What is your excuse for not doing what you really want?
This may sound like a rude question but it is not meant that way. It is meant to have you think about the doubts, the beliefs and the fears that are holding you back.
In my 1 on 1 sessions I often hear people say: “I don’t know what I want!”
However, when we dive deeper, most of the time they actually do know what they want, but for one reason or another they don’t believe they can do it.
Their mind gets in the way of what their heart truly desires.
So let’s explore this, right here, right now:
Take a deep breath….
And ask yourself:
What do I REALLY want? What is truly important to me?
And observe what you feel, what you think, what you see, what you hear.
Do it now…. and then continue reading. (I’ll wait for you ;-))
(…)
Now we take it a step further.
Take another deep breath, close your eyes, and ask yourself: what is stopping me from doing what I really want or being who I really want to be? What is in my way?
Again: observe what you feel, what you think, what you see, what you hear.
How “I am not good enough” can hold you back
We often have excuses that hold us back from moving in the direction we want to move into.
For example, I talk to a lot of people who would like to use their coaching or healing gifts to help others. However, in the process they encounter beliefs like:
- I am too young (or too old)
- I do not have the right certification
- I am not qualified enough
- I don’t have enough experience
- “Who am I to do this?”
These all come down to one belief: “I am not good enough”.
We all have these kinds of doubts and beliefs. They show up in different ways. For me it was ‘I’m too young’ that held me back in the beginning. For someone else it might be ‘I’m too old’. Same pattern, different flavor.
Fear of being seen and speaking your truth
Besides, most sensitive people struggle with old patterns of not wanting to be seen out of fear of rejection and exclusion.
They are afraid to speak their truths and to show who they are and what they believe because they’ve learned that not everybody agrees and that that can be very uncomfortable.
When you look at it from a past life perspective, you might even have been put to death for it in a previous body in a previous time. No wonder you feel hesitant to speak up! That memory might still be in your system.
Love the fear but don’t let it drive you
It’s not always important to know where a doubt or fear comes from. What is important is to acknowledge it and work with it.
I find it essential to love and accept everything that you encounter within you. Whether that is fear, doubt or any belief or feeling you may have.
However, it is no longer necessary to have those fears, doubts and beliefs decide where you go and where you don’t go.
The image I see with this is the image of a car. It is your car, so you should be behind the steering wheel. Often when we experience fear we allow fear to be behind the steering wheel and determine our direction. And fear will steer you away from that which it fears, even when you actually would like to go there. Fear wants you to be safe. It wants to protect you from that which you have experienced previously, whether you consciously remember it or not.
When we work with fear (and doubt, and limiting beliefs), we don’t throw them out of the car. Instead, we lovingly place them in the backseat. They can drive with us, they can be part of who we are, part of our wholeness…. but they don’t need to be behind the steering wheel deciding where we will go or not go.
How to release your fears
When I work with fear I start with an enquiry. I want to know what it is exactly that I am afraid of. I often find that underneath the first fear that I identify, is another, deeper fear.
So I ask myself:
- What am I afraid of?
- Why am I afraid of that?
- What would happen if that fear would be true/if that situation would happen?
- Why is that so bad?
These questions help me get to the core of the issue. Usually once I’ve identified the core issue I feel it in my body. Either because I feel the energy shift or because I hit the emotion behind it.
Feel the fear and do it anyway
Then ‘all I need to do’ is to feel the fear. It is like a wave that runs through me. As I allow it, usually it becomes stronger at first, then it starts to disappear. This can happen in a few minutes or even seconds, depending on what I’m working with.
The intensity never lasts long. Did you know that the length of an emotion is only 7 seconds? It is our mind and our worries that make it feel much longer. When you release the judgment and the story and go back to the feeling of the emotion in your body, it can move through you quite quickly.
Sometimes in that process there are more insights coming through about the essence or the cause of the fear. That’s ok. I do my best to welcome everything because that is what keeps the energy moving.
Emotion = energy in motion
Remember, an emotion is energy in motion. When you block the flow, it gets stuck. When you keep telling yourself the story around it, it can feel like you are moving around in circles and it stays with you for what feels like forever. But when you don’t judge it and don’t attach a story to it, it can move through you much more easily.
And that is the work. Feel the fear and then do it anyway. Once you’ve allowed the fear to move through you, once you know what it is, you can then move forward with more confidence into the direction YOU want to go into.
Good luck :)
Irene
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