Here's a short Christmas wellbeing exercise.
1. Did you ever believe in Father Christmas?
2. If so, who told you he existed?
3. Do you believe in Father Christmas now?
4. How old were you when you learnt the truth about Father Christmas?
5. What evidence made you change your mind?
Now change some words, remove 'Father Christmas' from the above sentences and replace with your own limiting beliefs.
1. Did you ever believe that you were: unloved, unwanted, friendless, hopeless, stupid, a failure, no good, useless or any other negative descriptions attributed to you? Basically, words or deeds that you believed and left you with a feeling that you weren't good enough in some way.
2. Who used these descriptions about you first?
3. Did that person really 'know' you?
4. In what context were they used? Look at the whole picture.
5. Do you think they are still relevant today?
6. If you do, why? What's the evidence?
7. Could you put away the childhood memories of negativity and recall times when there is evidence to show that these statements are now inaccurate?
8. If not, why not?
When we are children we generally believe what our 'olders and betters' tell us. Sometimes there are good and fun reasons to be told untruths. eg: Father Christmas. Fairies taking lost teeth. Pots of gold at the end of rainbows. And many more*.
We grow up and see/hear/read the evidence and change our minds.
If we are emotionally healthy, we leave behind the childhood beliefs if they aren't helpful. We take on new beliefs. We grow up emotionally.
Sometimes we still want to believe and hold on to some 'magic' from childhood. That can be fun, as long as we don't spend our lives expecting the 'magic' to happen again, just as it did then.
Sometimes we feel we missed out on some 'magic' from childhood and carry on looking for it through a life of dashed hope and unfulfilled expectations.
http://emotionalgrowth.blogspot.com/2011/06/not-my-fault-addicts-excuse.html
* When I was a little girl, the top of the Christmas Tree was always empty before Christmas Day. The hall window in our flat was left slightly open and I was told that the fairy flew in on Christmas Eve night and there she was on Christmas morning. Magic.
One year when I was about seven, I woke early, climbed up on a chair and reached up high to touch the fairy. She had rubber legs. I was very disappointed. My parents knew something had happened when they woke up to find the tree somewhat askew. For the rest of my time at home, the fairy was known as 'Rubber Legs'.
I lost my belief in the tree fairy at seven. It look me longer to lose other unhelpful beliefs that had been given to me.
Here's a reminder of a quote by Steve Jobs, that I wrote in an earlier blog:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is
secondary.”
I wish you all a very happy Christmas and holiday time. I wish you what you wish yourself...as long as it has nothing to do with changing the past or trying to re-write history.
'Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.' Anon
The best gift you receive this year, may be the one you give yourself.
@RitaLeaman2011
No comments:
Post a Comment