“Really?” I asked myself, “Do you really believe that about yourself?”
Just yesterday, I said to a friend, “Aagh, nobody really wants me around.”
As soon as I heard myself say it, I felt a familiar tightening in my chest and stomach. I was visceral enough that I made myself stop and pay attention.
“Really?” I asked myself, “Do you really believe that about yourself?”
Sometimes I treat myself way worse than I treat anyone else; I would never say that to another person, so why would I say it to myself?
We all have limiting beliefs, self-judgments, and doubts that stop us from really fully living our lives. I mean, sometimes they stop me dead in my tracks! At the bottom of the bottom, there is what I call the primary misconception. It colors and infuses everything we do throughout our lives until we shift it. We can’t just wish it away and we can’t just do affirmations and make it go away.
This is one of the places where it really serves us to drop in, deep in, to the inner-most being at the deepest of our heart to discover the primary misconception.
I sat down, journal in hand, and began to write about this feeling inside that said, “Nobody wants me around.” I sat silently – feeling and listening inside – and a scene rose up on my internal movie screen. It was a movie of my mother, just weeks before she gave birth to me, in the background was an almost one-year old toddler. The little boy was reaching and grabbing and gurgling and pulling on my mother’s skirt. I could see and feel her exhaustion. I could imagine her fears about how she was possibly going to manage a one-year old and a new baby.
I focused my awareness on the unborn me that was warm and safe within my mother’s womb. And I could sense how this baby, that was me, was taking in her mother’s worry and exhaustion. I could feel how this little unborn baby might get the feeling that she was unwanted. It may have been easier for the family!
I sat with this energy of the unborn me, and in those moments, I brought my breath and my caring and my love to this little baby who was about to emerge into the new world. My breath carried to her the words, “I want you around. I am so glad that you will be coming into this world.” I just stayed present with this part of me that felt unwanted.
I wish I could say that this was enough; that everything shifted and I was happy to come into the world; that I was suddenly sure everybody wanted me around; and that this nagging misconception vanished. But, I would be lying if I did.
What did happen, though, was an ever so slight shift in perception, a softening inside of me, an opening into a new possibility. I made a commitment that day, a commitment to myself. I made a commitment to take just a minute or two every day to connect inside with that part of me that held the belief that “nobody wants me around” and just breathe into that feeling. And breathe in the truth with every breath.
I want you around. I am happy that you are here.
This is not about pushing the primary misconception aside. It is about honoring it, and honoring the feelings that you might have around this misconception. AND, it is about offering another possibility.
Eventually something shifted, that the feeling of “nobody wants me around” comes up less often and I feel more welcome in the world.
I encourage you to explore your primary misconceptions. What is that basic untruth that you believed was true that’s really stopped you from fully embracing your life? Or from really stepping into the truth that is you?
Try this very simple experiment:
• Choose a recurring challenging belief that has held you back in your life.
• Sit with this belief and feel the way if feels and lives in your body.
• As you connect with this belief, notice how your body reacts to this belief.
• As you connect with this belief, notice if any emotions get stirred up.
• As you connect with this belief, do any images arise up on your “inner movie screen”?
• Listen, pay attention.
• Ask yourself what does this part of you that believes this untruth need? What is the healing response that is needed here?
• Breathe and stay present with this part of yourself, giving the healing response to yourself.
Over time, this process shifts the belief… guaranteed. I would even go so far as to say that it heals the belief and heals the pain of the past. It builds new neural pathways, which allow for a new experience.
It becomes possible to make a new choice a new choice for the way to live life. Your life.