I Am Not For Everyone

But I Am For Someone

It shows up, from time-to-time.  Sometimes when I least expect it.  It used to be debilitating, deafening, and downright painful.  The dreaded negative self-talk.  “I’m not good enough.  Who do you think you are?  You’re not worthy.  I’m unlovable.  You’ll never amount to anything.”

The self-deprecating thoughts going around and around in my head.  Inconveniently always playing in the background of my mind, they punch me in the gut just to keep me in line.  

It kept me small, right where it wanted me to be. It kept me “safe” from being seen because if anyone saw the real me, they might not like me and that hurts, it really hurts.

There used to be many, many negative, self-deprecating thoughts that dominated my day-to-day attention.  They ruled everything I believed to be true about the world, and even more powerfully, what I believed to be true about myself.  Unbeknownst to me, those thoughts and beliefs literally directed everything I chose to allow myself to do, everything I allowed myself to be, or not be.  How small and stuck they kept me. 

Eventually, keeping all of me bottled up inside of the tiny world of those negative beliefs became extremely painful and overwhelmingly dissatisfying.

“And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”  ― Anais Nin

Now, fortunately I’ve done the inner work.  I’ve journeyed on the path of self-improvement, inner healing, and spiritual growth.  That path has surely helped me understand who I really am and why I am here; my true gifts, strengths, and my bigger purpose in the world.  This journey over the past 30 years has shown me how to appreciate and love who I was born to be.  How to lead my life in alignment with my authentic path.  All of the studying and the work has given me the tools to transform my life and achieve higher potentials than I could have ever dreamt of prior to understanding who and what was underneath all of the layers of conditioned beliefs; the “should-be, should-do, don’t-do, talk to these people but not those people, this is who we are and this is who we are not” kind of conditioning every single one of us experiences from the moment we took our first breath in this world. 

Yes, I’ve done the inner work, right down to the raw core.  With a resulting inner peace and freedom to just be me – full-out, all of me.  I no longer have those nagging thoughts about ‘what they might think of me.’  Or do I?

Even with 30 years of my own inner work, and 20 years of using what I’ve learned and applying the transformational tools in my coaching practice with the most brilliant and gifted people on the planet, from time-to-time that one over-arching belief rears its ugly head.  It goes something like this:  “Nobody likes me.  Nobody gets me.  Nobody wants me.”  The messages are different for everyone, but that is the singular theme of my deepest core inner belief that I have yet to fully transmute.  I go back and do the inner belief work, and I think that it’s finally gone forever, I am now free!  But, unlike all of the other depleting messages I’ve been able to transcend, this particular one is so ingrained into the core of my belief system, that every so often it shows up and literally does it’s best to stop me in my tracks.  I immediately find myself back-tracking, second-guessing and doubting myself all over again.  Thankfully, now that only happens once in a blue moon, when I’ve had some sort of experience that triggers that sabotaging belief.  And thankfully, now I know enough to look directly at it, allow myself to feel the pain, and keep on keeping on.  I know that beliefs and thoughts like those are not our truth.  Beliefs like that were adopted in early-age childhood and don’t belong to us – they have nothing to do with who we really are (which is a magnificent spark of love and light, by the way), and I do not need to let it dictate the direction of my life any more.

With a greater understanding of who I was born to be, my God-given strengths, skills and unique gifts, I now am fully aware and confident about my purpose, my path, and my direction.  And, what I now know is that I am not for everyone, but I am for someone.  And, that is not only perfectly okay, it is perfectly meant to be!