One of the common traits that successful people share is a belief in oneself. These people tend to have an unshakable certainty that mystify the most astute of us. Sometimes these people can exude so much confidence that it can intimidate us, causing us to project our insecurities on them, and assume them to be arrogant. It may be hard for those of us who suffer with wild insecurities to imagine a life where we thought we could overcome the obstacles in our path. So how then can we achieve a more self assured mindset?
We have been programmed by millions of years of evolution to do our best to survive, to provide for ourselves and those close to us, and even raise children who can emulate our strengths. It seems though that somewhere along the line many of us have lost touch with that. Most of us have lost our ability to not only survive, but to thrive in life. We have lost what the lessons of our evolution have taught us, how to succeed.
Becoming aware of this myself, and seeing it in operation in my own psyche has lead me to believe a couple things. One is that it is in our most authentic nature to know that we are capable of anything we set our minds to. The other is that if we have a belief that inhibits our ability to see ourselves as capable then that is something we have learned. So where then did we learn these belief systems and more importantly, how do we change it?
We acquire our belief systems largely from external sources in our environment when we are still developing our ideas of self. The voices of our parents, our families, our teachers, our religious figures and so many others contribute to the language that eventually becomes our belief system. This belief system helps us to develop our internal language, and the nature of that language becomes the basis for our perceived self worth.
So when we look to find the source of this language that exists in us, and we realize “This voice isn’t me, this is my father…”, we can think of all of the ways in which these ideas have impeded us in our lives and that can feel quite unfair. This sense of feeling wronged can lead us to become angry and resentful of the source. I would say it’s natural to feel this way, we all have a right to our anger. Though I feel it important not to stay in that place.
When some one has wronged us in some way it is important to seek understanding, and use that to create a path to forgiveness. If someone’s cruel observations of us has inhibited our mindset, we have to assume that they too must have learned that language before they imparted it onto us. Perhaps they were exposed to a negative belief system that has truncated their own ability to love us the way we needed them to. For that, we cannot be angry. They are merely passing on their own suffering.
There is nothing that we can do to prevent the chain of suffering as it has been passed down to us, but we can ensure that it stops with us. We can take the personal responsibility to understand these systems within ourselves and stop ourselves from continuing to pass this sickness to others. That is the only thing that we can control, is our own actions.
We have such a hard time facing our feelings, this seems to be an issue that many of us face. We tend to think of our feelings as being bad or somehow harmful. We will avoid them at nearly any cost. Our feelings however, are quite innocuous. They truly mean us no harm, they merely want to tell us a story. Once they have told us their story, they will move on and we are free to go on about our day.
Sometimes the story is something simple, “this person makes me happy and I would like to spend more time with them”, “This place hold so many memories for me, I love coming here to reconnect with them” , “These holiday decorations make me feel a sense of warmth and home”. Sometimes, the story can be a little more complicated. The stories in our fear, our hurt, and more prominently, our anger.
Anger can be such a source of powerful energy. It can come on suddenly and we may not always be ready when it does show up. It can cause us to behave in strange and unpredictable ways. If we can have enough insight to know when our anger is showing up we can harness its raw potential to create some truly beautiful things. On the other hand, if we lose control of it we can do some really harmful things, to ourselves and to others. As is true with our other emotions, our anger has a story.
If we check in we can often hear the voice of our exiled self. The part of us that remains unheard, unacknowledged, and treated unfairly. Giving this story a chance to voice itself can help us to further understand the part of us that is feeling so wounded in this moment. It may be hard to hear at first because often times when the anger comes up the ego comes in to play as well. Once the ego gets involved you can expect to not care why you are angry and to be ready to jump into the fire with guns blazing. This will keep us from being able to use our anger productively. So it’s important to thank the ego for it’s desire to protect you, but to let it go and come back to the matter at hand, the exiled self.
We need to take the time to get past all the layers of the anger, and break it down to it’s most tender core. We can even take a moment to check in with ourselves and ask, “what is it we need in this moment?” Maybe we need comfort, maybe we need security. Maybe we just need to be heard or seen. Whatever is under the anger, answer to it. Allow it space to tell it’s story and you will see it’s not nearly as awful as you might think.
Our anger and other emotions can be such a powerful source of information for us, it’s important for us to listen in sometimes and hear the underlying needs they are coming from. When we continue to disregard them we let these unsatisfied pieces of ourself continue to go unnoticed. When we give them the acknowledgement they seek, you will see how quickly they can pass and leave us, instead of sitting with them in silence. We all deserve to settle a little less, and if we can create this space for ourselves, and free ourselves of these burdens, we can get back to leading our most successful and satisfying lives.
Nightwing Healing Arts 