498 | Lies Villains Tell Themselves

Chris LoCurto 0:00
Part Four of examining our lives to find the lies we tell ourselves that is coming up next.

Chris LoCurto 0:17
Welcome to the Chris LoCurto's show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are. In today's episode, we are finishing up a series that takes a look at the lies that victims and villains tell themselves. The point is for us to face the wounds and weaknesses that we all have inside once again, as I've said in previous episodes, this isn't about pointing out victims and villains. This isn't about judging. This is about discovering. Which one are we if not both? What do we do about it? How do we self examine, discover, and then do something about it. So finally, we're getting to some of the good stuff here. But if you if you didn't hear part one of this episode on villains, then I encourage you to go back to Episode 497, as it sets up the context for today. So here's the deal. without examining our lives, thoughts and actions, we tend to get stuck in harmful and distorted thinking patterns. You've heard me say that, won't you listen to all of these episodes, you've heard me say that over and over and over again. We've all struggled with untrue recorded memos in our heads, and often set to loop and repeat. That's where self awareness comes in. It acts as a spotlight illuminating our thinking. It's helping us to identify where we're being deceived or deceiving ourselves, where we're holding ourselves back where we're blocked by these ridiculous lies that we tell ourselves and belief. I mean, it's not just one thing to tell yourself a lie.

It's you have to believe it, for it to have an impact. Right? So what do we do about it? Well, we got to get self aware, self awareness is ultimately about acknowledging, it's about confronting, and it's about getting healing from the things that we're experiencing. So if we can acknowledge and confront it, we can do something about it. That's one of the big things that we help people to do. The next level life is to discover these lies, and then get the tools on what to do about it right. All the wounds and trauma that distract us from finding our purpose and growing in life, is what we need to solve what we need to heal from. That is where we need healing, right? So go back and listen to episode 467. What does your best life look like to dig into deeper purpose? It's a great episode to focus on purpose. And speaking of episodes, let me pause and mention that we are coming up on our 500th episode of the crystal kernel show. That's right 500 episodes, thank you to you guys. You are who make this happen, you are who we do this for it's over nine years of helping people get unstuck in life and in business, how to have great relationships, how to be a better leader, how to be a better team member, how to own a better business, to celebrate the fact that we keep growing and we keep helping people and we we keep seeing them embrace the life and leadership that they really want. We're giving away for free stuff. Yep, that's right for the month of November, you can go to Chris a crypto.com/ 500, that's 500 and answer a few questions that will help us bring you more amazing content, and sign up for your chance to win some great prizes. So just go to Crystal crystal.com/ 505 00. Today, sign up, get your chance to win some great stuff. Now, back to self awareness, self awareness leads us to greater understanding that is, that is such a powerful thing for us to have when we we have greater understanding about ourselves how we act, react, give information, receive information, respond to situations respond to circumstances, all these things that when we have a greater self awareness, we can do something about it, right? So it starts with understanding in becoming more self aware, we learn to understand what's happening in the moment. If we can stop in the moment, that's that's the difficult part. Right? Some people can't stop in a moment to become self aware.

You will find this especially with folks who really struggle with defensiveness and self protection, that stopping in the moment is incredibly difficult. Can you stop and go wait a second, what's going on? What am I experiencing what's you know, what, what am I doing? What's happening to get some understanding? So maybe you can change? Maybe you can do something differently? Right? That's the big key. How do we stop in the moment and where does that lead us when we do more control? Then we can start to control Our responses, we can start to calm our emotions we can, we can make better decisions in the moment. So you've heard me say it, you've heard other people say control is an illusion, I can't control others, but I can control me. And I can control my responses. I love this quote from Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl, between stimulus and response, there is space, in that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. Think about that, you have space people, we all have space, if we will just recognize that that space exists, and make a decision, not maybe not even don't respond so quickly. Maybe just spend some time ruminating on what it is that you should respond with. If we will stop in that space, we can make better decisions. Now we've mentioned before that a lot of what we suffer in life is brought about by our imagination. That is always something that we have to recognize many times fear struggle, response comes from us imagining what could happen, or what might happen or what's happening in the moment. Right. So those are things that we need to overcome when we get back, gaining perspective and getting power over the lies of villain mentality. Freedom, it's

Unknown Speaker 6:44
so powerful, I felt rejuvenated, almost renewed,I just felt so welcomed and loved and accepted for who I am, and not an ounce of judgment. So I was very comfortable there that had a really big impact on me, that's going to be worth it. It's going to be hard. But it's going to be even better. On the other side. For me, it was just, it was just very refreshing. And I want to say lifegiving. For me, it really was, you know, I would go through next level life again, and probably again, and probably again, because it's so powerful.

Chris LoCurto 7:19
If you want to experience the same kind of life transformation, the same kind of self awareness and freedom that they have. Or maybe you're just curious what the process would look like for you, then head on over to Chris accardo.com/next level life.

Chris LoCurto 7:38
Seneca once said, we suffer more in our imagination more often than in reality, folks by taking a look at this kind of self inflicted suffering, because that's exactly what it is. We're inflicting this type of pain on ourselves, and we don't need to, we can clearly see the difference between the made up and the real. If we can come to a place of recognizing we can find that space we can, we can choose our response, we can find more freedom. And here's a few reasons why we form these distorted thinking patterns and then suffer from them. Number one, lies get constructed and rehearsed. When we're still young, oh, gosh, that's painful. Hey, parents, think about what I just said. Right? all you parents out there. If you're struggling with having to be perfect in front of your kid, if you can't let your kids see that you're vulnerable, if you can't let your kids see you fail, guess what? There's a whole lot of lies that are being constructed in their minds right now a whole lot of lines that are being rehearsed. And it's lies that they're going to be telling themselves for a very long time. All right, I had a great friend of mine, came down and brought his his daughter with him to the ridge. And as we were working on some stuff down here, and it was phenomenal to watch him not know something, and let his daughter teach him and walk through this process of him. You know, saying I don't know she's teaching me how to do this thing. I don't know what I'm doing. And allowed his daughter to actually see it's okay to not have the right answers. It's okay not to know everything. So things you need to recognize as a parent.

Be fallible. You already are. You're already fallible. Let your kids see it. Let them see your mistakes. Let them see a response of oh my gosh, I screwed that up. Let me take responsibility and fix it. Instead of nope, no mistakes here. haven't done anything wrong. Not going to show you that I've screwed up. Right. Help them to see number two. They become part of our root system that helps us to cope as a Use my air quotes. Many times the lies that come from our training and the things that we've experienced in our youth become part of our coping mechanisms. Unfortunately, that never ends, well, that never comes out the way we want it to. Instead, it comes out in terrible self protection, terrible defensiveness, manipulation, control all kinds of crap, right? Number three, they can result in us living in a fictitious, imaginary world, if you want through and listen to the the victim mentality side of things. And you get this you understand we even if you didn't listen to those episodes, you probably can understand this pretty quickly. When we live in lies, we're living in imagination. What is fear? For me, there's two kinds of fear, literal fear, I'm being chased by a lion. I shouldn't be afraid of this. There's something wrong. eminent danger is about to happen, right? That's legit. The other fear which is makes up you know, 99%, or more of our fear is the what if this happens, but this could happen, maybe this will happen. It's the imagination, right? It's that fictitious imaginary world. Those are things we got to crush, we got to get rid of those number four. Sometimes we get pleasure from the pitting attention of others. Not just sound terrible. But how many times have you received pleasure by people paying attention to you by people pitting you, right? That needs to be something that when you see somebody pitying you or giving you attention, for a lie, or a victim mentality or villain mentality, that you crush that, that that is not something you desire, that that's something you push away very quickly. Number five, we reinforce our problems. By being overly self focused, Hey, you want to solve a bunch of this that we're talking about? Stop focusing on you stop being self centered, stop taking a look at only you and seeing all the things that are happening in your life. Focus on others, focus on serving others. And by the way, don't fall for this ridiculous message that's out there over the last few years of what self care is that the world is on your shoulders, and you take care of everybody and poor, you, you've got to spend all this time with yourself and taking care of you and doing things for you. And all these things that are all about you, you, you, you you. self care is not about making you number one. It's not it just isn't. self care is about making you healthy. If you are healthy, then you recognize you don't want to be number one, you don't want all this focus on yourself. You want to be able to pour out into others, but you have to do it in a healthy way. There is unfortunately, many people making a ton of money out there on this bad message about how the whole world is on your shoulders gonna take care of you. Everybody owes you guys, nobody owes you nothing. Right. So if you want to get out of a bunch of funk, a bunch of lies a bunch of bad mentality. Stop being so so focused, and you'll be amazed at how much it changes you now.

Chris LoCurto 13:38
As for villains, here are some surface motivations, maybe check and see if you resonate with any of these. Sometimes we internalize trauma we've received from others. So sometimes we take some pretty crappy situations, some pretty bad stuff that's happened in our lives, and we internalize it, guess what's going to happen? Eventually that's going to come out on somebody else, somebody somewhere. One of the important things to understand about abusive people is there's a lot of times that an abusive person has a much more abusive person in their history and their childhoods somewhere back in there that abuse the daylights out of them. When you were trying to rip control from somebody else it's not because you all of a sudden just decided you wanted to rip control from somebody else. Most likely it's because somebody spent a good deal of time ripping control from you. Another thing is sometimes we release like a like a pressure gauge pent up stress on others. I have been there where I have held stuff in for so long Hello fellow HIE s is out there. You know we all do this.

The high is that you you know pack pack, pack, pack pack, pack it down, pack it down, pack it down until I can't take it anymore. And then like a pressure gauge boom. And then people are like what's wrong with that person will quit. Pushing, quit being a jerk, you'll be surprised at how much you know, sometimes some people will hold a ton in because they're trying not to respond back or the child doesn't mean that it's healthy, you're not hearing me say it's healthy, and you're not hearing me justify it. But I've experienced that where I've, you know, pushed, push, push stuff down for so long. And then just man, at some point couldn't take it anymore, right? You know, especially the, the blaming and the guilting. And all that kind of crap. Anybody who comes from any type of guilting background, or you're the problem for people, when you're actually never the problem, then you understand what I'm talking about, stop guilting the living daylights out of somebody, right? Sometimes that will blow up. A lot of times people release like a pressure gauge, because they have a lot of anger that they're holding down. You know, you see some more, maybe our dominant personality styles might be shoving stuff in, and then eventually it just comes out. And you know, it's it just explodes on other people. Another thing is, sometimes we focus on what we want and need way more than on other people. Guys, I'm gonna tell you as a believer in God, as a Christ follower, that we're not supposed to make this world about us. It's just not supposed to be about us. We are supposed to love ourselves and take care of ourselves, right, but we're supposed to be focused on God and focused on other people as well. If we will put God first. And we will solve other people and help other people, then guess what we're going to be taken care of as well. When we focus a heck of a lot on ourselves, our own wants and our own needs, it just blows up in our face, it becomes something that becomes a problem. Because then we see all the things that are wrong and all the things that we're missing and all the things we don't have. So if you can relate to any of those, then you don't want to miss this next part. Today we'll wrap this up with five ways that villains and heroes are different. And we're going to use Jesus's parable Yeshua as his Hebrew name of the Good Samaritan or Sumerian, the T shouldn't actually be in there. But it is the Good Samaritan as our standard by which to judge by so let's go to Luke 10. Where you are reading from Luke 10, as an expert in Jewish law wanted to justify himself so he asked Jesus, and who is my neighbor in reply, Jesus said, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. When he was attacked by robbers, they stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road. And when he saw them in, he passed by on the other side, so to a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him passed by on this other side as well. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was, and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put them out on his own donkey, brought them to an end and took care of them. The next day, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. Look after him, he said, and when I returned, I will reimburse you for any extra expenses you may have. Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? The expert in the law replied, The one who had mercy on him. Jesus told him go and do likewise. Okay, so let's take some cues from Jesus and talk about villains and heroes. And by the way, something that's very important, if you do not know who a Samaritan was, we always say the Good Samaritan. Well, in the eyes of the people of that day, the Samaritans were considered to be essentially enemies, because they had assimilated in with other people and they weren't following the same ways. And so a Samaritan was considered to be an enemy, a priest, was supposed to be of the same line of people a Levite. Same kind of concept. So what Yeshua was talking about what Jesus is talking about is, here is a man who is considered an enemy that had mercy on somebody who considers him an enemy right. So let's let's jump in here and take some cues five differences between villains and heroes. Number one, villains take advantage of others for their own benefit for power trip, gosh, even sometimes for entertainment. Heroes leverage their energies, their resources, and abilities for the good of others.

If we look at Philippians, two, four, it says, Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourself long enough to lend a helping hand, folks. What do you hear? Who do you want to be? Even if you don't want to consider your yourself, you know, take out the word villain or hero. Just look at the difference. Do you want to take advantage of people for your own benefit for power trip for entertainment? Or would you like to take a look at the resources that you have? And use it for the good of others? What does that look like? I'm not saying give every single thing away you got take care of other people, but it's not a bad idea. Right? How can you take what you have? You know, one of the things we quote all the time as as believers is, you know, when you shoot when Jesus has asked, What's the greatest commandment, he says, Love Your Lord with all your heart, soul? And the word believe it or not, is resources. Resources, love God with everything that you got. Right? What does it look like to take? Every aspect might not just my money, cheese money is just money, right? What does it look like to take my family and use my family for good? What does it mean to take, you know, opportunities that I have and use them for good, my, my stuff, my vehicles, my whatever my possessions? What does it look like to take those and use those for good number two, villains lack the self awareness to know when their words and actions are affecting other people. Heroes recognize the impact of their words and actions on people around them. They understand that unity and peace are more valuable than being right. If we're looking at Ephesians four, it says, Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Listen to me. Listen to me. If you are unaware of how your actions, your attitude, your defensiveness, your self protection is affecting other people. It's because you are so stuck on yourself right now. And so out of control, that you can't see how you're affecting other people. Villains lack the self awareness to be able to go, Oh my gosh, I am completely out of control right now. And it's affecting other people. And I need to I need to, you know, rein it in. I need to lock it down. I need to do something about this right now. Because I am so out of control that instead of stopping myself, I am spewing on somebody else, right. I am controlling or affecting somebody else in a very negative way. Heroes don't do that. Right. The person who is selfless I hate to use the word hero, but that's the word that we're using today. Right? Let me say selfless, selfless people recognize the impact of their words and their actions on people around them. And they strive for unity and peace. Number three, villains seek to dominate others, because they've not learned to dominate themselves. Woof, woof. Well, heroes seek to keep their own selves under control and to deny their own desires. Proverbs 25 says a man without self control is like a city that has been broken into and left without protective walls. ancient wisdom says, Man conquers the world by conquering himself. For folks, if you have any desires to dominate another person, that is a fantastic red flag of how out of control you're feeling in life.

Chris LoCurto 23:30
And how not self aware you are on what you're doing? And what's the what's the real reason behind it, right. So make sure there's no point. Don't try to control others. Control of others is an illusion. You can control you your feelings, thoughts, and select your emotions. But I can't control anybody else. I can only highly suggest that they feel or think a certain way. So think about this for a second. I can't control you and make you feel unworthy. I can't make you feel not good enough. I can't make you feel stupid, dumb. insecure. I could only highly suggest that you feel that way. And if it works, and you take it and run with it, well then I've accomplished what I I've been trying to accomplish right? Villains do that. Don't be that person. Number four. Villains uncover and exploit other people's wounds and weaknesses. Making things worse. Oh, yeah, I hate this. Word so much sucks, right? When you you've seen people who can recognize the weaknesses. I I just don't think this way and I am so glad to see people who don't think this way. But I have watched people who could recognize those weaknesses or those wounds and other people and just rip them apart. Just rip it even further open. I don't get it. I don't get it but it's insecurity Right, they feel so much better when they've done that to somebody else. Heroes seek to reconcile and forgive, they seek to restore, they seek to heal, they seek to serve others, again, the Good Samaritan bandage the wounds and helped to bring about healing. And he did it at his own expense as well. So, number five villains lash out in order to cover up their own wounds and weaknesses. Heroes seek to reconcile and forgive, they seek to restore, heal and serve others. First Peter, for therefore be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers, above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love conquers a multitude of sins.

Guys, if you're trying to cover up and protect and every one of us have done this, every one of us have had a moment of bad decision making or mistakes that have happened. And immediately what happens is that thought runs through your mind, how do I cover this up? How do I make sure that nobody knows this? Right? Every single one of us has experienced that the thing is, is what do you do about it? How fast do you tell yourself that stupid? I'm not defined by this mistake. I'm not going to lose worth to this mistake. I'm going to solve the mistake. I'm going to fix this thing, right? I'm going to do what I can. selfless people seek to reconcile and forgive, they seek to restore. They seek to heal, they seek to serve other people. So that is where we should be, if we will love and we will love well, it covers up a multitude of sins. So like Michael Jackson saying, maybe it's time to take a look at the man in the mirror or the woman in the mirror. I'm going all going all 80s In this series here. Without self examination without owning and accepting our own faults and failures. We're never never never, never never going to grow into the selfless person that were called to be. You know, again, we've used the term hero. I really liked selfless. Right? The more selfless I am the more hero like I am right. So both for ourselves and as well for others. Well, folks, hopefully that has helped you today. Hopefully you're able to take this information really self examine really self assess, see where you are, see where the struggles are. Go through and find out you know, hit all four episodes and find out what you relate to. And then start putting the tools in place to solve this. So you can not be either a victim or a villain, but instead a selfless loving, caring person, Child of God. That's all we've got for today. Folks, I hope that you have enjoyed this please put it into good use in your life and others. As always, we want you to take this information change your leadership, change your business, change your life. And join us upon the next episode.