It’s so easy to lie about who I really am, and I’m not alone.
Someday I’d like to make a meaningful difference with my life, but I have a lot of work to do on myself before that can ever happen ~ I’m not ready yet.
No, don’t argue with me. All you have to do is look at the evidence.
So instead of charging out on the field, we sit on the sidelines wrapped up in low self-esteem, doubts, fears, false humility, and stories to prove how true it all is. But it’s all lies.
The Buddhist approach makes more sense. It’s called the wisdom of discernment, which is seeing things as they are. Carolyn Myss said it well:
Discernment is the capacity to identify the difference between what is truth and what is illusion, or a lie, or just the result of chaotic thinking.
Buying into these lies is the biggest obstacle to living the life you’re here to live. Psychologist and meditation teacher Tara Brach calls it the “trance of unworthiness” — a state in which you walk around in a fog that clouds your connection to who you are and what you can accomplish. After 35 years of coaching folks of all shapes and sizes, this I know for sure:
Every single belief, perception, thought, assumption or paradigm that does not point in the direction of the results you want is a limiting belief!
I’ve heard them all, and there’s not one that was the truth about the extraordinary being in front of me. Now that includes you.
Why should we stop telling these lies?
Because the cost is too high. All we need do is look at what’s happening in our world, our country, our organizations, and our relationships with one another.
The biggest lie I see is: It’s your fault!
The head of the country blames the opposition, the opposition blames the head of the country; the police blame the people, the people blame the police; the CEO blames the shareholders, the directors blame the CEO, the managers blame the directors; the wife blames the husband, the husband blames the wife; the parents blame the kids, and the kids blame the parents.
Then war is declared.
I’ve been both victim and perpetrator of many of these ~ how about you?
How to stop lying to yourself about who you really are
The wisdom of discernment is the path to seeing through the lies of our perceptions into a place of compassion for what other people are experiencing.
The first step on that path is to discover your own biggest lie (the biggest obstacle to your success) and then find a way to move on past it.
To do so, answer the fourth Best Year Yet® question, How do I limit myself and how can I stop? Then discover how to move on past it. There are 3 parts to this transformation:
1. How do I limit myself?
Typical answers to this question:
⦁ I avoid difficult discussions.
⦁ I don’t tell people what’s going on with me.
⦁ I don’t do what I say I’m going to do.
⦁ I get lost doing stuff that doesn’t matter.
Writing your answers takes less than five minutes — just ask yourself the question and write down whatever occurs to you. No editing — please trust yourself. Continue to ask the question, “How do I limit myself?” until nothing more occurs to you. Then move onto the next question.
2. What do I say to myself to explain my limitations?
Your answers to this question are your explanations and justifications for behaving in ways that limit you. Why is it that you limit yourself in the ways you listed above? What thoughts and feelings stop you from behaving in the way you really want to? For example,
⦁ I’m too old.
⦁ No one really cares about my problems.
⦁ There’s never enough time to do the things I care about.
⦁ I’m so unattractive, no one would be interested in me.
⦁ I can’t afford to . . .
These and other such statements are not true. They are just habitual negative thinking. Yes, I know you have lots of proof that these beliefs are true. And as long as they’re in charge, you’ll have even more proof.
3. How can I stop limiting myself?
Here’s the good news. You can use the same expertise you used to create and reinforce the lies, to manifest the reality you want — one based on the truth about you. A paradigm shift takes determination, but you’ve done it before and you can do it again. Just remember a time when you said, “I can’t” — and then did it anyway!
To stop limiting yourself, you need only shift your strongest limiting paradigm into a positive one. How do you do that? You make it up! What statement describes the reality you want to create for who you really are?
Here are some examples:
⦁ I’m creating the job I love, the job I always wanted.
⦁ I’m a gift — anyone would be so lucky to have me.
⦁ Money is abundant and flowing spontaneously to me.
⦁ I know exactly what to do, and I can be trusted to do it.
⦁ I’m reclaiming the life that I love ~ the life that I deserve.
Notice that each of these statements is:
⦁ personal (about you),
⦁ positive,
⦁ present tense (the future never gets here),
⦁ powerful, and
⦁ pointing to an exciting new future for you.
Once you have your new paradigm, keep repeating it to yourself until you accept that this is the truth and your old one is the lie. This won’t happen overnight; for most of us it takes weeks or months. But keep going until you begin to know that your new paradigm is starting to take charge. The magic is worth the wait — I promise.
Your new Paradigm naturally leads you to take the Actions that generate the Results you want and need in an ever-positive cycle of being who you really are.
