The Stories We Tell Ourselves to Keep Ourselves Small

Part of me is dying.
The part of myself that likes to stay small, to keep quiet for fear of being judged or upsetting the balance. The part of me that craves security and calmness and rejects attention.

These parts of me are unraveling, coming undone and peeling away slowly and painfully like masks that do not want to come off. They have served me well. They have done their job with expert, quiet simplicity and have allowed peace to prevail. And now it is time to release the stories we tell ourselves to keep ourselves small.

The stories we tell ourselves can be, “I don’t have time to ____, I don’t have money to ______, I don’t have the courage to _____” or insert your own story.

These stories start as little thoughts in our heads to keep us comfortable and before we know it, we are repeating them on a daily basis. They come from our ego whose job is to keep us safe. These repetitive thoughts then become a belief and once it becomes an instilled belief, it is harder to unravel, but it is not impossible.

Thoughts become beliefs, beliefs become actions, actions become our stories.

What does it take to unravel the story which is really just a repetitive thought pattern (belief) that we carry around with us?

It can be a shift in perspective that allows us to uncoil these deeply held beliefs and escape the story-line. Or shifting our words into positive affirmations.

But the quickest way to do this is to take action; taking action against the very belief we have, our ego can now can have proof (which is all it wants anyway) that the stories we have been telling ourselves can have a different ending. That by taking action and taking a risk, we will not physically die, we will not succumb to desperation, failure and despair but we have the ability to create a new story-line, a new belief, a new vision, a new mask to wear.

And sometimes when our soul knows our mask is nailed on so tightly, other circumstances come to happen to help quicken our shift in perspective. The shift for me happened this week in the form of a concussion. It forced me to rest my brain and move from the focus in my head to my heart. And it can look like anything: the loss of a job, the death of a  loved one, a synchronistic meeting, an election that rocks the world.

You can see this in our collective as well. Masks are beginning to be unearthed so truth and justice can come to light. Ever so slowly, ever so painfully, the hidden parts of ourselves and our society are coming undone to show there is a different way to be, a different way to feel, a different way to live so we may be in tune, in alignment, in peace and in love.

It time to unleash the wild woman within. And this means part of you has to die; that part of you that plays small, that part of you that fears change, that part of you that doesn’t want to upset the balance.

The way of the wild woman who hears her soul, who is not attached to the outcome, who sees herself for who she truly is and allows herself to make decisions from a place of knowing and deep trust. For her path is there and ultimately leads to the cave of death but she is not afraid for this moment – she knows – the present is all she has and she drinks it up with pleasure and joy.

The wild woman within is calling to us to abandon our ego-driven ways, our mental chatter and turn our internal compass from our mind and set it to our heart, our intuition, our soul.

Be small no longer, be quiet no longer.

This is how we chart a new course.

This is how we change the stories we tell ourselves to keep ourselves small.

This is how we write a new chapter on our journey.