This Video: Cousin To The Choice-Cube Method?

"My thinking was in a rut." laments our hero bike rider Destin in the video below. Ah, how true that can be!                                              

Destin had become used to riding his bike (thinking, feeling, acting) one way.                                                                                                It took him eight months of repeating the different way of bike riding before he saw a real change. 

Are there areas of your life where your "rutted thinking" causes you to think, feel, and act certain ways? Does change seem almost impossible?

You may have found that simply wanting to change, or even trying to change doesn't always work.

It's not so simple. As Destin says, " If you have a rigid way of thinking in your head, sometimes, you can't change that, even if you want to." 

So, like me, you may get impatient and want to stop trying. Perhaps you even beat yourself up, telling yourself what a failure you are because you don't change.

Well, here's good news and bad news. The good news first: You can change! And... if you change one part of the problem, you make changes to the whole system.

The bad news? When a way of thinking, feeling, and acting becomes a habit, it has become a "biological chain reaction." 

Hum, biological chain reaction? What's that? It's is a set of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that have become like connecting cross-country ski trails in your nervous system. Once you start on that trail, if you don't know how to interrupt it, you will follow it to the very end. The habit like a CD and you are the CD player

A habit or biological chain reaction is both physical and psychological. It's psychological because it affects your mind, will, and emotions, causing you to think, feel, and act the same ways over and over. It's physical because of the trails embedded in your nervous system.                                    

Once a set of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors is firmly established in your nervous system, you can no longer analyze or will yourself out of that habit.

You have acted yourself into a set of reactions and now, you will have to act yourself out of it, step by step, choice by choice.

To change, instead of repeating the same old reactions you will have to train yourself to do something different each time something triggers those old thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.. 

If you want to understand this better, take a look at Become the Person You Were Meant to Be, especially Chapter 6 on changing behaviors. The book also offers the Choice-Cube Method as a way to actually make changes, get unstuck, and move toward  becoming the person you were meant to be.

The 4 Best Emotions You Can Feel... And Should Strive To Achieve→

Do you think you are a positive and happy person?      

Gratitude is the hallmark of a positive, happy person and the PACS emotions--the 4 positive types of emotions that change lives--are the essence of gratitude.

When you are in PACS, you are "in the light," Can you imagine being fully in the light? When you are, you will experience one or all of the positive PACS emotions. All four are available when you are in the light.

Here's a list of the PACS emotions with many of their expressions. Remember to look for gratitude. All forms of PACS are linked to gratitude.

Without further ado, I present to you PACS/Grateful & Curious:

1. PEACE:  This is a deep, mindful sense of peace. Something we all desire. When we enter into this kind of peace, we are filled with  gratitude.  

Expressions: accord, agape, balanced, boundless, calm, composed, content, at ease, faith-filled, flexible, free, fulfilled, harmonious, order, oneness, quiet, serene, still, trusting, whole

2. ACCEPTANCE/LOVE:    This is the feeling that accompanies understanding, compassion, forgiving others and accepting forgiveness for ourselves.  

Expressions: appreciative, approving, belonging, beloved, compassionate, considerate, connected, delighted, empathic, identifying with, loving, merciful, open, receptive, secure, sufficiency, trusting, understanding, warm

3. CONFIDENCE/ZEST:    This allows us to experience life with keen enjoyment. We take on challenges that make us stretch and grow. We live in the present with confidence and hope for the future.

Expressions: assured, adventuresome, courageous, challenged, cheerful, committed, creative, curious, daring, eager, enduring, enjoying, enthusiastic, faith-filled, hopeful, integrity, interested, joyful, natural, optimistic, playful, positive, resourceful, responsive, righteous, safe, spontaneous, secure, thrilled, trusting, willing, wonder-filled

4. SATISFACTION:  Also known as positive pride, this is a healthy sense of worthiness and integrity. Satisfaction can be the emotional reward for a job well done. Filled with gratitude, satisfaction comes from being content with who we are and with our best efforts.  

Expressions: accomplished, balanced, comfortable, dignified, excellence, flexible, fulfilled, honorable, in-order, overcoming, personal best, playful, positive pride, righteous, truthful, tuned in, worthy

Three interesting facts about these positive emotions are: first, you will always feel gratitude; second, if you feel any of them you will discover that you feel all four; and third, being in PACS is as much physical as it is emotional, because these emotions affect your whole body.         

But “Where does this concept of PACS come from!?” you ask.

Well… from the Choice-Cube Method.

And the good news is that this method is now available for you!

Here's a chance to download the first chapter for FREE of my book, Become the Person You Were Meant to Be. Click here and get an idea of what the Choice-Cube Method can do for you.

Copyright Dr. Beth Blevins Cujé 2015

Stuck And Feeling Helpless? Try These Three Steps

Who hasn’t felt stuck and helpless? The question is what to do about it.

I would like to offer three steps for getting moving again. Interested? Take a look.

Step 1 - Define the Problem:  You are feeling stuck because you seem to be between a “rock and a hard place.” This is where you must choose between two options that are both unacceptable to you. So, you go back and forth, back and forth, in conflict, stuck, feeling helpless because it seems that whatever choice you make will cause you loss or pain. Ever been there? [1]

Alice, who has a critical and emotionally abusive husband, is between a “rock and a hard place.” She’s in a terrible doublebind. Back and forth she goes between, If I leave him I won’t be able to support myself and the family will be reject me. But, if I stay here with him, I know, all the stress is really hurting me physically and emotionally. It takes courage and honesty to clearly define a double bind.

Step 2 – Focus on Your Negative Emotions about this Situation and Let Go of Them.[2]

Alice has a variety pack of emotions. She is enraged! But, at the same time, she is broken-hearted. She hates the way her husband of many years treats her and sometimes she hates him, too. But she still loves him and wants what’s best for him. She’s afraid that if she leaves him, she will never find a way to get him to love her and that she will have to live without him the rest of her life.

 Step 3 -  Shift Your Focus to Father God. Draw on His Life-Power-Energy as You Trust and Obey.

Alice has to shift her focus away from her husband and her problem to focus on God[3] and draw on his life-power-energy. When you do this, you stop pouring your life into the negative of the double-bind and start moving toward some acceptable resolution of the problem[4]

[1] James 1: 7, 8 For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord.

[2] This is not a one-shot deal. You will have to release those negative emotions again, and again, and again. That, however, will be good for your body and mind, and certainly much better than swinging back   and forth, helpless, between the two painful options of your double-bind.

[3] Proverbs 3:4-6   Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

4  Matthew 6: 22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single (focused on God), thy whole body shall be full of light.

If you need some help defining your negative emotions and some tools to let go of them, you may want to look in my book Become the Person You Were Meant to Be, Chapter 9 on emotions. Also, Chapter 10 in the book focuses on the mind. In this Chapter, this blog’s three-step process called “Challenge the Conflict,” is described in greater detail. I pray the best for you.  Let me hear from you. You can contact me on my website www.choicecube.com.     Warmly, Dr. Beth

Do You Have These Two Hidden Fears?

FEAR IN THE MIX       When life seems unbalanced, look for fear somewhere in the mix.  “Fear?  Anxiety? What kinds of fear are you talking about?” you might ask.

THREE COMMON FEARS    Let’s start with three of the most obvious fears we face every day: fear of confronting someone, fear of making the wrong choice, and fear making a big change in our life. We do not want the pain and trouble that might come from taking these actions. But is that all there is to it?

HIDDEN FEARS     No indeed. Underneath these three fears lie two deeper, often hidden fears: First, we fear feeling abandoned and alone, rejected by the ones that matter to us, or by people in general.

(It does not matter how old or experienced we are, we all have this fear and need to deal with it.)

By the way, being rejected includes having people make fun of us.

Second, we have a fear of feeling inadequate and worthless. True, others can reject and abandon us, causing us to feel awful. But sometimes we reject and abandon ourselves! This can be just as painful.
 

HIDDEN FEARS CAN HURT US     Whether we realize it or not, we all live with these two fears: the fear that others will abandon or reject us and the fear of feeling inadequate or worthless because we reject ourselves. These fears can get us in trouble and keep us from becoming who were meant to be.

On the one hand, to avoid facing our fears, some of us drink too much, are TV addicts, are workaholics, or have dangerous sex. Or we just go numb!

On the other hand, some of us, wanting to control these feelings, try harder and harder to fix things. But nothing really changes. Perhaps we use anger to control others or a situation. Or, to name another control strategy, we try to figure things out but end up stuck on a mental merry-go-round.  We can’t stop thinking about the problem, but never seem to find the right answer. 

Through repetition, we have conditioned our brain/mind and body to automatically and mindlessly think, feel and act in the same ways over, and over, and over. But there is good news.

WE CAN EXPOSE AND OVERCOME OUR FEARS and the harmful behaviors they cause. There  is a way to do it and it is always the same! It starts with realizing that others do not make us think, feel and act a certain way. Others only trigger well-established patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that we already have. 

ONCE WE ARE AWARE AND WILLING to take full responsibility for our reactions--to bravely look at them as if we were "objective observers,"we are ready to move on and become the best of who we are.

In my book, Become the Person You Were Meant to Be - The Choice-Cube Method, available on www.amazon.com, I give you four steps and some simple, but powerful tools to help you understand your fears and to change them. Here’s a chance to download the book’s first chapter for FREE. Just click here to learn more and find out what the Choice-Cube Method can do for you.

What’s The Secret To Lasting, Loving Relationships?

Years of verbal abuse, sullen rejection, and little unkind acts toward him had turned him sour. This day, Tom, tall, handsome, and forty-something, felt as if he simply could not stand to listen to her criticizing and blaming another minute. 

But what do you do when you are a “good Christian man” who is supposed to love your wife? Tom wanted to leave Cathy, but did not want the stigma of a divorce. What would their children, the family, their church friends think? This was Tom’s dilemma.

Tom and Cathy had tried Christian counseling, but it hadn’t helped. Their pastor had told them to just hang in there, everything would work out. Tom felt as if he had hit a wall. Was there an answer?

According to Kelly Philbrick, author of Your Changed Life: Daring to Share How Jesus Made the Difference,  “God created us to crave unconditional love, so the only remedy to offer others is His love without conditions.” She continues, 

“There’s something like radar inside the human heart that senses the displeasure of others." She points out that when we sense displeasure instead of acceptance and love, it’s easy to think, "I’m not good enough for you." and then to think, “If I can’t measure up, why even try to share myself with you.”

 All of this leads to a breakdown of communication, trust, and with time, the relationship itself.

God gives a simple road map for change. He suggests that we first clean the inside of our cup.[1] Or to put it another way, instead of focusing on the other's short-comings and failures, he tells us to take the log out of our own eye before we try to "to take the speck out of the other person's eye."[2]

Then he commands us to speak the truth in love,[3] which can lead to good communication, trust, good boundary setting, and unconditional love for one another.  

So here's the problem.  Firstly, Tom and Cathy are so focused on one another's faults that they are: (1) failing to look honestly at themselves, (2) failing to speak the truth in love and set healthy boundaries. (3) They are so caught up in blaming and criticizing that the idea of offering one another unconditional love is not even on their radar.

The solution is to make a 180 degree turn; to stop doing the same old things and do something different. Good news! Tom and Cathy didn't have to do it alone and neither do you.You don't even have to wait for your partner to change

If you stay focused on Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit in you, regardless of what the other person does, you can draw on God's love and power to help you shift your focus away from the other's failures (sins) to focus on the Lord,his love and power in you. 

Tom and Cathy have choices to make. Can they commit to giving God's strategies a try. Admittedly this is very difficult, especially when issues are old and deep, but consider the alternative...   Where do you stand? Need some help?

Follow God’s directions, call on the Holy Spirit’s power. Like Jesus, you can become clean and clear on the inside and do something different... something that brings life instead of death. Look for God to bring forth new life! 

You can uncover the secret of lasting, loving relationships as you commit to: taking responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, speak the truth in love while setting healthy boundaries, and express unconditional love.

The 4 Steps and simple tools laid out by the Choice-Cube: 1. Confess, 2. Repent, 3. See Garbage & God's Grace, 4. Know & Do God's Will can help.

1.  Matthew 23:26     [2] Matthew 7:5        [3] Ephesians 4:15

2015 Choice-Cube Publications LLC. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Reproduction, copying, or redistribution (electronic or otherwise, (including on the World Wide Web), in  whole or in part is encouraged provided the attribution Choice-Cube Publications is preserved