I read an article the other day that said most people have a "fear of failure" that holds them back. A lot of people believe that; I am not one of them. Others believe that many people struggle with fear of success. Author Marianne Williamson says; Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. I love that quotation. Really, I do. Especially the part about who are you NOT to be, because so many of us do question if we're good enough, skinny enough, rich enough, smart enough... I used to believe people are more afraid to succeed than to fail. But now, I'm not so sure. That darn "What the Bleep" movie has me questioning a LOT of things. You just wait until your father sees your report card... I read an interesting Gallup article about how we humans focus on weaknesses. In the article, parents were presented with this scenario: Say your child returns home with the following grades: an A in English, an A in social studies, a C in biology, and an F in algebra. Which of these grades would you spend the most time discussing with your son or daughter? 77% of parents spent the most time discussing the "F" and the least time discussing the "A's" Did your parents do that, too? For HOW many years? They also asked adults; ""Which do you think will help you improve the most: knowing your strengths or knowing your weaknesses?" The majority of adults said knowing their weaknesses was more important than knowing their strengths. Gee, I wonder where we got that idea? As adults, we all have things that make our heart race and our skin crawl. Thing that we are deeply afraid of. But are failure or success counted among them? Or are we just preconditioned, from childhood, to focus on what we did wrong more than what we did right? And if so, how can one ever build success on a foundation of weakness? : ) Linda P.S. I was inspired to write this after spending some time at Linda Miller's forum, and then reading her post to the "What the Bleep" thread. Do read White Elephants. It's excellent! If you want to read the article at Gallup that I referred to, it's here

I happened across the following from Freud: What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult. Preconditioning is a powerful factor in our belief systems. Its something that most people spend the rest of their lives trying to "undo".

Hi: ========================================== Preconditioning is a powerful factor in our belief systems. Its something that most people spend the rest of their lives trying to "undo". ========================================== Yup. It's a pity children don't come with a parenting manual. A lot of people believe that parenting is instinctive. I don't agree. I think the only part of parenting that *might* be instinctive is the desire to protect our kids from harm, and some people suck at that, too. Just read the news. But teaching kids how to use and grow their minds? Most people haven't a clue. 15-18 years of poor parenting creates some pretty strong synaptic paths in the brain. Then we get the "blamers" that want to point the finger. Billy abuses people because he, himself, was abused. Hogwash. There was a story in the news some time ago about a father and son who were both on death row for rape and murder. Interestingly, the father had TWO sons. The reporter interviewed both of them. The second son was a "pillar of the community" sort of guy. Good worker, good husband, good provider, good father, little league coach, etc. Both sons said the same thing; "When you look at my father, how could I be anything else BUT what I am?" Interesting stuff, the brain. : ) Linda

OUCH! Can you believe, 45 years later, that F in math still is the strongest memory I have of my school years? I spent the afternoon and evening high in a tree because I knew there would be a switch for me when I came down. I'm so grateful to have found a way of releasing the grief I've felt for years that my failures were always more important than my accomplishments to my parents. The odd thing is I didn't recognize it until it was "too late" to change the way I would be a parent. I know my parents always loved me and wanted the best for me. It's true that behavior can perpetuate through generations though. In spite of loving them and wanting the best for them, I parented my children the way I was parented until they were adults. (Except for the switches--that sort of thing went out of fashion.) Now, believing that it's really never too late, I have changed the way I react to my grown children's successes and disappointments. My kids are doing a better job of parenting than I did, and I'm doing a better job of parenting and grandparenting than I previously did. You ask, how can one ever build success on a foundation of weakness? Don't even try! Build a new foundation, of course. Cheri

Linda Thanks for the invitation For your failure story Linda http://www.m2cglobal.com/CraftieLinda http://www.cashmagic.biz/random/index.php?id=dutchpenny@btinternet.com