What You Believe You Achieve: Living in A Mirroring Universe
The Inner Work Changes the Outer World.
People often say how doing the inner work helps us change our outer world and this could not be more true. This is because what you believe wholeheartedly about yourself is projected out onto the world and reflected back as your experience or your reality.
Our thoughts about ourselves lead to what we believe about ourselves, which lead to ways we behave in the world or habits we do naturally and instinctively. These behaviors turn into patterns that we repeat over and over again. When we think good thoughts about ourselves, we believe good things about ourselves. Then, we behave in ways that support those beliefs. Good habits and patterns are formed and life reflects to us mainly positive experiences. On the other hand, when we have had trauma or abuse in our lives and we have been shamed by our abusers into thinking we are “bad” or “selfish,” the inner critic is born. The inner critic takes over for the voice of the harsh and critical abusive caregiver and repeatedly reminds us of our shortcomings and then the beliefs that we are “less than,” “not good enough,” or “don’t matter” are born and take root. Unhealthy or non-productive behaviors arise from feeling ashamed of ourselves or unworthy. We might forget to do a task one day and suddenly we have the inner critic playing on that one mistake like it means we are a huge failure all the time and that we never get it right, which is not true, of course.
When we start to label ourselves as “stupid,” “not pretty enough,” or “a bad seed,” we start to live by that label. We start to believe the label and behave according to it. We start to ditch school, gain weight, trip or fall down, fail classes, or many other behaviors that prove to ourselves that we don’t measure up. Life mirrors this back to us as well. We attract the kind of people who will support us “failing,” “ditching classes,” etc. Life will give us exactly the energy we are putting out, whether it is that we fully believe we are worthy and good or that we believe we are a loser and bad. This is also because the pattern has become an unconscious one. Our conscious mind can only do so much to override and remind us that, “No. You are worthy and good” when our beliefs are tucked down and hidden underneath the surface. The conscious beliefs will not stick for very long so long as the unconscious beliefs are hidden and rule the roost.
Our beliefs about ourselves create our life experiences—for good or for bad.
These beliefs that run the show are called limiting or false beliefs. They were born out of a misperception you made as a child about yourself when you were too young to be able to think abstractly and could weigh out the truth versus a lie. Children always feel like they are in control. They do this developmentally and they do it for survival. So, if a parent yells at us, neglects us, or hits us, we don’t stop and think, “Wow, Mom is on a serious rampage about something. She must have something big happening inside herself. I sure hope she is ok! ” No. We think, “Mommy is mad at me and I did something to make her mad.” The truth is more likely that Mommy has her own problems and you standing around asking for love and attention or minding your own business while happily coloring should not incite Mommy into rage and blaming you for her issues. When she does this, however, it creates trauma for you. It creates shame. Shame wants to protect you from being abused again so it tells you, “You are bad and have to be good so Mommy will not hit you again.” From then on, you do whatever you need to do to survive. You will be a “good boy” so Mommy won’t lash out again.
From this lens and this new belief you have formed that you have to be good around rampaging people, you have a keen eye for people who lose their cool in a similar way that Mommy did. You use your finely-honed skills of being “good” by walking on eggshells, complimenting profusely, apologizing needlessly and often, smiling, doing well in school, being a good athlete, being perfect in every way you can be, being helpful, and chameleon-ing yourself in every situation to cater to what you think your audience will deem “good” so they won’t rampage all over you like Mommy did. I don’t know about you, but I am exhausted just writing about how much this child goes through! But, oh no, it doesn’t stop at childhood. This is now a pattern, remember. So, this is, like, ALL the time for this kiddo.
This guy grows up and attracts these kinds of people as his friends, his business associates, his bosses, and his love partners. When this is how a child lives day in and day out for years on end in a toxic family dynamic, his nervous system becomes dysregulated and learns to stay in a state of fight, flight, fawn, or freeze (The 4 F’s) mode and sometimes a combination of them. When you can unburden someone you care about by taking on their bad behavior as though you have caused it and you feel like you have straightened them out in some way, it makes you feel a sense of “peace” and “calm” in your body. The 4 F’s are coping strategies to help your nervous system calm down so you won’t have a panic attack or a heart attack or some other physical issue caused by the stress the false beliefs have created in you that tell you: “Hurry! Be good and make him happy or he will hurt you in some way!”
Calming yourself down in this way is only a temporary fix, however, because this pattern you are in of needing to rescue someone from their destructive behaviors will continue until you decide to get out of the pattern and heal the limiting beliefs that keep you entangled in these toxic cycles inside yourself and with others. Recall that, even if the other person is rampaging and obviously the one causing the drama outwardly, you were taught as a child to feel unworthy in some way and that the only way to feel self-worth was to save the rampager, right? So, you, too, have some work to do in order to stop attracting these rampagers into your world. If you don’t change your beliefs about yourself, the pattern will continue and the stress and nervous system dysregulation will continue, which is not good on your long-term health, your mind, or your soul.
You can only change yourself, not anyone else.
Until you have broken this pattern and you get onto a new neural pathway in your brain, you will continue to attract people and situations into your life that make you feel like you are living in a repetitive cycle again and again. It is because you are. You can change the person or the situation, but the experiences will be very similar with new people and situations and you will feel like you are constantly messing everything up in your life. This is not your fault. This is based on how you were wounded in your childhood and how your brain came up with a solution to the problem you were having at that time. The solution, as you might remember from earlier, is it was helping you to survive by shaming you (protecting you from further abuse) by criticizing you (inner critic) into playing unworthy and small. At the time, this was a perfect, safe solution. But, guess what? The good news is that now, as an adult, you don’t have to do the same things anymore. You CAN change this pattern.
This is what the majority of my coaching is all about. I help you find the limiting beliefs, root them out, and change them so that you get onto a healthier and happier pathway in your brain. Then, your life experiences will also reflect the more positive beliefs you have so that you will feel better about yourself, your health, your body image, your abundance, and more. You can have confidence, clarity, calmness, courage, and creativity without having to fix someone first. You can do these things independently of rescuing or saving someone to prove you are worthy of love and that you are good. You ARE good already. You just got confused and you loved your rampaging mommy so much that you wanted her to be happy. That is beautiful and loving, but it was never your job to make her or anyone happy. That was always her job and theirs, too. Your nervous system and brain just did not realize it back then and needed to keep you safe. The pattern continued into adulthood simply because it was a very entrenched pattern in your brain. It was your neural path of least resistance. It was your brain’s go-to because it worked and was functioning. You didn’t die from being in the toxic patterning, so the primal, subconscious part of your brain thought it was okay to still tread it. Toxic cycles with partners and family can become a thing of the past for you if you are ready to change it.
This is how doing the inner work can change your outer world.
If you feel you need some support and guidance to help get your life path back on track, please contact me for a free one-hour Discovery session.
