Who’s Pulling My Strings?: How I Learned to Free the Puppet and Feel Safe to Be Me - Softcover

Kirkland, Mardi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1452592721 ISBN 13: 9781452592725

Verlag: BalboaPress, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

When Mardi Kirkland resigned from a corporate management career to start her own business, she told herself she was a macho woman who could accomplish anything. Suddenly instead, she was confronted with a far stronger belief about herself that threatened to sabotage her every move. While this awareness was shocking, she realized it had been running the show most of her life.
 
While wanting to be an authentic person, she, instead, was consumed with thinking and saying what she thought others wanted to hear. She had no clue what being authentic looked like.

Willing to do "whatever it takes," Mardi embarked on a personal journey to discover what had gotten her to this place, to heal her wounds, and create a new life based on self-love, acceptance, and joy.
 
"Who's Pulling My Strings" takes the reader beyond theory and lists of things to do to change your life.  It shows you what it will be like to take these life-changing steps, and what to do when obstacles seem to be blocking your path.

As you travel with Mardi on her journey, you feel like she is also your companion on the expedition to your inner universe, understanding your fears, encouraging you to touch your core and find your heart.  Mardi talks with you as if the two of you are sitting in your living room having an intimate conversation.  

KIRKUS REVIEW
2016-12-12

A woman seeks to free herself from the lingering effects of a tumultuous past in this debut memoir.
When Kirkland confronted a change of career--from territory manager of a Fortune 100 company to beauty consultant with Mary Kay--she confided to a friend, "I can't fail...because then everyone will know I'm no good." It was a shocking revelation, and she began seeking answers that would help her achieve a sense of emotional wholeness. She first explored her childhood, during which she says her authoritarian parents taught her to fear a harsh God; she realized that this ultimately stifled her positive energy and convinced her she was "no good." She writes that these feelings led her into two failed marriages in which she felt "unloved and unlovable," and that they also motivated her to seek success as a way to cover up her insecurities. However, this book focuses less on her emotional trials and more on her recovery. Drawing on information from various workshops, books, and personal experiences, she details her coping strategies, such as studying her past and its consequences, reframing unhealthy thought processes, validating and exploring negative emotions, and learning to forgive others. One of the memoir's most appealing qualities is Kirkland's excitement as she shares successes in her healing process. The book could have been trimmed down, as it repeats many ideas in different chapters. Overall, though, it flows very easily, offering astute commentary and excellent imagery. Readers may find that not all the coping strategies resonate with them, particularly the unconventional ones, such as having conversations with different parts of oneself or considering how one's birth story affected one's later life. However, there are many insightful ideas that readers may find beneficial, such as using criticism to learn about oneself and finding compassion for wrongdoers by considering their upbringings. Although Kirkland's specific background is unique, the principles she shares are universal and worth a read.

An engaging collection of coping principles for soul-searching readers.

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Who's Pulling My Strings?

How I Learned to Free the Puppet and Feel Safe to Be Me

By Mardi Kirkland

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2016 Mardi Kirkland
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-9272-5

Contents

Introduction, ix, 
Chapter 1: Where Am I?, 1, 
Chapter 2: How Did I Get Here?, 5, 
Chapter 3: What Do I Do Now That I Know?, 13, 
Chapter 4: What Was I Thinking?, 16, 
Chapter 5: How Does This "Thought Power" Work?, 22, 
Chapter 6: The Truth in the Mirror, 27, 
Chapter 7: Victim Or Creator?, 34, 
Chapter 8: Finding The Thinker, 44, 
Chapter 9: Uncovering The Big Lie, 49, 
Chapter 10: What Do I Do With These Feelings?, 61, 
Chapter 11: You Want Me To Feel What?!, 66, 
Chapter 12: Calling Up My Courage, 73, 
Chapter 13: I Feel Angry, 88, 
Chapter 14: Mourning Losses, 97, 
Chapter 15: What About The Shame?, 105, 
Chapter 16: How Do I Heal?, 115, 
Chapter 17: Why Do We Resist Change?, 122, 
Chapter 18: Is It Fear Or Is It Love?, 127, 
Chapter 19: The Cleanup, 131, 
Chapter 20: Disarming My Critic, 142, 
Chapter 21: Emotional Giant, 155, 
Chapter 22: Learning To Forgive, 163, 
Chapter 23: No Strings Attached!, 174, 

CHAPTER 1

Where Am I?

Freedom at last, I thought as I walked out of my office in Southern California for the last time. For the past ten years I'd been climbing the ladder of a Fortune 100 company, feeling financially secure and successful, and at the same time unfulfilled and inhibited by corporate regime. Being the only female Territory Manager in the company (which at that time was unusual) and a well-respected rising star, I thought I was truly a woman who could do anything. Now I was going to prove it.

Two weeks earlier I had entered the office of my boss and good friend, opened my briefcase, pulled out a bottle of champagne and two glasses, announcing "We're going to celebrate." Popping the cork, filling the glasses and exclaiming, "Congratulate me," I handed him my letter of resignation. "I'm doing what you and I have talked about for years. I am getting out of here, and I'm going into business for myself."

Some part of me had been pushing to get me out of corporate America for a long time. I believed the stress of the job that I didn't enjoy, and the hours I spent in traffic on LA freeways were killing me. I told myself I had to leave this meaningless rat race and find something fulfilling, or I would die – literally die. At this point my desperation was extreme, and I probably would have grabbed at any opportunity that looked halfway decent to me.

My decision was to return to my former business venture as a beauty consultant with Mary Kay Cosmetics. Prior to the confidence shattering experience of my divorce ten years earlier, I had been moderately successful. But I then decided I needed the security of a real job and a regular paycheck. Now, after ten years in the corporate world, I had an enormous ego convincing me I was destined for overnight success -- for sure I'd be driving a pink Cadillac within six months. "You'll show those people who think you're crazy leaving your sure thing with a regular paycheck, bonuses and company car. Most especially, you'll show your family how great you are," my ego crowed.

Three days later, beginning the first day of my new life, I felt anything but confident, let alone powerful. My first Mary Kay presentation was scheduled for that evening, and I was paralyzed, gripped by a fear I couldn't understand. I felt petrified.

A phone conversation that afternoon irrevocably altered the course of my life. "Hey, I just called to congratulate you on your bold move," my friend in New Jersey said as I answered the phone. Thanking her, I then admitted how I was feeling.

"Do you remember Frank, my client/friend we had dinner with a few times when I was still living in Southern California?" she replied.

"Yeah, I remember Frank -- a nice guy we called a friendly cynic," I said.

"Yes, well I just talked to him today for the first time in six months," she answered, "and it was like talking to a different person. He told me about some kind of personal growth training he was involved with that changed his life. Why don't you give him a call? I don't know what it is, but I have this feeling that maybe he could help you."

I hadn't seen or talked to Frank in three years. I didn't know if he would recall our past meetings, but in that moment's despair, I probably would have called anybody. I did feel a little silly calling a guy who I wasn't sure would remember me, let alone want to listen to me talk about feeling scared to death.

"Remember me?" I asked hesitantly when he answered my call. He did, and I told him our mutual friend suggested I call him after telling her I was feeling terrified because of the life change I'd just made.

"I just quit my job, and I'm in business for myself selling Mary Kay Cosmetics. I thought that after all my accomplishments in the corporate world, this would be the easiest thing I've ever done -- that I would immediately be a huge success. Instead, I feel like I can't move." The words tumbled out rapidly, and I felt embarrassed.

When I paused, Frank asked, "Well, what's the worst that can happen?"

I thought for a moment, my terror escalating. "I-I could fail," I stammered.

"So you fail, and then you sell your house, move to Hawaii and wait tables in a cool restaurant on the beach. It's not a big deal."

"You just don't understand, I CAN'T FAIL." Clearly he doesn't see this is a life and death matter. After going back and forth a few times, me repeating I can't fail, and Frank trying to convince me it didn't matter, Frank dropped his voice to a very soft pitch.

He gently asked, "You can't fail because?"

I sat on the floor in the living room of the home I loved and was so proud to own -- a material symbol of my success I'd worked so hard to achieve. Leaning against the sofa, tears streamed from my eyes, rolling down my cheeks. "I can't fail," I almost whispered, "because then everyone will know I'm no good."

I was shocked as the words tumbled out of my mouth. Shocked -- and yet at the same time I was aware of a feeling that was very familiar. In that instant I knew these were the words I had been saying to myself inside my mind my entire life. Little did I know I had lived my life up until then as a puppet – allowing anyone and everyone to pull the strings, rarely pulling my own. Only in this instant did I become aware. In a moment I went from being a woman who told herself she had everything, to knowing I was a woman who had nothing because I didn't have me.

My journey was destined to begin whether I knew it or not. Once my truth was out in the open, the healing trek began. It wasn't easy. Acknowledging that I believed I was no good was a pain I could hardly bear. Simultaneously, this pain was also a blessing, for it provided me with constant motivation to do whatever it took to heal myself.

No wonder it mattered so much what other people said and thought about me. When I thought of myself as unacceptable, what other choice was there but to look outside of me for validation? There was none coming from within. This is a definition for puppet that needs to be included in the dictionary.

Then there was the "D" word, denial. They say denial works best with the person doing the denying. I had buried the truth of what I believed, hid it from myself, and projected these beliefs on to others...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: BalboaPress
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1452592721
• ISBN 13: 9781452592725
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 194
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: KreGa Onlinehandel GmbH; 4950000000000; info@krega-onlinehandel.de; ; Birkenweg 31; Brakel; 33034; Deutschland