Amy Williams - Become the Author of Your Own Life: Take Responsibility Into Your Own Hands and Create Your New Reality

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

Adage based on the writings of Anne Ritchie (OToole, 2015)

Life is full of surprises. Some serendipitous. Others, atrocious. Some surprises, like a tasty treat, may stay with us for only a short time. Others, however, can stick with us for the rest of our lives.

Failure is a natural part of life. Unless youre an absolute genius, meaningful learning and experimentation simply isnt possible without risking the chance of being wrong, or making a mistake. Even if you are a genius, you may have found as you got older that your first real challenges seemed insurmountable until, again, you finally chose to risk failure for the sake of experimentation, learning, and progress.

How we deal with losses, failures, breakups, expectations, and other challenges during our childhood and teenage years can heavily influence the kind of adults we become. Some learn a way to consistent success, while others battle with depression, anxiety, chronic grief, and even a seemingly inescapable sense of helplessness.

The good news is that no matter how helpless you may feel right now, for as long as youre breathing you have the potential to become the author of your own life. Now, no two people have the exact same set of circumstances, but neither are they completely alone in their uniqueness; the aches and pains of the human condition are painted in broad strokes. This book starts with the broad, so that you have a clearer pathway to soothe the chronic and the acute. From there, the road to greater control in your life will become clearer to you as your sense of agency reinforces, and what previously seemed large and impossible finally becomes at least a little manageable.

This shall be done through helping you re-learn how to prioritize your wellbeing, to make strides towards greater independence in your life, to become more socially aware, and more.

Some of these may sound daunting at the beginning, but do not fret.

No matter what your reason for feeling anxious or helpless, I empathize with you completely, and we will go through things patiently together. Ive been a psychologist for over 20 years, and during that time I very suddenly found myself going through a difficult divorce, among other challenges. I had two children depending on me, not much money to live off, and no accommodations of my own. For a time, I had no choice but to turn to my grandmother for survival and, while I was grateful to at least have a roof over the heads of my offspring (not to mention my own!), being forced to go through that situation was a dangerous time for me psychologically. I recognized I was living in fertile ground for getting infected with Learned Helplessness and that, if I gave in, Id have a hard time bouncing back again. I knew then that what would solve my problem wasnt going to be a handout of money, a cheap housing offer or even a new, wealthier husband.

None of those things wouldve addressed the root of the problem: that in the blink of an eye, it felt as if Id lost the love of my life. As if Id lost any hope of a constant, healthy living arrangement. As if I was a failure as an adult for being forced to live with my grandmother again. I had a lot to work through. In times of stress, its natural to turn to people for emotional support, but I was adamant Id never completely rely on them for it, lest I forget how to emotionally support myself. Obviously, using material goods as a Band-Aid for my psychological wounds wasnt going to cut it either.

So I sought out teachers. I reached out to the patient, the kind, and the caring but not in the hope of them being my new financial or emotional support beams. Instead, I made an effort to start seeing the people I trusted not as crutches to hobble along on, but rather as wellsprings of information and perspective that I could use to improve myself and, through this, deal with my issues on my own terms.

In time, I found closure in my failed relationship, I found greater purpose within myself, and I found a renewed sense of security in my living conditions, and all of this would continue to remain true no matter who or what came or went from my life.

You see, a good teacher does not encourage you to become dependent on him or her. Rather, a good teacher wants nothing more than to empower you, and shows you all the knowledge you need to become strong and knowledgeable in your own right.

When you rely on people to give things to you, youll always be dependent on them. Dependency encourages dependency, leaving us helpless the second our provider is no longer able to assist us.

But when you are empowered, are you not by definition able to overcome your previously paralyzing anxieties and fears? When your mentor has educated you properly, you are able to become a teacher yourself, even if your own mentor were to suddenly leave.

Let this book be your teacher. Use it to empower yourself. Although itll never leave you unless you give it away, youll find that once youve absorbed each lesson within it youll discover a new power (or rediscover an old power) thatll stay with you throughout your life.

The time for healing is now. If you were sick with the flu, would you wait a few days before medicating yourself? Or if you were hungry, would you wait a few days before eating even when you still had ample food in your house? Of course not! Your mental wellbeing is just as important as your need to eat, or your need to stay physically healthy: your mind makes all the decisions that shape your life. Your mind defines your life.

So, if your mind feels like a plastic bag caught in the wind, then that is how your life will be defined. But an empowered mind will lay the foundation needed for you to build the life you want. To begin laying this foundation, all you need to do is turn the page.