I want to talk with you today about this idea that You Get to Determine Who You Are.
What a concept. You getting to determine who you are would seem to be a second nature king of thing right. Picture it, you moving through your life in full alignment with who you really are. Free to experience, act, engage, create, and be whatever your heart truly desires in any given moment. Doesn’t that feel good to even think about? Well it feels good because it was how you were designed to live. You getting to determine who you are, how you act and what you create well it’s your fundamental truth.
You are the main character in your story and you are also the writer of that story so you have all the power to make it what you want. Take that in for a moment because it’s a really big deal. You are a creator by nature and it’s your job to create a life that feels really good to you. You do this one thought and feeling at a time.
Often we find ourselves having thoughts and feelings that don’t really feel good to us, and we find ourselves creating from that place of distraction from our truth. We run around trying to make life better or easier for other people, and in doing so we make more suffering for ourselves. We may even try to bend yourself into something that isn’t really who we are so that we can stay in good graces, feel worthy of someone else’s love. What about the incredible shrinking self? You know where we try to make ourselves small so we don’t rock someone else’s boat. It’s all focused on pleasing other people and how they feel in their story.
It is never your job to write someone else story or alter yourself to fit into it.
Here are a few typical thoughts that you might find sneaking in if you are letting your surroundings or other people determine who you are:
- I am not enough or I am too much as I am
- I can’t please everyone.
- If I act just right maybe they will stay in my life or treat me better.
- I have to change who I am to make it ok for them.
- I have to make myself small so I don’t rock the boat with others.
None of these thoughts feel good when you think them. It will never feel good to resist or push against your truth.
It’s important to understand that thoughts like these are separate from who you are.
You may think them, and they may feel very real to you in the moment, but they don’t actually define you, and they are not essential to who you are.
Thoughts like these try to limit your truth and make you feel smaller and less then how you were designed to feel and be in your life. It is for this reason I like to call them out as limiting beliefs.
Now beliefs are a repetitive pattern of thinking that creates focus and momentum that leads you forward to wherever it is you find yourself in life. That’s right you are creating your life one thought at a time.
There are beliefs aligned with your truth that feel supportive and fortifying as you think them. When you focus on them they get you feeling really good about your life, and it feels as if they plug you right into that source energy.
And there are beliefs like the ones we just mentioned that put limits on your truth and feel negative as you think them. They can send you into an emotional tailspin as they pull your focus off your truth and onto things you have no power to change.
There are many ways to pick up a limiting belief. People who are limited in their own beliefs may have handed them down to you. They try to convince you of what your reality should be according to their limitation. Often in our own uncertainty it doesn’t take much for us to believe it to be true.
It can also happen when a situation comes into your life with a lot of negative energy behind it. When you find yourself in a negative repetitive experience it’s also really easy to adopt limiting beliefs.
No matter how you pick up the limiting beliefs they always contradict your essential truth, and they never feel good as you think them.
So what if you are tired of thinking thoughts that feel bad and you want to think thoughts that feel better? It is totally win your power. That’s the great thing about beliefs; because they are simply thoughts that you think over and over again, and you absolutely you have the power to change them.
I like to call this process re-patterning. For me activating a process that I can move through gives me my power back. There are endless ways of going about it, but the important thing to remember is it all happens one thought at a time.
Your first job is notice the negative thought that is causing you discomfort. They are the indicators that you are out of alignment with your truth. Call it out so that it can no longer run on repeat in the background of your thinking.
As you bring your conscious awareness to the thought and you can see that it is not aligned with your truth, your next job is to stop believe what it’s telling you.
That’s right you don’t have to believe the thoughts runny through your head, especially if they don’t feel good. When you do this it slows down the momentum, energy, and emotion that it has been carrying with it. You were never meant to believe it, you were designed to use it to feel your way back to your truth.
Once you have the limiting belief isolated and you can see it for what it is, then you start to make room for a new idea to emerge. This is where you redirect your thought and feel your way back to your truth.
Let’s say you have a thought that tells you that you have to make yourself small or change who you are to make it all right for someone else. What if you take the limitation off that belief? What would you have then?
You might find a thought that says something like I get to determine who I am. Then that might lead you to a thought that says I am worthy and enough as I am. And I am hoping you can then find a thought that says something like; I am the author and main character of my story so I get to choose. I get to create my reality one thought and feeling at a time. And a thought like that might remind you of a thought like, My job is to be the creator I was designed to be, and create a life that feels really good to me.
Start to play with the feelings behind these new thoughts. Really tap into them and feel what it would feel like if you were living your life from that place. Let yourself be there now, even if you can only daydream in it for a few min. at a time. As you turn your focus towards the truth you naturally begin to unplug from the limiting belief.
You get to stop replaying the nightmare feeling over and over again and start daydreaming about how you really want to feel, and who you want to be in each moment.
When you activate thought like these, it helps you create a deeper language for your desire and your truth. It helps you keep your focus on where you want to be.
This is why it’s so valuable not to react, repress, or rebel from the limiting beliefs, but rather use them. When you stop taking direction from them and get curious instead, you allow them to help you create language for your truth. From this place you will find yourself having a very different kind of experience.
So let’s use some of the limiting beliefs we called out before to help us find some new patterns of thinking.
- I am enough and worthy just as I am.
- Only I get to determine who I am.
- I am the author and main character of my story and I create my reality one thought and feeling at a time.
- My job is to be the creator I was designed to be, and create a life that feels really good to me.
- I get to be me, as big, as happy, as loud, and as me as I want to be.
Thoughts like these are more aligned with your truth, and there is a beautiful sense of freedom that comes with your truth. So get curious about your thoughts and feeling. Take a second or third look to make sure they are the ones you really want to be thinking and feeling. And remember it all changes one thought at time!
I want to focus on some things that will help you as you re-pattern your thoughts.
Intention setting has two very powerful jobs in your life. One job is to consciously claim what it is you want. The second job is to act as a check-in to your point of reference. That way when something coming into your life you can see if it is in alignment with your intention. If it is, wonderful, and if it is not you can kick that sucker to the curb.
I am going to offer you one but feel free to have fun and come up with one of your own. I would start your day with it, and then return to it as many times as you need to. Put it somewhere in your bathroom so you see it first thing in the morning. Or put it on your nightstand, in your car or by your coffee pot.
“My intention is to watch my thoughts with compassion and to reach for thoughts throughout my day the feel good to me. My intention is to feel good, and I will use my thought to help me get there.”
Another thing that really helps as you re-pattern your thoughts is giving yourself permission.
Permission is a huge thing that often gets overlooked. Self-permission can feel like opening a door that was once closed to you because it eases up on the resistance. It helps you claim the power to do or not do what your heart really wants.
So we are going to put some conscious awareness to self-permission because you are 100% worth it! Like the intention I will start you off, but you can really run free with this and create endless space for yourself.
“I give myself permission really take ownership for being the author and main character of my story.”
It feels pretty good right?
Remember Re-patterning is all about changing your focus to support the new patterns of thinking that are aligned with your truth. It all happens one thought at a time. So watch those thoughts as they come in and choose the ones that feel better. These micro adjustments give you back your power.
An additional trick that I love to help build up those new patterns of thinking, is to flood your mind with outside sources that are similar to your new thoughts. An idle mind will always tend to go back to what it knows best. So keep it moving down those new lines of thinking with things like these:
- Listen to podcasts of people who are focused where you want to go while you are driving, running errands, exercising, or while you are doing things around the house.
- Watch videos of people who inspire you to deepen into those new patterns of thinking or are living them for you to see play out, while you are getting ready or are cooking.
- Watch a movie that reinforces your new pattern of thinking and can help you see the positive truths play out before you.
- Write those truths out as many times as you can and then go back and reread them often! When you write things down it helps your brain prioritize what you want it to focus and act on. Reading activates the mind in a similar way but sets your imagination into action at the same time. So prioritize and set your imagination into action on those truths!
- Tell an inner circle friend that you trust what you are working to re-pattern so that you have someone to help you get excited and they can celebrate with you as all the new experiences that match your newly activated truth come into your life.
Here are some videos of previous episodes from Awaking to Your Story TV that might help. There will also be a Re-align and Re-pattern video that will go hand in hand with this episode. It will be Episode 8 of Season 5.
If you enjoy a more hands-on approach you can always grab other Awaking to Your Story Tools:
- Awaking to Your Story, The Book
- Awakening to Your Story Starter Kit – 3 Tools For Returning To Your Power
- Awaking to Your Story –Navigating the River of Life Handbook
Remember you get to be whomever you want to be in your life, you have that power.
Until next time know I am holding a place of love for you where you owning your role as author and main character of your story is undeniable.
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