Restoring my soul.

What is my story? No not the stuff that’s happened in my life til now or what do I want to be when i grow up.  What is or what are the stories that I tell myself everyday that alters the way I see the world?

Tony Robbins is big on asking people what their stories are, of course they start by saying “I grew up in….” or “I am a….” fill in the blanks.  These are not the stories he means.  Why am I not in the place in my life where I thought I was meant to be?  What is holding me back? Why me? when the question should be Why not me?

What are the stories that I tell myself – what are my reasons for not pursuing my dreams?  I’ve been thinking about this a lot, not just recently but off and on in the past few years.  The feeling that there needs to be more somehow, that I am meant to be more, have more, do more.  I carry a feeling of dissatisfaction around like a cloud, I try to be happy, but there is something else there pushing me to want more, learn more and be more.

Why am I not there yet? I’m smart, I’m down right intelligent.  I can research and analyse and make deliberations quite successfully. so what is holding me back?  The answer I have discovered is this… I don’t believe in ME.  Now hold that for a minute…  i will wait…

I do not BELIEVE in ME!  Other people do, how do I know that? well they tell me all the time.  You see my repetitive story in my head, my background self talk is more along the lines of “I’m not worthy.” “I don’t deserve …. whatever that thing is I want.” “Why would anyone listen to me?” “Who am I to think I can have more than I do?” “Stay in your place.” “Don’t be too big or people won’t like me.”

So why at 45 am I only just realising this about myself?  I have always known it, I just haven’t had the courage to acknowledge it and say it out loud before.  If I say it out loud I have to own it, I have to take action on it,  I have to actually believe what I say about myself that is opposite to the negative. I have to be vulnerable – (yes very Brene Brown of me).

You see vulnerability is not my strong point.  I have to always carry people, pick them up, solve their problems, do things for them that they could do themselves (but they don’t because I have trained them to rely on me.)  The downside to this realisation is that the first time I said NO to someone and stuck to my guns they were mad at me, they yelled at me and called me names.  I was hurt, I was disillusioned and shocked by their outrage that I would dare say NO to them.  I mean honestly who did I think I was? Right?

Normally in the past I would have caved, I would have done the thing they asked and resented it.  This time I still did the thing, but AFTER I told them what I thought about their inaction, after I let them know that my time is valuable and that I would do it when I was ready, on my timeline not theirs.  I have a long journey ahead of NO’s of Sorry that is not on my agenda today.  However I am determined to reclaim myself, my life and my career.

My career is another area I stalemate in,  I don’t apply for the jobs I want because I don’t believe in myself enough to say I can do that job.  I don’t believe I deserve to have a corner office and staff that work on my projects, on things I care about.  How dare I think so big, big is for Oprah or Tony not for little old me after all I’m just a mum from the suburbs of Melbourne, I have kids and a husband and a house to care about – how can I dare to believe there is more?  I use my children as safety barriers – Oh thanks for the invite but the kid needs x,y or z at that time.  “Oh thanks for the tickets but I can’t attend because I NEED to be there for this kids game or activity.”   I hide away and avoid social situations because I’m frightened of being found out as a fraud.  So here I am laying it all out in a blog post that quite a few people will read (I hope).

This is my exercise in vulnerability, putting myself on the line now and saying I need help.  Yes the helper needs a hand up too.  I have to change the story in my head to “I AM WORTHY”.  “I DESERVE IT”. “Why NOT me?”  Over the coming weeks I will blog my clear path, I will extend my vulnerability to you my reader and ask for some feedback either here or on facebook or via email.   Let me know what you did, let me know about your journey has it started yet? Or are you like me and just getting started now?  There is safety in numbers after all