Lesson 1 – It’s okay to be me.
Sounds simple enough but as an introvert and a highly sensitive person, it hasn’t always been easy to be me. My young Virgo self was shy and reserved. I felt more at ease letting others take center stage.
Over the years, it was easier and more comfortable to let others do the choosing. I liked being agreeable. One would call me easy-going. I enjoyed being around people with a strong sense of themselves; the outgoing, socially comfortable extrovert put me at ease. Experts will tell you the way we feel about ourselves, usually starts with our childhood. Our habits and beliefs are typically formed then.
A chronic people pleaser most of my life, and it’s clear this pattern formed within me when I was young. I often felt insecure speaking up; it was easier to avoid disagreement. I was a peacemaker; I needed to prevent conflict. At least that’s the way I felt inside and what was going on in my mind. I allowed the preferences of others to take precedence over mine. Probably like most baby boomers, it was never an option to disagree with your parents. You did what you were told and never talked back. Avoiding rather than speaking up was usually easier and felt safe. Just letting things go, even when I wanted to speak my mind or take a stand.
As I became more self-assured over the years, in business, as a mom, a wife, I still felt conflicted; I needed to please. It isn’t a bad thing, pleasing others, but not if you hold back doing the things you want or saying the things you want to say. It took time to teach myself to have a more courageous voice and stand up for my likes and dislikes, specifically with the ones I love. My mid-life reset helped shift something in me to want to become more of myself.
Standing up for myself, and doing more of what I want to do; even if that means making someone feel discomfort or disappointment. Spiritual teachers say the uncovering of our insecurities and healing from them helps us to arrive at our true, authentic self. Mentors helped me understand this. Louise Hay “You Can Heal Your Life” and Michael Singer “The Untethered Soul”. My fear of disapproval and rejection were old beliefs about myself that needed reframing. Not feeling good enough is common for many of us and some live an entire lifetime feeling this way. It can be crippling. I’ve accepted myself for who I am. Let go of my insecure thoughts and healed my “inner child”. Louise’s quote rang true for me.
“No person, place or thing has any power over us. Each one of us creates our own experiences by our thoughts and our feelings. We create the situations and then we give our power away by blaming the other person for our frustrations. We are the thinkers in our mind. When we create peace and balance in our minds, we will find it in our lives.”
Reframing my negative self-talk and replacing it with thoughts of love and approval for myself, it helped me appreciate who I am. The person I was born to be and my life experiences made me who I am today. Learning to let go wasn’t easy and I’m still a work in progress but I did it and I feel free because of it. I’m happier, grateful and most of my relationships have become stronger. It’s now a peaceful place to be me.
Lesson 2 - Have faith over fear.
I like to think of my subconscious mind as something other than me. My alter-ego, my inner roommate (The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer), or the operating system (OS) of my internal computer. Our OS is constantly running in the background, connecting with our beliefs, habits, and memories. I don’t think too much about my OS when life is running smoothly. When it’s peaceful and I’m in the flow, life is good. I’m happy and I don’t think too much about it.
But in those moments of anxiety and stress, it’s my subconscious mind making a split-second connection with a prior uncomfortable experience; a connection with the past. Separating myself from these thoughts feels less personal, and less painful. The separation allows me to look at the discomfort objectively. Otherwise, there’s an impulse to react. When I allow time to pause, I can better understand what’s really happening under the surface and catch myself before I get defensive. It helps to take a moment to pause, breathe, and reflect.
Feelings that can bubble up are resentment, guilt, worry, and fear. Fear is a biggie for me. Facing my fear is tough and gets tricky because it’s often disguised to look like something else. Concern or worry for another person is how fear often shows up for me. Worry about my family and the future.
I ask myself, “What is the root of my worry? Fear of abandonment? Fear of Failure? Fear of Losing Control? Fear of Humiliation? These feelings of fear are not about another person or situation, they are about me and how I feel. They are rooted in old hurt feelings and old patterns of behavior that seem to come to the surface out of nowhere.
We’re all responsible for how we perceive our experiences and if we can look at challenging situations with separation, it makes it easier to see the pain for what it is. Letting go, taking fear or any other difficult feeling out of the equation, and replacing it with love, even just love for ourselves, makes it easier to deal with it and stay calm. We can have faith over fear by taking a different look at things with more love and knowing that everything usually works out for the best.
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself "
Lesson 3 - People are who they are.
This is very much like my Lesson #1. It’s critical for me to be myself and it’s equally important for me to respect that in others as well. If I expect others to respect me for being me, I need to do the same for others. Seems straightforward enough, but this has caused some difficulty for me in the past. It gets tricky when we have differing opinions, behaviors, quirks, likes, and dislikes from others. The most loving, rewarding relationships can often be the most challenging when it comes to our differences. Especially in a marriage, two people that are different from one another, sometimes complete opposites, trying to get along.
They say opposites attract and that’s what it is for my husband and me. An introvert-extrovert match up; probably most common in a marriage. I prefer smaller group interactions and he’s comfortable working the room. Our match-up has worked well for us, although we’ve had our share of dustups over the years. After 30+ years together, facing the empty nest, it was more important than ever to look at each other’s good qualities and how we complement rather than conflict. I’ve always had a fascination for astrology and birth order, so I found it helpful to research our personality types and learn our trait tendencies. It was a game changer for me, when I listened to the INFJ podcast at Personality Hacker. I was moved when I listened, it was comforting to know there are others like me; I couldn’t believe the accuracy; it was eerie how spot on they are. I learned a lot about the INFJ and ESFJ connection. The good news, we’re compatible. Reading about each other’s strengths and weaknesses showed me how much we have strengthened each other’s over time. It was a good exercise to understand what makes us tick; helped us appreciate each other more.
Living a life with unconditional love; appreciating one another for who we truly are. When we expect anything other than that, it means we’re putting conditions on the other person and that strains a relationship. Going through life expecting others to change or accommodate our insecurities can feel restrictive and a real drain on our energy. Recognizing what’s going on inside ourselves, letting go of anything that doesn’t serve us, and seeing people for who they are can be a peaceful place to be.
We don’t need to justify love; it is there or not there. Real love is accepting other people the way they are without trying to change them. If we try to change them, this means we don’t really like them.”
Lesson 4 - Stop worrying about what others think.
For me, not worrying about what others think means to stop taking things personally; which is tough for a recovering people pleaser like me. It’s also challenging for someone with a heightened sensitivity to other people’s emotions; this is more common than most realize. It’s an energy thing but that’s for another post!
We often project our feelings when we communicate with each other and that can be perceived differently than was intended. When a friend or loved one says something that doesn’t land well and feels offensive, it’s hard to not take it personally. Sometimes our discomfort from a conversation rises quickly and it’s obvious why we feel the way we do but other times it’s subtle and the feeling lingers.
I used to spend way too much time giving attention to those emotions. I’d overthink too much and rewind conversations in my head. It’s wasted energy focusing on the past. I spent too much time thinking.
“If he would just stop doing ……., then I wouldn’t get so irritated”
“Whenever she says ……, it’s so annoying”
“Ugh, I probably shouldn’t have said ……, now she’s upset with me”
We all see life through a different lens. We each have a different perspective based on our own life experiences. Wanting or needing someone to behave differently so I could feel better, was a way of putting the responsibility of how I felt on another person. Subtle thoughts of blame and negativity about another person can undermine relationships.
Once I looked more objectively at how my own “under the surface” feelings affected how I interpreted conversations, I realized I had some letting go to do. I shifted myself to focus only on the positive aspects of others, regardless of what they say or do. It’s wasted energy overanalyzing or trying to make sense of why we’re hurt by what someone said and feels better to realize that their perspective is just different from our own.
When we are on a more secure footing on the inside, we’re less prone to have negative feelings toward others. My inner growth helped me realize this and now I can easily talk myself into feeling better and having more compassion rather than getting frustrated.
Your inner growth is completely dependent upon the realization that the only way to find peace and contentment is to stop thinking about yourself.”
Lesson 5 - You can find love in every situation if you're willing to look for it.
Finding love in each situation can be done when we learn to see and feel in a more elevated state of mind; a higher vibration. This idea raised my spiritual growth to a new level.
Ester Hicks, a spiritual mentor, to whom I gravitated during my early reset days taught this message in such an easy-to-understand way. An inspirational speaker, author of several books, and teacher of workshops across the country, Ester’s message is simple. We are spiritual beings living in human bodies and we’re all connected to each other here on Earth. Our inner being (our soul) is one with our source (God, spirit, life force energy, or whatever you choose to believe) and this energy is within us and around us, connecting us all together. When we slow down and calm our minds, we find that connection with our inner energy source. We become grounded and aligned with our intuition and inner wisdom. When aligned, we are in tune with our soul self and can more easily see ourselves and others as God sees us all with only love.
It’s this connection, this alignment that allows for a more peaceful self.
I never understood meditation, the feeling of being grounded, and the real benefits until I had this understanding. It feels amazing to connect with this state of being. It has become a deeper and more intense type of God connection for me. I’ve been a Catholic gal all my life; always envisioned God in heaven and outside of myself. Imaging God within me feels more peaceful and comforting.
This is a common understanding in the spiritual community. God, spirit, and source only love and never punishing.
No judgment, no disapproval, no exclusions, just love.
Once it sunk in that if I could keep my focus on staying aligned with my inner being, my true self, I could feel better, and calmer. Questions are answered, problems are solved, and challenging moments are far easier when I’m in alignment.
Everything flows better. I feel happier and more peaceful. Such an easy way to live, yet it had been foreign to me before. Life had always ebbed and flowed, good days and bad, enjoying life but I often spent time worrying. It was a lot of wasted energy. I didn’t understand that being in the flow of such positive energy could feel so amazing.
It’s simple to get in alignment with this flow state. Have good feeling thoughts often. Spend time in nature, listen to music, watch a movie, meditate, remember happy moments or just have fun doing something you love.
It’s important to distract yourself from negativity. Don’t allow negative thoughts or worry to take hold or gain momentum. Shift your mindset quickly to get in a state of feeling good, align with your true self, and stay there as long as possible. res
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.