I’d like to introduce you to my friend Myrtle. She’s a backseat driver. The kind you can’t ignore.

She’s MY backseat driver. And yours. Myrtle thinks she’s the help-iest thing ever.

She’s a big reason behind many of our behavior patterns. The places and ways we’re stuck. Our self-sabotage. Myrtle is the explanation for a lot of our recurrent fears. She’s loud, proud, and she never shuts up. She provides the same old thoughts that plague us, day after day, year after year.

What do we do with Myrtle? (Not to mention the bus full of other backseat drivers, in this case, younger versions of yourself.)

It starts with realizing there are “no bad parts” in us, including Myrtle. I’ll tell you all about it in this episode, one of five upcoming sessions featured in the Flying Free program.

I have a confession.

I’m a recovering asshole.

Years ago, I had a friend. Her husband cheated on her. Then, he did it again. He kept cheating on her. He wasn’t sorry.

Do you know what I told her to do?

Stay with him. Pray and stay. Worse, I was proud to tell her this advice. Because I was God’s girl scout, and I knew best.

Now, I can easily imagine the grief and further pain my words and assumptions added to her heartbreak. I thought everything was black and white. A + B = C, every time. Life was a math problem, and I had the answer.

Boy, did I eat crow (and that’s just one example).

But in many ways, I’m no different than everybody else. And there IS an equation that applies to us all:

Our thoughts make our feelings. Our feelings make our beliefs. And our beliefs make us.

We become what we believe. We are like the god we worship.

What’s your god like? And what do you do when someone else’s god says you’re bad?