Lies that keep you from moving forward.
Occasionally, someone has to be the bad guy. You know that one friend who really wants you to succeed so they tell you something you really don’t want to hear. Well, that’s me today.
Life is going to be a million different things for you. It’s going to be beautiful and brilliant one moment and the next is going to suck big time. You’re going to be up one moment only to be smacked down again a minute later. You’re going to be minding your own business going to your “routine” doctor’s appointment and then you get told that a few more tests are needed. So you panic…and go from point A to Z in your head in a matter of minutes. But the bottom line is, it’s your reaction that counts. It’s what you do in those terrible moments that define you.
I remember getting the news that I had a few incurable diseases. If not treated, they could have killed me, yes. But I was 23 years old so you know, I probably had the same amount of time as others ahead of me. That was before I was even married, before I even really thought about being a mom, before I said yes to my first real job and before I had ever even bought a house, experienced the joy of paying bills and taxes and whatever being an adult encompassed.
Some of you have heard this part before, but for those who want to learn more here are a few posts from the early days, and the rest of you can keep reading after this:
- The first phone call in 1997
- Don’t leave me hanging…next up.
- What! No Sunlight??
- Erm my gosh. Did you make it?
- Hereditary Hemochromatosis say what?
- Lastly, but it wasn’t really, was this post.
So, I do get it folks. I do. In full disclosure…I don’t mind pissing people off with the truth. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it’s liberating, sometimes it’s messy and ugly and then you wake up the next day and you feel amazing! Why? Because maybe you weren’t fully being honest with yourself about who you are and maybe you were hiding living in your truth. So that “courage” it took you to finally speak your truth feels better. Like you are finally living in your own skin. Well, it’s time for you to stop telling yourself these things.
Lies that keep you from moving forward:
- I will never _____. The truth is, if you start something off with that, you won’t. Period. I will never find a person who loves me (says your mind, or your status). I will never get that promotion. Oh that can never be me. It won’t. Not with that attitude. So what does one do with this? You take baby steps with your mind. Okay, right now the situation seems out of my control. So what can I control? My reaction. My thoughts. My ability to change me. I will one day feel amazing again. I just know it. <<< So that was my head after 5 years of pain. Straight and constant pain daily had almost gotten me to I will never…and I realized that I had to do something drastic. I had to start saying “One day I will….” and I got there.
- They are just lucky. You have convinced yourself that someone else is more entitled to a share of luck than you are. You are therefore not as lucky and will never have whatever it is. What you don’t know is that “they” have worked their ass off for whatever it is. They have felt defeat so many times it wasn’t funny. They were trying their best one day and were on the 50th time of trying to get ahead when it finally happened for them. So what can you do? Start small again. This is exactly what I teach my Club. Look, I never knew the word “manifestation”. I didn’t watch the “Secret” and I don’t care what that secret was because I know I have it figured out. I believed that “it” whatever it was, was going to happen for me. So in the beginning, it was just to live without pain. That was enough for me because it would mean I had my life back again. I was going to create my own luck and that is exactly what I teach.
- The past or future is better than right now. Achoo bullshit. Sorry. I call it like I see it. I miss the past too sometimes. And yes, there’s grief for people I lost, but I know for a fact they wouldn’t want me to live that way. I did take an entire year to grieve once and I don’t regret it. But then it was time to pick myself up and keep moving forward. Of course, shortly after that I was diagnosed with my first disease, but I did keep moving forward. So what can you do? Create Mindful Moments. If it is very hard to live in this moment right now, try to notice when and where your thoughts wander. Gently pull them back to the present moment. I am not saying yoga cures everything, but it does actually change you. I brought myself to my mat and practiced what I needed to do. Time and time again until it became less practice and more second nature. If my mind strayed to the pain, I would then focus on the way my hand was pressing into the mat. The way the next day, it was easier to hold a position for a few seconds longer than the day before. Until one day, I did something I worked on for an entire year and I will never forget the way my buddy smiled at me as I said hey, look at me!! I did it. There was this internal glow that I created all for myself and I had that power within me…so do you my friend.
I’m not saying that I have all the answers because I don’t. I just know that you are capable of so much more than you give yourself credit for. Over the course of my 200 hour Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training, I doubted myself more times than I can count. I would come home and soak in the tub and be in immense pain. I would look up at the heavens and ask why me. But the answer was always the same “why not me?” and so I learned to stop telling myself lies. I really could do this.
If you’d like more information on my journal therapy/yoga mindset/learning to live your truth Club, here it is >>> Head|Heart|Health Club <<< Click there.