Being honest with ourselves is probably one of the hardest things for humans. There's always reasons and excuses about why we can't move forward, why we are stuck, why we can't do and achieve the things we long to do.
But the truth is, we create those limits for ourselves. I often hear clients say, "I'd do this BUT, I don't have enough time, money, help, experience...".Blah blah blah....insert whatever excuse you want here. But the truth really is that you've created a block to not take a step forward. No one else does that to you, you do it to yourself. You have no one else to blame but yourself for the place you're at right now.
Now I'm not trying to be mean here or judge you or critique you. I'm simply stating a fact. And I know this because I do it to myself all the time, but am only just now starting to see the repercussions in my own life.
I discovered this quite by accident. I've been doing alot of work on getting honest with myself about my self-made limiting beliefs of what I can and can't do. I've really worked hard to be truthful with myself about where I place limits on what I can have and create in my life. I have been stuck in this cycle of lack for a long long time, but every time I think I've finally healed, and moved past it, something would smack me upside the head, and I'd be right back in that limiting place: I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not creative enough, my boyfriend and family won't let me do this, I don't have enough experience, education, resources....blah blah blah! ARRRGGGHHHH!!!! When will it stop!? I'm so done with these limiting beliefs! I want to shine and thrive!!
Recently, some friends hired me to redesign their backyard for them. I'm thrilled-it's exactly the type of garden work I love! They want a backyard that is filled with native, water-wise plants that attract birds, butterflies, beneficial insects, hummingbirds and all God's wonderful creatures. This is the sort of gardening that I wish everyone would do! Of course I told them yes, I can help them. I went to their garden to see what I had to work with, and I was so excited. There was so much potential there, once the overgrown foliage had been cleared out!
I didn't have to do the work; they already had someone to do the labor.
All I had to do was come up with the design and plant list! However, I could feel the fear start to creep in as I spoke with them, and I started looking at all the excuses that were popping up in my mind about why I shouldn't take this job: I never got my landscape architect degree, I don't have the experience or skills to create what they want, I don't have the resources to put in the hard-scape, it's gonna be really expensive and maybe they won't have the budget to pull off this job....blah blah blah! I could see they were starting to get frustrated with me, and I was starting to get frustrated with myself.
I left their house petrified out of my mind. Oh my God, I can't do this! What was I thinking!!?? This is an enormous job, and there's no way I can pull this off. I better call and tell them to find someone else....wham! There were those limits and excuses, again, hitting me square in the face.
I was so tired when I got home, all I could do was go sit in a sea-salt bath and pray for guidance. I could see the limits in my space, but wasn't sure how to move past them. I went to bed and decided I'd look at these pictures again when I woke up.
I woke up with an answer about what was going on. Yes, I had done a tremendous amount of work, clearing my own fears, limits and insecurities. But because I was so used to limiting myself, I put my pictures of lack and limit in the energetic fields of the people around me. So that when I started to move past my own limits, I'd bump into them again, reflected back to me from the people I loved! Those weren't their beliefs, those were mine!! And so the cycle would start over again. Of course I could never get away from these limits because I was constantly bumping into them outside of my space, thinking they were what other people thought of me and my skills, when in fact it was my own beliefs. I created my own prison.
Are you starting to get the picture here? We create our own self-fulfilling experiences of failure and lack by unconsciously giving other people the power, thinking it's their judgements when in fact, it's really our own, put outside of our consciousness, to reflect back to us when we start to move beyond our comfort zone of what we think we can have or do or be.
We assume our loved ones won't let us fly, when the truth is, it's our own fears and insecurities limiting us. We simply don't own it for ourselves because that kind of truth is pretty hard to swallow.
Think back on the last time you really just went for it and didn't worry about what you thought you could do, or not do. When you totally trusted yourself and your inner knowing. For me, there's two distinct time periods that pop into my mind: when I was 11 and when I was 18.
At 11 years old, I was a strange kid. I admit it! I totally marched to the beat of my own drummer and didn't think twice about what anyone else around me thought or did. I fully listened to my inner voice and followed my creative ideals. I was obsessed with the Little House on the Prairie
books, and got my mom to make me a pinafore and sunbonnet set, which I wore to school all the time. I still remember my teacher, Mr. Ricci, looking at me like I was nuts, but I was so certain about what I wanted to do, I didn't worry about it. I took my sunbonnet off, and hung it up on the hook every day, just like Laura Ingalls Wilder. I remember my mom and brothers and sisters begging me to not wear that stupid sunbonnet everywhere I went, but I didn't listen to them. It made me happy and that was all that mattered! Eventually, I grew out of that phase, but I still remember how much pleasure it brought me to totally trust myself and what I wanted and to do it with totally faith and confidence!
When I was 18, it was a very similar thing. I had some deep strong inner knowing that I was powerful beyond belief, and I could make a difference in the world. I started a recycling program at the high school (this was way before it was an accepted thing) and put recycle boxes I had made in every class room. I went around once a week and collected the recycling and regularly shared with students and teachers what could and could not be put in those boxes! People thought I was nuts, but they humored me and started recycling.
I became vegetarian, long before it was an accepted practice, and of course my family and friends were stunned and totally didn't understand me at all! But it didn't matter, I knew it was what I needed to do for myself, and I didn't cave into the pressure around me. Eventually I stopped being vegetarian, guided by my body as to what I needed, and I didn't question it. I entered college that fall and took graduate level classes because they interested me, not caring that my advisor said the classes were too advanced for me. I excelled at them because it was what I wanted to do! That summer, I became the head dinner cook at a field station in Eastern Oregon, Malheur Field Station, planning all the menus, doing all the shopping and doing all the cooking, sometimes for up to 200 people. It never occurred to me I couldn't do it. I had such a strong inner knowing and confidence I just figured it out and I loved it!
I don't know why that confidence went away, why I started limiting myself and my abilities. It doesn't really matter. It's taken me 30 years to finally realize that I've created this prison of limiting beliefs for myself by expecting eveyone around me to hold those same limiting beliefs. And now that I've finally gotten to the truth for myself, I am ready to move past these excuses and step into my power.
Yes, I am fully capable of creating miracles and joy and abundance and wonderful new opportunities to grow and expand my life. I own the truth that I created the excuses to limit myself, and now I'm owning that I can destroy those limits. I'm ready to fly high. And so can you.
But the truth is, we create those limits for ourselves. I often hear clients say, "I'd do this BUT, I don't have enough time, money, help, experience...".Blah blah blah....insert whatever excuse you want here. But the truth really is that you've created a block to not take a step forward. No one else does that to you, you do it to yourself. You have no one else to blame but yourself for the place you're at right now.
Now I'm not trying to be mean here or judge you or critique you. I'm simply stating a fact. And I know this because I do it to myself all the time, but am only just now starting to see the repercussions in my own life.
I discovered this quite by accident. I've been doing alot of work on getting honest with myself about my self-made limiting beliefs of what I can and can't do. I've really worked hard to be truthful with myself about where I place limits on what I can have and create in my life. I have been stuck in this cycle of lack for a long long time, but every time I think I've finally healed, and moved past it, something would smack me upside the head, and I'd be right back in that limiting place: I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not creative enough, my boyfriend and family won't let me do this, I don't have enough experience, education, resources....blah blah blah! ARRRGGGHHHH!!!! When will it stop!? I'm so done with these limiting beliefs! I want to shine and thrive!!
Recently, some friends hired me to redesign their backyard for them. I'm thrilled-it's exactly the type of garden work I love! They want a backyard that is filled with native, water-wise plants that attract birds, butterflies, beneficial insects, hummingbirds and all God's wonderful creatures. This is the sort of gardening that I wish everyone would do! Of course I told them yes, I can help them. I went to their garden to see what I had to work with, and I was so excited. There was so much potential there, once the overgrown foliage had been cleared out!
I didn't have to do the work; they already had someone to do the labor.
All I had to do was come up with the design and plant list! However, I could feel the fear start to creep in as I spoke with them, and I started looking at all the excuses that were popping up in my mind about why I shouldn't take this job: I never got my landscape architect degree, I don't have the experience or skills to create what they want, I don't have the resources to put in the hard-scape, it's gonna be really expensive and maybe they won't have the budget to pull off this job....blah blah blah! I could see they were starting to get frustrated with me, and I was starting to get frustrated with myself.
I left their house petrified out of my mind. Oh my God, I can't do this! What was I thinking!!?? This is an enormous job, and there's no way I can pull this off. I better call and tell them to find someone else....wham! There were those limits and excuses, again, hitting me square in the face.
I was so tired when I got home, all I could do was go sit in a sea-salt bath and pray for guidance. I could see the limits in my space, but wasn't sure how to move past them. I went to bed and decided I'd look at these pictures again when I woke up.
I woke up with an answer about what was going on. Yes, I had done a tremendous amount of work, clearing my own fears, limits and insecurities. But because I was so used to limiting myself, I put my pictures of lack and limit in the energetic fields of the people around me. So that when I started to move past my own limits, I'd bump into them again, reflected back to me from the people I loved! Those weren't their beliefs, those were mine!! And so the cycle would start over again. Of course I could never get away from these limits because I was constantly bumping into them outside of my space, thinking they were what other people thought of me and my skills, when in fact it was my own beliefs. I created my own prison.
Are you starting to get the picture here? We create our own self-fulfilling experiences of failure and lack by unconsciously giving other people the power, thinking it's their judgements when in fact, it's really our own, put outside of our consciousness, to reflect back to us when we start to move beyond our comfort zone of what we think we can have or do or be.
We assume our loved ones won't let us fly, when the truth is, it's our own fears and insecurities limiting us. We simply don't own it for ourselves because that kind of truth is pretty hard to swallow.
Think back on the last time you really just went for it and didn't worry about what you thought you could do, or not do. When you totally trusted yourself and your inner knowing. For me, there's two distinct time periods that pop into my mind: when I was 11 and when I was 18.
At 11 years old, I was a strange kid. I admit it! I totally marched to the beat of my own drummer and didn't think twice about what anyone else around me thought or did. I fully listened to my inner voice and followed my creative ideals. I was obsessed with the Little House on the Prairie
books, and got my mom to make me a pinafore and sunbonnet set, which I wore to school all the time. I still remember my teacher, Mr. Ricci, looking at me like I was nuts, but I was so certain about what I wanted to do, I didn't worry about it. I took my sunbonnet off, and hung it up on the hook every day, just like Laura Ingalls Wilder. I remember my mom and brothers and sisters begging me to not wear that stupid sunbonnet everywhere I went, but I didn't listen to them. It made me happy and that was all that mattered! Eventually, I grew out of that phase, but I still remember how much pleasure it brought me to totally trust myself and what I wanted and to do it with totally faith and confidence!
When I was 18, it was a very similar thing. I had some deep strong inner knowing that I was powerful beyond belief, and I could make a difference in the world. I started a recycling program at the high school (this was way before it was an accepted thing) and put recycle boxes I had made in every class room. I went around once a week and collected the recycling and regularly shared with students and teachers what could and could not be put in those boxes! People thought I was nuts, but they humored me and started recycling.
I became vegetarian, long before it was an accepted practice, and of course my family and friends were stunned and totally didn't understand me at all! But it didn't matter, I knew it was what I needed to do for myself, and I didn't cave into the pressure around me. Eventually I stopped being vegetarian, guided by my body as to what I needed, and I didn't question it. I entered college that fall and took graduate level classes because they interested me, not caring that my advisor said the classes were too advanced for me. I excelled at them because it was what I wanted to do! That summer, I became the head dinner cook at a field station in Eastern Oregon, Malheur Field Station, planning all the menus, doing all the shopping and doing all the cooking, sometimes for up to 200 people. It never occurred to me I couldn't do it. I had such a strong inner knowing and confidence I just figured it out and I loved it!
I don't know why that confidence went away, why I started limiting myself and my abilities. It doesn't really matter. It's taken me 30 years to finally realize that I've created this prison of limiting beliefs for myself by expecting eveyone around me to hold those same limiting beliefs. And now that I've finally gotten to the truth for myself, I am ready to move past these excuses and step into my power.
Yes, I am fully capable of creating miracles and joy and abundance and wonderful new opportunities to grow and expand my life. I own the truth that I created the excuses to limit myself, and now I'm owning that I can destroy those limits. I'm ready to fly high. And so can you.
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