Truth Focus Statements

Question: I know that one can rewrite Truth Focus Statements, but overall, I see that the Truth Focus Statements are about, “I need to be more patient, I need to be more kind…”  And I’m wondering about those of us who have been on the receiving end of all this harshness and all this really bad behavior and we might have trouble setting boundaries.  And we’re always being too patient, meaning putting up with really bad behavior.  So it’s a little confusing to me because all the Truth Focus statements are like, “I will wait for this…”   But that’s our problem in the first place.  We’re always waiting and putting up with bad behavior.

Dr. Alex Loyd:  Right.  That’s a great question.  Let me address it as best I can.  The first thing you said is absolutely true.  We would prefer that you write your own Truth Focus Statement because you’re the only one that knows exactly what you need.  And for those of you who have the Advanced Training material, you can do that really easily.  You can create a Truth Focus Statement and then test it to see if it’s a really good one for you or if you should come up with a better one and then test it again until you come up with exactly the one you need.  If you don’t have that, just go by what feels right.  99.9% of the time that will be right.

Let me address your other issue, too.  The Truth Focus Statements are not designed to be statements of what I need to do.  They are designed to be statements about what is true about different areas of your life.  For pretty much everybody.  So let’s take your example of patience.  I’ve worked with women – and I’m not saying at all this is your situation, I doubt it is – I’ve worked with women who have been abused by spouses, abused by parents, abused by boyfriends, some men that were abused by wives on the other hand.  But I do not consider it to be patient to continue to put up with abuse.  I consider that to be destructive.  We use the word “dysfunctional,” I don’t really like the word “dysfunctional.”  I think everybody is dysfunctional to some degree if you put us under the right light.  I do like the word “destructive.”  Because those are things that work against living a life of love and truth.

Yes, I think that when it comes to my wife, Tracey, who is a wonderful lady and who is a loving lady and wants to have a loving home and family and all of that, just like I do, I think I should be patient.  I think I need to be patient with her when we butt heads and when things don’t go my way and when she wants to do things differently than I do.  On the other hand, if I have someone who is hurting me in an abusive kind of way, that is not the place for patience.  To me, that is not even what patience means.  That is the place to do the loving thing, and the loving thing there is to get away and to not allow that person to keep abusing.  It’s the loving thing not only for you, but it’s the loving thing for the other person.  Because usually, as long as they are able to perpetuate a destructive cycle, they’re not going to be able to get help and potentially change.

So those are designed to be the truth, but depending upon the situation, it may not apply. You can’t put yourself in an abusive situation and say, “I will wait for the process of love to make this situation the way it should be.”  Which in other cases might be a decent Truth Focus Statement for patience.  But in this particular situation, it’s not the time for patience.  It’s time to get the heck out of there for everyone’s best interest.

Question (continued):  I get what you’re saying.  It’s just that there were all the statements…like in Kindness and in Patience…all the Truth Focus Statements were all about, you know, “I, myself am the one who should be kind and patient.”  I started to feel like, “Well, this book isn’t for me,” because I’m the one who was on the other end of the stick of people being violent.  So I just had a hard time relating to things like, “Knowing I’m loved by God makes me know I’m safe and protected.”  And if I’m working on childhood abuse, then I’m thinking, “Well, wait a minute, that doesn’t make sense to me, because I wasn’t protected then.”

Dr. Alex Loyd:  That’s right.  Then I would rewrite those.  And I completely agree with you.  And I would rewrite those to fit your experience.