When I enrolled my son into Red River Academy in November, I was told about a series of seminars available to the parents to help heal the family. I thought them to be a set of parenting seminars and I am all for learning to be a better person or better parent. I was extremely excited and signed up for the first one I could get in my area. Then I started asking questions of other parents and staff – what is this seminar all about. Only to get the answer – go with an open mind and enjoy the journey. What in the world was I in for?

Well Discovery has happened and I am a new discovery graduate. I can tell you it is not a parenting seminar per se, it is not motivational seminar per se, and it is not group therapy session. So what is Discovery? It is all of this and so much more and I am honored to be asked to share my experience with you.

Discovery is just what the name implies, a discovery of your beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. It is you taking a look inside yourself to see what you have locked away, repressed, hidden, or not dealt with. It becomes clear during the weekend that these things have impacted our relationships with our families and friends, influenced our thoughts of others, and in many cases, held us back from reaching our potentials.

Discovery is also about learning new tools and techniques to problem solve; new ways to look at old beliefs, and new ways to communicate.

The biggest lessons that I learned were around choice and accountability. Choice is a concept that I have worked with for many years; after all, we all make choices right? But Discovery helped me see that choice and accountability are very closely related. I realized that while I made choices I was not able to account for the choices I was making. Rather I looked in the past at my choices and never stopped to look at the choices I was making (good or bad) while they were going on. As a result I reacted more and often did not like the choices that I made. I found that I lived in the past rather than living in the moment.

I was not accountable and thus I did not hold my children accountable. By not holding my children accountable for their choices I felt compelled to fix things for them or show them the way. Since they were never accountable for the results, they never learned they just expected to have dad step in and take care of things. I can tell you that my two boys at home are learning about accountability and we are seeing some signs that they are getting the message. I now hold them accountable for their school work and their chores. While it is not nirvana yet, they are starting to understand that their choices impact their experience with the rules of the house.

Another big change for me had to deal with my beliefs of unworthiness. Going into Discovery I firmly believed that I was an introvert because I would not openly reach out to people. I did not like talking with strangers and would rather spend time to myself. This created a lot of stress for me as I choose to work a job that puts me in front of strangers every day of the week. Well, my friends at Discovery saw through that and told me so. It opened my eyes and made me take my first hard look at myself during our first night.  On the 2nd day I really learned that my fear was really about getting close to people due to some negative experiences with my father, I always felt unworthy of his love while my brother was worthy of his love and acceptance. I realized that this negative relationship also impacted my ability to openly communicate with my older brother and any number of business contacts and family members in my life.

In the week since Discovery I have seen the relationship with many of my customers improve and I have had a newfound ability to share positive and negative feedback without fear or anxiety. I do feel that my new sense of worthiness has helped me have more confidence with unique business environments as well. My newly recovered since of worthiness has also helped me interact with my children better!

So my Discovery experience for the weekend is over but not finished. I have discovered more about myself than I thought there was to see. I took risks. I touched others and allowed myself to be touched on a new deeper emotional level as well as physically – I let myself get and give hugs! I discovered my genuine laugh and smile again. But I also discovered holes that needed to be filled; log jams that needed to be broken down; and I found my long lost magical child. Now the hard work begins, taking action and internalizing the messages; making the changes for my life to enable my family to be healthy.

I am a Worthy, Loving, Compassionate, Patient Man.