Deprogramming Self
Imagine you are a cell phone. (Hang in there with me for this one, I am going somewhere with it.) Picture the day of your birth, emerging from your mother’s womb as a brand new, shiny smart phone. You are a perfectly crafted, sleek device, without a single crack or fingerprint. Sure, you arrive with standard apps, such as a clock, calculator, and a wide-open space for contacts and future conversation exchanges. But for the most part, you are the blank canvas of mobile devices. As you begin to circulate the room, like most newborns, you are being passed around, person to person, receiving love, kisses, hugs, and support. However, with each new connection, a new app is being downloaded into you. The more people you meet, the more apps you collect.
Without realizing it, other people’s fears, dreams, desires, limitations, expectations, perspectives, opinions, etc., are all being installed right onto our home screens. Pretty soon, we are out of storage space and overwhelmed.
That’s what happens to so many of us. We accidently take on other people’s unhealed stuff. It has become so normalized to take a small child a “shape” them into the mold of our wishes. To be perfectly clear, I am not referring to the proper guidance and necessary direction that must exist in order to maintain safety. I am speaking directly about parents, teachers, mentors, and peers that place their personal expectations of who they think you should be and not be, and then are surprisingly shocked when you bend under the load of their ideals. Now, more than ever, so many of us are determined to deprogram ourselves. As a society, self-awareness is on the rise and reaching for helpful resources, like therapy for example, are becoming increasingly common.
YES! Let’s delete those metaphoric apps that were downloaded into us by others. Let’s free ourselves of anything that is not in alignment with who we truly are and/or striving to become.
BUT HOW?!
F**k if I know! (LOL) But I do know healing is a personal journey. As I have mentioned, professional counselors can be an extraordinary tool. However, that is not the end-all-be-all choice for everyone. Perhaps, self-reflection is something you perfer to do in private. Maybe you purchase a Self-Help type book, attend an online course, or enroll in a workshop where you can learn more about human behaviors and the thoughts that fuel them. Maybe, for you, mediation and receiving messages from your Spirit guides is not something that happens on a Yoga mat. Maybe it happens during your daily walk with your dog, or while you are painting, jogging, or dare I say, blogging. (((wink)))
Whichever avenue you choose to do your best emotional scuba diving, keep going! There is no wrong way to dig deep, soul search, and rise above! Tune-in. Listen to yourself. FEEL when that thought is no longer workable. Ask yourself where that thought/feeling/belief first came from. How long have you been experiencing this? Is it holding you back? Is it coming from within or was this impressed upon you at some point, years ago? Oh, how I LOVE a good scuba dive into self-discovery! …perhaps a blog on just that topic is on the horizon.
