Are you currently on your way to realizing your personal Legend? Or have you been subtly subjected by numbing outside forces that allow you to perpetuate a lie. One that most of us tell ourselves, “this life is good, so many people have it worse than me, I’m lucky to be here, and should be grateful.” While those statements are true in a sense and you should be grateful for the things you have, but….there is a hidden lie in those statements. A lie that is nestled in our sub-conscious, and one that has been there since we became jaded from first experiencing some of life’s harshest realities at a young age. The lie that formed in the void where the tantalizing mysteries of our youth once dwelled. I’m referring to those thoughts you had when you were a child. Do you remember ever thinking, “I’m the star in a (sort of) real-life movie, and “I feel like the world is watching over me, they are entertained by my thoughts and actions, and rooting for me to become something great.” We all thought we were special until for some reason those fantasies died suddenly or over-time.
Does any of that sound like you? In order to understand the context of what I’m getting at here, let me ask you this: Has gratitude become a spiritual bypass to your personal truth? Have you settled into the condition that you should be content with the way things are because so many others have it so much worse; or that your life is simply not one destined for greatness? There is a difference between genuine gratitude and one that acts as a coping mechanism.
Here’s a tip to help get you started: Get into a calm state, eliminate some distractors going on at the current moment, and ask yourself; “What lies am I telling myself right now?” The lies may come in the form of, “This relationship is the best I can do and as long as I still get to keep doin ________, I’m good enough;” or “I’m in this field because I had no other options;” or finally, “Without my ________, I’d be floundering to make ends meet.”
Why does this line of thinking occur? We all have told lies like this to ourselves in one form or another; Psychologists refer to this as false narratives or cognitive distortions. These occur when something happens in our environment at a given time which exceeds our ability to process and handle it in a healthy way. The result of this is the development of a false attribution or cognitive distortion; we start to see the world differently. For example, if I child witnesses his father striking his mother, the child cannot hold two conflicting views of his father; seeing him as both good and bad. Therefor the child “splits” (referred to as “splitting”) the most painful aspect of their parent into their unconscious, and does not continue to process and mature thoughts related to that aspect. The result is, the child grows into adulthood and maintains behavioral relationship problems because his or her impression of adult conflict was distorted at a young age. Ultimately we witness, process, and respond to life’s challenges in a way that allows us the best chances for survival at the time. But this does not mean we usually process these events in a healthy way at a later time. We have developed all sorts of techniques and methods over the course of our lives to shut-down or even suppress our feeling “capacity;” this capacity or ability is the very thing that is needed in order to pursue our best selves and start our personal legend. This feeling capacity contains our ability to perceive and act on hunches, intuitive moments, and connect with our inner-most selves.
This brings me back to my main point. When we identify the lies we tell ourselves, we start to see the mold that’s shaped our circumstances. The mold has contorted us overtime to fit within the world’s view of who we are, not our own. I can’t remember who said it, but I love this line; “If we compromise ourselves at the beginning we compromise our whole way.” So, that being said, how do we get on the right path and start our personal journey to our best possible selves?
A Path of Truth
The first task in starting back on the path you deviated from when you were a starry-eye filled child, is to identify the current lie(s) in your life. It’s usually where you least allow yourself to look. Pioneering psychologists Carl Jung believed we all come born with a set of life-tasks, aspects about ourselves that dwell in our unconscious. Jung believed must face those challenges and overcome them in order to become our authentic selves. Whether Jung’s “life tasks” were prescribed at conception and became evident at moments of adversity (i.e. adolescent trauma), or manifested independently from those instances is irrelevant; what matters is we identify those moments and overcome them.
What is it that happened to you that stole your essence, vigor, faith, curiosity, or wonder? What thought or set of beliefs do you keep locked away in your deepest cave; the thought that lurks just below your conscious and causes you to pull back when you should pursue forward, or stand up for yourself when the world tells you you’re not good enough. Here’s a hint, the best way to find out what that thing is, is to see where you’re developing a resistance the moment you start looking. If that doesn’t work, try to complete these statements:
“I’m not a successful ___________, because I always find a way to ______________.”
“People don’t really listen to me because intuitively they know I am _______________.”
“I’m not a good person because deep down I know I _____________________.”
“If it weren’t for ___________________, I’d be ________________________.”
“I can’t really trust myself because ________________________.”
Perhaps answering these questions will help you put a microscope on the lie(s) you tell yourself. Look back at your past, what things have you had to give up, try to control, or avoided in order to keep the lie going? Here is the hard truth about that lie; anything you put in those blanks is simply a thought you developed because, at the time you first developed it, you didn’t allow yourself to fully face, process, or fail in a way that allowed you to learn and grow next time.
Now, you are looking with a purpose of healing and understanding. We are not perfect in any way, we all have wounds that have not healed, and we doubt ourselves in so many ways because of those painful wounds. But when we face those problems head on, something magical happens. Those difficult thoughts and memories start to take on a different meaning, they start to develop into a strength, and eventually blessings, which will start to shape you into your true authentic self.
In order for you to face the challenges the world will throw at you in pursuit of your personal legend (and there will be many), you first need to face the personal challenges that already exist inside you. Figuring out what your current life lesson is, is the key to unlocking the door that starts you on your personal legend; and when that happens, you will be ready.