We make excuses and sabotage our happiness due to fear and unrealistic expectations. What will happen if you told yourself that you could be successful if only you stop making excuses? The next time you make an excuse you would be forced to face the fact that you are sabotaging your success with self imposed limitations. I think there is validity in why we feel the way we feel about ourselves, our worth, our ability to be happy or make people happy but the truth is, living in the moment sheds a lot of layers of excuses. History is not going to change and the future has not been carved in stone so all we have is right now. I am choosing to write at this moment because I felt compelled to. Not because I felt forced or fearful that I will not have a chance to write again.
The fear for many people is that they will ultimately fail because they have always failed. Well, let look at this for a moment. As babies, we came into this world as "I am" beings. "I Am" mean that as a baby, you were. Simply put. At the time of birth and infancy, you were not knowledgeable of all the limitations that people would place on you thus altering your perspective of who you are and what your potential for success is.
Being and "I Am" being means to explore fearlessly. Babies cannot communicate as other small children from toddler age on up. If a baby is hungry they cry, when they have to potty they go, if something grabs their attention they grab for it. They crawl to something and touch it. They taste things to find out if it's food, is it good, is it bad, and they live in the moment of learning without hesitation or fear until the moment an adult says "No." At the moment an adult says "No" we cease being "I Am" beings because that "No" starts to create a limitation for the child. We know as adults, we say things because we are caring for, securing, and nurturing our children but sometimes we subconsciously place limitation on them, in the name of caring, that may cultivate a sense of untrue core beliefs about self.
It has been said that some babies may even begin to experience developed core beliefs at the time of birth after being bonded to their mother for 9 months then all of a sudden, they are born and the attachment changes. I wonder if a baby thinks "What did I do wrong to make her separate from me?"
As adults, we would thing this is preposterous but consider this. Imagine a child, maybe the age of 2 or 3 years old, and their parents have a baby. This new baby shows up and now attention is given to the baby and less attention to the toddler, Not that the parents love the toddler any less but to the toddler, things are different.
Did I do something wrong to make Mommy and Daddy want another baby?
The toddler doesn't understand that this is life and babies will be born but if the child feels somehow, less than, will it shape their thoughts, actions and ultimately their self perspective and can this perspective shape their developmental journey? I don't know. Maybe.
Sometimes, because we look at ourselves and see things "wrong" with us or "flaws", we transfer that energy to our children in a way that makes them thing those core beliefs are of their own creation. Imagine with me again, if you will, a child who wants to dance. She's excited and loves movement but her parents say to her "Chubby little girls can't dance." That statement, alone, can bring a child's image of herself crashing into many fragments that color her in a false light.
I'm chubby.
I can't dance.
I'm not good enough.
I'm not pretty enough.
My parents don't believe in me.
Maybe I don't deserve to be happy because I'm not skinny or pretty enough.
If I can't dance, I probably can't do lots of things.
This list can go on and on, thus creating a false core belief system about oneself.
I say all of this to say that over many years, we have created images of ourselves that are only true because we believe them to be true but they are not. We spend so much time trying to disprove things that aren't true to begin with.
If something doesn't exist, how can you prove that it's not true?
This is the internal battle we have daily. We spend so much time trying to prove that we are worthwhile by proving that we aren't worthless. If you didn't believe you were worthless, even a little, there would be no need to prove that you are. You would just be.
There are many things I use to believe and many things I was fearful of confronting about myself but I have begun to examine where I was stuck in life and what cause me to be stuck. When you are truly honest with yourself, you will call out the truth as it is and look it in the face. We run from our truth because if we confront it, it will create a paradigm shift that will force us to see our role in how we develop as human beings and light will be shed on our contribution to our success or lack of success.
I will share a truth about myself that I normally don't share because even though I'm relatively honest about myself, I realize I was stuck because I chose to believe things about myself that were not true.
- I am overweight.
- I have always been overweight.
- Even though I workout and eat well, I will probably always be overweight because I can't imagine myself not being like this.
- My family can't imagine me not being like this.
- I'm not a threat to anyone if no one wants me.
- I don't try hard enough for fear that success will require more work to stay successful.
- I'm afraid of failing and succeeding.
- I need others to motivate me.
- I get depressed and don't have the energy to motivate myself.
- I have had a challenging life which causes me to feel like no matter how hard I struggle, I will always be left behind, left out or ultimately give up.
- I am afraid to die.
- I am afraid to die like this.
- I am afraid to die alone.
- I feel like people do not want to be seen with me like this.
- No one will love me as I am.
- I'm not beautiful enough.
- I lost my hair and it makes me feel less of a woman.
- I do not have any children and this make me feel like I have no legacy to leave and when I die, TRU is gone forever.
- I feel like a fraud when people call me talented.
- I feel like I don't know as much as people think.
- I will never reach my full potential in any area I want because I'm not sure what I want.
Whew... Sheesh, that was a lot but I can say this, every thing listed here are things that I have used to not do something or not be who I can be. Confronting them means I am forced to have an honest discussion with my inner-self about choosing the right path for me. The objective is to see the things holding you back and then decide "What are you going to do about it?" You now have a choice when before you felt like you didn't. When you really look at the things you honestly believe about yourself, hopefully, you will see how a lot of that is pure bullshit and you can see how much more you are than what you have allowed yourself to believe. If I know that I can choose better for myself, any decision afterwards will be my responsibility and I cannot and will not blame anyone else. My journey rests upon each action I take each day.
When I chose better each day, each day is better.
I admonish you to seek the truth about yourself. No one else needs to be involved in your revelations. You seek you for you. I'm learning daily through meditation and readings of Buddhism (which may not be for everyone but I've found peace in learning more about Buddhism) that true enlightenment and awakening begins with self confrontation and letting go of preconceived ideas of who we were, who we are and who we should be. I am letting go of judgement and condemnation that comes with our fixed core belief systems we have developed over the years. Each day, I try to live in the moment because after all, that is all we have. Live each day with and in love.
"Zen in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom." ~D.T. Suzuki, Essays in Buddhism
B@Peace
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