“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless…” – Matthew 9:36

There is an old saying.  It says, “You can only hurt the ones you love.”  This means that when someone you care about betrays you, that hurts.  You trusted them to stand by you, no matter what.  You value their opinions and their input, precisely because you know them, and they know you.  Their knowledge of who you are and your shared ideas, experiences, and values, makes their opinions matter.  The deeper the bond, the deeper the relationship, the more important their opinion of you becomes.

Why do the opinions of those who do not know you matter?  They do not.  They never will.  Unless they become close to you on a personal level, the opinions of strangers are irrelevant.  The bond of relationship is the source of the value of one’s input in your life.

You MUST completely disregard the opinions of strangers.  Of course, everyone likes compliments and positive feedback.  Does this imply that you must also disregard the positive remarks that are made by strangers?  Yes.

You must not look to the opinions of strangers for validation.  Whether that validation be negative or positive, you must not look to the opinions of strangers for validation.  The motives of strangers can be pure, but you know that the motives of strangers can be completely corrupt.  Why then would you accept the input of a stranger as having such high value?  Even if that input is positive, you cannot trust the motivations of that stranger for making that positive remark.  Why would you trust a stranger to have your best interest in mind?  You cannot know what some anonymous individual really believes or why they are saying what they are saying.

If you find that you highly value the input of anonymous posters on social media, you should carefully consider why the opinions of strangers is so important to you.  You must consider if your reaction to their statements is a symptom of how you see yourself.  If that is true, you must consider what actions you could take to change the way you see yourself.

This process can be extremely difficult.  You may discover something about yourself that you never wanted to know.  You may discover that you are very weak.  This is not something we want to see in ourselves.  But once you are able to see it, and admit it, you are in a very good place.  You cannot begin to build yourself up until you realize that you need to do so.  You cannot correct an issue that you cannot see.  And you will not begin the work of correcting your deficiency unless you are willing to admit that you are wrong.

All this implies that you are at fault.  I do not want you to feel that you are at “fault”.  What I want you to see is that although you may be weak, you have the power to change that.  You are in complete control of how you see yourself.  By focusing on your weakness, you can begin to build your self-confidence and your sense of personal value to a point where the opinions of others will not matter.  You are your own source of validation.  The opinions of others, good or bad, simply will not matter.

You will not need the input of others to determine your personal value.  You will already know your value.  In fact, even if you know that your value might be low, knowing the reason for that level of value, and knowing that you are taking the right steps to improve your value, will empower you to stand with confidence in whatever position you may currently find yourself.  The knowledge of who you are and what you are doing to make that better will infuse you with a sense of power that no one can touch.

Is that something you want?

Here are some very important steps you can take to begin the work of building yourself into your own source of validation:

1. Work – Forge your value by the work of your hands
2. Contribution – Illustrate your value by your contribution
3. Experience – Let failure and success be your personal mentors
4. Health – Food and activity will make or break you
5. Religion – If you were the only human alive, God would still have given his all

These are not given in any special order.  You could execute them one at a time, or simultaneously in small amounts.  You may not need them all, but the more you do, the better the results.  If you want more, then do more.  Just accomplishing a tiny amount in every category will have exponential results.

I will focus on each of these points in subsequent posts.  You will see how doing these things will build you into someone who does not need the validation of someone else.  Your value will become self-evident.  You will be an island of strength and an example to your peers.  Others will look up to you.  You will completely overhaul the way you see yourself, and the way others see you.  In fact, you will see your whole life improve in ways you never thought possible.

But before you do anything, you must do one thing.  Admit to yourself that, whatever your current value, even if you think it is very low, you are worth the effort.  Even the tiniest amount of value is worth the effort to increase that value.

Do you think you have any value at all?  If you really believe that, and you are willing to verbally admit that to yourself, then you are ready to move on.

-Sisyphus

If you are consistently not getting the treatment you should be getting from others, then you are the problem.

Do you feel as though you are constantly being mistreated?  Do you feel as though the world is treating you unfairly?  Always evaluate yourself first.  Do not assume that the rest of the world is putting you in an impossible position.  Evaluate your own behavior first.  You have the power to change your world.

The Army regulations will tell you how to be a good leader.  It is easy to do.  Be what you want your soldiers to be.  Treat them the way you expect them to treat you.  Treat them the way you expect them to treat one another.

The Army breaks down good character into seven values.  Those values are Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Self-Sacrifice, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage (LDRSHIP – Leadership).  The values themselves are an explanation of the method.  For example, if you want your soldiers to respect you, you must respect them.  If you want your soldiers to have more courage, you must be courageous (this means moral courage, more than any other type) in your dealings with them.  If you want your soldiers to show more sacrifice and dedication, you must sacrifice more for them and be more dedicated to their needs and their success.  The way you treat your soldiers will have a direct result on the way they treat you.

This is not just a military concept.  It works in every social environment.  If you want more respect from your peers, you must be willing to show them respect.  YOU must make the first move before you expect to see any reciprocation.

The more you practice these values as they relate to others, the more you will start receiving them from others.  Start practicing your values on others.  Use the values you want to see in your peers in all your dealings with your peers.

Not everyone will respond the way they should.  While you are doing what you should be doing, maintain a higher standard for what you receive.  If you are being disrespected, then find someone else to spend your time with.  Do not accept that low-grade treatment by staying in their company (in this case, I am referring to a habitual offender, or someone who clearly does not give a rats ass about you).  If you cannot simply leave them, then be specific and correct them.  This can be done with emotional control and tact.  It does not have to be a highly confrontational moment.  You only need to stand up for yourself.  The overwhelming majority of the time, just mentioning it will be enough to curve someone’s behavior.  But whatever you do, do not just accept their mistreatment by staying and saying nothing.  Be calm, be direct, and be specific.  Then be forgiving.  Be magnanimous.

It is extremely important to remember that you must be DOING everything you expect from others, before you start correcting others.  And when you do correct others, it must only be in relation to yourself.  You are not the PC police.  It is not your job to dictate everything that is said by everyone else.  If you are being personally mistreated, take action.  And if you are the one mistreating others, take action by making the correction.  If you need to go and apologize to make it right, then do that.  This is how you will be enforcing your standards on yourself.  You will recreate yourself into the person you want to be.  And as you become that person, others will treat you the way you expect.

All of this happens as a result of YOUR actions.  YOU can start the ball rolling by being the first one to make the right change and exhibit the right behavior.  This means that you have control over how others treat you.  The free will of your peers does not go away.  You are merely providing them with the right stimulus to behave differently towards you.

-Sisyphus

I touched on rituals in this article.  But now I want to focus more on how rituals work.

Rituals have the power to focus your subconscious activity.  Your conscious mind is limited in its capacity to pay attention.  You can only focus your conscious energies on so much.  But you can also use your subconscious mind to focus on other things while your conscious mind is busy doing whatever is immediately required.  Your subconscious mind is an automated subroutine.  It is ALWAYS focused on something.  This is true whether you intend it to be true or not.  Your subconscious mind is always working and focusing on something.  If you find that you are always making the same mistakes, or following the same habits, or falling into the same emotional or social traps, that’s your subconscious mind focusing on something that brings you back to that same place or situation.  Your subconscious mind is always focused on something, even if that something is to your peril.

Fortunately, you can take control of that automated sub-process.  You can focus your subconscious mind on the things you want to be focused on.  This is where you can make use of a ritual.  A ritual done with some end result in mind is like a program that you download into your subconscious mind.  Your subconscious mind will continue running that program, even after you’ve forgotten all about it.  Remember the last time you had a personal question that you just couldn’t figure out?  Then you got frustrated and forgot all about it.  Then suddenly, maybe hours or days later, for seemingly no reason, you realized the answer to your question.  That is because your subconscious mind continued to work on that problem, even though you had forgotten all about it.  This is how a ritual will work for you.  You perform the ritual, then forget all about the reason you even did the ritual.  In the meantime, your subconscious mind will continue to work on the challenge, goal, or motivation.  You will find yourself noticing details and opportunities related to the focus of your ritual.

Let’s look at this another way.  Have you ever heard of a Self-fulfilling Prophesy?  You probably heard that term in a negative light.  It referred to the idea that you sabotaged yourself by telling yourself that you would fail at some future task, or you would lose your money on something stupid.  Then, lo-and-behold, it happens!  Just like you said it would!  That is your subconscious mind focusing on the thing you last told it to focus on.  By using a ritual, you can focus your subconscious mind on something positive.  In a personal sense, you could concoct a ritual to rid yourself of some negative habit.  On a group level, you could build a ritual that is designed to bind your group in a common purpose.  The subconscious mind will continue to focus on those goals long after you have stopped thinking about them.

Performing a ritual can rid your conscious mind of a burden.  After the ritual, you’ll forget.  Now your conscious mind can take a break from whatever it was that was bothering you.  By performing the ritual, you are telling yourself that it is ok to let this issue go.  Think of it like ordering your meal in a restaurant.  After you place your order, do you continue to call the waitress back to repeat your order?  Are you terrified that she will forget what you have requested?  Assuming your restaurant has decent service, it is more likely that once you’ve placed your order, you completely forgot about it.  Once you have placed your order into the capable hands of your service provider, you completely divert your attention to something else.  You did this with the full confidence that eventually you would receive what you requested.  A ritual has the same psychological effect.  Once you perform the ritual, it is like a release of a burden.  You then forget.  You’ve let it go.  But your subconscious mind will continue to work on the problem until one day you realize that the thing you were trying to accomplish by your ritual is starting to work itself out.

There are some things to remember when building your ritual to make it as effective as possible.  If performing a ritual is a program for the subconscious mind, then this is the syntax for that program:

• Make your ritual somewhat complex. There should be more than three or four steps.  Be detailed.
• Your ritual should be repeated more than once. Do it every hour for a day, every day for a week, every week for a month, or every month for a year.  You can decide what level of repetition you need, based on what you are trying to accomplish.  Just make sure your ritual is repeated.
• Use a specific time. This could be a specific day of the week, or month.  It could be done at the same time every day.  There might be some other special detail about when you perform your ritual.  Just make sure it isn’t being done “whenever you have time”, or “whenever you feel like it”, or whatever.  Choose the timing and then stick to it.
• Perform your ritual in a specific place. The more relevant the location the better.  Use a location that contributes to the meaning of the ritual.  Or use a location that has some personal meaning to you.  The location could have some special relevance to your ritual as well.
• Use special tools and/or objects that represent your ritual’s objective.
• Use religious elements. Let your faith be your guide in this department.  The incorporation of the symbols of your faith will help improve your faith in the ritual, which will improve the strength of your programming.

The ritual isn’t magic.  Go ahead and build a ritual that is tribal in nature.  Use imagery that reminds you of something magic.  It will work.  It isn’t magic.  But who cares?  Do something that feels meaningful and has a sense of purpose.  Do it with a specific goal in mind.  Maybe that goal is to be more dedicated.  Maybe that goal is to be more focused at work.  Maybe the goal is to be better at making friends.  It doesn’t matter.  Create a ritual that uses physical objects that you must manipulate in a meaningful way as a symbol of your imminent success.  This will tell your subconscious mind what you want to be working on now.  Then relax and see what comes of it.  This may only be a trick of the mind, but who cares.  If tricking yourself into improving your life will get you what you need, then do it.

-Sisyhus