Update to my limiting belief statement… I think I clarified a bit after Mel’s video training today which was GROUND BREAKING for me. “I will let {name} down.” I think this belief is rooted a bit in wanting to do well for my family – specifically my mother and my grandmother – who sacrificed a TON so that I could have every opportunity that they didn’t. I think I basically decided that my success would ultimately define their happiness (to be clear, they never said that, and I don’t think they believe that), and I love them so much that I really wanted that for them. As a middle school teacher, I work in fear of letting down the very involved parents if their kids come home and complain. In my home, I expect to let down my husband and children because of my crazy selfish insecurity. At church and in friendships I take it personally when people leave my circle because I believe that it was somehow my fault.
I will let you down
“Hurt” Johnny Cash
I will make you hurt
I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liars chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
If I could start again
A million miles away
I will keep myself
I would find a way
The above song – while a masterpiece of poetry and music – supports my limiting belief by telling me that I am full of broken thoughts I cannot repair. Maybe I can’t repair them, but I can CHOOSE not to follow them. I CAN start again TODAY by limiting the power those negative thoughts have to impact my action (non-action really).
Ok, so Mel challenged us in today’s training DAY3VIDEOHERE to reflect on what this limiting belief costs me in the past, present, and future. Here goes.
Believing “I will let {name} down” has limited my PAST:
I have not appropriately celebrated my personal successes or pursued my passions. I have lived without authenticity to fit in or please others. I have controlled circumstances or people to make myself look good which has cost me experiences and friendships.
Believing “I will let {name} down” limits my PRESENT:
I do not try new things. I do not enjoy my work. I resent others for not seeing the real me (which I hide). I am too hard on my kids because of my own insecurities and perfectionism. I serve/work/relate with less than my best so that if/when someone disapproves I haven’t given them “all” of me.
Believing “I will let {name} down” will limit my FUTURE:
If I don’t take risks like being vulnerable/real in relationships I will have few or poor relational connections. If I continue to limit myself with this belief I will not improve physical or mental health. I will not discover the promised plans God has for me. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:11-13 ESV
{Psalm 119:36-38} Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain! Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. Confirm to your servant your promise, that you may be feared.
To know this spot of Inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work or what we wear or how we like to be addressed, but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhabiting it. This is a hard lifelong task, for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we begin, while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential. Each of us lives in the midst of this ongoing tension, growing tarnished or covered over, only to be worn back to that incorruptible spot of grace at our core.
Mark Nepo