A HYPOTHESIS OF EVERYTHING: YOU ARE HERE

Chapter 1: Your Psyche and the Hero of Your Story

PART 5 of 5

You’re killing your hero, and my guess is that if you’re still listening or reading, you want something different. Beginning the process of unleashing your hero and forging a pathway to a life of consistent confidence and contentment is simple but not easy. It requires grace and determination.

Here are 15 hero exercises:

1. Look people in the eyes when you say, “Thank you.” 
2. Practice smiling with your ENTIRE FACE. 
3. Look up. Practice lifting your head as you look up. You’ll experience immediate results in your attitude and positive outlook on life. And look up more often as you are walking.
4. Open doors for people without expecting gratitude or acknowledgment.
5. Breathe deeply five times and then relax. Repeat as desired.
6. Eliminate useless speech – complaining, gossiping, making excuses, lying, exaggerating, and being sarcastic. Notice that you might have a lot less to say than usual.
7. Enjoy beauty in ordinary things.
8. Explore your self-expression – whatever you love to do or want to love to do.
9. Celebrate small moments.
10. Notice your hygiene.
11. Move your body for at least 20 minutes every day.
12. Spend time in the sunlight if your situation, location, and weather permit it.
13. Give yourself adequate time to sleep.
14. Practice leaving things in better shape than you found them.
15. “Stop saying things that make you weak.” Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
    

Now notice how the fear identity’s core conversations of “Something is wrong here” and “I’m not good enough” show up when you see a list like this. These are NOT the fifteen commandments of being your hero. But be deliberate to practice a few of them and add more when you can.

Your body is designed to naturally release hormones that make you feel confident, happy, and loving. Your fear identity has no room for that. However, you still recognize and experience pleasant emotions when you participate in what I call “elements of connection”. Contribution, mercy, music, community, beauty, fun, and gratitude, which is practicing speaking the truth, are just a few. Elements of connection point you to something higher or more profound or encompassing. Your hero is attracted to them and becomes more present and powerful as you add them more frequently to your life. Here is a list of 100 common elements of connection that often feels like love:

Accepting

Accomplishment

Acknowledgment

Admiration

Adoration

Adventure

Art

Attention

Authenticity

Beauty

Belonging

Breathing deeply

Caring

Celebration

Cleanliness

Commitment

Communicating

Community

Compassion

Completion

Compliments / ing

Compromise

Confession

Confidence

Contemplation

Contentment

Contribution

Cooking/sewing/hobbies

Courage

Creativity

Dancing

Decorating

Discipline

Eating/drinking

Elegance

Embracing

Empowering

Empathy

Encouragement

Enthusiasm

Exercise 

Fantasy

Fellowship

Flirting

Forgiveness

Freedom

Fun/playing

Giving/gifting

Graciousness

Gratitude

Happiness

Honor

Humor

Innocence 

Integrity

Intimacy

Invitation

Joy

Kindness

Laughing

Leadership

Learning

Leisure/relaxation

Light/brilliance

Illumination

Listening

Meditation

Mercy

Music

Nature/outdoors

Order/organization

Participation

Partnership

Passion

Patience

Peace

Pets

Prayer/worship

Presence/being present

Productivity

Reading

Relatedness

Respect

Responsibility

Romance

Sacrifice

Satisfaction

Security

Self Expression

Service / ing

Sharing

Shopping

Simplicity

Success

Teaching

Touch

Truth-telling/hearing

Unity

Vision/purpose

Vulnerability

You’ll find some that you can adopt and use for yourself, but I encourage you to create your own list that best fits your hero.

Life isn’t about a destination or a series of destinations. Life is about the journey and shared experiences with other travelers on the path. You get only one path and one chance to walk that path, and it doesn’t last forever. By default, your fear identity is in control and will take you to the end. And people will put whatever they remember about your identity on your tombstone. Or you can choose to be the hero of your story instead.

The greatest struggle is the choice because your fear identity is the one choosing, and it doesn’t want to let go. But don’t worry, the fear protein will always be around. You’ll wake up with it and go to sleep with it. Egocentric entitlement, equity, and survival will forever haunt your dreams and every minute you spend in front of a mirror.

Your identity will never give you a life that you love, but your hero can. Take action. Make some declarations and talk to people that are close to you about your new intentions. BE the “happily ever after” of your story. Your friends will cheer, and some may be moved to tears to see how triumphant your hero is against the background of absolutely zero chance that you would ever find a life you love. Even though you’re not doing it for them – you’re doing it for yourself and your health. Still, everyone loves a good story of trauma, failure, struggle, redemption, connection, and happiness.