To truly LIVE your life, you must, take an honest assessment of whether the load which you carry is really necessary. Do all of the things that you believed to be true about yourself, and the world around you still hold true? And while we’re speaking about holding, have you held onto some things which are now outdated, impractical and just too heavy to continue to carry?
We are defined by our story. Those around us carry portions of their versions of our story and we sometimes feel the need to fill new people in on our version of various parts of that story. Your expectations about the world grew out of and are firmly based in that story of yours.
Some of that story has pleasant, fulfilling moments but, that’s not the part that finds itself complicating your life. We are bound by our DNA to relive the more challenging aspects of our story as an evolutionary dictate to make certain that we find ways to correct mistakes. By doing so,it insures our survival as a species.
Enter the unconscious mind. It’s not YOU that causes those random thoughts and negative flashbacks. You’d never purposely choose to recall puking your brains out in front of your third grade class when the teacher surprised you with a math question. Yet, there you are reconciling your checking account online when suddenly the memory returns.
You carry part of your story, and your unconscious keeps a watchful eye on it as well. That unconscious then sends you reminders of the more difficult parts of your story to keep you safe.You have a choice. You don’t have to rtain those little reminders from your past. You can recognize it for what it is and keep it moving. Your unconscious mind knows only what you tell it about your experiences.
Much like the ‘Mars Rover’, your brain and your unconscious only collect data. YOU, through your emotional responses define how that data is interpreted and that gets translated into your story. A baby first sees a candle as a beautiful, bright light until it gets a little too close and singes a finger. Now, the baby has a definite sensory and emotional association with that candle. But the baby is not the singed finger, the baby is still just a baby who had an experience with a candle. Now, the baby has an understanding of that beautiful, bright light and it’s part of the baby’s story.
Take some time to actually consider this, because you do get to choose, moment to moment, who you are but, first you must decide who you really want to be. What if I told you ~ you can, at any moment begin a new story, and just like turning to a new chapter in a book. You can leave your past (good, bad and indifferent) where it belongs, in the past.
Take your story right now and step back from it as a third party, view it without judgment. Can you see how situations and patterns and people in your life created your experiences? They didn’t create you, they were the set-up for your experiences. Can you change your reactions to some of these experiences? Can you find a new angle to them? Understanding your past and seeing patterns will help you to break cycles and create new ones.
As you let some parts of your story go, you’ll need to fill in the new space of ‘Who am I without that?’ We played make believe naturally as children, but somewhere along the line we forgot how to free our minds and see other possibilities. Let go of your expectations of who, how, where and what you should be as they, too, are part of a story that holds you back from simply ‘Being’.
Answer the questions instead of ‘Who do you want to be?’, ‘What do I have already that can help me move in that direction?’, ‘What do I need to move forward?’ Want some help getting started rewriting your story?
There are three very important things that will serve as your foundation. In my workbook ‘Be More ~ Stress-less! - The Workbook- Realize your best life by retooling your stress, I ask readers to write down the following: 1. Core values/ beliefs 2. Life Goals 3. Resources & Actions that you are taking to pursue those goals These are the essentials that keep you focused as you set about the business of developing, writing and re-writing your story.