Rewriting one's life often involves revisiting the past. Like a puzzle being pieced together, we delve into areas of our subconscious where memories of the formation of our behaviors have been stored.
I, like many of you, am on a quest to learn new behaviors. I have moved through the process of identifying larger goals for myself, looking at the finer points that they consist of and then noting what I must add in terms of knowledge so that I can achieve my smaller and then the larger goals.
At times it is a bit daunting. Many of us have experienced pouring ourselves into working toward a goal yet falling short of achievement. Despite remaining focused and determined for days, weeks, and even months we suddenly hit a wall and within a short period, so it seems, the wind is let out of our sails.
When we look closely at what had transpired, we can see that there had been precursors to the wall. Perhaps our motivation lagged, we began to doubt our ability to achieve our goal, or we lost interest. There is a long list of situations that can and do occur. Have you asked yourself why this occurs? I know that I have. I had spent countless hours rummaging through this question, emotionally beating myself up at times, seeking to understand why I can want something so badly, have such determination, and yet continually hit a wall within myself when striving to achieve my goal. The big question is, how do we stay on track so that we actually achieve our goal and maintain the achievement?
When we acknowledge that there is a background theme repetitiously playing in our emotions and brain, we can then begin to identify the stories that we tell ourselves. As we reveal these beliefs to ourselves we can move into examine how, from where, and why the beliefs were created, and then we can rewrite them.
It is a common belief that in order to achieve a goal we only need to identify the goal, learn whatever knowledge may be necessary to obtain the goal, and then take the steps to obtaining the goal. Within this process, a lesser known yet highly effective piece exists. This crucial step will create an archway in the wall, allowing us to move through it rather than remain stuck outside. I refer to this process as 'unraveling'.
In order to move forward we must, at various points on route to achieving our goals, look at where we have been. By the time we reach our teen years, we have amassed a wealth of beliefs, emotions, and stories about life, success, and our place in the world. A large portion of these go unvisited. We take them in and then move forward in our lives, all the while reciting the beliefs that have been stored in our subconscious and at times the conscious regions of our brain.
Unraveling is the process of intentionally observing our thoughts, emotions, and patterns of behavior. It consists of acknowledging the results that we receive and the reactions we respond with to these patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior in our life. It is important that we begin our process with the clear decision to move forward into the known and unknown regions of ourselves. We must intentionally decide to observe and acknowledge ourselves with self-honesty and with loving kindness, free from judgement of what we will reveal to ourselves. We then observe ourselves as we move through our days and nights. As we do, we begin to notice the patterns of fear and disempowering thoughts that cycle in us, how they affect our decisions and actions, and how they lead us to react with procrastination, self-sabotage, and self-doubt, and other responses that bring us to the wall that seems to block our path forward.
When we acknowledge that there is a background theme repetitiously playing in our emotions and brain, we can then begin to identify the stories that we tell ourselves. As we reveal these beliefs to ourselves we can begin to examine how, from where, and why the beliefs were created, and then we can actively rewrite them.
I have discovered that a large percentage of my beliefs about success and to what degree I could have it were formed when I was a child. Through the unraveling process, I discovered that I had taken in limiting beliefs by listening to the words spoken to me and those I overheard adults speak to themselves or others. They were also formed by my observation and perception of the actions of others which were displayed around me. I pieced the collected information and perceptions together, formulating scenes in my life-story. These scenes represented what I had thought was the truth about money, wealth, work, abundance, self-worth, value, and my ability or inability to attain my goals. Emotional attachment was adhered to the beliefs and scenes, and I wove them into myself so deeply that I could no longer see where they began and, as time passed, that they even existed. I then unwittingly acted the scenes out in my life, building a story around them in an unconscious attempt to prove them true, when in fact they were not.
With awareness of the story that we have followed we can consciously begin observing the thoughts, behaviors, and associations that we have about our self-worth, skills, and ability to achieve and succeed at our goals. As we continue the intentional practice of observing our patterns, applying self-honesty about our innermost thoughts, emotions, and beliefs, as we explore the formation of them in ourselves, and identify the steps to achieving our goal while we intentionally add affirming, repetitious self-talk, we begin rewriting the narrative that runs in our subconscious mind. As we become more and more unhindered by the formation of our earlier beliefs and the emotions associated with them, we move forward. Step by step with our continued intention, observation, practice, and resolve we create new neuropathways, internal dialogue, that move us forward in rewriting the story that we are living.
