The silencing of your true potential
Imagine your brain like a sieve…It lets in only the good stuff and and filters out all the drama, right?
Actually, it’s the other way around.
Think about it…we all know that one person who drives us crazy because they only hear what they want.
Maybe that person is you?
Getting stuck in life is a clear indication that we have stopped allowing new thought forms to enter our brain. It’s focused on protecting our beliefs and looking for ways to explain and rationalize why we simply can’t create momentum. If you’re stuck, YOU have become that stubborn, crotchety, hard-headed person you hate others to be.
Perhaps it’s always been this way. Or, it’s just recently that you’ve become closed off. Either way, it’s happened and something’s got to change or you’ll keep digging a deeper hole that’s progressively harder to escape.
If you imagine your brain like a sieve, think of the sieve itself being made up of all your beliefs about reality:
I always attract losers…
People always take advantage of me…
I never get what I want…
It’s always too good to be true…
I can never catch a break…
People just wear me out…
When a new idea comes into your awareness that does not fit into these beliefs, it’s discarded.
Anything that validates those beliefs is saved as validation, consumed and stored.
“I knew this would happen! See? This ALWAYS happens!”
This is your brain’s way of keeping homeostasis.
It’s like your body’s way of protecting the equilibrium on the inside to protect against jolts from what’s happening on the outside. An impenetrable protective barrier of conceptual facts, based on lies we tell ourselves, keeping us stuck in the same feedback loops, DOOMED to repeat the past.
More basically, survival of the conceptual self, or…who you THINK you are based on who THINK you’ve been.
This is an outdated program of Cavemanesque, Velcro-style cognition: we hold onto things that keep us safe while letting go of things that can actually bring us long-term fulfillment.
Velcro: people always picked on me as a kid. I must be awkward and misunderstood. Note made, fear charted, habit shifted. Life becomes it.
Teflon: this hug feels really good, I feel so alive and at ease. Note made. Fear resurfaces “Remember, you can’t trust people. They think you’re awkward and never understand you.” Good feeling gone. Life goes back to normal…
However painful that may be, we do it ALL THE TIME.
What’s that saying about insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result… 😑
Focused on keeping things constant may feel safe in the moment but it’s really like putting your feet in buckets then pouring concrete over them. Still self-preservation and protection but all toward a false peace of mind, security, comfort, and these days…convenience.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to fight for my right to do what I want, how I want, when I want! As long as it doesn’t create any sort of conflict or take away my comfort because without comfort, I won’t know how to live!!!”
Fighting against change to preserve comfort not realizing you could have MORE comfort by letting go of the self-inflicted suffering? This sort of mentality comes at a VERY steep cost: your sanity AND future success.
Creating a shift…
Let’s consider how and where this defense mechanism begins. 💁
As children we form beliefs based on association like: “When I’m sad, mom gives me a cookie to cheer me up. Cookies must mean happiness therefore I’ll eat ALL the cookies when I feel sad.”
I became a compulsive over-eater after my parents divorced because during the times I would see my dad, he fed me lots of sugar. 😕
Fast food. Donuts. Hostess Cream Pies. Cupcakes.
Yep, sugar reminded me of him so when things got heated about custody or when he stopped coming around regularly, I gorged myself in sugar and junk foods to try and FEEL happy.
It took me three doctors with the same diagnosis…clinical depression…and their attempts to numb me with Prozac before I finally realized what I was filtering in/out about reality. I was NOT a victim yet I was somehow unconsciously stuck in that role.
Every day I lived the role of “my” depression because the associative, protective pattern was:
“It’s his fault I eat this way and I have no control. Food is the only thing I can count on to make me happy.”
If we never stop to think about why we do what we do and why we choose what we choose, these programs run our lives like an automated sieve, filtering out anything that could uplift and inspire us to new heights!
I’ve done a TON of relationship coaching in 2017 with clients who are going into new relationships, working on current marriage or family drama, and even with those getting out of toxic ones. They all have one thing in common: they, the client, have to be right. Which of course, in the American perspective, means the other person MUST be wrong.
The term is: Visual Salience. It’s an excellent concept highlighted in Team Robert Cialdini’s book, Pre-Suasion, regarding videos taken during interrogation and their ability to sway the perception of the human mind.
If the video points at the accused, the jury believes he/she is guilty. If the video points at the interrogator, the jury believes the interrogator is wrongly accusing the person in question.
In other words:
From where I sit, I see that YOU are wrong.
From where you sit, you see I am wrong.
And if I want others to believe YOU are wrong, I’ll show them YOUR side and not mine.
In a nutshell, validation of your own beliefs…with no room to changing or challenging them.
If you grew up with a narcissistic parent like myself, and many of my clients have, you know what it’s like to have someone you love always make you wrong in fear of exposing their own faults.
Slight of hand. A little manipulation. All completely unconscious attempts to keep themselves safe.
It’s like a parent saying, “I did a great job of raising you…” when in fact, they were never even around to actually raise you. What they believe may be filtered by their beliefs of “what I’m giving is MUCH better than I had it growing up,” yet from our perspective it’s total crap.
So who’s REALLY the narcissist if we are BOTH trying to prove our point of view while avoiding the other’s?
I’ll leave that up to you to decide. 😶
While you may THINK you are a victim to the world around you, in fact, it’s only your mental sieve doing it’s job to keep you safe. Victim consciousness is the program running the flow of the sieve: it’s all you let in and therefore all you are able to experience.
Remember though, you will always attract someone into your life who reflects the very thing you loathe in yourself the most. And this will KEEP happening until you resolve it.
This is the universe’s way of attempting to expand your mind, heart and potential beyond your current state of being.
Hence, your life, and the quality of it, are dictated by how you perceive and filter the world in and out.
So, the more you resist incoming data that challenges your current beliefs, the less you are available to experience exponential growth and true humility. But, the more you allow input to challenge your beliefs, the less you need to defend your point of view to others or fight for the need to be right…and, the more fulfilling, enriching, integrous and bliss-filled your life will be.
If you liked this article, please 👏, share and comment. Let me know how it impacts you so I can create more of what you need and want most! Blessings and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
About the author:
Alida is a health and mindfulness coach with over 13 years in the holistic living industry. She studies comparative religions in search of enlightening tools to share with her clients for greater success. She’s Founder of Ambassador for Goodness and Co-Founder of Mind Soul Fit OC
