What if...

What if?

Do you ever ask yourself that question?
What if I no longer believed I was inferior?
What if I really am as amazing as I tell myself I am; and as amazing as other people tell me I am?
What if my body is perfect, just the way it is?
What if I could heal my body, just because I want it to be healed?
What if I get to be rich?
What if life gets to be easy? Better yet, what if life is SUPPOSED to be easy?
What if I get to have anything I desire to have? No conditions, no take backs, no games.

What would change in what you do, what you say to people, how you go about your day if  your "ifs" were  not wistful wishes but  actual tangible truths?

What if the only thing holding us back is ourselves? Do your arms ache? A superb life coach I know; Megan Sillito who just happens to be a great friend and my sisters life partner,  told me to pay attention when my arms ache because it is actually happening because I am  holding myself back, figuratively and symbolically. At the time I couldn't understand why I would do such a thing, it did not make sense to me. Recently I have decided to delve a little deeper, to explore the realms of my mind and heart and become present to what belief systems I am holding myself to. This is what I have realized as to why I hold back, and the time frame of when I think these belief systems showed up.


#1.  I hold back, because I'm afraid to show up big, I'm afraid that someone else will show me that I'm really not a good big person. Big people scare me, they are mean and they do not respect the little people in this world. Big people are selfish, and only care about themselves. Big people hurt other people in order to stay Big. I'm pretty sure this one comes from early childhood fears.

#2.  I believe that my family of origin expect me to play small; meaning they expect me to be what they think I should be, or rather they expect me to play the role that I have played my whole life. This is the story I carry in my head about that role: I am expected to be a caring, loving, slightly neurotic person. A person who is slightly sex crazed, misguided and unable to succeed without a man. I'm afraid that if I became more than these things, my family would not accept me, and as a result of  my different lifestyle and attitudes, I would cease to have anything in common  with my family. I would no longer relate to them and would not have anything to connect myself emotionally with them, and this would make me sad. Part of me wishes that upon reading this, my family would tell me that this is not true, that they do not believe this way about me, but I know that's just silliness, its not about what they believe, it never is..... it is enough that I believe it. This one sounds like it comes from my feelings of inadequacy I felt when I was 18, trying hard to  figure out how to be a grown up in the world.

#3.  For many years I have held on to a belief system about having money, that if you have money you are shallow, emotionally unavailable to your family, and not happy. You are not a good person and not in Gods good graces. This is another BIG reason I hold back. I have seriously screwed up in my past, and I cannot afford to do anything else that would make God  look at me with disgrace and shake his head in disbelief. I need to tow the line, in order to keep God from throwing me more tests to keep me in line.  Which brings me to part two of this reason: I have believed that living the good life is conditioned upon my being the person God wants me to be. This one is hard to pinpoint, it feels like it spans throughout my life, and also makes me see a whole other set of belief systems I need to delve into that will be labeled:  what I believe about God.

#4.  FAILURE. I fear failure. In the past I have been so scared to try, because I am sure to fail at whatever it is I try to do. I have big emotions and big beliefs  about what failure is. And I do not want to be a failure. What I have believed is that failure is eventually inevitable; its not possible that one can continue to succeed long term. Greatness is possible for a short time but is very difficult to sustain. This one has lots of layers and spans a lot of time. It may have started when I was in the 4th grade and procrastinated a big project until the last minute.

As I type these words, explaining the "stories" I have believed, I want to emphasize the flaws in these belief systems. In fact while I was typing  the most amazing thing has happened; my Higher Self, God, My good little Guardian Angel or a combination of all 3 have communicated to me through my self talk and denounced every single lined item on the list and  have backed up every denouncement with rational and proven reasons as to why they are not true.  The things I have believed in; that have influenced my decisions, and choices for many many years are NOT TRUE! They are based from emotional responses to happenings that caused emotional pain, and can be healed and let go, thank God!

 I have just been going along in my little world living up to the smallness and sometimes mediumness; when I'm feeling really brave, but still staying just a bit outside of any possibility of  real success. I tell myself all kinds of things, reasons if you will why I am just fine being mediocre. And this brings me to the next reason I hold myself back.

#5. If I forged ahead of everyone else around me like my kids and my husband, I would be alone. I get choked up and a lump forms in my throat when I type this, and I know there is some real emotions stored inside my body as well as stories I tell myself about being alone. It is clear to me that at some time in my life I deducted that excelling was not worth being alone. I'm not sure on this one, unless it has something to do with wanting to be an Olympic gymnast. It was huge dream of mine, but one that would've required a separation from my family.

Believing is so powerful, but believing that wonderful things can happen isn't enough. We have to look deeper into the irrational fears, and thought patterns that keep us immobilized. We have the opportunity to address those things head on and make a choice to do something different. I have realized and noticed that when something shakes me up to the point of throwing me off my grounding, I go back to a less risky way of being. I put aside my new found autonomy and fall back into old behavior patterns that no longer serve me well. Its so easy to do! Last week I was in that place. My last blog entry is chock full of evidence as to where I was emotionally.  Its in my writing style, the words I used and the tone that comes out of my words, that I was not my bright and shiny self. There is a story about why I went there, and rather than elaborate on the story of what happened, its just easier to say that we all have our moments, when we allow ourselves to be swept up in an emotional happening. This time it struck a nerve and triggered me to press play on a very familiar track of painful, hurtful negative self talk that used to be a regular part of my life. A part of my life that is in the past, but still has power over me as often as I allow it to. I know now that I have the power to stop the tape from playing out, to stop listening to it because its not the truth. There's a sad familiarity to listening to it though,... like old sad love songs, and sad movies. At times you want to go there and experience the pity party, focus on how horrible your life has been. Soon its not enough to just have the party, we invite others to our party, and in some very demented shallow way, we feel justified, and connected to others in this way. I would venture to say that many people are only capable of having this level of connection. Take the kind of stories you might hear at a bar, tales of sadness detailing who did who wrong. You get the idea. The setting can change, but the story is the same.

My Be-ing place since the occurrence has been emotionally exhausting, all encompassing, both  mentally and physically, and in the direct opposite direction from where I have been living my life the last few months.  I was tending to my plants one day; and upon taking this particular plant outside to give it some sunshine I accidentally stepped on a large leaf and severed it from the plant. Of course it dried up and turned dark in a matter of minutes after it was removed from its source of life. This is how I have felt, literally plucked from the living waters of my Source. Desperately clinging to any memory of life, while caught up in the desperate heartache  of  withering  away, and flailing desperately to fight my way back to the surface. Its been agonizing!

So once again, I am choosing to Stop. I'm going to acknowledge that I'm nothing without God, I'm nothing without His outpouring of love and spirit and I'm going to be grateful for the life and insight that I have been given.  I have the free will to choose to be happy, bright and shiny rather than dark and twisty.   I'm turning off the track tape, putting the old tape player in the closet and closing the door behind me. From now on I'll be playing "Do do run run" and Locomotion;  on my record player, its time to get moving forward with a smile. I think its time for a party after all, anyone wanna join me?

               "he picked me up at seven and he looked so fine,
                do do run run run do do run run.
               someday soon I'm gonna make him mine,
               do do run run run, do do run run "