Growing up, I thought that one day I’d like to be a storyteller.
I was always a creative soul, and I retreated into words and pages when I needed to escape. Every day I felt like my heart was torn in two as I tried to decide between spending time with my friends and reading just one. more. page.
I appreciated the power of story and the role it had in preserving memories, experiences and culture. I thought that maybe when I grew up I could be the vessel that held those stories for others. That I could help to remind communities why stories matter, and why they are worth saving.
The irony is that when I became a coach I effectively became a professional un-weaver of stories. This time around, though, the stories I was focused on were the ones written on our hearts and minds – the stories about ourselves that we carry with us wherever we go.
My clients hire me because they’re ready for a NEW story. Because one, if not many, pieces of the story they’ve been telling themselves no longer feels right. Because they want to regain power and control and be given permission to create a new narrative that feels good. To build a new life and experience for themselves. That doesn’t mean that un-weaving the old stories is easy.
Nope. Not at all.
It’s a strange thing, to ask your mind and heart and body to give up some piece of belief that has felt like a cornerstone of who you are for years. To no longer identify with this belief and to recognize that it’s not your flesh and blood, your unshakeable reality, but just a wisp of nothing that disappears when you touch it.
A limiting belief is just a belief, and one you’ve outgrown. By releasing it’s hold on you and your experience, you’re encouraging others around you to do the same. You’re chipping in to the collective energy of your community and the world. You’re putting in your two cents of autonomy for all to witness.
So yes, sometimes identifying and rejecting limiting beliefs (aka the stories we have told ourselves and others about who we are that no longer support our growth) can feel difficult, uncomfortable, even redundant. Sometimes it can feel like you’re starting at the very beginning each morning when you wake up, and other times the belief is separated from the perceived power you’ve given it for years in nothing more than an instant.
It can feel uncomfortable, but if you truly desire to live a different life than the one you’re living now, you have to stay with it. You have to ask yourself one important question:
Which matters more to me: my success, or my story?
