The Lesson That Will Free You: THEY WERE WRONG!

This piece is dedicated to someone in my life who won’t read this, won’t be interested and has never recognised my talents. To you I say, wipe your eyes and look again, I’m not who you told me I was. YOU WERE WRONG!

Did you hear me? Want me to say it again?

For those of you who have read I am Doll Eyes you will know that this year I suffered an injury serious enough to take me out of work for nearly six months. The saga continues but I remain resolute in looking for the blessings in the injury. One of these blessing has been the time to sort through an amazing amount of mental junk.

I have written, I have read, I have watched, I have reflected, I have absorbed, I have re-wired many synapses in my head that weren’t getting me what I wanted and I have come to an awesome place of peace in my heart. This entire blog is to share this learning with you. Learning that has taken 31 years of hard lessons to finally sink in. Recently though, in fact I was only able to articulate it today, I learned what I believe is the most freeing lesson yet and I am dying to share it with you. 

The most freeing lesson I have learned so far!

Let me unpack this for you. We are bombarded with messages, incidences, images, actions, etc from birth that shape who we are. Throughout our lives we are molded by the hands of the people we spend our time with. Their opinions, their expectations and the limitations they place on us, we become. If we are constantly told we are beautiful, we believe it, we create that beauty in our lives. We live ‘being beautiful’. If we are repeatedly told we’re super smart, we live ‘being super smart’ and do smart things and take on that identity. All of these messages by all of the people we come across, we assimilate into ourselves as ‘who I am’.

When I was a child in my year four class we had to do a life drawing of a vase filled with pink carnations. We had pastels to do this. While I had never been told I possessed any artistic talent, I drew my little heart out. I was sitting next to a girl, Emily, who commented on how good my drawing was and began to copy my technique. Mysteriously, my drawing went missing and Emily’s was show cased as the best in the class. I think it even won some sort of award but it ended up framed and in the Principal’s office.

Emily went on to become a graphic designer and from then on I never really got into art. Why? Because when Emily’s family found that her picture was framed and in the Principal’s office, she would have received so much praise and encouragement for her artistic talent, which would have encouraged the creation of more art and so on. Me? I didn’t and well, continued not to…Until recently…

I use this story to illustrate how the messages we receive as children actually shape who we are and who we become. It’s unfortunate in some cases but we become what we are told we are. That is why in so many cases family history repeats itself. The welfare cycle occurs in families over generations. The aristocratic cycle continues through families. The middle class cycle continues through families. Why? People rarely- not never, but rarely- step outside of what they are taught from birth that they can achieve, do and be.

These messages become the beliefs which dictate the choices and the path one takes on their life journey. As children become adults they build lives based on these structures or mental programs. Usually people who grew up in relatively stable environments will do this happily and relatively successfully in one form or another. This is because the parents or caregivers were consistent in their message to that child about who they were and their place in the world and continue to affirm this as that child begins to make their ‘own’ choices.

People who grow up in dysfunctional or neglectful homes (raise your hand and say ‘I’), rarely have this stability in their programming. They often crave affirmation or recognition for what they do well into adulthood because they didn’t receive it as a child. Unfortunately, many of this type of person’s choices are made in the hope that they will finally get this recognition and ‘be good enough’ in the eyes of the person whose attention they crave. The root cause of this is the ‘inner child’ beseeching the parent to give them some boundaries on who they think the child should be. So the adult ‘child-self’ keeps doing different things to get a reaction which will give them this answer. I have seen this repeatedly. If I do this, will you give me some indication that you think it’s good!!!?!?

We do this subconsciously because who we are is formed by those around us. Look at the impact cultural circumstances have on individual expression? If Lady Gaga had been born in Zimbabwe, do you think she would be who she is today? No! She was encouraged by her family and born into a society which supported expression and darn good public relations. If Jesus had been born a woman two thousand years ago when women were still less than second class citizens, do you think ‘she’ would have made such an impact? I am posing such extreme examples to drive home how much we are shaped by what is around us and by what people say we can and cannot achieve.

Look at it like a computer program. Over the years and countless encounters and experiences, people’s opinions and comments and the things you see played out around you are constantly writing a program in your brain called ‘Who I Am.’ This program governs how you run your life and all of the choices you make.

What people don’t tell you is that when you become an adult you can choose to re-program your brain. Or wipe out everything that’s on the “Who I Am” hard drive, reboot and reload something a whole lot better!

It takes time, dedication and a whole lot of insight, willingness and patience but it can happen. It does happen. Look at the great people in our world. Those who grew up with nothing. From nothing. But somewhere deep inside they knew they were meant for more. Look at Oprah Winfrey! She came from absolutely nothing and created something wonderful for her life because she kept searching, kept healing, kept questing to know better, to do better. For the record, she does tell a story of when she was four and she stood up in church to make a speech, how everybody commented on her speaking ability and she was encourage to do this from then on. This is social conditioning at work!

When we accept the opinions of others as the basis of who we are, we limit ourselves. There are therapists all over the Western world making good money out of trying to help people to solve their childhood wounds. The Self Help section is big business as people on their quest to personal fulfillment or inner peace devour countless books, CDs and DVDs.

Well save your money people! Here is the solution! THEY WERE WRONG!

Therapeutic shouting really works! Picture that person in your mind clearly when you do it!

As an adult, if you are still living for someone else’s approval, living in someone else’s limitations of you or suffering from self-esteem issues, they will stem from some form of childhood trauma, abuse or neglect, no matter how big or how small.

 So take a moment and go through some of things that your fellow school students told you that hurt your feelings. Bring up anything and damn well everything that mum or dad or sis or bro or aunt or uncle or teacher or stranger ever did or said and repeat after me “THEY WERE WRONG!”


Bring these issues up individually. Picture the perpetrator standing in front of you and yell “YOU WERE WRONG!” Just keep doing it until you feel the anger or hurt or emotional responses in you begin to fade.

 You no longer have to accept responsibility for the things those people said or did. You no longer have to live a life that gives any credence at all to them! I’m not talking about hate or getting rid of these people from your lives (unless it helps), I am talking about realizing that they were-simply-WRONG! When people give birth they aren’t suddenly cured of all their own issues and dramas. They are still broken. And their brokenness impacts the children they raise.

BUT! There comes a point in our lives when we can give ourselves permission to re-write the codes and programs in our brains in order to live the life we want to live. Most of us don’t try and be great because we weren’t trained by those around us to think we could be. Well, THEY WERE WRONG.

Having basically raised myself without parental guidance, I had no idea who I was for many years. I searched and made countless mistakes all through my teens and twenties. I longed for validation and therefore chose love partners who were no good for me. I had no moral compass and went on a search to find spiritual truths to guide my choices. I thought that gaining degrees and career stature would heal the emptiness inside, but three degrees and countless awards and scholarships and career success later I still found that gaping wound present!

If you are an adult carrying around a wound, it’s time to do some shouting: THEY WERE WRONG! If you aren’t carrying around any gaping wounds, get really honest with yourself, I know that somewhere, on at least one level, you’ll be living your life for someone else. To fulfill their belief of who you are. It’s time to stop. It’s time to get clear about what you want, for your life. You see, those people who helped to form your opinion of yourself, be that good, bad or indifferent, aren’t climbing into your head, in your bed with you at night. That’s just you. You have to be accountable, as of right now, to yourself and start living your life for you, under your rules and under what you say is possible for you.

These opinions and beliefs from other people, they are just like invisible chains around us. And the only person keeping them there is ourselves. Shake them off. Get shouting: THEY WERE WRONG!

Even if you don’t know what you want your life to be just yet, just knowing that you have made choices or are living in a way that is because someone else formed that ‘program’ in you is a good enough start! Now get busy shouting and get busy asking yourself what you want for you. What is your BEST POSSIBLE life? Get started on it. (Check out Yellow Brick Road for extra help with this). The only person who needs to believe it’s possible is you. Because no one else matters. They aren’t in the driver’s seat of your life. You are. Always have faith. Believe in your dreams even if those closest to you don't. It's not until after they were dead that many geniuses were actually called that! When they were alive, they were considered mad, hallucinatory, eccentric... Artists, scientists, doctors, writers, explorers! They made a contribution that changed our world because they never gave up! Don't you give up!!!

So much that we do, even down to the clothes we wear is because of either our training or our fear of other peoples opinions! Some is due to our subconscious, like our mental programming, and other stuff is completely conscious: I can’t wear that! What will my friends think? It’s just so limiting! Unless we explore why we are living the life we are living and whose ideals we are living out, we will keep living a life that to a varying extent has been written for us by those around us.

Even if it’s just one little thing at a time, take the steps to find out what you want for yourself. Try a new look, or go back to study something, or read a new book or watch a new type of film! Explore who you are without the judgments and programming of others. You will find a whole new world and a whole new realm of possibilities will open up for you. If you are wounded, get shouting! Add in any sentences that help you, but I promise it’s better than any therapy! When that person said or did those things, THEY WERE WRONG! When you were neglected or told negative things, THEY WERE WRONG! When you were a child and broken people raised you with their own wounds, THEY WERE WRONG!

Having the courage and conviction to stick to our own truth and live our lives authentically is no simple task. But like all things that take effort, the payoff is extraordinary! Your reflection in the mirror is something you create and renew every single day. You don’t have to carry the opinions of others, the judgments of others. Live the life that is the ideal life for you! I dare you!

Til next we speak, butterfly kisses.

Wyld.

PS, for extra tips on unpacking beliefs that might be (mis)guiding you, try Believing in the Yellow Brick Road.