How to Get Out of Your Own Way Page 7
Whenever someone says a negative thing about you that isn’t connected to love—because sometimes people say negative things in order to motivate you that may appear to be negative but actually come out of love—I want you to make the decision to fall in love with who you are. Do not believe all the negative things that make you feel less than you are or cause you to doubt your abilities. I want you to flush what they say down the toilet and begin your own little mission to prove them wrong.
Even the things you say out loud can affect your mind-set. There is power in the tongue, and your energy will live up to the words you speak. The more you keep saying you’re negative and depressed, the more your spirit and your body will try and live up to those words. People who say positive things all day, every day are more than likely going to have great energy.
When you say the word “depressed” you’re giving your body and spirit permission to take you to a negative place. When you use the word “depressed,” your spirit is going to try and live up to whatever that word is, and you normally associate the word “depressed” with someone being in their darkest state. When you say I’m depressed, a signal goes through your body—there’s an energy that is activated in your mind—and it trickles throughout your body and brings you down to your lowest state.
As far as I’m concerned I’ve never truly been depressed in my life and I think this is because I don’t allow myself to even say the word. I never use the word “depressed” freely and I always trip when I hear people say it. It’s not that I don’t believe that the spirit of being depressed doesn’t exist, I’ve just never known it to exist in my own life. I could only imagine being depressed in relation to shooting a movie and preparing for a scene. For example, if I were going to be filming a death scene and the director starts to explain to me what my energy for the scene should be like, what I should be thinking about and how much the person who is going to die in the scene means to my character, he is planting dark, negative, and depressing seeds about how distraught I am supposed to be before I come to work the next day to film. The word “depressed” will activate the darkest state of my mind, and the rest of my body will be affected by those negative thoughts. I will tap into the spirit of being depressed to prepare for that scene and will become depressed because I will be living up to the thoughts I’m pounding into my mind.
So I never allow myself to think those words. We have to remove “depressed” from our vocabulary. Say Rest in peace to the word “depressed.” Let’s have a burial service for it because it has to go. You can be irritated, bothered, and annoyed with things in your life, but the word “depressed” has to be removed from your vocabulary because your spirit will live up to that word. I’ve had a negative mind-set, but when you use the word “depressed” it takes you over, so we have to put it in a coffin.
If you feel yourself going there, say to yourself I’m happy! and remind yourself of the good things in your life. If you keep saying that, your energy is going to reflect what happy is.
Reprogramming your mind is not as simple as saying I’m happy but being aware of how you say things will affect your mind-set and help rid you of your negative spirit.
Every Lesson Is a Blessing
Instead of focusing on the negatives like most people, I try my best to turn every negative into a positive, because like I said, it’s all mental. It’s important to think of every trial and tribulation as an opportunity, no matter how bad they may seem on the outside. Everything in life has the potential to affect you, and how you let your experiences affect you is up to you. I want you to look at your negative experiences as something that makes you stronger, not weaker. If you recognize how you learn from your actions—or how someone treated you—then the experience wasn’t altogether negative.
People have said to me, “Tyrese, it’s amazing how well you did for yourself, considering all the family problems you had as a kid.” I did have huge obstacles to overcome, but now I look at the situation from a different angle: Would my life have been better if I didn’t have the childhood I did? I’m not sure. I think it would have sent my life in a totally different direction. It’s up to me, as a grown man, to decide how I let my childhood choices affect me and my decisions about how I’m going to live my life. I try to turn the negative things that happened to me into a positive learning experience for myself as a father and as a man. Do I slip up? Do negative thoughts creep into my mind? Are my actions sometimes negative? Do I sometimes have negative things to say about people? Do negative situations pop up that I don’t just get over right away? Yes—that’s what makes me human. But for the most part I try my best to look for the positive in every situation and continue on my mission to get out of my own way.
Sure, I still have regrets about things I’ve done in the past, but I make the effort to not sit on the pity potty I told you about earlier, because it will get me nowhere. My power is within what I know. I know that I made the choices I made because they were right for me at the time. I regret doing some of the things that I did, but I only regret them because I wasn’t fully aware of the effect my actions had on people. But once I was educated and made aware of what I was doing and how I was impacting people, I made sure to change. In order to fix a problem, you first have to be aware of it.
I’ve learned to accept my actions because I know that every choice and decision I’ve ever made was part of God’s plan. All I can do as a man and a human being is learn from them and grow. In a way, my bad choices led to my transformation and my getting to a better, more positive place in my life. That is why I believe that every lesson is a blessing.
Get Back to Self-Love: It’s Okay to Be Selfish!
I’ve been asking you to think about how much you love yourself because it’s essential if you want to maximize the blessings in your life. One way you can reprogram your mind and spirit is by getting back to self-love.
Self-love is the cure to self-hate. A key part of this is taking a break and doing something you love to do. I want you to get back to the things you used to enjoy because those activities will put you in a better mind-set so you can keep striving for more.
Try to focus on yourself for a change. In other words, I want you to be more selfish. Normally the word “selfish” is a negative because we were all raised to believe that being selfish is wrong, but I want to redefine it for you. The word “selfish” starts with “self.” You have to be selfish and love yourself because you can’t love anyone if you don’t love yourself first. A good example of this, to put things in perspective, is what we are told to do in case of an airplane emergency. At the beginning of every flight, a flight attendant will usually go through various safety procedures. She will tell you that in the event of an emergency, oxygen masks will drop down and that all passengers should put on their own oxygen mask before helping others—even children. If your spouse or child is passed out, why wouldn’t you help them first? Because if you don’t help yourself first—if you don’t get air into your own lungs—you won’t be able to save anyone else. Use this situation as an example for how to deal with everyday life. Try putting yourself first for a change.
Why have you stopped yourself from doing the things that you love to do? Have you been too busy to love yourself? Do you make time for everyone else but not for easing your own suffering? Whether it’s because of kids, work, your marriage, or friendships, many different things get in the way of finding time for yourself, but it’s important to make time to do what you love, because it puts you in a positive frame of mind. It did something for you to read a book. It did something for you to go skating or bike riding in the park. You used to do it because it made you feel good. So why have you allowed the pressures and the circumstances of your life to take you away from the things that you used to love and enjoy doing? Doing these things will remind you of the positive things in your life. You have to love yourself enough to keep on doing what you’re doing to get to the next level, to that better place you imagine for your life.
Many
of us have totally gotten away from what we used to enjoy. We let our kids, boyfriends, wives, partners, jobs—anything—take us away from what we love to do. As you meet new people who come into your life, some will discourage you and try to stop you from being who you’re ultimately destined to be or doing the things you used to love to do because they’re not as into it. You need to find your own direction, be your own person, and not be ashamed of who you are, what you enjoy doing, or what you want to become. Get back to the things you enjoy. There’s a selfishness about treating yourself well that has nothing to do with anyone else. It’s just for you. Doing these things and taking time for yourself may remind you of the person you want to become.
There was a point in my life when I wasn’t being selfish enough and I was suffering for it. When I was younger and making money for the first time, I felt very uncomfortable about having more than my family and the friends I grew up with. Because I wanted to keep it real I found myself doing a lot of things that I didn’t really want to do but felt like I needed to in order to keep people thinking of me the way I wanted them to think of me. I wanted people to believe that I hadn’t changed because of the amount of money I was making, the kind of car I was driving, my clothes, my jewelry, all of the fame and success, or all the attention I was getting from women. In my mind I wanted everybody to believe that I was still the same and I wasn’t willing to spare any expense to do so.
I ended up giving away a lot of my money and helping people with their problems and personal issues that had nothing to do with me. I found myself trying to save a lot of people and doing things that put me in a more negative mind-set. Eventually, I got to a point where I was more comfortable in my own skin and I realized that I was really dealing with the adolescent pressures of trying to fit in. I think my biggest fear was that people would spread all my personal business and say negative things about me everywhere they went. My breaking point was when I experienced this from some family and friends. I realized that if it’s in their character to talk shit about you or eat your reputation alive and spread negative stories about you everywhere they go, it doesn’t matter if you were there for them or had their back or tried to prove them wrong—they’re going to do it whether you helped them out or not. This realization liberated me from feeling obligated. I decided to shut down the ATM and end the feeding frenzy. If it’s something they’re going to do, they will do it whether you hold them down or not.
I realized much later that I had to get comfortable and not care what most people said about me, because I wasn’t really helping them by giving them gifts. But I didn’t feel that way in the beginning, or for a long time. I needed to be more selfish and not let people take advantage of my guilt or my generosity. I’m still very much affected by the things I see, and so I needed to become more selfish and try to stay away from many people’s problems, negativity, and drama. I needed to distance myself a bit and to focus on my career so that I would not lose that part of me.
I don’t want you to think that I’m telling you to abandon your loved ones and your responsibilities at home, work, or school. If you do that, you could be sabotaging your career, relationships, or future. Little acts of self-love are a good way to start loving yourself again. They will carry you through the difficult times and help you get out of the mind-set of being a victim. They will help you flush the pity potty. You will have a better mind-set so you can continue on the mission to that better place in your life.
Self-love reciprocates—it starts a whole new positive cycle—because love and positivity are powerful things. Self-love is the opposite of negativity and dysfunction. When you are more positive, you will most likely inspire good energy in your friends and family who care about you. If you love yourself, you will be able to identify the negative people in your life who are doing you wrong. It will help you get out of your own way because you’ll be able to identify the negativity faster and clearer than before and stay away from it. We are responsible for who we are. If we don’t do things that need to be done, we’re just keeping ourselves in a spiritual and mental prison.
You Look the Way You Think of Yourself
I’ve explained that the body is a slave of the mind and whatever mind-set you have and how much you love yourself will affect everything you do. I’m going to take this idea to the next level: You look the way you think of yourself.
Just like the phrase You are what you eat, if you’re miserable internally, your body is going to look exactly like how you feel because what you look like on the outside is a direct reflection of your spirit.
Your confidence and your aura are all a result of your mental state. You look and carry yourself the way you think of yourself. It starts with your mind and then works its way down into your body.
You won’t have to tell people if you’re depressed or happy. You don’t have to explain to people how you feel about yourself, you just have to walk into the room and most people are going to see it. You don’t have to shout Hey, guys, I’m happy! People will see it because your energy will reveal it to them. Your friends, family, and most people you meet can tell that something is wrong. If you have a negative spirit you can still have a nice and bright smile, but that only means that you have great toothpaste. Your loved ones can still see the pain in your smile. Can’t you tell when your own friends are going through pain and dysfunction? I’ve met a few people who have gone through some serious drama and life-threatening situations who were able to put on their game face and hide it, but I have found that most people show what they’re going through without even realizing it.
In my own mind, I often question people who have over-the-top, super-hyper, and big personalities; sometimes, I can’t stop from wondering what’s really going on or what they are covering up by having such a big personality. Just because you’re the loudest, most hyper person in the club doesn’t mean you’re happy. Just because you’re driving the most expensive car doesn’t mean you have gas money. It becomes a game of perception versus reality; we tend to make decisions about who people are, what they’re going through, and whatever else based on the way people appear to be.
Some people dress trashy or sloppy. Some people are big and weigh a lot—but I’m not telling you to be a size two. There are some people who may be heavier than others and they have a great spirit; they are completely happy and content and very comfortable with the reality of their size, and I respect that. Being smaller doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re happier. Some people have health issues they can’t control, but if you are overweight because you have purposely stopped trying to turn it around, your body will represent exactly what you’re thinking.
Your body is a slave of your mind, so you are the reason you are out of shape. I’m speaking from my own experience here. A few years ago, I let myself go a bit. I weighed almost two hundred and fifty pounds. I was eating my life away, and it was no one’s fault but mine. I used to be that guy saying I didn’t care, with the excuse that living in the moment was all that mattered. I would buy XXXL T-shirts to cover up who I was becoming. Without realizing, I was dealing with self-sabotage and self-defeat. I didn’t realize that I was becoming too complacent until someone said to me, “When you walk in a room, Tyrese, you look like you don’t give a fuck. You don’t have to explain anything to anybody.” I’ll talk more about becoming complacent later, but please know that I’m coming from a real place. I was there. The food became more important than maintaining the blessings that I got from being in shape. Eating everything in sight became more important than me and my career.
You are the one who chose to eat a cheeseburger instead of a salad, not anyone else. Why are you not taking care of yourself? Why don’t you feel you deserve better? How much do you love yourself? I didn’t get my first Guess contract by showing up with love handles and a gut. I got it because I went to the gym and gave a damn. Rewards come to those who love themselves, and it’s really hard to say you love yourself when you look like you don’t care. Well, we all get lazy so
metimes and need that kick in the backside to get motivated. If you can find time to eat, you can find time to work out. Every day you make it a point to eat because you get hungry. Get back to self-love. Make it a point to start exercising in any way you can, and start eating right—you’ll see the results.
Some people have said to me that they would work out, but they aren’t motivated enough to work out alone and don’t have money for a trainer. In response to that I tell them—and I’ll tell you—don’t allow your pride and your ego to stop you from befriending someone who is in better shape than you. Go to the gym and find somebody who is in great shape. This person doesn’t have to be a trainer; he or she can just be somebody you see in the gym every day around the same time. They should be in much better shape than you. Tell them that you want to work out with them because their body looks the way you want your body to look. Just ask questions, and they will give you information. From my experience, most people that are in shape normally have a lot of confidence and are excited to share what they know, because ultimately if people are asking them questions about how to get in shape it’s most likely because they look good and others have noticed. They’ll tell you about the weights you should use, or show you different machines. You can ask them about the foods they’re eating or not eating. You can even say to them, “Pay me no mind, you don’t have to train me, but I’m going to come here, and I’m just so inspired by you, I’m going to work out next to you and do the things that you do, I hope you don’t mind.” If they agree, that’s even better. All of that is free: free training and free motivation. This way, you can end up working out with somebody for free and have somebody to keep you inspired. The only expense you have is the gym membership, which you should have already.
If you want to get in shape, you should also consider whom you’re hanging out with. If everybody around you is eating bad foods, that’s what you’re going to eat because that’s the spirit you’re in. We usually spend time with people who do the same things we do, who have the same interests. If you want to change your body, your friends and family may make you feel uncomfortable about going to the gym or eating healthier if that’s not what they’re into. It’s like oil and water: There’s no way that oil could ever get along with water. If your friends are eating tons of greasy foods and you’re trying to stay away from that, you may have to stay away from them.