I remember resonating with this post in the early days of my personal development…decades ago :).  Ok, so maybe it wasn’t decades ago but sometimes it feels like that.

I remember feeling the weight of stories I believed about myself which were stopping me being who I wanted to be.  Stories about who I was and where I fitted in the world which I’d taken on as my truth.  I started to question what would be different if I could learn to put that glass down.

Our early messages – verbal and non-verbal – become our thoughts and our inner dialogue.  They become the basis on which we attract experiences.  Every thought is an affirmation of what we believe about ourselves.  Every thought will attract experiences into our lives and will help to create our reality.

“Life is an echo. What you send out, comes back. What you sow, you reap. What you see in others, exists in you.”
Zig Ziglar

When we are babies we don’t care what others think about us.  Babies express all core emotions – anger, happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise –  to ensure their needs are met.  But as we grow up subtle messages we receive start to create beliefs that “I am only acceptable if I am funny”, or “I am only loveable if I put others needs before my own”, or “I will be rejected if I show I am angry” or “I will upset others if I cry”.  This subtle conditioning can cause us to disconnect from our emotions because it’s not ‘safe’ to express them; we stop trusting our instincts and stop listening to our heart.  And we live a story someone else has ‘written’.

I believe when we blame others for our life not being the way we want it to be, we give away our power and we stay stuck in the problem. I believe everyone is doing their best with the knowledge, awareness and experiences they’ve had in their lives, as were others who might have weaved subtle messages into our sub-conscious when we were children.  We don’t have to condone bad behaviour but when we can empathise and understand why, it can take away the energy it takes for us to hold onto that blame.

When we start to understand ourselves and become aware of the behaviour and thought patterns which are coming from unhelpful beliefs about ourselves, we can step into our power and take responsibility for writing the story we want to be reading, rather than the one which was written for us.  We can heal the emotional wounds which are controlling our thoughts and behaviour patterns.

I spent years reading ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ to my children and only recently did I realise it’s true meaning. The children’s story, by Michael Rosen, is a metaphor for the journey we take towards healing.

The repeating message throughout the book is “We can’t go over it.  We can’t go under it.  Oh no, we’ve got to go through it”.

And how true that is.  When we reject those parts of ourselves we learnt weren’t good enough or we hide parts of our true self because we were ‘taught’ we weren’t loveable if we did that or said that we are a ‘fragmented’ version of ourselves, rather than an ‘integrated whole’, and those ‘shadow’ parts will continue to control us.  It takes a lot of energy to keep those ‘fragmented’ parts of ourselves pushed down.  We find ways of disconnecting from the pain and from our body so we don’t have to feel it, going round it rather than through it  How long have you been holding that glass?  How many miles have you walked trying to ‘go over it or go under it’?  Yes, ‘going through it’ is vulnerable but it’s courageous and real and will enable you to reconnect with your whole self and what your heart really wants.

Telling our whole story in a safe place and making a commitment to love our WHOLE SELF, including all the parts we learnt weren’t acceptable, is how we heal; making a commitment when we wake up every morning to meet all the needs for ourselves that weren’t met for us earlier in our lives.  It’s not blaming (ourselves or anyone else), it’s PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.

What triggers us about other people is a signpost for what we need to heal in ourselves, starting from a place of loving acceptance that we have done the best job we knew how to up to this point, with the knowledge, awareness and experience that we’ve had.  When we know more, we can do more.

Coaching is about AWARENESS – RESPONSIBILITY – CHOICE.  When we know more, we can take responsibility for making different choices.

As Michael Jackson encouraged us to hear all those years ago, healing the world starts with healing ourselves.

I’m starting with the man in the mirror
I’m asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you want to make the world a better place
(If you want to make the world a better place)
Take a look at yourself, and then make a change

Contact me to discuss further.

Sarah x