How do you sum up a 175 page book in a sentence or less? I have struggled with this from the day “A New Fearless You” was printed. When people ask me what our book is about, I often fumble my words … me the speaker! So I finally decided I had to get a short description down that I could remember and believe in.

Unmask childhood games that follow you into adulthood and blindly hold you back from being the best of who you are.

There I said it- that is what “A New Fearless You” is really about simply and concisely.  What makes our book different than others?

Our book is built on the premise that people blindly seek ways to run away from fear- the fear that lurks behind all of our relationship problems.

Let’s take a moment and look behind some of my words- and see what happens when we unmask the meaning behind the words I have chosen.

Unmask Childhood Games. I used to talk in terms of Hide and Seek.  I have finally come to grips with that people don’t get that concept, but they get game playing.  Everyone can relate to the childhood games — they just don’t realize we bring them with us into adulthood.

Be the Best of Who You Are. To me, this phase means the Triple A affect- Acceptance of the Self + Access to our higher power +Act in harmony.

Blindly Hold You Back and Seek blindly. I could say the word, “unconsciously” instead of “blindly”, but blindly is a trigger word for me-and in fact a deeply-layered one.  After my brain surgery, I learned from my ophthalmologist friend it was a true miracle I didn’t go blind because the brain tumor I had was lodged in my optic chasm and he thought for sure I would be blind after surgery.

Secondly, blindly also refers to the game, Pin the Tail. When you’ve taken theblindfold off, thus unmasking your fears, you’re no longer blindly moving toward an “ass backwards” goal, spinning around in circles and losing your orientation.

Ways to run away from fear.  Of course! This is an easy way to say out loud- the cornerstone of “A New Fearless You”- Hide from fear and seek ways to cover up our fears.

The fears that lurk behind all relationship problems.  I still remember my first lunch with Michal Abney, the co-director of the documentary Breakthrough: A Conscious Documentary when he started talking about how we have a relationship with everything.  Right on Michal! Be it your relationship with yourself, with your career, with others, with money, these relationship problems all have something in common.  Fear is the culprit behind the problems we experience in ALL of our relationships.

So I ask your advice … is this descriptive enough? Is it succinct? Would it whet your appetite to buy the book? You help me judge!

Until next week,

Evonne Weinhaus

In the past several weeks, I’ve been diligently working at cleaning out the corners, the cobwebs, and underneath the rugs (both metaphorically and literally). This has been a humbling experience to say the least; and it’s taken quite a bit of courage to say the most. This week, I’ve contemplated what it means to break through in letting go of the mask, and it dawned on me that for clarity I needed to go back to the basics: What is a mask?

For me, the important aspects of the definition are: to conceal, to protect, and to cover up. Take a minute to really allow those aspects to soak into your awareness. To have a breakthrough in letting go of the mask would mean breaking through the need to conceal, to protect, and to cover up. Again, take a moment to really allow this to grab hold of your awareness.

My answer to those questions would be how I have allowed certain aspects of my personal and professional life to fall through the cracks because I’ve been really busy. In my efforts to confront it all, I have noticed feelings of shame, embarrassment, and disappointment in myself and others. I recognize the need to clean it up, but I have also felt the automatic reflex of “masking” this process through trying to explain what happened by rehashing…what else?…the past. If you take a moment to honestly reflect, you may recognize how your “rehash of the past” keeps you from moving forward…

BREAKTHROUGH IN
LETTING GO OF THE MASK!!!

Over breakfast yesterday, Michal and I made a promise to ourselves, and to each other, that we would never, Never, NEVER mention the past again. We would simply let it go through a conscious decision to live in the present moment based on what we want and where we want to go versus what’s happened, whose fault it is, or how we wound up there in the first place.

To assist each other, we decided we would simply stop talking when one of us mentions the past in a limiting or defensive manner. We would fix our face in “a mask” to symbolize to the other person that the conversation is, in essence, frozen in a past moment. As soon as we’re both ready to operate from the present, we’ll simply “unfreeze.” Hey?! Why don’t you try it for the next 30 days?

If you committed to operating from this perspective, what would open up in your relationships, in your family, at your place of business, in your life? Go on…I dare you!

Use this discussion board/blog to post your insights. Read and discuss the insights of others. Go for it!

Appreciate and enjoy the little things!

When I began to write about appreciating life in my journal this week, I found myself reflecting on the lessons of my week last week and found this story:

 “Mountain Story 

 “A son and his father were walking on the mountains.

Suddenly, his son falls, hurts himself and screams:
“AAAhhhhhhhhhhh! !!”
To his surprise, he hears the voice repeating, somewhere in the mountain:
“AAAhhhhhhhhhhh! !!”
Curious, he yells: “Who are you?”
He receives the answer: “Who are you?”
And then he screams to the mountain: “I admire you!”
The voice answers: “I admire you!”
Angered at the response, he screams: “Coward!”
He receives the answer: “Coward!”
He looks to his father and asks: “What’s going on?”
The father smiles and says: “My son, pay attention.”
Again the man screams: “You are a champion!”
The voice answers: “You are a champion!”
The boy is surprised, but does not understand.
Then the father explains: “People call this ECHO, but really this is LIFE.
It gives you back everything you say or do.
Our life is simply a reflection of our actions.
If you want more love in the world, create more love in your heart.
If you want more compassion in your life, be compassionate.
This relationship applies to everything, in all aspects of life;
Life will give you back everything you have given to it.”

Reflection is one of the most powerful tools for success that we tend to not use enough.  Consider taking more time to reflect on what has been happening in your life and appreciate what you and others contribute to it. How does your life reflect you?

 “Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”  – James Levin

 Just as the mountain story teaches us that our life is not a coincidence that it is a reflection of ourselves remember that if there is something you don’t like about it only you can  make the changes. What do you hear as the echo in your life?  Does your echo say you’re a coward or champion; jealous or trusting; unsympathetic or compassionate; judgmental or understanding?

 Consider to work on your life instead of in it. If you find yourself being critical of others remember that you are doing that to yourself.  Learn to appreciate your life and those individuals you have in it.  

 The word “appreciation” means to be thankful and express admiration, approval, or gratitude. It also means to grow or appreciate in value. As you appreciate life, you become more valuable—both to yourself and others.

–
Tammie Renfro

Tomorrow is the ten-year anniversary of a very momentous event in my life – my surgery to remove my brain tumor. By definition, an anniversary is “a celebration of a prior event”.  Albeit at the time it didn’t seem like a celebration, I have realized I received many gifts as a result of this experience.

 I had no idea at that time, I was wearing a mask- of sorts.  Unbeknownst to me, I was hiding behind it.  On Oct. 4^th, 2000, that mask was removed.  I know that mask by another name: a tumor- a golf ball and a half size tumor that was lodged in my brain.

 The results of the tumor? My emotions and feelings were slowly lost to me.  They were blocked by the tumor that was in my right and left optic nerve plus my optic chasm. The tumor literally cut off many of my emotions, leaving me to feel very mildly what others felt deeply. 

In some ways, I feel 10-years-old.  For me it has been a rebirth- a new journey. And, along the way, I have uncovered some incredible and intangible gifts that I would like to share with you:

1. Power of breath
2. Stillness of meditation
3. Access to my Heart’s Wisdom
4. Connection to Source
5. Experiencing first-hand the feelings of fear, love, rage, sorrow, joy-not necessarily in that order.
6. Courage to own up to my part of the problem
7. Talking less, listening more
8. Exposing my vulnerability in my writing
9. Staying authentically present, rather than running away from fear
10. Gaining an acceptance of who I am-not who I thought I should become  

 What about you?  When have you taken off your mask and stopped hiding from others and/or yourself?  What intangibles gifts have you uncovered?

It’s like when you play the game Pin the Tail. When you finally take the blindfold off and stop spinning endlessly in circles, you see new possibilities that were right before your eyes all along.

 Think about the blindfolds and masks you have in your life. And have the courage to unmask yourself, to confront and remove them so you can open your eyes and heart to the gifts they may present.

 Until next week,

 Evonne Weinhaus

As I reflect over this past week’s events, I have been asking myself, “What does this event mean to me in the scheme of my life?” I don’t know about you, but the past seven days have been an unexpected series of ups-and-downs, twists-and-turns, with a few oopsy-daisies thrown in for good measure. Can you relate? One event stands out as a particularly interesting one given this month’s topic: BreakThrough in Letting Go of the Mask.

As I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs, the Hay House Movers and Shakers Conference was personally illuminating. Not simply because we met Louise Hay in person but mostly for the opportunity it afforded me to sit down and listen to my thoughts. One of the take-aways from the conference was a promise I made to myself that I would confront several things I’d swept under the rug during the last several months hectic pace since our May 19th premiere of “BreakThrough.”

Taking advantage of one my best features, I scheduled a day to deal with the mounting paperwork stuffed in drawers all over my office—a little optimistic indeed because the process occupied several days of concentrated effort. I emerged, however, with a deeper appreciation for myself in terms of my strengths and my areas of improvement. An unexpected by-product of my “Autumn Cleaning” was an unexpected willingness to confront interpersonal issues that I had also swept under the proverbial carpet…and, that’s when things really spiced up. Can you relate?

In a conversation that went south pretty quickly I was suddenly immersed with feelings of shock, sadness, disappointment…followed by relief. Yes, relief. Finally, the emotions we were both walking the earth stuffed into the emotional drawers of our minds were released and let go. Was it uncomfortable? Yes. Was I angry? You bet. Am I sorry? No, not in the least. Why? The childhood nursery rhyme began to echo in my brain: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. What beautiful wisdom is encapsulated in this rhyme for children. Why are we so afraid of the words people say? Why are we so afraid of even the words we say to ourselves? Perhaps the beginning of a breakthrough in letting go of the mask is to see through the mask of words and our interpretation of them.

(A stylized scene from Waking Life, one of my all-time favorite movies)

The moral of the fairy-tale called my life: Since I’m making it all up, why not choose an interpretation of the characters in my life’s fable as reflections of myself from which I can observe and learn. As Nathalie Ekobo, one of the teachers in “BreakThrough” says, “There are no good guys or bad guys. I must’ve chosen that experience to teach me what I came here to learn.”

There…doesn’t that just feel better? Can you relate? Good! What do you need to clean up: literally or figuratively? Are you ready? I’d love to hear about it! More than that…share you story here as a comment and ask for support or use it to inspire others.

Use this discussion board/blog to post your insights. Read and discuss the insights of others. Go for it!