Bamboo Newsletter #38
Superpowered – Part III: SuperPowered: How to Restore Your Power, the Critical Second Part of Personal Growth and Transformation
Superpowered – Part III: SuperPowered: How to Restore Your Power, the Critical Second
Potential Mockup of My Book Cover (an MHS original.)
This is Part III of a three-part summary of the book Superpowered: Transform Anxiety into Courage by Renee Jain and Dr. Shefali Tsabary. This book is my 2020 Book of the Year and one in which I believe everyone must-read, not only to help parent your children but also to help re-parent yourself. This book is not only about anxiety. It’s really about your emotions, core networks, and how to handle them.
In Part I of SuperPowered (which is here), I write about each of the 5 superpowers and how they become core wounds. We discussed what it is, adaptive behavior, and emotions. I also wrote about how they are related to the 5 core networks.
In Part II (which is here), I reviewed the book on how to deal with adaptive behaviors day-to-day. As you can see from above there was a primary solution to each of the adaptive behaviors. It must also be remembered that while an adaptive behavior mostly shows up with one of the SuperPower, being Iced, which is normally associated with Resilient, could just as easily show up as being the adaptive behavior for Energized.
I also wrote a further understanding of becoming more emotionally aware via Ekman’s Atlas of Emotions and LALA method of dealing with our emotions (which is here).
In Part III, we will examine how to heal your core wounds and how to reactivate your superpowers, core beliefs, and core networks.
3 Steps of Personal Transformation and Growth
Essentially, SuperPowered is a mini-primer on personal growth and transformation. In Step 1, you first discover your core wounds from emotional overwhelm and feelings of insufficiency and understand how it affects every area of your life in well-being, love, and work.
Then the second step is to restore yourself back to your authentic original self. When you combine your abilities obtained during the years of your adaptive behaviors (this is the positive from having your core wound) and also your original talents from your authentic self, you create your best self. This best self is conscious, emotionally flexible, and has an evolved mind. An evolved mind that is calm, kind, and creative. This second step is what we will write about in this article.
The third step is to create your future best self and deploy your gifts in service to others as you fulfill your purpose in creating a better world, and also creating a life full of health, happiness, love, and abundance.
Core Wounds, Core Networks, and SuperPOWERs
One of the core principles in personal development and the cornerstone of the Jack Canfield Methodology is 100% responsibility. This mindset shift allows you to start looking at your part in the life you are creating.
For example, before taking 100% responsibility in my relationships, I would blame others for the cause of why I was not happy or getting what I wanted. However, once I took 100% responsibility, I had to look deeply and find my core wounds, my limiting beliefs. Why was I not making money? What did I believe about making money which was holding me back? Why? Why? Why?
In coaching others, I have been able to see a fundamental pattern that is replayed over and over. The reason why most of us are not able to move forward with our lives is a result of some core wound during our childhood or young adult life. Generally, this core event or series of events does several things.
First, it creates a core or limiting belief that is really awful about themselves such as in my case, I am damaged, I am a failure. In others it is I am a mistake, I am stupid, I am a bad person, etc. In order to cover up this issue, a number of adaptive behaviors are formed. So in my case, I became a fixed mindset person and all the issues of a fixed mindset and then tried to prove to the rest of the world that I was smart.
Second, even more, pernicious was that I moved away from feeling emotions and moved into my head. Feelings were too painful. So my emotional system (core network) became underdeveloped. I also never really developed my salience system. In addition, after my sister was murdered, I became hopeless and both my imagination system and my motivation system were shut down. This left me with only my analytical system operating. I was going through life with only one of my core networks operating and even that one was not operating at full capacity.
This is what happens to most people. They are going through life in an adaptive behavior shell without some of their core networks operating. Furthermore, subconscious components like their beliefs, values, and self-identity are not supportive of their goals.
A huge part of self-development involves understanding the effects of these core wounds and issues in childhood, fixing them, and restoring your core networks back to their original powers. Then getting your subconscious mind components such as beliefs, values, and self-identity aligned with who you want to be and the life you want to create. In Jungian philosophy, this is called growing up. In some circles of psychotherapy, they refer to this as psychotherapy reconstruction.
Growing up means taking 100% Responsibility for your life and understanding the issues in your life such as depression, hopelessness, and fears, and anxieties due to core wounds caused by overwhelmment and feelings of insufficiency in life. Then understanding how that affects your personal behavior, relationships, work, and family. Learning new beliefs and values and taking personal authority of those items And then also finding your own meaning and life with the soul consciously. When you do this, you can say, I am growing up. While this is a significant amount of work, it is work that those who want to truly transform their lives need to do. Yes, it is a process and yes, it will take time.
Evolved Mind Solutions
I have mapped out what this might look like in general and some of the tools which you can use to restore your core network. The first thing is to look at the issues that you might be having and which of the 5 core networks or the SuperPowers are lost. Then map your Adaptive Behavior. Once you are able to understand the core wound and issues, you can use energy based therapy to redo or unwind the issue in the body. It would also be good to discreate the beliefs associated with the core wound. This will release that stored energy. Ordinary talk-therapy can work, however, this is more like a 2-year process.
Once that is done, then you can use the tools shown to restore or strengthen the core network that has been shut down or impaired. Once your 5 core networks are operating, your brain is at the state of being calm, kind, and creative. At this stage, you are able to use your evolved mind to create a solution that is relatively easy based on new habits and behaviors that have been proven to work. The ability to use 100% of your capabilities will make it easier to be successful in all areas of your life.
I have listed down below the main concepts that need to be implemented for the 4 main areas of your life: health, happiness, love, and abundance.
How Does SuperPower (the book) Restore Your SuperPowers
Very similar to the Core networks and how to restore your core networks, SuperPowered the book has created tools or “fuel” in its parlance to restore your superpowers. These fuels are very closely aligned with the tools I have given for the core networks and can be seen as additional ways of helping the associated core network aligned with your superpower.
Every superhero has a source of fuel that supplies their superpowers. For some, it’s a radioactive bug. For others, it’s the sun. We will examine ways to increase the fuel that restores our super Powers. As the book notes, it will reveal the Secret Ingredient that fuels each of these abilities.
Recall that the 5 SuperPOWERs are: Present, Original, Whole, Energized, and Resilient
PRESENT Fueled by Mindfulness
In order to be present, we need to be mindful of our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Another word for the present is Awareness. When we are aware of our thoughts, emotions, and actions, we are able to take self-corrective actions Without knowing that is happening, we won’t have the feedback needed to take corrective action.
I highly recommend going to Kristen Neff’s Mindful Compassion site to learn many of her mindfulness meditations. This helps to improve both awareness and also self-compassion at the same time. There are 7 free meditations here. https://self-compassion.org/guided-self-compassion-meditations-mp3-2/
To learn meditation, I highly recommend the Oprah-Chopra meditations. These are easy to use. I have a whole bunch of them. 12 in fact. I am currently listening to Grace through Gratitude. Before that, I listened for the last 6 months, the Chopra Abundance Meditations. And before that, I listened for about 3 months, Beliefs. https://chopracentermeditation.com
Once you are aware, then you can then be 100% Responsibility i.e. E + R = O. We looked at emotional awareness recently here (Tools So Good to Improve Your Emotional Awareness that the Dalai Lama Paid for One). I have written about thought awareness and 100% Responsibility here. (Once your take 100% Responsibility for the Words and Images in Your Head, Your Life Will Never Be the Same!)
An Entire Religion Was Founded on Mindfulness
While I am not a practicing Buddhist, I believe I may have been a Buddhist in another lifetime. LOL. My avatar for myself in relationships is the Golden Buddha because that is my aspiration to be peaceful and fun-loving and calm. I have never really studied Buddhism formally, but have read various things about it due to its emphasis on learning awareness and controlling our thoughts, emotional responses, and actions.
As such, I have laid out below some of the basic precepts taken from the web which illustrates the benefits of mindfulness and meditation practices and why Buddhism is the 4th largest religion in the world born from using awareness to change our thoughts. According to Buddha, our wrong thoughts cause man’s sufferings.
I am sure if I studied other religions such as Christianity etc., I would find very similar concepts. Prayers in Christianity is a form of meditation. I also believe that the reason why Muslims pray several times per day is to bring mindfulness to what is important for them.
“All that we are,” the Buddha said, “is the result of what we have thought.” He might have added, “And all we shall become is the result of what we think now.” So begins the introduction of Conquest of Mind by Eknath Easwaran.
Of importance to Buddha was that he found that the cause of man’s suffering was his thinking. This is known in Buddhism as the 4 Noble Truths. Below is the explanation from the website.
http://online.sfsu.edu/rone/Buddhism/footsteps.htm
1. There is Suffering. Suffering is common to all.
2. Cause of Suffering. We are the cause of our suffering.
3. End of Suffering. Stop doing what causes suffering.
4. Path to end Suffering. Everyone can be enlightened.
Buddha, therefore, used mindfulness and meditation as a way of training the mind to overcome the issues of man's wrong thoughts. Out of this came the Noble Eight Fold Path. Below is the explanation from the website.
http://online.sfsu.edu/rone/Buddhism/footsteps.htm
“When the Buddha gave his first sermon in the Deer Park, he began the 'Turning of the Dharma Wheel'. He chose the beautiful symbol of the wheel with its eight spokes to represent the Noble Eightfold Path. The Buddha's teaching goes round and round like a great wheel that never stops, leading to the central point of the wheel, the only point which is fixed, Nirvana. The eight spokes on the wheel represent the eight parts of the Noble Eightfold Path. Just as every spoke is needed for the wheel to keep turning, we need to follow each step of the path.
1.Right View. The right way to think about life is to see the world through the eyes of the Buddha--with wisdom and compassion.
2. Right Thought. We are what we think. Clear and kind thoughts build good, strong characters.
3.Right Speech. By speaking kind and helpful words, we are respected and trusted by everyone.
4.Right Conduct. No matter what we say, others know us from the way we behave. Before we criticize others, we should first see what we do ourselves.
5.Right Livelihood. This means choosing a job that does not hurt others. The Buddha said, "Do not earn your living by harming others. Do not seek happiness by making others unhappy."
6.Right Effort. A worthwhile life means doing our best at all times and having good will toward others. This also means not wasting effort on things that harm ourselves and others.
7.Right Mindfulness. This means being aware of our thoughts, words, and deeds.
8.Right Concentration. Focus on one thought or object at a time. By doing this, we can be quiet and attain true peace of mind.
Following the Noble Eightfold Path can be compared to cultivating a garden, but in Buddhism, one cultivates one's wisdom. The mind is the ground and thoughts are seeds. Deeds are ways one cares for the garden. Our faults are weeds. Pulling them out is like weeding a garden. The harvest is real and lasting happiness.”
The Gautama Buddha really just breaks down our thinking into 8 different segments. The first 4 is the right goal i.e wisdom and compassion/love, thoughts, words, and actions. The next 4 is further understanding of our actions—helping others using our talents and be aware of the results (feedback) and focus the efforts until we succeed. Very simple thoughts, yet it developed into a very important philosophical way of living a life that over 500 million people follow today.
Such is the fuel of mindfulness which fuels our Awareness.
ORIGINAL Fueled By Your Inner Voice
This one is difficult to explain. If you look up the definition of inner voice with Google it will point to inner voice being the inner dialogue within you or your self-talk. Self-talk is your “ego” talking. What I believe the authors are getting at is the real you.
Who is the real you? It is my belief that at conscious you, or the person who is aware that you are aware. I know that is a big one. When you close your eyes, watch your thoughts. Who is the person watching your thoughts? Now go one step further, who is the person that is aware that you are watching your thoughts? Yeah. Deep. LOL.
Superpowered illustrated the concept with the story of J.K. Rowling who had an inner voice urging her to write. She studied literature and was broke and still wrote and got dozens of rejections from publishers before someone took a chance on what is now the biggest series of books ever sold for fiction. She is also a billionaire from following her inner voice and as she says:
“We do not need magic to transform the world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better.”
Who am I? What are your beliefs, values, things you are curious about, things you care about? Asking these questions and answering from the heart provides us an answer or clue to our inner voice.
Interestingly, Superpowered references that the heart is the “brain” behind your inner voice. It notes that scientists have found that the heart sends lots of messages to the brain, can process information, and has short and long-term memory. It implies that the heart has its own brain independent of the one in your head. That is why people say, “What does your heart say?” or “Your heart knows best.”
Superpowered gives you some guides to what the inner voice sounds like:
This is a good idea.
I have a bad feeling about this.
I really care about this.
I’m curious about this.
I would never do that.
I believe in this.
I dream about this.
This is exciting to me.
I want to perform in the talent show.
I have a song that I’ve already started writing that I think is perfect.
I think this is gonna be a ton of fun.
Once you become aware of your inner voice, via practice you develop following your inner voice. So first become aware, then speak its truths, and then act on its truths.
Once we become conscious, then the next question is finding out our gifts and use them in service to others in creating a better world. This is according to Oprah was her big aha after being asked the question, Who am I?
Imagination and Creativity
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes…the ones who see things differently—they’re not fond of rules….You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things….They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.” Steve Jobs.
In Simply Brilliant by Bernhard Schroeder notes that the 2012 IBM Global Survey of the top 1500 CEOs and entrepreneurs indicated that 92% of them looked for creativity and problem solving as the top trait in hiring or promoting an employee. Creativity is very important as an employee and even more important to creating businesses and solutions for the entrepreneur in finding value.
When we lose our imagination or our creativity, we have less ability to achieve our goals and be fulfilled.
Simply Brilliant offers the Creativity works Framework which consists of 4 parts:
1) Mindset: To be creative, you have to believe you can be creative. You need a growth mindset, one that is continually learning and open to new ideas.
2) Environment: Leadership and Culture You need a great idea to be creative. Is the leadership open to new ideas, embrace innovation and creativity? What kind of culture is there? Are ideas shared openly, do best ideas win?
3) Habitat: physical customer or employee workspace. Is this Pixar with open, colorful, and free-flowing areas. Does it have a cornucopia of color and imagination and cocoon pods from small meetings like Google? Does the workspace have interactions between various departments like common restrooms and areas?
4) Brainstorming Tools: Simply Brilliant Lists various tools that you can use for brainstorming. I highly recommend this book for further reading.
WHOLE Fueled by Belonging
So as you are now more aware and you are listening to your inner voice and be and do what you want to do, it becomes harder to do these things in the world. This is where you want to be accepted and love for who you are. This is being Whole.
The fuel of Belonging is another way to say Connection. The real fuel of connection is love. It Is about being able to love ourselves and being “connected” with others. So there are two parts to being connected or belonging.
Loving Ourselves
The first is loving ourselves for who we are and being able to bring that out into the world. When we are able to love all parts of ourselves, then it is more likely that others will also love us too. Superpowered mentioned an experiment done in the 1950s by Solomon Asch. He gave an experiment where the answer (choice of A, B, C) was clearly obvious—being choice “C”. However, to induce doubt into the person, the researcher had 6 people, before the person, presents the same wrong answer “B”. In order to conform to and be accepted, the person while knowing the right answer was “C”, also gave the answer “B” two out of three times.
If the researcher had just one of the 6 people before the presenter also says “C”, then the person giving the answer would also say “C”. In other words, it only took 1 of 6 people to agree for the person giving the answer to feeling comfortable giving the right answer “C”. Why not have “you” be the person who is one of the “6” supporting yourself. You need to love and support yourself and believe in yourself first.
When you love yourself first, it becomes easier for others to accept and love yourself also. I actually learned this lesson in 1st-year university. It was taught to me by my friend Paul Bisson who was in residence with me. He said, Mark, in order to have a girlfriend, you will need to love yourself first. And when I started liking myself, I started having girlfriends.
However, it took me until 4 years ago to learn how to consciously love myself. This was taught to me by Anita Moorijani, author of Dying to Be Me. Just pretend to be your grandmother or a person who will love you unconditionally no matter what. If you killed someone, they would still love you. Once you have a picture of that person, then be in their presence and feel how they would love you. Feel this for 5 to 10 minutes. This is unconditional love. Now replace this person with your imaginal self. And feel what it feels like to give yourself unconditional love. Really feel it. Do this for 5 to 10 minutes (starting you may only be able to do it for 2 to 3 minutes).
Strengths
Superpowered chooses to introduce understanding your strengths here. As in who are you? They refer you to the 24 Values of the VIA Character Study. For personal strengths, I like the Clifton Strengthfinder 2.0. However, if you do both, you will find that they normally correlate highly.
Ultimately, when we are whole and feel like we belong, we are
Compassion
Self-compassion is one of the biggest things I have learned. I was very fortunate to have run across Kristin Neff’s work. I wrote about self-compassion and how to use it. This is the best way I found to build the salience network.
Self-compassion and self-love are two of the main tools to love yourself first before loving others. Other tools are mentioned here in this article on creating your loving inner world.
https://markhughsam.com/2019/06/11/creating-a-loving-inner-world/
Belonging to the entire world
This is the feeling of being part of the entire universe. Like a drop of water that is part of the entire ocean, so too we are part of the universe. E=MC2. We are all energy and ultimately we are all part of the universal energy. So we a part of the human race, we belong to a country, to a family, to a community. We belong on so many different levels.
ENERGIZED Fueled by Meaning
If the chase of the “Good Life” or rat race can eventually break you down and zap you of your energy, what can create “Meaning” in your life. Finding your “Why” or “Meaning”. I know it’s a play on the use of words, however, your own “meaning” will create your own “why”. While everyone’s meaning or “why” will be different, Superpowered note that Emily Esfahani Smith found there are 4 pillars of meaning that give people a sense of meaning in life, the things most commonly found to motivate and energize us in life. These 4 pillars are:
Belonging: Contributing and Making a Difference in life
Purpose: Your Ikigai will be the closest thought of your purpose—what is inside of you to share.
Storytelling: Stories have a beginning, middle, and end. Humans love to shares via stories which is a great way to understand who you are. This is your hero’s journey.
Transcendence: This is actually hard to explain. It’s when “you find yourself in awe. Transcendence is when you feel totally outside of your normal, everyday experience.” Transcendence was what Maslow said you reached when you finally reached the top of his pyramid. This is akin to bring your Flow as your everyday work.
Now the 4 pillars are one way to define it. Another way which I could relate to finding your why is finding your mission. I would say that first, you find out who you are and then you discover your gifts and how to share them with the world. This is your mission or hero’s journey.
I have found Jack Canfield’s exercise to find your mission is the easiest way and the way I found my mission. Many titans of industry have very simple mission statements that drive their lives. Thomas Edison stated mission was to create inventions that people needed, that people would pay for and that would be profitable.
Per Canfield, “Finding your purpose is really discovering what you were put on this earth to do. Your purpose can tell you what to accomplish, for whom, how to accomplish it and in what time frame. When you discover your purpose, life seems to flow effortlessly, the opportunity seems to fall in your lap, and resources and relationships find you easily. Small successes build upon one another to create unstoppable momentum.”
“My Life Purpose Statement” Worksheet (copyrighted by Self-Esteem Seminars, LP)
Complete the following steps to help you determine your Life Purpose and write a Life Purpose statement.
1. List two of your unique personal qualities, such as enthusiasm and creativity. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. List one or two ways you enjoy expressing those qualities when interacting with others, such as to support and to inspire. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
3. Assume the world is perfect right now. What does this world look like? How is everyone interacting with everyone else? What does it feel like? This is a statement, in the present tense, describing an ultimate condition, the perfect world as you see it and feel it. Remember a perfect world is a fun place to be.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4.Combine the three prior subdivisions of this paragraph into a single statement.
Example: My purpose is to use my creativity and enthusiasm to support and inspire others as we all freely express our talents in joyfulness, harmony, and love.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
My mission in life is to use my analytical abilities and love of learning to be an exemplar and to help others to live their best lives as we create a better world together. I then used it to define my 2040 goals of starting 10+ businesses, mentoring/investing in 2000+ entrepreneurs, and teaching 10+ million people. I wrote about this here. https://markhughsam.com/2020/01/02/decide-what-you-want-make-an-i-want-list-my-101-things-i-want-to-accomplish-by-2040/
RESILIENT Fueled by Mindset
Science is unequivocal about the biggest thing that affects resiliency, the ability to bounce back after a challenge (unsuccessful). “The biggest thing that affects how you react to a challenge is not the challenge itself; it’s the way you think about the challenge.”
It’s not the challenge itself…it’s the way you think about the challenge that affects your ability to be Resilient. This choice of thinking or attitude is what is called “mindset”. So mindset fuels your ability to be Resilient.
When we talk about mindset, we are talking about the beliefs and values of the way the person approaches an issue, in this case its challenges or setbacks.
There are 3 main characteristics introduced by Superpowered: hope, growth-mindset, and motivation.
#1 Hope. An Optimistic mindset looks at the bright side of things, feeling hopeful about a situation. A pessimistic mindset thinks about the negative or worst things, not feeling hopeful about a situation.
In determining optimistic or pessimistic viewpoints, there are three ways in which they differ
a) How long they last: Optimists think bad things are temporary. While pessimists think they will last forever.
b) What part of your life affected: Optimists think a challenge or setback is only specific to that part of your life. While pessimists think the negative situation will be pervasive and affect all parts of your life.
c) Who’s to blame for this issue: Optimists look for reasons outside of themselves (externalize). Pessimists blame themselves for the issue (personalize).
#2 Courage. In this context, Superpower introduces a growth mindset vs a fixed mindset. A growth mindset believes you can change or grow, while a fixed mindset believes you were born with a fixed amount of abilities. Carol Dweck has clearly shown that growth mindset people outperform because you can create neural brain circuits at any age and train the brain.
I have written about my experience with a growth mindset here. https://markhughsam.com/2019/04/27/how-to-change-your-fixed-mindset-to-growth-mindset-to-believing-you-can-improve-in-anything/ It is best to read the article. It will be well worth your time. Essentially, this was the most important thing I learned in 2019. It allowed me to change myself. Without changing my mindset, I would not have been able to change. A growth mindset is also the key to imagination and creativity. People who have had significant trauma, often have locked down their imagination. It no longer functions. This relates to hope. It is also important for feedback and taking risks. So many things are unlocked with a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset.
Interesting, my most recent experiential version came with my RIM Certification. I really struggled in the class for all of 2020. RIM depends on your emotional development and your personal growth in order to be a good facilitator. Well, both my emotional development and my personal growth needed work and so taking the course allowed me to have significant growth in these areas.
However, at the end of September 2020 after the last formal sessions, I still had not reached a level to be certified. I needed more practice despite having played full out and really practicing and studying over and beyond—I had given it my all. So not passing at the end of the class, felt like a failure to me.
I have never come close to failing any “educational” endeavors, so to not be certified at the end of classes was disappointing to me. This is where my growth mindset was tested. I could either work and see if I would pass eventually (in growth mindset parlance “not yet”) and accept the new challenge and be resilient, or just give up. I choose to work hard and eventually, 4 months later, for my New Year 2021 gift I was told I had passed the Certification standards (I still had some administrative work to be done to get the certificate).
#3 Motivation: how we view stress.
Stress can be viewed as either helpful or harmful. Those who view stress as helpful, do better and it motivates them. Those who view stress as harmful or less healthy are less motivated, do worse, and tries to avoid it.
The way you view stress changes the way you behave in 3 ways:
1. Facing Problems. Stress is harmful thinking focus on getting rid of feelings. Stress is helpful thining focus on facing and solving problems.
2. Being Productive. Stress is helpful thinking gives you more energy and makes you more productive. Stress is harmful thinking that may cause feelings of fatigue and make you less productive.
3. Reaching Goals. Stress is helpful mindsets see stressful things as a challenge and keep going toward goals. Stress is harmful mindsets may get overwhelmed and stop pursuing goals that causes too much stress.
Action Items:
Examine your SuperPowers or related Core Networks and see which ones need to be refueled.
Refuel them.