Just the other day, I was celebrating a holiday with my beloved family, and helping my youngest brother with a puzzle. The puzzle had 1100 pieces and was rather difficult, but I enjoyed creating this masterpiece. As I was building the perimeter, in order to provide the two of us with a basis for completion, I began to think about how a puzzle is synonymous with our lives in more ways than many of you may have considered. In life, we have an unquantifiable number of experiences which take place, representing pieces to our puzzle, and with each of these pieces, we end up getting closer and closer to completing the puzzle and moving on to the next. I do not think that we have ONE puzzle for our entire life, but I do believe that each area of our lives has a puzzle, which represents a chapter in our existence.

Some of the pieces, or experiences, are used for the purposes of building the border for your life. These experiences are fairly basic, but provide a foundation for growth and a sense of security, while preparing you for what is to come. I spoke about this concept with one of my closest friends, and he said that the difference between a puzzle that you build, and the puzzle of your life, is that you do not have a cover to use as the guide in order to know what your puzzle should look like before starting. Although my friend is viewing this example from an extreme surface level, he does make a valid point because I do think that many of us struggle when it comes to creating an image to help direct us through life. It is almost like purchasing a puzzle in which the cover of the box is blank. We have no idea if we are building a castle, a village, or simply an ocean. We don’t know where to begin and many of us, may never even start. We look at this unknown puzzle with confusion, frustration, and maybe even a sense of fear.

The reason I am bringing this to your attention is because on the journey to BRANDENTITY you need to know what your puzzle will look like once completed. You need to picture yourself being, doing, and having an identity that you create for yourself as opposed to an identity that someone or something creates on your behalf. How will this feel? What would you do? And, ultimately, what will this look like?

What I encourage you to realize is that unlike a puzzle that you build, where the image on the box will be the image you create, the puzzle of your life will remain dynamic because as you acquire additional pieces, they may take you in a different direction than you imagined. The perfect example of this philosophy is my mother and stepfather. The two of these people epitomize what love is all about. Their union results in a relationship of growth, unconditional caring, and support. My mother was divorced for fifteen years, and had many men come in and out of her life, all of which provided her with a piece to her puzzle of love. But as time unfolded, her puzzle was completed and the image that appeared, was my step-father. If my mother did not place all of the pieces over the course of her life, then her puzzle would remain undone and she would still be on a quest for love.

Although I provided an example using the concept of relationships, this is true in all areas of your life; including your career, family, spirituality, health, and everything in between. With this being said, I must forewarn you that the acquisition of puzzle pieces will result in a variety of emotions such as happiness and sadness, excitement and fear, and clarity and frustration. But what you must keep in mind is that every experience contributes a piece to your puzzle of BRANDENTITY and once the puzzle begins to take form, you will finally realize what makes you…YOU!

So build the border, envision what your life will look like when living on your own terms, and take one piece at a time to find who you are and what you stand for…

What does your puzzle of life look like?

What does this mean to you? Please leave a comment.

Some pictures from Flickr.

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Last Wednesday, I had the unfortunate experience of having both my GMAIL and Facebook accounts hacked by someone. This individual sent an email to my entire personal database, along with a Facebook status, stating that I was in dire need of money because of a mugging in London. Many of you may already be aware of this situation, but I thought it would be an interesting concept to analyze and dissect because my INTERNET IDENTITY was stolen.

There is an important lesson that can be learned from this event because  although I am not a computer programmer or scientist, I would imagine that whomever was behind this scheme invested time, energy, and effort into something that provided absolutely no benefit, but rather significant harm. I personally do not believe anyone is being true to themselves when they detract from the lives of others, and instead, use this approach as a coping mechanism because of their internal emptiness in their lives.

What I have found is that this scenario tends to surface in all different types of relationships, whether they are intimate, business related, or friendships. Many people who experience troubling times, more often than not, will make an attempt to bring the people in their world into a dark state. It is almost like taking another human being and using them as a punching bag in order to alleviate the pain they are experiencing.  This unfortunately is engrained in the human psyche because no one wants to wallow in their own misery by themselves.

There are a number of people who I know that live a victim-oriented life, and when they are at their low point, do not want to associate with individuals who operate from an optimistic and positive frame of mind. They avoid listening to stories of joy because this results in extreme feelings of resentment, as they do not know how to achieve this level of satisfaction in their own lives. What I realize is the pain that many of these people are experiencing, which happens to be the root of their IDENTITY CRISIS, is something that may have occurred years before. This could be relationship woes, abuse as a child, addiction to drugs or alcohol, career disasters, etc.

One of the areas I believe many of you can relate to lies within intimate relationships, where one partner is frustrated with their life, and as a result, possesses resentment towards the other person because they are not experiencing the same pain. In order to bring this individual down to their level, so that they do not wallow in their misery alone, they might refrain from making love, verbally or physically abusing, stop doing the little things and maybe even the big things, and begin ruining something that could have been wonderful simply because they feel terrible about themselves. I also see this surface in parental relationships where children begin to segregate themselves from their parents. Many times the child will treat their parent like a punching bag, constantly beating down upon them simply because they are coming into their own and this experience is foreign and sometimes painful. Think about when you were a child and had a crush on a fellow peer, but got denied. Who received the wrath from this situation? I would tend to believe it was a parent, because once again, NO ONE wants to suffer alone.

What if in all of these situations, we were able to become more conscious to the pain that was surfacing in our lives?  What if we realized that detracting from the well-being of someone else may provide a short term fix, but severe long term pain because NO ONE gets pleasure from inflicting grief onto others? But what if we are able to learn how to cope with the events from long ago, so that they no longer occupy rent-free space in our lives? All of these questions are valid, and if you are struggling with this dilemma in your life, then take an honest inventory and answer this final question:

How does it serve me to inflict harm upon others?

If my Internet Identity Hacker would have spent the time asking himself these questions, as opposed to wallowing is his own misery, then I do not believe that there would have been a chain email sent to my personal database about getting mugged and needing money. Therefore, I would like to share a short message that I hope reaches the eyes of Mr. Internet Hacker because this situation needs to be his catalyst for change, as it is down right WRONG to treat anyone as a punching bag because he struggles with himself…

If you currently achieve peace by creating misery in the lives of others, than act as if this letter was directed to you. The actions of Mr. Internet Hacker are in the past, as are all of yours, so all you can do going forward is focus on the present in order to create a pain-free future. Remember, when we beat down on others in order to make ourselves feel better about the “who we are,” the gratification will be short lived, while the pain will last through eternity. If you resonate with this concept and you feel like there is someone in your world who has been a punching bag in your existence, then like I said to Mr. Internet Hacker, let this experience be your catalyst for change and give permission to yourself to love what makes you…YOU!

Do you create misery in the lives of others just so you will not wallow alone? If so, why?

What does this mean to you? Please leave a comment.

Some pictures from Flickr.

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I was having a pleasant debate with a friend the other day about the concept of acceptance. He began expressing his intense feelings about the semantics of this word because he believes that there is an aura of “weakness” associated with this term, signifying giving up. This conversation was eye opening for me because many of the points he made were completely valid and I firmly believe is part of the mainstream thought process.

When you think of the term “acceptance,” what is the first thing that comes to your mind? I can imagine that it instigates feelings of emptiness, regret, deceit, or even exhaustion because the memory of whatever it is that you are holding onto feels like you are literally carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. This emotion has the potential to present a barrier to your personal growth, as your frustration and animosity for what once was has a paralyzing affect on your overall well-being. This unfortunate sense of consciousness might consume your mind as you begin to reflect on what happened in your past.

Path Of Achievement

I am not sure how palatable the term acceptance is for you, but what I can tell you is that there is infinite potential associated with its meaning. It deals with letting go of the frustrations of yesterday in order to enjoy the moments of today; it focuses on knocking down emotional barriers which have presented roadblocks to your personal growth; and as Denis De Rougamont once said, “Happiness can exist only in acceptance.” Because the Power Of Acceptance will enable you to travel down the Path Of Achievement.

This path is headed in the direction of your personal BRANDENTITY–where you begin to live the life that you create for yourself, as opposed to the life that someone or something has created for you to live. In this scenario, the something that is stealing your identity is simply a memory, one that has impacted the way you live your life for quite some time, but I am here to tell you that you have the ability to recognize what took place in your past. This acceptance has nothing to do with giving up, but everything to do with giving to yourself and moving forward.

The Directions

When traveling down the path of achievement, it is important to bring directions, so that you know exactly where you are looking to go and what you are aspiring to achieve. Therefore, I am going to provide you with 6 Steps that will enable you to accept what happened long ago and start living in an entirely new way.

• Write a list of areas where acceptance would heal- The first step is to determine exactly where your frustrations are taking place in your life. It could be a prior relationship, your career, past events or anything else that tends to surface in your world.

• Picture yourself when you were child - What stress existed at this stage of development? Maybe this was a crayon that was broken, a peer knocking down your blockhouse, or having a crush and being denied.

• Envision yourself 5 years into the future- This will enable you to look at the current situation in your life through an outside perspective.

• Laugh – When you have placed yourself in the future, in a figurative sense, and then look back at the prior years, you will begin to LAUGH because the areas which resulted in stress were nothing in the big picture of life. Similar to how the emotions associated with a broken crayon are of little importance.

• Take Action – Now that you have laughed at your past self because of the stress which you ALLOWED into your life, it is time to TAKE ACTION and begin accepting. This might result in calling long lost friends, forcing yourself to move on, or making amends between family members. The stress associated with these negative events does not serve you, but rather consumes you, and needs to be eliminated from your existence.

• Recycle – We are all human beings, and as a result, this is not a one-time process and instead something that needs to be utilized and implemented on a regular basis in order to induce sustained change.

Life as a Puzzle

It is important that you clearly understand the quote by Denis De Rougamont because this captures the essence of acceptance as it is IMPOSSIBLE, to be happy until we accept what took place in our past. Remember, life is a puzzle, one that has millions of pieces which represent experiences that have taken place in your world. Similar to how a puzzle needs all of its pieces to be complete, your life needs all of the experiences for you to grow and establish your personal BRANDENTITY. Some of these experiences will be ones that you cherish for a lifetime, and others will represent areas of your life that you resent, such as a difficult upbringing, arguments with in-laws, a horrible marriage, or mistakes from the past. But what I encourage you to realize is that until you learn to accept what you are still holding onto, there will be no room for positive experiences in the NOW. So remember, the semantics of the term acceptance mean nothing because the Power Of Acceptance will enable you to travel down the Path Of Achievement, to a place where opportunities become endless, happiness is a virtue and your BRANDENTITY is revealed.

What area of your life can you begin using your POA?

What does this mean to you? Please leave a comment.

Acknowledgements for picture 1 and picture 2 from Flickr.

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