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What I am is What I am- Owning Your Core Beliefs
I touched on reactions last week. The moments in life when we want to run for the hills or beat the crap out of someone. You know these moments. Your heart rate increases. You feel flush. You feel your body stiffening up and ready to lurch at the person who dared trigger those core beliefs!
There is one thing to tell yourself when this happens and you would rather die than admit the core belief.
Just ask yourself, “Do I really want to prove them right?”
A response does just the opposite. You own the core belief and move on to what you know. When an angry adolescent calls me an old, bald, fat ass gay mother f%#$@#$ they are always perplexed when I smile. “What the f%$# are you smiling at!” is the normal question. My response is always the same. “Alright, now tell me something I don’t know.”
I have to tell you, it is quite freeing. I can beat everyone to the punch so long as I can accept who I am on a daily basis. And trust me, it isn’t that bad. What I know I am capable of on the positive end far outweighs what I feel inside.
So to review, and you can see the elaboration in my book (www.relaxitsjustlife.com), you can simply
- Own the core belief.
- Go to your head and ask yourself what you know about how you should respond.
- Do it!
- Enjoy the perplexed look on others faces when they do not get the reaction they are looking for!
Simple! Or maybe not, but certainly something we all are capable of learning and putting to practice. Try it, you might like it!
Happy Responding,
Warren
“I’ve never been lost, but I was mighty turned around for three days once.” ~Daniel Boone
“I’m Lost.” Becky could not have summed up the message better in her letter to Kathleen. I know I said I was going to expand more on reactions vs. responses this week, and I will in a way, but not directly.
We are all faced with feeling lost all too often. I shared several weeks ago how my life of late has been full of transitions. So much is new and exciting, and yet like Becky, there are days when I feel aimless and confused. My heart grows heavy and my thoughts muddled and confused. My core beliefs are being triggered and I am faced with feeling I need to fight and defend, or run and hide.
That is a reaction. I feel I will never be worthy of love. I feel my inadequacies rearing their ugly head at every turn. I feel powerless to deal with life’s pressures and people who would choose to crush me. If I react, no insight comes. If I react there is no peace.
A response is to own what I believe about myself. I don’t argue my belief that I am not worthy of love, or that I am inadequate, or that I am powerless. There is no benefit in that. I tried that for many years. I own it.
But then I pull out of my emotions and focus on what I know! What I know is as much truth as what I believe, and it is measurable.
I know that I can demonstrate love every day. And I know that if I do that, I will receive love despite myself!
I know that despite my shortcomings I have learned, grown and had great successes, because I could watch others and emulate what they did to succeed. I know that by owning what I can and cannot control, I can focus on what I can do and not try to control others or outcomes.
And in the end, I may be sad, or tired, or scared, but I am at peace, because any life worth living and any lesson learned come at a price. I can lament what I do not have, and long for something different, and still be at peace knowing that this life is about learning and growing. If I respond to those threats, what I desire will come to me. Perhaps not in the way I intended, but it will come.
So I choose to respond. I wait knowing love will not elude me. I work, knowing I can overcome my shortcomings. I let go, knowing the only thing in this world I can control is me. It is then, and only then that peace returns, and I breathe easy knowing that I can master this journey!
My hope for you all is that you will stop, pull to the side and without reservation say, “I am lost!” Just wait. You will find your way! It may not seem so, and the road might scare you, but you will find your way!
Peace,
