I Saw the Light

Have you ever noticed that when something really great is about to happen in your life, voices of caution invade your head and steal the pleasure of the experience?

This week is the open house for the coaching program I will be teaching at Westchester Community College. I am really excited about this opportunity! I will get to use my coaching and speaking skills to teach others how to use the coach approach to elevate and deepen their life experience both personally and professionally.

Like a pebble thrown into a pond that creates concentric circles expanding ever outward, as more and more people strengthen their listening and inquiry skills, more and more people will benefit from those skills. They will have more self-understanding, courage, personal power and therefore choice to create the lives they want. It’s truly thrilling!

However a small nagging thought in the back of my mind says somewhere something will go wrong. Nothing is ever as good as it seems. I recognize this is an old belief that doesn’t really serve me. This belief may cause me to be proactive and on the lookout for problems, but it robs me of the pleasure of anticipation and curiosity of a new experience unfolding.

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you are right.”

Henry Ford

I could pile an affirmation on top of it to contrarily oppose it, reprogramming my mind. However, my experience has shown me that, while this is mildly helpful, it only works as a support to the deeper work.

To really change long held beliefs:

1. First recognize what they are—when you notice negative self-talk, pause and inquire about the belief that is causing it.
2. Then explore the origins of the belief—our parents tried their best, but often unknowingly passed on to us negative beliefs that were given to them and on and on back in goes through the ages.
3. Recognize how that belief might have served you as a child—did it keep you safe in a way that was necessary then? Feel the feelings around having to have that belief.
4. Evaluate whether it is still useful to you in your life today, or is it keeping you stuck instead. Is there a more healthy way to create safety or whatever you need emotionally in your life that actually supports you in growing into your full potential?
5. Express gratitude for that belief and how it helped you survive through a difficult life circumstance.
6. Then release the old with love and bring in the new–find the belief that supports who you are today—an adult capable of taking good care of yourself and creating the life you want.

This is the real work in our lives—to release the old that no longer serves us, peeling back the layers of conditioning to reveal the truth of our essential selves. Then we can clear the cloudy layers so that the brilliant light of who we are can shine forth.