Are You Aware of Limiting Yourself?

'To dream by night is to escape your life. To dream by day is to make it happen.' - Stephen Richards

It's so easy to limit ourselves.

I know, we hear this over and over again. But how can you make it not just one more thing that goes in one ear and out the other, and instead allow it to be something that finds its way in, gets into the nooks and crannies of your being and jostels thoughts or places that haven't seen any movement in truly quite some time. A welcome jostling that excites, entices, and makes room within yourself for new excitement, feelings of peace, taking the reins, and a new you?

So let's think. There are many different ways in which we can limit ourselves without even knowing it. And maybe you're one of the people who knows how much you limit yourself- by being all too aware of the low assumptions you have of yourself or by the amount of confidence you lack in your abilities. Well congratulations! Because at least you are aware of your supposed limitations and you've already undergone first step to making a substantial and tangible change! And those tipes of limitations can be among the easiest to change! Hello affirmations! Seriously, don't underestimate their power. See for yourself and free yourself (I truly believe that positive affirmations have been the single strongest driving force in allowing me to be where I am in life). Our thoughts create our actions, create our beliefs, create our realities, create our very own lives. Try it for yourself. What do you have to lose? Really?

And for the rest of us who also need (and/or want) a little work for how to search deeper or go within to free ourselves from our own limitations... well here we go..

Take a minute to close your eyes and silence yourself. Just take 3 deep breaths, focusing on the joyousness, rejuvenation, & potential that can be held in every single inhale. Exhale and focus on allowing yourself to rid your self of any doubts, fears, worries, expectations, and anxieties. Don't worry, it's only 3 breaths, you can always come back to the comfort of your own entrapment after reading this (or NOT!).

Now what do you really want for yourself? Let it be simple and be true. Who's here to judge? It's just yourself, be open to it!

Can you envision your life exactly as you want it? Do you even know what you want? Now this is the first step to truly creating positive change in your life- knowing what you want. Not easy, huh? Sometimes for me I feel it's really very easy to state what I want. But there are also times in life when it feels confusing and we honestly do not know what is in our best interests or in what directions to place our energies. In these times, it's best to take it day to day, moment to moment. Take a few deep breaths (or 5 min or 50 min) to ask yourself what you really do want in this moment. By finding these awarenesses, you will allow yourself to move through these stuck energies and emotions that are being felt or possibly repressed, and you will be able to come breath by breath into your own presence and your own understanding of what you most want and need in order to move onward.

Moments of silence contain profound opportunities for sitting still and simply listening.

'Unless you walk out into the unknown, the odds of making a profound difference in your life are pretty low.' -Tom Peters

Now this can be the scary step. Because for some people, this means fully embracing emotions that you've done a very valiant job of  trying to repress or abstain from, for who knows how long. OK, well guess what!? FREE your SELF! Let them go! Find a safe place within (a place where you feel completely calm and comfortable, accepted, and safe). A place real or imagined. Now visualize this place in your mind's eye, using all of your senses. Then let whatever most needs to come up, arise! From this place of safety, acceptance, and comfort, free yourself from whatever it is you are repressing or denying!!! Feel it. Embrace it.

'Too often man handles life as he does the bad weather.
He whiles away the time as he waits for it to stop.'
-Alfred Polgar

Maybe you tend to adhere to the appearance/ideal that you must always be positive, calm, zen, and yogi. I hear ya, it's tempting. And seems all too right to only want a calm compassion at all times- a fuzzy little reality that is blurred by sweetness and innocence. But wake up! Refraining from any 'negative' emotions or thoughts - well that's just yet another form of control, totally inhibiting yourself. It's not life or really even living. The universe is a beautiful swirl of emotion and complexity, dark and light, positive and negative, emptiness and loss, fullness and expansiveness. It's all one and by limiting our experience to that which we think we should feel or experience, we severely limit ourselves in the complexity of all that we are truly capable of as human beings and lively spirits! We're here to enjoy and experience, not control or anticipate!

'By choosing your thoughts,

and by selecting which emotional currents you will release

and which you will reinforce,

you determine the quality of your Light.

You determine the effects that you will have upon others, 

and the nature of the experiences of your life.'

-Gary Zukav

So embracing the anger, the sadness, the hurt, the pain, vulnerability, the depression, the fear... well it can be darn right scary or intimidating to start! But the more you start to embrace these parts of you in totality, the more you free yourself up for being true and for whatever goodness is looking for an opportunity to make its way into your life. So whatever you are experiencing, embrace it, experience it. And you will realize that these emotions that you have been so afraid of expressing, well they are not you. They are just a wave in the ride of life. But if you repress any one emotion, then it gets stuck inside of you, and you ride that same wave for the rest of your life. Or until you decide to let go of control and move beyond it, trepidatious but ready to embrace the new and the change. And soon you will decide to be open to experiencing ALL of what the seas and oceans have to offer. And come on, we all know how amazing the seas can be! They are full of sea creatures and colors and coral and mermaids and deep sea nothingness and brilliant reviving!

And if you don't choose to let go of the wave you're on (which maybe you've been on for quite some time) then eventually nature will make sure to throw you off of it the best it can. It will present you with new surfboards (as new ideas or people coming into your life), new opportunities, new desires, and oh so much more. And if you continue to ignore these openings, the universe will begin to present you with pain, illness, dis-ease, disparity, and despair as chance to listen. But the human will-power is immense and if you choose to stay on one wavelength (I'm not good enough, I don't deserve this, I'm not powerful, everyone and everything always gets me down, I'm not happy, etc), then you will stay there. But life will turn into an unhappy challenge- it will be frustrating, you will get lost, you will feel victimized and you will stay stuck, ending up in despair, frustrated with your life and all that it hasn't offered or brought to you.

Well guess what, I can empathize, but I don't feel sorry for you. That's the beautiful thing about the immense power of this thing called human will- as much as you can use it to fight the force, the inevitable change, you can also use it to embrace instantaneous and drastic positive change in your life, your mentality, your belief system, your every moment and being.

Begin by embracing your feelings. It might feel scary at first to let go of that control which we have all become so accustomed to experiencing, but slowly you start to get the feel of it and it feels right. The process of letting go actually allows you to have never felt better. And little things start to present themselves in your life, things you never would've imagined before now. Amazing coincidences, feelings of belonging, connection, truth, confidence in yourself, purity, immense abundance in health, and understanding.

Furthering this, I get that we all have different experiences, some of which have been very trying and difficult for us. Life has many different lessons to teach us and it is relative, yet some of us feel we've been dealt particularly unfair hands. Which is absolutely fair. But what I'm attempting to get across here is that we all have that deliciously innate goodness within us and that we all deserve to access and embrace this ever present part of ourselves. This part of ourselves that is buried so deep within, that is so full of love, truth, contentment, and acceptance that it is all encompassing. As we access it and allow it to surface, it allows us to ride the waves with ease and grace, knowing that we are not any one wave in particular, but free to ride the seas wherever they choose and wherever we are open to them taking us.

 'Feelings are like waves, we can't stop them from coming, but we can choose which ones to surf.'

If you are dealing with some particularly dark or stuck emotions, beliefs or feelings, I encourage you to find someone who is neutral to you and who you can feel really safe in expressing yourself with. Maybe that person is through you and a journal (the benefits of free form writing your own experiences, thoughts, and feelings, cannot be underrated!). And maybe for now you just want to start with embracing your present emotions, not worrying on uncovering the buried and hidden layers of your past. Great place to start! Just embrace where you are right now, today. And notice that as you start to become your own mindful observer (instead of saying, well I'm just this way, well life's just this way, this is just how it happens), then things just flow and you start to feel such immense joy in following where life takes you rather than feeling trapped in your own person, your own past and expectations of yourself. You move from being unable to accomplish anything meaningful to moving into that really deep, settled, place full of the love and contentment that you deserve.

'Happiness is something we reap from the seeds we sow. Plant misery seeds and that us what you reap.' -Stephen Richards

Use these tips to move through your past and its continuous rearing of its ugly head to embracing your own reality and your new future! Mindfully embrace and move through those old stuck beliefs and emotions and visualize your new future and your new YOU! Decide what you want for yourself (no matter how big or small, how immediate or long term) and practice by being completely honest with yourself and with your intentions. If it doesn't feel right to say or do something, then don't, and if it does feel right to say or do, then do it! But lying to yourself or others only worsens a situation and lessens your personal powers and belief in yourself.  So trust in your gut and go with what feels right, knowing that the pleasure/pain principle will continue to guide you in the right direction as you become more and more open and accustomed to following it.

Whatever you don’t like and accept 

about the ‘perfection’ of your life right now will keep coming. 

What you believe is ‘missing’ will stay ‘missing.’

Be grateful for however it looks 

and more will come to gratify you.

~ Melanie Tonia Evans

Lastly, remember that our beliefs become our thoughts, which become our emotions, which become our breath. And this pattern is completely 2 way. So our breath is also a purveyor of our emotions, which are glimpses into our thoughts, and patterns of our beliefs.

So by tuning into and mindfully shifting your breath, you have the power to tune into and willfully shift your beliefs. Quite simply amazing!

In the words of The Peaceful Warrior (a truly exceptional story)... 'Let it FLOW, Let it GO!!', breathe, and enjoy the vast immensity of your own potential as you dive into the waves of life.

'The greatest weakness for most people is that they don't understand their own strength.'