306. change the things you say before you start to believe them
You are not your thoughts. Saying things like “I don’t deserved to be loved” or “my life sucks” doesn’t make it true, yet the more we say these negative things to ourselves, the harder it becomes to not believe them. We’ve all experienced heartbreak, loss, pain, and challenges along the way, but just because those events are in the past doesn’t mean we’re not still holding on to their repercussions in the form of negative self talk.
Those thoughts and feelings of negativity will persist until we learn what we need to change or redefine within ourselves. They serve as a beacon of where we need to place our attention so that the pain can be dealt with and healed. If, for example, you haven’t healed from a poor relationship with your parents, you may develop the mistaken belief that you don’t deserve love, and then continue to find partners who mirror your unresolved issues around love. If we don’t deliberately start changing the things we say to ourselves, we’re destined to repeat and recreate the pain over and over again.
293. trapped by choice
In his book Civilized to Death, author Chris Ryan tells the following story…
“Years ago a man sitting next to me on the train in India explained how his grandfather had hunted monkeys in the hills of Calcutta. He made a small wooden box with a round hole on the side. Before attaching the top, he placed a mango in the box, then strapped it to a tree, where a passing monkey would smell the mango and reach into the box through the hole. But the mangos are too large to pull out through the hole. So the monkey faced a dilemma: let go of the mango and be on its way, or sit there, holding the uneaten fruit, until the hunter came along to capture it.”
The man goes on to say that these “traps” were very effective. But why?
It’s ridiculous to think that any creature would willingly hold onto something — therefore securing its fate — rather than to let it go. But much like the monkey, our actions are very similar. We often want something so much, it can become detrimental to us. We’re attached to how a person made us feel, or the promise of an idea. Whether it’s holding on to a past relationship, or the belief that more money will solve all our problems — these are just metaphorical mangos we’re grasping for. They are a trap, only inasmuch as we believe that what we’re grasping is the only choice we have. But at some point, we need to realize that holding on to what isn’t going to work is more detrimental to us than any pain it will cause us to let go.
It’s a choice.
164. end the chapter…
Nothing last forever, so stop wasting your time on the things that no longer serve the purpose they once did. We progress through this life by seeking out, and sometimes stumbling upon, things that made us better versions of ourselves. What we fail to recognize is that after a time, we learn the lesson these things have presented, after which they no longer serve a purpose other than to perhaps remind us who we are or where we came from. We hold on to them because they have become a part of our identity and the story we tell ourselves. We forget that these things only serve a purpose for a finite amount of time before their usefulness wears out, at which point, they only keep us from progressing to the next stage in our lives.
Holding on most likely won’t hurt us, but no one truly wants to remain stagnant, it’s just that sometimes it’s more comfortable. We need to understand that if it’s not making us better, by challenging or assisting us, then it is only keeping us from becoming better.
Holding on to something that got us this far is never going to create the awareness necessary to take you to the next stages in our personal growth. It’s holding us back because we’re holding on to what it used to be, to what it used to mean to us, or to how it used to make us feel. While nostalgia can be great, it doesn’t make us better, it simply allows us to revisit a time when a certain love, hobby, interest, position, habit, or time in our lives preceded a reason for change.
Coming to the realization that the idea, persona, or concept we continue to hold onto is no longer serving us is sometimes difficult to come to terms with because it has become a part of us. It is what made us who we are by shaping our approach to life up until this point. Separating yourself from the thing/s that brought you to this point in your life will be hard, but it is necessary for growth to continue. Sometimes we need to end the chapter so that we can continue the story.