
(19:54):
happening for you.
Perhaps that's a gift thatallows you to practice not being
triggered by something someonesays.
If you believed in yourself andyou had confidence in yourself,
the fact that someone saidsomething negative to you would
have zero impact.
If I were to call you, I cameup to you tomorrow and I said
(20:17):
you're a pink elephant, youwould look at me like I'm nuts
and you would laugh.
It would have zero impact onyou.
But if I said you're a stupididiot who can't handle your
money, you're really ridiculous.
There's a very good chance thatif you feel any of those things
(20:37):
about yourself, that you willget unbelievably upset and angry
and you'll lash out and attackback.
The problem with attacking back,the problem with latching out
is it going to change whatreally went on inside of you?
And the answer is no, reallywent on inside of you, and the
(20:59):
answer is no.
The attacking is trying toprotect ourselves, but we're not
protecting ourselves becausethe more we lash out at other
people, we're missing theopportunity in ourselves to deal
with the thing that's actuallyhurting inside of us.
And if we don't deal with thatpiece, we can spend our entire
life pointing the finger outthere and hoping that these
people will change.
(21:19):
But it won't make a differencebecause the only person that
this whole life is for you.
It's for you to learn and togrow and to get better and to
look internally and say toyourself how can I deal with
this upset?
Why am I feeling this upset?
What's going on?
How can I get stronger?
(21:41):
How can I feel better aboutmyself?
How can I be authentic tomyself so that, moving forward,
when someone comes and sayssomething about me or to me, I
don't get impacted by it?
No one's doing anything to you.
It's happening for you.
I promise you, if you can lookat life from that perspective,
(22:05):
your life will completely change.
Ego likes to control Ego, whichis our mind, our conscious mind.
Where are we having all thesethoughts?
I'm going to create thegreatest plan to get a great
relationship.
I'm going to create thegreatest plan to have a
(22:25):
successful business.
I'm going to create thegreatest plan to have more
spirituality in my life.
It's okay to come up with aplan, but let me ask you this
question you can work so hardand come up with a plan all you
want, but do you think God mighthave a better plan for you?
(22:47):
In other words, your life hasbeen unfolding perfectly up
until this point.
Every time you were in astruggle, anytime, something
happened.
Somehow you were brought to thenext place in your life.
And when you were brought there.
Sometimes we say to ourselvesoh my gosh, thank God, that
(23:08):
thing, that negative thing,happened.
Because had that negative thing, we saw it as negative.
It actually was a gift.
Had we had that not happened inmy life, I wouldn't be where I
am right now.
Example that relationship thatI was, in which anyone could
look at as, oh, that's such anegative thing.
I could have looked at it thatway.
(23:29):
It was a gift.
It helped me reflect internallyand helped me heal some stuff
that was going on inside of meso that I could get stronger and
that I could be authentic andreal to myself.
What better gift could I askfor?
So the number of years that Iwent through what I went through
, I had the opportunity allalong to deal with this, to
(23:53):
reflect and look inside and saywhy is this happening for me?
What's the gift in this?
And again, this is high levelstuff.
This isn't easy to do.
It's a practice.
We start with small things.
We don't run a marathon.
The first time we decide to run, we decide to run to the first
(24:14):
mailbox and then we run back tothe house.
We start slowly, but if youkeep doing it slowly and keep
taking steps to the next mailbox.
Suddenly you're going to becoming more and more authentic
to yourself, more confident,more loving, more caring, and
(24:35):
that will reflect out to theworld and it will attract back
to you more of the same.
However, when you'reinauthentic, what do you think
will happen when you're dealingwith other people?
Will you have more authenticityor more inauthenticity?
I remember someone that I usedto work with drove me up the
(24:58):
wall because I was looking atthat person and thinking to
myself man, that person is soinauthentic Like they're, so
phony and so fake.
You know what I saw in thatother person?
Myself, I was the one beinginauthentic.
Other person myself I was theone being inauthentic.
I was the one that was beingphony, but it was so much easier
(25:24):
to point the finger at himbecause it allowed me to stay
away from having to deal withmyself.
And if you just take away thisone thing from today's podcast,
you can point your finger allyou want.
It's never going to help youunless you turn the finger and
point it back to yourself andare willing to look inside.
Life is happening for you If youfind yourself saying something
(25:48):
negative about another person.
That person so judgmental, thatperson doesn't really care.
That person so judgmental, thatperson doesn't really care.
That person's so selfish.
Guess who you're talking about.
You're talking about yourself.
That person is a mirrorreflection of yourself, and you
(26:09):
may not like me saying this andyou may even try to push away
and say, no, that's a bunch ofcrap, but the truth of the
matter is that is 100% true.
You're seeing yourself in theother person and you're not
liking what.
So instead of saying toyourself in the mirror you're so
selfish, you're so annoyingYou're pointing your finger and
(26:34):
looking at the other person andblaming them.
So the next time you're going tojudge someone, maybe life's
happening for you.
Maybe what it's saying is,maybe there are selfish.
But in what areas of my life amI being selfish?
And look inside and notice youknow what?
(26:56):
I am selfish Sometimes, when Iget money, I hold on to it and I
don't share it with otherpeople.
Or maybe I'm selfish with myrelationship.
I'm always thinking aboutmyself and never really thinking
about the other person.
There's a million ways in whichthat thing that we see in
(27:19):
others could be rearing its headinside of us, but the key is
being willing to look inside andsay, okay, life is happening
for me.
And then looking inside andseeing, maybe I am a little
selfish in that area.
In fact, what I'm going to dois I'm going to start really
(27:41):
working on that area and I'mgoing to say a blessing for that
other person.
I'm going to say, god, pleasehelp that person who might be
selfish in this area, becomemore accepting, more loving,
more caring, more peaceful.
And thank you, god, forallowing me to see that this was
(28:02):
happening for me and thank youfor giving me the opportunity to
work on it myself.
And please help me as well withthis thing that I'm struggling
with inside.
I want to end today's podcastwith this you are absolutely
(28:28):
perfect.
You are a perfect soul.
You come here absolutelyperfect.
When you see a baby and youlook at them, do you see
anything else other thanperfection?
They're perfect and that wasyou.
And you got programmed and youstarted to put on these masks
(28:49):
and pretend to be someone elseto make other people happy.
The whole goal in life is tolook inside and to go back to
being your authentic self, tobeing the love, to loving
someone.
That's being hateful and beingokay if they respond back in a
not so loving way.
(29:10):
We don't have to get back atanyone.
We just have to take care ofbeing the light and sharing the
light in this world.
So I hope today that thisinspires you to be the light in
your life, to look in the mirrorand say to yourself why did
that happen for me?
(29:31):
What is it that I can learnthat happen for me?
What is it that I can learn?
How can I grow from this andhow can I become a better person
?
The next time you're going tojudge someone, instead of
judging, or if you do judge them, think to yourself how do I
have that same quality in myselfand how can I send a blessing
to that person and how can Iwork on that judgment that I
(29:56):
made on them within myself?
When we start to live life inthis way, there's so much more
peace, so much more happiness,so much more love.
We're living like God.
In that sense, we're livingfrom a place that's closer to
(30:17):
perfection.
Will we ever be perfect at this?
No, do we just try each week toget a little bit better?
Yes, that's what I have for youtoday.
Please let me know if you gotany impact from this specific
podcast and if it touched you ina specific way, please share it
(30:40):
with other people, becausethere's a lot of other people
out there that need to hear thismessage and you can be someone
that spreads the light and helpsthem see the light within
themselves.
I love you.
I love you, I appreciate youand I'm so grateful that God
gave me the gift of sharing thiswith you.
We're going to talk about a topic that I've been
recently focusing on a lot withclients, and I feel like it has
had a significant impact withthem, and I thought to myself
why not share this with you sothat you can have a significant
impact in your life as well?
So what I want to talk abouttoday is the idea that life is
(01:32):
happening for you.
What do I mean by that?
I mean that every event thathappens in your life, both good
and bad, it's happening for you,not to you.
What do I mean that it'shappening for you, not to you?
What do I mean?
That it's happening for you?
That there is a gift in theevent that occurs in your life.
(01:57):
Let me start off by sharing astory that has happened in my
life so that I can get thispoint across.
So that I can get this pointacross In the past, there were
so many people in my life thatwere these A-type personalities.
They were the ones that were inmy face, telling me what I
(02:19):
should do, how I should do it,what I should be doing, and I
wasn't necessarily asking forthem to tell me what to do, but,
for whatever reason, thispersonality type kept showing up
and what I would do is I wouldeither leave the relationship
with that person, I would try tohide and not see them and I
(02:41):
would avoid them like the plague.
But what kept happening was,every time I would go to another
job or another group of friends, there would always be that
replacement person with theA-type personality that was
coming into my life and causingme upset and pain, and I didn't
(03:04):
want to be around that person.
I didn't understand it.
I felt like why is thishappening to me?
And that's a question that isthe wrong question to ask, but I
didn't know that at the time.
What I've discovered is thatwas an event that was happening
for me.
It was a gift, it was anopportunity to say why is this
(03:26):
person showing up in front of me?
Why are they telling me what todo and what is it that I need
to learn from it?
And after reflecting andlooking inside, what I
discovered was I needed to beable to say things that I needed
(03:47):
to say and set boundaries, butI was too afraid to do that.
I didn't know what they wouldthink about me.
I didn't know what they wouldsay about me.
So instead of setting aboundary, instead of speaking up
, I would let them walk all overme or just be very quiet when
they were talking.
But that wasn't for my greatestgood.
(04:08):
God was putting that in frontof me, that situation, so that I
could have the ability to lookinside, reflect and say what is
this trying to teach me?
And the incredible thing aboutthat story is, once I realized
that was what was going on andonce I started to speak up for
(04:29):
myself and once I started to setboundaries, what do you think
happened to those A-typepersonalities that were
constantly showing up in my life?
They stopped showing up, theystopped appearing.
Because I did the workinternally, I reflected and
(04:49):
realized that's not happening tome.
That's God giving me a gift andsaying here is something for
you so that you can improveyourself and you can better
yourself and you become a betterperson.
And rather than me pointing thefinger at that A-type
personality and getting myselfall upset, I reflect and look
inside and say to myself whatcan I do here?
(05:17):
How is this showing up for meand how can I make a difference
for myself and in my life, andwhat can I learn and how can I
grow so that I can get to theother side of this.
But again, if I didn't look atit from that perspective, that
A-type personality would justkeep showing up and keep showing
up, and I would be saying tomyself why is this happening?
I don't understand.
Why am I attracting these typeof people into my life?
(05:38):
God knows everything and Godsays, michael, here's an area
that could be improved upon tomake you an even better, more
caring, more loving, more closerto the true person that you are
inside, and so I'm going to putthese things in front of you as
(06:00):
a gift, so that you can startpracticing and start learning
and start getting better andstart making the necessary
changes so that you can becomemore of who you truly are.
Now, when I say this, when Isay life's happening for you,
and I give you this example,what do you think?
(06:23):
Does that resonate with you?
Can you see how that can be oneof the reasons why things keep
showing up in your life?
You can avoid them all you want, but they're going to keep
showing up until you're willingto reflect internally and make
changes internally that areneeded.
(06:43):
Now I want to hit on one thingright up front, which is this so
many people when I present,this life is happening for you,
not to you.
They'll say something like thisto me Okay, mike, that's great,
but if my son is killed, how isthat life happening for me?
(07:05):
And here's what I'm going tosay to you.
And here's what I'm going tosay to you.
And here's what I've said tothem.
When you start martial arts, youstart off as a white belt.
The reason you start off as awhite belt is because you have
to learn the fundamentals, thebasics.
You've got to practice thefoundational skills so that you
(07:27):
can upgrade to the next belt.
I can't take someone that hasnever done any martial arts
before and expect that if I sayto them I want you to fight a
black belt, that they're goingto be able to fight that black
belt or at least have the skillsof that black belt.
They're just not at that level.
(07:48):
Have the skills of that blackbelt, they're just not at that
level.
So when someone says, mike,what if something happens to my
son and gets killed?
How's that life happening forme?
What I'm saying is we don'twant to start at the black belt
level.
Starting at the black beltlevel is a situation where your
(08:09):
son gets killed and we don'tstart there.
We want to start with the basicstuff, the smaller stuff, right
, like having an A-typepersonality constantly coming in
front of you.
That's where we want to startthis process and as we practice
and as we grow and as we getstronger and as we get better,
(08:32):
we'll be able to handle moresituations.
But don't put yourself in ablack belt situation when you're
a white belt.
It's important that while we'relistening to this, we're
starting with that premise inmind.
The Kabbalah is a spiritual book.
It's about spirituality, andone of the things that he said
(08:56):
was when your soul is going tocome into the body is going to
come into the body.
What it does is it picks allthe people, all the places
you're going to live, all theevents that are going to happen
in your life, and the reasonthat the soul picks all those
things is we have these areas inour life that we need to work
(09:23):
on.
Maybe, as an example, I feellike I'm not good enough or I'm
not smart enough, something likethat, and I come here to this
world with that belief or thatfeeling.
It's built into me, and so oursoul picks out all these
different events and people toplace in front of us so that
(09:45):
we'll have the ability to workthrough these different
situations, so that we getstronger and we become again
more like God.
The soul has been through manylifetimes and in each life it's
working to move more towardslove, and when we come into the
(10:09):
body we bring some of these Iwouldn't say deficiencies, but
some of these beliefs are builtinto us, and so these events
that are going to unfold in ourlife are there to help us there,
to guide us there, to teach us,so that we can become again
(10:30):
more loving, more caring.
We can become that person whowe truly are, instead of the
mask that we sometimes put onand wear and pretend around
other people because we'reafraid if they see who we truly
are, they may not like us.
And the goal is that we stripaway these masks and we remove
(10:55):
them and we just be the personthat we truly are.
It's way easier to be ourselvesthan to pretend to be someone
else.
Let's use a couple hypotheticalsituations here.
Have you had a relationship inthe past and you keep meeting
someone who's treating you aspecific way and then you break
(11:19):
up with them?
Or they break up with you, orthey cheat on you or you cheat
on them and you go into the nextrelationship and the same exact
thing happens again.
Why do you think that'soccurring?
Is it that you just attractthese terrible people into your
life based on what we'rediscussing?
Why do you think that'shappening?
(11:40):
Because there's something inthere in that relationship for
you, for your growth.
So I'm going to give you areally personal example, which
is a relationship that I had inmy life which ended in divorce,
and I remember when I was inthat relationship, thinking to
myself consistently I washelping her, she was the one
(12:06):
with the issues, she was the onewith the problems, and that was
my thought process during thatrelationship, and I wasn't
willing to look in the mirrorand see what did I have to do
with this, the mirror and seewhat did I have to do with this.
(12:27):
She was actually a huge gift tome.
Besides giving me my son, who'sincredible.
She was a gift because I wasable to eventually not right
away, but eventually turn insideand look and see how I was
being very inauthentic in mylife.
At the time, I was wearing themasks like I was perfect and I
(12:49):
had no problems and I was hereto fix everyone and help
everyone, but that wasn't thetrue me.
So if you're in a relationshipwith someone and you're not
being your true self, they'regoing to feel that they're going
to act in a certain way whichgoes against you continuing to
(13:10):
act the way that you're actingthat inauthentic way of being
which was who I was being.
So here I am pretending andbeing this person who I think
will make her happy.
Yet I wasn't being true tomyself, I wasn't being honest
(14:07):
with myself, I didn't haveintegrity with myself and
therefore there's no way thatrelationship could continue to
work, because what happened wasafter the relationship ended,
after blaming her andcomplaining and making all these
(14:28):
excuses how it had nothing todo with me, I really took a look
in the mirror because thatwasn't doing anything for me.
Pointing the finger wasn'tworking, didn't make me feel
better and what I realized wasme being authentically myself,
(14:48):
meaning if I screw something up,I admit to it, if I'm not happy
, I can be unhappy and be okay,and I can sit in unhappiness and
be present in it and not haveto try to change it because I
need to appear to be a certaintype of person once I started
(15:12):
becoming authentic and true tomyself, which again took me some
time because I had been inpractice of doing it the other
way.
I wrote a book.
It's called Removing the MaskBecoming who God Made you to Be.
It's on Amazon.
There's a little plug, right.
But the really purpose of mebringing that up is because we
(15:35):
come to this world we'reactually perfect.
When we're born, we'reperfection.
And then we start to be toldcertain things by our teachers,
our friends, our family thatwe're not good enough.
We're not, we could be betterand we start to put on masks and
pretend to be something thatwe're not so that we'll make
(15:57):
other people happy.
The problem is, while we'retrying to make everyone else
happy out there, who's the oneperson we're not making happy?
It's ourselves.
(16:29):
So once I made the decision tostop pointing the finger, stop
blaming, stop complaining andreally start to look inside and
see how I was responsible forthe situation that I was in by
life, because after I did that,I was able to attract a
relationship that wasunbelievably healthy and things
were really good, and the reasonthat occurred is because I was
healthy and so I would attractwhat I already am, what I
(17:00):
already am, I promise you ifyou're struggling with something
right now, meaning the similarthings are happening in your
relationship.
You're consistently losingmoney or not bringing in enough
money.
Your job or your career keephaving struggles.
You're never able to advance.
There's things going on.
You're health and wellness.
You're overweight.
(17:21):
You're struggling.
The reason these things arehappening is because God's
giving you a gift.
God is saying here's anopportunity for you to work
through what's really going onunderneath it all.
What we're dealing with on aday-to-day basis is perfectly
(17:45):
designed curriculum for our soul.
It's like going to school everysingle day.
Everything that's presentingitself to us is happening for us
.
It's a gift, and I want you toask yourself this question If
you were able to turn and lookat life through this perspective
(18:08):
, through these lenses, whatbegins to happen in your life on
a consistent basis, do youthink you would potentially feel
more peaceful as you're workingthrough and seeing internally
the things that you can workthrough?
Or are you going to try tocontrol others and try to make
(18:29):
them change so that you're happy?
What do you think the chancesare that you'll be able to make
other people change?
It's hard enough to makeourselves change, so the chances
of making someone else changeis very slim.
So why not work on the bestperson that we can possibly work
(18:49):
on, which is the person thatstares back at us in the mirror
every single day?
That's why we're here in thisworld.
We're here so that we can workthrough all this stuff that we
come here and that has been withus for many lifetimes and we
may have advanced and we may bedoing great, and maybe we
haven't, maybe we're earlier onin the journey.
(19:11):
It doesn't matter where we are.
The gift is it's a gift andit's a practice, and you take
where you're at and don'tcompare it to anyone else,
because it doesn't matter whatthey're going through or where
they're at in their journey.
There's no comparison.
You're in your journey, you'rehere for your growth, you're
(19:33):
here to work through your stuff,and the sooner we can look at
life through these lenses andthe sooner we can practice
realizing that this is happeningfor me.
Then, the next time someonecomes and says something
negative to you and you gettriggered by it, perhaps that's
(19:54):
happening for you.
Perhaps that's a gift thatallows you to practice not being
triggered by something someonesays.
If you believed in yourself andyou had confidence in yourself,
the fact that someone saidsomething negative to you would
have zero impact.
If I were to call you, I cameup to you tomorrow and I said
(20:17):
you're a pink elephant, youwould look at me like I'm nuts
and you would laugh.
It would have zero impact onyou.
But if I said you're a stupididiot who can't handle your
money, you're really ridiculous.
There's a very good chance thatif you feel any of those things
(20:37):
about yourself, that you willget unbelievably upset and angry
and you'll lash out and attackback.
The problem with attacking back,the problem with latching out
is it going to change whatreally went on inside of you?
And the answer is no, reallywent on inside of you, and the
(20:59):
answer is no.
The attacking is trying toprotect ourselves, but we're not
protecting ourselves becausethe more we lash out at other
people, we're missing theopportunity in ourselves to deal
with the thing that's actuallyhurting inside of us.
And if we don't deal with thatpiece, we can spend our entire
life pointing the finger outthere and hoping that these
people will change.
(21:19):
But it won't make a differencebecause the only person that
this whole life is for you.
It's for you to learn and togrow and to get better and to
look internally and say toyourself how can I deal with
this upset?
Why am I feeling this upset?
What's going on?
How can I get stronger?
(21:41):
How can I feel better aboutmyself?
How can I be authentic tomyself so that, moving forward,
when someone comes and sayssomething about me or to me, I
don't get impacted by it?
No one's doing anything to you.
It's happening for you.
I promise you, if you can lookat life from that perspective,
(22:05):
your life will completely change.
Ego likes to control Ego, whichis our mind, our conscious mind.
Where are we having all thesethoughts?
I'm going to create thegreatest plan to get a great
relationship.
I'm going to create thegreatest plan to have a
(22:25):
successful business.
I'm going to create thegreatest plan to have more
spirituality in my life.
It's okay to come up with aplan, but let me ask you this
question you can work so hardand come up with a plan all you
want, but do you think God mighthave a better plan for you?
(22:47):
In other words, your life hasbeen unfolding perfectly up
until this point.
Every time you were in astruggle, anytime, something
happened.
Somehow you were brought to thenext place in your life.
And when you were brought there.
Sometimes we say to ourselvesoh my gosh, thank God, that
(23:08):
thing, that negative thing,happened.
Because had that negative thing, we saw it as negative.
It actually was a gift.
Had we had that not happened inmy life, I wouldn't be where I
am right now.
Example that relationship thatI was, in which anyone could
look at as, oh, that's such anegative thing.
I could have looked at it thatway.
(23:29):
It was a gift.
It helped me reflect internallyand helped me heal some stuff
that was going on inside of meso that I could get stronger and
that I could be authentic andreal to myself.
What better gift could I askfor?
So the number of years that Iwent through what I went through
, I had the opportunity allalong to deal with this, to
(23:53):
reflect and look inside and saywhy is this happening for me?
What's the gift in this?
And again, this is high levelstuff.
This isn't easy to do.
It's a practice.
We start with small things.
We don't run a marathon.
The first time we decide to run, we decide to run to the first
(24:14):
mailbox and then we run back tothe house.
We start slowly, but if youkeep doing it slowly and keep
taking steps to the next mailbox.
Suddenly you're going to becoming more and more authentic
to yourself, more confident,more loving, more caring, and
(24:35):
that will reflect out to theworld and it will attract back
to you more of the same.
However, when you'reinauthentic, what do you think
will happen when you're dealingwith other people?
Will you have more authenticityor more inauthenticity?
I remember someone that I usedto work with drove me up the
(24:58):
wall because I was looking atthat person and thinking to
myself man, that person is soinauthentic Like they're, so
phony and so fake.
You know what I saw in thatother person?
Myself, I was the one beinginauthentic.
Other person myself I was theone being inauthentic.
I was the one that was beingphony, but it was so much easier
(25:24):
to point the finger at himbecause it allowed me to stay
away from having to deal withmyself.
And if you just take away thisone thing from today's podcast,
you can point your finger allyou want.
It's never going to help youunless you turn the finger and
point it back to yourself andare willing to look inside.
Life is happening for you If youfind yourself saying something
(25:48):
negative about another person.
That person so judgmental, thatperson doesn't really care.
That person so judgmental, thatperson doesn't really care.
That person's so selfish.
Guess who you're talking about.
You're talking about yourself.
That person is a mirrorreflection of yourself, and you
(26:09):
may not like me saying this andyou may even try to push away
and say, no, that's a bunch ofcrap, but the truth of the
matter is that is 100% true.
You're seeing yourself in theother person and you're not
liking what.
So instead of saying toyourself in the mirror you're so
selfish, you're so annoyingYou're pointing your finger and
(26:34):
looking at the other person andblaming them.
So the next time you're going tojudge someone, maybe life's
happening for you.
Maybe what it's saying is,maybe there are selfish.
But in what areas of my life amI being selfish?
And look inside and notice youknow what?
(26:56):
I am selfish Sometimes, when Iget money, I hold on to it and I
don't share it with otherpeople.
Or maybe I'm selfish with myrelationship.
I'm always thinking aboutmyself and never really thinking
about the other person.
There's a million ways in whichthat thing that we see in
(27:19):
others could be rearing its headinside of us, but the key is
being willing to look inside andsay, okay, life is happening
for me.
And then looking inside andseeing, maybe I am a little
selfish in that area.
In fact, what I'm going to dois I'm going to start really
(27:41):
working on that area and I'mgoing to say a blessing for that
other person.
I'm going to say, god, pleasehelp that person who might be
selfish in this area, becomemore accepting, more loving,
more caring, more peaceful.
And thank you, god, forallowing me to see that this was
(28:02):
happening for me and thank youfor giving me the opportunity to
work on it myself.
And please help me as well withthis thing that I'm struggling
with inside.
I want to end today's podcastwith this you are absolutely
(28:28):
perfect.
You are a perfect soul.
You come here absolutelyperfect.
When you see a baby and youlook at them, do you see
anything else other thanperfection?
They're perfect and that wasyou.
And you got programmed and youstarted to put on these masks
(28:49):
and pretend to be someone elseto make other people happy.
The whole goal in life is tolook inside and to go back to
being your authentic self, tobeing the love, to loving
someone.
That's being hateful and beingokay if they respond back in a
not so loving way.
(29:10):
We don't have to get back atanyone.
We just have to take care ofbeing the light and sharing the
light in this world.
So I hope today that thisinspires you to be the light in
your life, to look in the mirrorand say to yourself why did
that happen for me?
(29:31):
What is it that I can learnthat happen for me?
What is it that I can learn?
How can I grow from this andhow can I become a better person
?
The next time you're going tojudge someone, instead of
judging, or if you do judge them, think to yourself how do I
have that same quality in myselfand how can I send a blessing
to that person and how can Iwork on that judgment that I
(29:56):
made on them within myself?
When we start to live life inthis way, there's so much more
peace, so much more happiness,so much more love.
We're living like God.
In that sense, we're livingfrom a place that's closer to
(30:17):
perfection.
Will we ever be perfect at this?
No, do we just try each week toget a little bit better?
Yes, that's what I have for youtoday.
Please let me know if you gotany impact from this specific
podcast and if it touched you ina specific way, please share it
(30:40):
with other people, becausethere's a lot of other people
out there that need to hear thismessage and you can be someone
that spreads the light and helpsthem see the light within
themselves.
I love you.
I love you, I appreciate youand I'm so grateful that God
gave me the gift of sharing thiswith you.
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