N*gg*r

Be the author of your own story. This is Think Correctly Principle #1 taught in Think and Make It Happen, by Dr. Augusto Cury.

Every person and event in my life has influenced my thinking, consciously or not, thus making a contribution--positive or negative--to who I am--my "self". According to Dr. Cury, my "self" is my identity--my ability to analyze situations, think critically, make choices, exercise my free will, correct my course, establish goals, manage emotions, and govern thoughts.

Despite the human mind being the most beautiful organism in nature, says Dr. Cury, it easily acquires "conflict" such as inferiority complexes, timidity, depression, insecurity, etcera--especially when we don't assume responsibility for what happens within us. Too often we passively watch our own lives being played out on the stage in our minds, believing ourselves powerless to write the script or direct the actors (our conscious thoughts), and to be our own leading players.

Jesus is Dr. Cury's model of a healthy-minded individual who authored his own story. Jesus was successful and at peace in his mission, certainly not because his life lacked conflict, but because he did not allow the conflict to direct him or to define who he was.

Think and Make It Happen is a book I didn't want to read. I signed up for the Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers program recently and enjoyed reviewing my first Thomas Nelson book, Billy, about the relationship between Billy Graham and Charles Templeton. When it came time to choose a second book to review, my only choices were several children's and young adult titles, or Think and Make It Happen. I'm not a fan of the self-help genre, but I chose to review this book for the experience and with the hope that next time I'd get to read a book I cared about. With that negative attitude, the book began slowly for me.

When I gain insights in reading, I underline. On page 16, I read the line, "The mind becomes ill every time it doesn't act in its own favor." From there on, I've underlined and circled Dr. Cury's wisdom liberally throughout the book, all the time focusing on the unfortunate mental condition of someone I love who has variously been diagnosed with schizophrenia, manic depression, and OCD, but who has refused treatment for many years. I thought my new glimmers of hope regarding this person's case were going to be the focus of my review.

Then I had an epiphany about my own thinking. Because of Dr. Cury's insights, I've suddenly connected seemingly disparate dots into a more complete picture of myself.

Dot #1: Most of my life, I've been aware that I am not living up to my potential.

Dot #2: Only within the last five years have I become fully aware of the feeling I've lived with most of my life that I am "not good enough". When I became aware of this feeling, I first blamed my parents and my late husband for things they'd said or done to hurt me. Then I decided my feeling of inadequacy was my own fault for not having achieved my potential.

Dot #3: My mother says I was a bold, fearless, commanding and talkative toddler. This week I've been visiting with my two and a half year old nephew Marcus (and his parents), who also fits that description. Watching Marcus' behavior brought back the thought which occasionally haunts me--how did that toddler my mother described turn into a painfully shy child who went all through elementary school speaking barely above a whisper and hoping that no one noticed her? Even in early adulthood I did not like being watched. No one who has met me recently would believe I'd ever been shy, but still I wondered about that long ago negative transformation.

Dot #4: My earliest memory is of being called "nigger". I was four years old and walking alone on the quiet street where I lived, when two older boys on bikes blocked my path, and one of these strangers told me to "get out of our way, nigger." I haven't thought of this incident often. I took that boy, Chester, down with one punch three years later when he tried to steal the Easter basket I'd made in school, and I've told this second story much more often than I've brought up the "nigger" incident, which I shared just barely as a comment to a recent post on John Shore's Suddenly Christian blog.

Dr. Cury's book gave me the tools to connect these four dots.

Suddenly it's obvious to me that being faced with Chester's irrational hatred (and physical threat) at the age of four planted a seed of fear that grew into a weed of insecurity, fertilized by every other perceived threat or criticism I received along the way. At the age of five, I was once again caught off guard and with only my younger friend Sidney along on a short stroll in the suburbs, by three much older kids who had a gun that looked real to me. They called Sidney "Jewboy" and me a nigger and questioned what we were doing in their neighborhood. They told us to run back to Sidney's house or be killed and I wanted to spit at Sidney for crying. I refused to run even though I was afraid I'd be shot in the back.

I realize now that I began to withdraw my natural personality then and became "shy" to avoid more trauma.

Dr. Cury says an important task in authoring our own stories is to direct our thoughts. We can direct our thoughts by using his DCD technique--Doubt any thought that disturbs us, Criticize the validity of negative thoughts rather than passively accepting them, and Determine to be happy, secure, and strong.

The Doubt-Criticize-Determine process has to be done in that order. Determination to be happy does no good until I break the hold of negative thoughts on my life. But I can't break the hold of negative thoughts until I understand from where they stem.

I had assumed I felt "not good enough" because I hadn't lived up to my potential, but all along it was the other way around. Now I know what happened, thanks to Dr. Cury.

Thanks to God, I came across this book against my will and now I am free not to allow the past to determine my future any longer, free to be more like Jesus. This is what we in the church call deliverance.