Twenty-Eight Journeys

I have read countless books, watched countless movies and have
attended countless seminars on the power of positive thinking. I have written down and read out loud a million times a day positive affirmations such as, I am prosperous, I am happy, healthy and wise, all my dreams come true and I am a woman of worth, the list goes on and on and on and still nothing changed, my conditions were the same and the reason my conditions were the same is because I didn’t believe about myself what I was affirming, I was lying!  
What most teachers fail to tell us is how to believe these wonderful things about ourselves so the magic works. We are taught to believe these wonderful things but nobody ever tells us HOW to believe these wonderful things.  They say, “Act as If”, or see things from the end, or repeat these sentences long enough and you will believe and then all your dreams come true.” I knew these things were true but I didn’t know how to get from this place to that place. It was like I could see the promise land, I knew that I knew it existed because I could see it and feel it and I wanted it, but I didn’t know how to reach it. It was as if I were standing on a river bank and could see the other side but there was no bridge to carry me across to the other side. I was frustrated and actually believed that God was being sadistic with me in allowing me to see this ever so close, non-reachable promise land. I really believed that if I affirmed enough, visualized enough, walked the walk enough and talked the talk enough, I would eventually reach my beloved promise land and then when it didn’t happen, I was sure it was because I was not good enough, that the laws of the universes worked for everyone but me, somehow I was exempt from such grace.  
This work book is about seeing that bridge that leads you to the other side of the river bank, the promise land. The bridge is there, I promise you but you have to adjust your eyes and look deep within yourself to see it and once you see it; your life will never be the same. I call this a working book verses a work-book because you will be working on you and you will be using this book as a tool to work on you.  You will need a journal and will be writing down thoughts and feeling. You will be asking yourself point blank questions and answering them. Do not take the task ahead of you lightly, commit right now with your whole heart to invest in yourself, be important enough to yourself to walk through your own soul even if you don’t feel important. There is no skipping steps, no rushing through the working book to get to the end, this isn’t a race, it’s about the healing of yourself, it’s about saving yourself from the damage done by others, it’s about coming into your own and discovering the wonderful person you really are.  Right now you may not believe or be able to see your greatness but during your journeys into the soul, I promise you, you will know your own greatness.

So what changed for me? How did I go from affirming until I was blue in the face to being free? How did I see the bridged to the promise land that was always there? I got perfectly honest with myself. I came to the conclusion that being honest with me was the only thing I didn’t try. Drawing this conclusion was also a bit frightening; after all, what was my honest? What did I, Cheryl Rene’ Steele really believe? I knew what other’s taught me to believe whether they did it consciously or unconsciously but really, what did I believe? I had no idea and that is where I started. I’ve found that asking myself questions in the form of writing them in my journal and then writing out the answers is an amazing tool that will lead you straight to your truth, whatever that truth is.
What the teachers and the greats of positive thinking say are true, “as a man/woman thinks, so they are.”  However, you can’t travel from America to France without getting on a plane and taking the journey. We don’t just doink from one place to the next like we’re Mr. Spok in beam me up Scotty, we must travel and that is what we’ll be doing together, traveling. We will travel into truth and sometimes our truths aren’t all that pretty and that’s okay. We will travel through what we were taught to believe, what we really believe and what we want to believe and how to go from where we are right now to where we want to be. There is no sense is pretending any longer that we are at a place where we are not, so let’s figure out where we are exactly and go from there. So let’s get honest!!