Acting Out Unconscious Beliefs
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life is a big play with no rehearsals other than the main act in which you are the star attraction, director and producer.
This is to your benefit because you are given the opportunity to rewrite the next scene since nothing is set in stone.
Sometimes you will feel stuck and wonder how you arrived at this point in your life. If you look back, you’ll see that every thought, decision and action led you to this point in time.
Life is an endless river flowing through you.
You cannot make a wrong decision because what you consider an undesirable outcome, contains the seed of opportunity and growth.
Author Jan Frazier states in The Freedom of Being: At Ease with What Is the need to step outside your thoughts and observe reality with openness and attentiveness, without being trapped in your judgements: “If you want to suffer less, omit no opportunity to step outside your mind and watch what it’s doing with reality. As long as you’re trapped in the world constructed of your thoughts about-something — as though they were actual objective truth — you will suffer.”
You become stuck when you act out unresolved subconscious beliefs.
I appreciate it is difficult to know whether this describes you because the average person cannot tell apart a limiting belief, nor an unconscious thought.
Some would argue unless you have an interest in personal development, the concepts are foreign to you. This is why people repeat the same mistakes over again.
I empathise with them because I was stuck in the same predicament many years ago. It took a major life event to awaken me to a greater potential within me and my life’s purpose.
However, it is reassuring to know that “Mistakes are not a sign of stupidity. They are human ways of learning,” as psychotherapist David Richo writes in The Five Things We Cannot Change: And the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them:
If you are attending to your personal growth, yet nothing is changing in your life, I invite you to look within to see what you’re resisting.
Undertaking personal development is great, but it reminds me of my experience working in the health and fitness industry a decade ago.
When I began my career, I worked in a major health club in my city. I often saw the same people training three or four times a week, yet nothing changed regarding their body composition.
They would often exercise for thirty minutes or less on a cardio machine while listening to music or watching the overhead television screens.
They were not entirely engaged in a strenuous work-out but felt they were given they were dressed in fitness apparel and showed up to training.
It was when they trained with a fitness professional, they noticed they’d been training within their comfort zones.
I mention this because it parallels what transpires in people’s lives.
They read personal development books and attend seminars, yet nothing changes because they are not applying the principles.
These same people are drawn to motivational Instagram quotes, yet their lives are less than inspiring because they don’t do the heavy lifting called work.
Experiences Show Up In Different Forms
Life is a game, play it; Life is a challenge, Meet it; Life is an opportunity, Capture it ~ Unknown
I often say to clients, you must embody the principles you learn at a cellular level. They must become a part of you, so there’s a shift in consciousness and you cannot return to your former life.
If you wish for a life beyond your wildest dreams, you must do the things that align with that future.
It is what the late Dr Stephen R. Covey who wrote the 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People calls: “Begin with the end in mind.”
Many people resist life because it doesn’t correspond to what they hold in mind. They believe life is unfair and they shouldn’t experience hardship.
These people attract the same situations, but in a different form, until they’ve gained the lessons.
To give you some examples:
- It is the person who wishes for a romantic partner and complains there are no suitable people out there, yet attracts the wrong person every time.
- It is the individual who gets passed up for job promotions because they haven’t shown their value to their employer.
- It is the person who is unhealthy or not at their ideal weight, yet is dictated by their emotions when it comes to food choices.
- It is the person always broke when they receive their paycheque because they spend it on material objects to feel good about themselves.
These are ways in which people sabotage themselves unconsciously because they are unaware.
They are asleep at the wheel of life you could say.
Reading about personal growth without doing the work does not lead to a shift in awareness.
You are likely to keep attracting the same situations, in a different form until you’ve made peace within yourself.
As the Hermetic saying goes: “As within so without.”
For example, you might try to avoid someone causing you pain and suffering, yet it becomes a game of cat and mouse. The energy devoted to stay away from them becomes stressful and tiresome.
That’s because there’s a lesson to learn from the experience. It won’t be presented to you with a pink ribbon or smell of potpourri since you’re less likely to take notice.
Life presents you with experiences to force you out of your comfort zone and draw upon your resilience.
You have one of two choices: cower in resignation or step up to the challenge.
If you choose the former, the experience will show up in a different form until you learn the lesson.
This may be apparent by attracting the wrong romantic partner until you reconciled your unconscious beliefs.
It will involve self-enquiry or work with a trained therapist. Either way, it may be best to avoid rushing into a new relationship until you’ve made peace with the past.
I don’t know and neither will you until you heal your wounds.
Stop Carrying The Remnants Of The Past
Cherish your yesterdays, dream your tomorrows and live your todays ~ Anonymous
Author Jan Frazier explains how the process of transformation begins in the place you are now: “Transformation is set in motion by seeing where you are now. By seeing how you keep it all going. Change happens entirely on its own.”
The role you resist most will be the one you are called to act in next because there are vital lessons contained within those experiences.
There are two ways to look at life.
The first being: “Life sucks” because challenges are difficult, or.
“Life is constantly directing you to awaken your greatest potential.”
The Zen Buddhist teacher and anthropologist Joan Halifax explains in Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet how we can investigate our challenges with openness and courage instead of fear and blame: “If we willingly investigate our difficulties, we can fold them into a view of reality that is more courageous, inclusive, emergent, and wise—as have many others who have fallen over the edge.”
Life is one big play that lasts eighty years or more if you’re fortunate enough to live that long.
It makes sense to bide your time and without hoping everything will work out.
I assure you, most of the time it won’t.
You must examine your motives and stop carrying the past into the present moment, otherwise it will be carried forward into the future.
You deserve more than that even if you don’t know it.
It doesn’t matter that I don’t know you personally. I know if you’re reading this now, you are lucky to have access to the technology to make a difference in your life.
It is not only the difference you make to your life but the impact you have on those around you.
It is in your best interest to improve your life because you will awaken other people’s greatest potential too.
Imagine how great it is to be the creator of your own journey and that of others?
To learn more about stress see: How to Trust in the Process of Life
