Our lives are a series of chapters…

Have you ever noticed that when you look back at chapters of your life and say to yourself-”Oh, I see…that’s why that had to happen.” Our life is a series of chapters and experiences that bring life lessons…one leading to the next, and the next, and so on. 

And those life lessons… I joke that I was an overachiever when I signed up for all of my lessons and experiences in this lifetime. It feels like I have had several LifeStorms, all, of course, helping me to evolve and informing my work…and yet, sometimes it feels as though there are enough lessons for five lifetimes. But when I reflect, when I look back, every LifeStorm and every lesson carried at its core a limiting belief (or several) that I had to heal. 

My biggest LifeStorm

The LifeStorm that is Lyme Disease, for example…a derailer of the highest order, was one of my most impactful chapters of growth. For years prior to Lyme, I lived on output, helping others, making sure other people were okay, ensuring that those I loved had what they needed, making myself virtually indispensable. 

Why? 

Because, I know now, I felt that I had to earn love, I had to prove myself to be respected, I had to be of service in order to be desired, to be kept in someone’s life. Just by being me, I believed, no one would want to be my friend, my job would be in jeopardy and I would end up alone. That was my greatest fear for years. 

And do you know what happened? Lyme came along and made me Stop. Completely. From 200 mph to zero. And in the stopping, not only was I forced to stop proving my worth but I also needed to ask others for help. Double threat. 

What were the limiting beliefs swirling in my mind? 

• No one will want to help me. 
• I will lose friends. 
• My relationship with my partner will end.
• I am not lovable just for being me
• If I am not helping, why would anyone want to help me?

Helpful thoughts, right? So the universe saw to it that I challenged those beliefs. The sheer vulnerability of having to ask for help- I was crawling up and down the stairs because I was so dizzy and the joint pain was so bad. Some days I couldn’t even raise my hands above my head to shower, let alone cook and take my son to swim practice. So I had to reach out. 

And do you know what happened?

Grace happened. Kindness happened. A channel to people gaining satisfaction from helping me began to open. Friends set up a meal train, the swim team Moms made a carpool schedule to get my son to and from practices and swim meets.

And something amazing began to rise…I began to realize that the limiting beliefs I carried were narratives, stories I told myself in my mind that weren’t true. They weren’t based on fact at all, but rather on old, outdated programming that no longer served me.

As humans, we are wired to make sense of the world. We are programmed to find evidence for our beliefs. And 100% of the time, we can find that evidence, we can find what we think are facts to back up our beliefs. But our brain is simply trying to make logical connections just like the Ancient Greeks did when they linked gods to events in the world that they couldn’t understand. Storms were not science-based but caused by the King of the Gods, Zeus, in one of his rages. 

What if we stopped?

What if we simply decided to ask ourselves if those were really, deeply true. What if we consciously transmuted our limiting beliefs into empowerments. It would go something like this for me…

• There are people who will want to help me and will actually enjoy doing so. 
• I over functioned to help and gain acceptance. When I stopped helping I didn’t have a reciprocal relationship with some and they fell away. Yet those who remain are those I can count on and who can count on me. 
• My relationship with my partner did actually end. But as heartbreaking as it was, I am grateful. We were both released… 
  • For him to have the freedom to live in his truth in the way which he so deserves-and live a life on his terms.
  • And for me to learn to partner with myself first, and then to live my truth and call in a new chapter whose definition surprised me… an unconventional partnership where we are very much together but don’t live together, with someone who wants the same and is deeply committed to a future together.
• I am entirely lovable and actually quite adorable just for being me-because I am a pretty awesome person and a whole lot of fun to be with.
• I want to participate in relationships that are reciprocal-where we be there for each other as needed. 

Looking back…. Shining a light on those limiting beliefs, false programs that are like boulders in our way is so powerful. It removes the blocks and allows for manifestation of the life we want to be living. 

When we consciously tell those false narratives that are not true, and turn them into empowerments, well then…as my Nana used to say, we will have the world by the tail on a downhill pull…and at our fingertips will be the manifestation of a life where we no longer have to prove our worth and can simply live with ease and grace. We are enough, just as we are. Imagine that!