Limiting Beliefs, Limited Life? Consciously Write the Next Chapter of Your Life
About eight years ago I accepted a position as a full-time radio talk show host. I was terrified and knew that in order to succeed I would have to come to terms with two things: why I did not accept recognition and celebration for my work, and how to release fear of criticism and free my voice.
I traced my life back through decades of refusing recognition, allowing others to take credit for my work, hiding from the spotlight, giving away my creative energy and endeavors, and rejecting compliments, to the age of five. The story was written on my fifth birthday, to be exact. The story is long and so I will not share it here, but the point is that from the episode that day, I determined that I was not worthy of celebration, and that if I am celebrated, others are either inconvenienced or in some other way made to feel poorly.
For the next forty two years I lived a life congruent with that belief and, consequently, I have felt unfulfilled and unsuccessful as I balance my creative and visionary gifts with the belief that my potential power and success will somehow cause another sadness, anger or discomfort.
Once I back-tracked to the story’s origins, I could see that the belief I whole-heartedly took on came from the perspective of a darling and compassionate little girl who wanted only to be safe and loved, and truly felt she was not. Looking back with adult perspective, I also saw that I had misinterpreted the situation to mean that I was not loved or worthy of celebration, and that to receive it caused other’s pain. The painful emotions of that day had actually nothing to do with me, but the circumstances and unhappiness that the other already full possessed. With compassion and forgiveness, genuinely felt for the other, I released the belief. I admit, decades-old patterns cause dark residue from this belief to resurface on occasion, but now that I understand it and know that it was a mistaken belief, I can move beyond it toward my fulfillment.
As an aside, I am now acutely aware that I am 100% responsible for my fulfillment, successes and failures, as I can no longer lean on this limiting “truth” to excuse me from becoming all that I am capable of becoming. Also, in freeing myself from this limiting belief, I have freed another of the responsibility I had laid upon her for my limitations. She was not aware of the impact her behavior on my fifth birthday would have upon my life, and she didn’t even recall the episode, yet I am guessing she feels a bit lighter as I free my negative energetic bond with her.
In releasing this life-limiting belief, I went through the following stages:
1) I recognized I had a pattern that created a problem in my life (pushing away recognition, success, and celebration, sabotaging my self-esteem, feelings of worth, joy, and life purpose).
2) I carefully traced back through my life, every time I refused celebration and recognition, gave credit away for my work, stepped aside from competition I could have easily won, diminished my beauty, etc., until I discovered the origin of the belief, which was for me extremely emotional. I allowed myself this period of deep sadness. I carried that wounded little girl in my heart, and when I was ready…
3) I looked at the situation with compassion for the other(s) involved. I saw the situation from her perspective, forgiving her, then loving her, and forgiving and loving myself as I had not done since that time.
4) I began to re-write my story. After I had sufficiently absorbed the enormity of what I had just done, having unwound this life-limiting belief, I felt mentally, physically and spiritually liberated. I felt courageous, worthy, loved, and ready to get on with living. I filled with gratitude, and accepted that the responsibility for me to be heard, to be recognized for my work, to accept love and to know that I am powerful and worthy of it was now entirely MINE…just as it has always been.
You have already written many chapters in your book of life. Go back and read them with an eraser in hand and a life-limiting issue held in your mind. Granted, you cannot change the events, but you can change your perspective and the beliefs you created during them. Read them allowing for new possible perspectives, with an awareness that everything that limits you from whatever it is you desire is likely due to a limiting belief you have subconsciously created from an event written within the pages of your book. Perhaps something someone said or did has caused you to take on a negative “truth” about yourself. Examine the validity of that “truth”, the perhaps unseen circumstances and limited awareness of others involved. Feel the emotions; be compassionate with yourself and others, and write the next chapter of your book of life with a new truth, an empowering belief of your conscious creation.