TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR LIFE by Louis Proto

The Victim Game
Playing victim is the second most popular pastime in the world today. The aim of the
game is to avoid yourself taking responsibility at all costs by:
Ø Convince yourself that you are powerless
Ø Play helpless – You tell yourself that there is nothing you can do to improve
your situation
Ø Find someone or something to blame
Ø Complain
In the victim vocabulary, the main thing to remember is to be as pessimistic as you can.

Barriers to Empowerments
In order for us to reclaim our power to take charge of our lives, there are barriers that we
need to take care of. The following are some common barriers to empowerment:
Ø I mustn’t be selfish – We have been conditioned to feel that we have to
give only others but not to ourselves. But how can you feed others if the
cupboard’s bare? So, we must also love and take care ourselves.
Ø My friends won’t like me if I change – You may think that your change will
cause you loss of friendship. However, they will probably be relieved that
they are not longer made to feel responsible for solving your problem.
Ø I might have to say “no” to people I love – It is true that your loved ones may
not feel happy but they will respect you for it. It is not the right way to please
everyone all the time.

Lifelines to Empowerment
The four lifelines to empowerment are
Ø Awareness of our choices – Sometime we may feel hard to think and choose
when we fell trapped and don’t know which way to turn, but in fact we choose
all the time. We may not in touch with our choosing, or may be making
unconscious choices. So, the more we make our choices conscious, the less
they will control us.
Ø Willingness to take responsibility for the effects of them – what we consider
to be ‘reality” is highly subjective. The same thing may be happening to
different people: their experience of it will vary according to how they
perceive the event. What we make of what happens depends on us. Each
of us has our own philosophies, stated or unstated, which will determine our
values and our ways of seeing and relating things.
Ø Intention to create more positive effects in our lives – if we ourselves are
feeling good we will tend to notice only the nice things going on around us
and to have pleasant interactions with the people we come in contact with. On
the other hand, go out into the world with anger or depressed, we will “set” to
see only the negative things. Dropping the negative for the positive always
changes things for the better.

Ø Mobilizations of self support to get what we need – Everybody feels they
could do with support from time to time, emotional, financial etc. If we don’t
get it, although we may feel hurt or down, we don’t cease to exist. If we don’t
get support from others, we still get stronger by exercising the muscle of self-
reliance. The more we learn to support ourselves, the more we are charge of
our lives we feel.

Getting Clear
Very few of us have been fortunate enough to have received consistent validation
while growing up for expressing our true feelings. Quite the contrary; we have been
conditioned for conformity, not authenticity. This is a mistake, for our gut feelings are
usually more on target than our opinions. Our feelings are often more complex than we
can think and the closer we are in touch with them the clearer the direction we get for
ourselves and the messages well broadcasts to others.
Getting what we need becomes a lot easier if we are clear of what that is. If one knows
where one is going, one is more likely to get there by the shortest and most direct
route. Often we have been conditioned to think that we should have and consume all
we have told about what we need to be happy, especially commercial advertising. It is
important to be in touch with our emerging needs all the time, otherwise we will be easily
manipulated.
Once we get in touch with what we really need, we should ask ourselves why am I not
getting what I need. Here’s a check-list we can ask ourselves:
Ø Have I asked for what I need?
Ø Do I assume others should know what I need?
Ø Why aren’t they delivering the goods?
Ø Are my expectations too high?
Ø Are they unwilling / unable to meet my demands?
Ø Am I open for receiving?
Ø Do I feel that I deserve to get what I need?

If you are really clear about what you need and what will satisfy those needs, this will
usually be obvious.

Taking Charge of Your Health
Health is perhaps the area we most likely take for granted. In fact, we can feel
disempowered by anxiety about our health, suffering from illness or pain, helpless or
dependent on others to look after us. Often, for all the effective things modern medicine
undoubtedly can do to help us, sometimes it is powerless. We now have an abundance
of books on healthy eating, diets, supplements, slimming, workouts, yoga, and other
alternative therapies. Never before in history have so many people been so health
conscious or well-informed about wealth.
Take AIDS as example, this disease has given us 2 lessons. It teaches us the importance
of our immune system in preventing illness and the ways in which it can be undermined
and strengthened. Second is prevention is better than cure, and in the absence of any
cure, prevention becomes the only option that is open to us.

Too many antibiotics or steroids actually will weaken our immune systems. The new
awareness may well lead to a generally higher standard of health as saving lives in
the future, not only from AIDS, but from any disease. Modern medicine use drugs
and surgery to “cure” symptoms which it sees as being caused by external events, for
example, the invasion of bacteria. “Alternative” medicine sees the body as self healing,
the cure comes from within and symptoms are a sign of defend system at work. It is not
the practitioner but nature that does the healing, given half a chance, with sound diet and
rest, ridding the body of toxins and the mind of stress.
Food that consume also play important role. Immunity is weakened by too much sugar,
too much cereal and other carbohydrate foods. Too much alcohol reduces B-cell activity
and smoking destroys vitamin C. We have to be aware of foods that boost our immune
system.
Wise eating is first line of defense and strengthening the immune system. The second
line of defense is our own sensitivity to what we are doing so. Trust your intuition and
Listening to your body. If you are well you will feel well. We should be alert to the
first subtle complaints from our body (for example, discomfort, fatigue, depression, etc)
that we are overdoing things. It may be that we are working too hard, over eating or not
getting enough sleep. If we don’t take responsibility for living in harmony with our own
rhythm, correcting our own over-indulgences, restoring our vital energy, then our body
has to take over the job for us to ensure our survival. It will do this in any number of
ways and they are called symptoms.
Moderate exercise stimulates the immune system, increasing lymphocyte efficiency.
It raises the body temperature which in turn stimulates both interferon and the
macrophages. Death rates from cancer have been found to be higher among those doing
jobs which calls for little muscular effort than among those engaged in more strenuous
work, while the opportunity afforded by exercise to channel stress may be significant in
reducing the incidence of cancer.
Learning how to practice deep relaxation at will is to co-operate totally with the body’s
natural way of recharging its batteries. Relaxing is not something that we do, but what
happens when we stop doing – and that includes the ‘doing’ in our heads that we call
thinking, planning, calculating, worrying, etc.
Staying positive can indirectly help to improve our body system as our hormones
are affected by our feelings. They are transmitted from the limbic system to the
hypothalamus, a part of the brain that controls output of hormones via the pituitary gland.
The effects of negative emotions such as frustration or unexpressed anger could cause
adrenal exhaustion. Just as positive feeling can cause remission of cancer, the negative
feelings can cause cancer.
Health care statistic becomes more frightening, both numerically and financially. From
every point view it would definitely seem to time for each and every one of us to start
taking charge of our own health.

Switching Off the Pressure
It is estimated that one in every three man suffers a heart attack in the course of his
working life. It is essential knowing how to handle the stress is part and parcel of modern
living, not only to avoid having a coronary disease, but also for enjoying quality in our
lives. We feel oppressed when we don’t give ourselves enough time and space, this is

what we called Victims of time which probably quite common types of victim around
today.
Few ways to ease this kind of pressure:
Ø Set boundaries - Don’t complain that other people invade your space and make
demands on your time if you have no made it clear to them what you are prepared
to give and accept. “Burn out” is a hazard of the helping professions if the helper
doesn’t know when to stop feeding others and give sometime to feed himself.
Ø Cut down on your commitments - Don’t over structure your time, whether
through greed or anxiety. You might have to look at your priorities. What comes
first, your health and the quality of life, or money and popularity?
Ø Slow Down - Take responsibility for not allowing yourself enough time. If there
really wasn’t enough time, how come you agreed to meet this appointment in the
first place? If you are delayed because of some reason beyond your control, then
what’s the problem?
Ø Follow your own rhythm - There is a time for working and a time for rest, a time
for being with others and a time for being in your own space. We take charge of
our time and what happens in our space when we choose to fill it with things to
enjoy so that whatever we are doing, we are out of the time and space trap.

How to Be Your Own Counselor
Admitting to yourself that you are feeling angry doesn’t mean that you have let it out and
hurt other feelings. In fact, you are less likely to do so if you acknowledge to yourself
that you are really angry and then look into why is this so. If you deny and repress the
anger it will be there like an abscess and festering in the subconscious, seeping bitterness,
sarcasm, discontent. Resentment can accumulate into a sense of grievance that could
indeed lead to violent confrontation. Threat yourself as a counselor that would treat you.
Be patient with yourself in all your moods; respect your emotions whatever they may be.
Don’t deny it. Don’t be afraid of them. Allowing then to be there may be uncomfortable,
even painful, but at least you will know they are and that you are processing them out of
your system, not absorbing their energy into your body. Here is the basic technique for
handling any highly charged emotions that threaten to swamp you.
Ø Going out for a run, a jog or a walk to help disperse some of the energy.
Ø Give yourself permission to cry like a baby.
Ø Staying in the present - This will stop you fuelling the negative energy by
dredging up the past or getting into a panic about the future. It will also give
you a sense of being in control.
Ø Respect your boundaries - This decides how much intimacy we can tolerate
with others. Don’t compare your boundaries with other people’s boundaries.
What might be fun for them may be stressful for you.
Ø Don’t label yourself - What needs to be changed is not who we are but how
we see ourselves. Beware of the labels you stick on yourself (or anyone else
tries to) or you will be stuck with them. You will start believing that this is
with them. Do you label yourself well built or fat? Slim or skinny?
Ø Stop putting yourself down - Never allows anyone to invalidate you and that
includes you. If you don’t value who you are, don’t expect others to. If you
are continually undermining your confidence by self-criticism it’s no wonder

you don’t have any. We are not in this world to be perfect, but to be human.
Everybody else is perfectly imperfect too, so unless you want to be special.
Ø Drop any ideas of perfection – you’ll drive yourself mad. Remember, there is
nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Stop judging yourself or
you could get depressed.

Pulling Your Own Strings
It is common to hear people who are having trouble in making an important decision
saying, “a part of me wants to do this but another part of me doesn’t.” Often we feel
split between courses of action, have mixed feelings about people and things, and get
confused by the different voices within us pulling us in different directions. To feel truly
in charge of our lives, we need to stop feeling controlled, manipulated, sabotaged or split
by parts of ourselves that remain in the unconscious, we have to get to know who we are,
and who we are is not just one person but many. Beneath the one-tenth of the iceberg
that is our conscious mind, lie hidden the potentially manipulative other nine-tenths, the
subconscious and the unconscious, containing the parts of us that we either are unaware
of or rejected. When making a decision. We can listen in turn to what each voice has to
say, explore the assumptions of each sub-personality, weigh up the sense of what we hear
and then make our own decision on what is realistic. Listening to yourself, observing
yourself in action, you will get to recognize your main sub-personalities. Here as some
personalities that can manipulate most of us.
Ø The Critic-he is the one who makes you fell bad about yourself, never good
enough, always wrong. Whichever way you did it, he will say it could have
been done better another way.

Ø The Perfectionist – he sees the world in terms of ideals and models which he
is constantly trying make us measure up.

Ø The Workaholic-he will take over your life and you could be heading for a
coronary. They always finding things for you to do. The voice is always
urgent, and its purpose always to fill your time so that you never have a
moment to relax.

Ø The Pleaser – he’s the one who makes us smile when we feel angry. Pleaser
will not allow them to be straight with others, to challenge them or to ask
directly for what they want. Pleaser who makes it impossible for her to set
boundaries to her giving.

Ø The Controller- he’s function is to keep us safe and protect us from doing
anything that might threaten our self-image. He feels threatened in any
situation that out of control or expression of feelings.

Ø The Child-That the Child still lives in any of us is something of a miracle after
the efforts that most of us made to deny its existence because we afraid of its
vulnerability.

See if you can work out which of your sub-personalities is in the driver’s seat when you
are in any decision making. It is important to get to know your sub-personalities and
what they want. They will help you make the right decisions. It is not that we have to
try to get rid of any parts of ourselves. We need all our sub-personalities, they not only
make us the unique beings that we are, but we developed them for specific purposes. For
example, without our Controller we would never have survived so long. Without pleaser
all one would be boorish. Some parts are too overdeveloped and need to boundaries set
on them; some are underdeveloped and need to be allowed more expression in our lives.
We, as conductors, are responsible for keeping ourselves in harmony and balance.

Learning To Trust
Trust ourselves is not something we have been taught, it is something we have to learn
to trust our intuition, our innate wisdom. We have to stop looking outside ourselves for
the truth, imitating others, manipulating ourselves to “fit in” and be one of the crowd of
people who are as unsure as we are. We all have this “inner guide” but we have been
listening to other voices outside us that confuse us and take us away from ourselves. We
have to learn again the art of listening, to our bodies and to our hearts rather than to our
minds. We should constantly search inside ourselves for what is authentic and accept
it unconditionally, let it guide us in the next way to move, rely on our awareness and
sensitivity. Trusting your inner guide and trusting life is the same thing, for we are not
separate from life. We have to cultivate acceptance of the “will of God” and trust the
direction that life is taking us in. The universe, like the individual mind, appears to be
self regulating. Trust the way energy is flowing and flow with it rather than resisting it.
Taking charge of our lives is ultimately about seeing into the laws of cause and effect and
living in harmony with them to avoid giving yourself a bad time.

Conclusion
The idea of this book is if we want to take charge of our life we have to stop playing the
Victim game and start Energy awareness. We need more understanding and less labeling
of our feelings, our needs and respects others without being controlled or driven by them.
We have to be sufficiently in touch with what we want and with our own capacity to
mobilize our resources to make it happen. Above all, we have to learn to contact and
trust that part of us that knows what is right for us and harness it to the power we all have
to create what we want in our lives.