Emotionally Bulletproof - Scott's Story (Book 3)

Emotionally Bulletproof - Scott’s Story (Book 3) - Understanding Patterns of Thinking

By Brian Shaul and David Allen

Copyright

Emotionally Bulletproof Scott’s Story (Book 3)

Understanding Patterns of Thinking

By Brian Shaul and David Allen

Copyright (C) 2014 by Brian Shaul and David Allen

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved solely by the author. The author guarantees all contents are original and do not infringe upon the legal rights of any other person or work. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission of the author. The views expressed in this book are not necessarily those of the publisher.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

Unless otherwise indicated, Bible quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation. Copyright (C) 1996, 2004 by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. Used by permission.

Acknowledgements

We want to thank certain individuals who have embraced the Emotionally Bulletproof principles.

Thank you to Joel and Ashlee Starn, for the word-smithing they did for this book series.

Eric and Angela Carlson for the months of helping refine these ideas.

Thank you to John and Marlys Hall, for their assistance in editing the original manuscripts and openly sharing these ideas with so many people.

Thank you, Janette Riehle, for your advice and editing expertise.

Thank you, Tim Carrick, for being Pastor Tim.

Table of Contents

Seek First to Understand

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

More From the Authors

Worksheet One

Worksheet Two

Worksheet Three

Worksheet Four

Worksheet Five

Worksheet Six

Worksheet Seven

Worksheet Eight

Worksheet Nine

Seek First to Understand

My name is Scott Calloway. When I was in my early twenties, a car accident permanently altered the way my brain works. Because of understanding biblical principles, I was able to overcome tragedy. My eternal gratitude goes out to the people in my life who helped me get back on my feet and find my life’s mission.

The story starts in the next section of the book, so if you want to skip to that first, you can. Here, I will tell you about what I learned in the last two books, and explain the lessons to be learned from reading this book.

The first two books will give you two tools for improving your life: the three legs of trust, and the three, twelve, and seventy.

By this point in my story, I had those tools in place. I was returning from a mission trip in the Marshall Islands when I discovered the journal that belonged to my late uncle, Matthew. In its pages were the three legs of trust. The three legs of trust helped me make decisions on who to trust in my life. It also gave me something to aim for when I wanted to increase my trust.

That message could not have come at a better time. Just weeks later, I became head foreman of a construction company now owned by my aunt, Tiffany. I had to navigate her company to success when some of its employees wanted me fired, or worse. My friend, Pastor Tim, gave me not only a place to live, but also the lesson of the three, twelve, and seventy. I learned that your three are your most important lifeline relationships, and your twelve are your close friends. Your seventy are your acquaintances.

I was able to combine the lessons on trust with Tim’s lesson about the three, twelve, and seventy to only spend high amounts of time with people I trusted. Everyone else moved down to my twelve or seventy, depending on their level of trust.

Before departing on another mission trip, the car accident happened. Many people said I wouldn’t amount to anything after that, even my parents. Doctors and psychologists said that since my conscious mind had been handicapped, the subconscious mind was now the only part of my brain that still functioned well, and this part of my brain was not enough to help me lead a normal life. Even today, I still can’t do things in the way that normal people can.

Maybe in your life you’ve had to deal with something that was unfair. You didn’t ask for it. You did everything right that you knew to do, and bad things happened anyway. What makes it worse is when you see people who do things that are morally wrong, and you watch them attain phenomenal success. It can be enough to make you stop trying to improve yourself, or even abandon the moral code that has been passed down to you. I understand completely.

I did everything I could to increase my integrity, I had other people’s best interests in mind, and I got the job done, all three legs of trust. I took Pastor Tim’s lesson on the three, twelve, and seventy, modeled after Jesus’s own social circles, and good things came from using what I learned. Still, bad things happened, and after my injury I needed another tool that I didn’t have before. I had to do what other people said couldn’t be done.

Unexpected tragedies have a way of making you feel vulnerable. You see glaring weaknesses that were barely visible before, and the task of moving forward feels not only difficult, but not worth it. This feeling can spill into your relationships with people, creating a more entrenched circle of negativity. If this is your situation, then I have something to offer you. I want to give you what I used to move past negativity and on to a greater understanding of the world around me. I will give you a knowledge of thought patterns.

Thought Patterns

Everybody has patterns of thinking. As you move from pattern to pattern, you end up going in a circle that repeats itself. The goal of understanding thought patterns is to find the ones that aren’t working and replace them with better ones based in truth.

When you are aware of which experiences cause you to move from one pattern of thinking to the next, you can decide what your next action will be.

This changes your life by giving you control of your thought process.

Not only will understanding thought patterns help you, it will also help your friends. When they struggle with their own thought patterns, you can help them identify the choices before them and use what you’ve learned to advise them for success. That’s the reason I am sharing this with you: I want friends to be better at helping each other.

Before you leap into changing your thought patterns, there are some lessons I want to make sure you get out of the story:

1. Choose Thought Patterns Aligned With Truth - The Bible says that ‘the truth will set you free’ (John 8:32). I believe it, and that’s why I started seeking out truth. Since then, I’ve noticed both in myself and in clients that searching for the truth can feel scary. The very act of looking for truth is like admitting that we are not aligned with truth. Pride can get in the way, and it can feel like everything you’ve thought, read, and seen was for nothing. Fortunately for all of us, that is not the truth, and finding truth adds value to all of our past experiences. The goal of truth is to set you free, not to bring sadness or kill your hopes for the future. Keeping this in mind is one of the most important things you can do when working with your thought patterns.

2. Thought Patterns and Trust are Closely Related - During those key moments when you know you have to make an important choice, ask yourself one question: Which one of the patterns of thinking in front of me scores highest on the three legs of trust? An in-depth look at the three legs of trust can be found in Book 1, but to summarize: you’re asking which pattern has the highest integrity, has others’ best interests in mind, and can get the job done. The best choice is usually clear after filtering all your choices through the three legs of trust.

3. Don’t be Afraid of Your Thought Patterns - Some thought patterns look ugly. When you work with your patterns, you will find many that influence your actions, and not all of them will be good ones. That is why doing this emotional labor is so valuable to you. Strengthen and grow the positive patterns of thinking through thought, learning, and action, while reducing the negative ones by pointing out their flaws, stopping the actions that strengthen them, and comparing them to the truth that you find.

4. Work in Groups to Learn Faster - We only get one life on this earth, so why learn slowly when you can learn quickly? The fastest way to learn is to teach. In Book 2, I talk about the three, twelve, and seventy, and how those in your three and twelve should be the people you trust most. These people are great for honest feedback, advice, and for studying these concepts with you. You don’t need to be responsible for doing the teaching all the time, but take the time to exchange ideas, helping those in your three and twelve. This will not only raise your own level of trust, but you’ll also have access to perspectives you would not have found on your own.

5. Any work you do in this area is helpful, so don’t be intimidated or afraid of being wrong - Just identifying even a few of the patterns in your head and choosing to reinforce better ones will help you. Your brain may make excuses not to do this type of mental exercise because the improvement isn’t always felt immediately. Thought patterns are a marathon type of training; you don’t need to win it all immediately, you just need to keep taking the next steps.

I may not have this kind of time to share things with you one-on-one after this, because I am a fictional character. I hope you’ll understand that I’ve talked a lot because I care about you. My mission is your success. My story will help connect what you read with how you experience life. After the story, I’d like to share a parting gift to make sure you find the success you seek. In the back of the book, the authors wrote worksheets and detailed explanations of thought patterns, and how to use them to create lasting change. I encourage you to read and make copies of these worksheets so that you can use them whenever you like.

From now on, I may appear in other stories or blog posts. Until then, enjoy this story and God bless you.

- Scott Calloway

Chapter One

The emergency room was a busy place, but there was one exception. As night continued, Scott drifted between sleeping and waking, hovering so close to the frontier between those two realms that the line separating them was blurred.

Your son’s temporal lobe has been bruised, and he is in a coma, said the nurse.

After moving Scott to a private room, the nurse continued to explain to a father and brother who needed no explanation. Robert Calloway knew the consequences of this type of injury, having worked with many such patients in his psychology practice.

He is alert, she said. He has occasionally opened his eyes and even turned toward an empty glass, grunting until we gave him water. He can probably hear as well, so be careful what you say around him.

Robert and Phillip nodded, and the nurse rushed towards the next crisis, confident in Scott’s now stabilized condition.

Robert took a deep breath. Do you know what this means, Phillip?

Temporal lobe damage? Yeah, I know, said Phillip.

Robert put a hand on Phillip’s shoulder as he stared into the room where his younger son lay. His life is never going to be the same. Never. And I fear the worst.

Phillip eyed Scott, watching his chest rise and fall slowly with each steady breath. I can see why. It’s terrible.

Scott didn’t really do much with what he had. Life is valuable, son. Remember that we only get one, and keep going forward with your life as you have. The tragedy would have been more severe if you had been in his place. Live life to the fullest, and get all that you can out of it.

Scott grunted, his head moving from one side to another before resting again on the pillow. Phillip grimaced. So this is what patients look like before they come see us. I’ve never seen it before.

We usually don’t. This is what a head injury looks like before they visit us. Remember this, and you’ll have a fresh perspective, when working with Dr. Chang, that few psychologists get. It’s a privilege to witness, despite the fact that he’s family.

What do you think will happen with him? asked Phillip.

It depends on the injury and the person. He will have memory issues for the rest of his life. He may get extremely violent, or even need institutionalization. Either way, he’ll be unable to hold a job, take care of a family, or contribute to anything except his own survival, and he could barely do that before the injury.

Phillip understood. He closed his eyes and looked away from the room, down the fluorescent-lit corridor. I don’t want to watch this right now, but I’ll remember.

Good. You wait in the lobby for me before you take off. I want to talk to you just a bit more about this.

Phillip nodded and turned down the hallway, past several paramedics rushing someone on a gurney towards a nearby room. He turned a corner and disappeared, leaving Robert standing alone outside Scott’s room.

Scott knew he was in the hospital, but couldn’t remember how he got there. It wasn’t long ago that he had been with Mark and Amy in the ambulance. He remembered the ride to the hospital, but not much else. Beneath his back, he felt something poking him on his right side. He ignored it and tried to relax, letting his condition and the chemicals in his IV carry him where they wanted him to go.

As his mind drifted, Scott didn’t know how much time had passed since he heard his father’s voice. Through half-closed eyes, he saw a visitor sitting in a chair at the foot of his bed. The man was tall like his father, but much thinner, with long black hair pulled back into a small ponytail. He had a thin nose and piercing eyes, and was wearing a leather jacket and dress pants.

Scott then saw the man move towards him, gliding from the chair to his bedside as if the whole process required only one step. Scott knew that he had seen the man before.

I can hear you, you know, said the man, gripping the side of the bed with his left hand.

What are you doing here? asked Scott.

The last time you saw me, you made a choice. You once called me Teacher, then went against my recommendations. Did you think I didn’t know what the result of your choice would be?

Go away.

The man laughed softly before refocusing his gaze upon Scott. What do you think I’ve been doing for the past few months, Scott? Everything there was just you and Michael, with no thought for your future.

I know who you are, and you’re no teacher, said Scott, grimacing