Dear Wild One: You’ll Never Rise Higher Than the Story You Tell Yourself
The quiet power of rewriting the beliefs that have been holding you back.
Dear Wild One,
I wonder what I would discover if I sat, unannounced, on the wall of your mind. Listening to the thoughts you have on repeat like an old, warped record player.
Is it yesterday’s drama?
Are you kind to yourself?
Do you really believe what you just said?
I know what comes out in a coaching session. I’ve heard the limiting beliefs that infiltrate my clients' day-to-day lives and keep them stuck behind an old belief system that, maybe at one time, kept them safe, but today is just in the way.
Negative thinking, rumination, and self-depricating thoughts rob you of the life you deserve to live. If you sit in a place where nothing good ever happens to me, then nothing good will ever happen. Yes, you truly do become what you think. Energy matches energy, and the universe will give you exactly what you believe, including challenges.
Here’s the thing I want you to know, Wild One. You’ll never rise higher than your personal story.
When I heard that tidbit, it felt like someone threw a brick at my chest, and the wind was knocked out of me. I couldn’t breathe. The root of all my mental suffering…was me. That’s a hard pill to swallow. No one really wants to look in the mirror and realize Taylor Swift’s words are accurate: “I’m the problem, it’s me.” But it changed my life.
Sit with that statement and let it sink in. Really reflect on it. You’ll never rise higher than your personal story. What is your personal story? It’s the thoughts and beliefs you carry about yourself. The conversations you have with yourself in your mind. How you talk to yourself and what you believe about yourself.
I am not good enough.
I am unlovable.
I don’t have the skills.
I’m not smart enough.
Maybe I’m not supposed to find my soul mate.
I’m difficult, sensitive, or too much.
I’m ugly, I’m fat, I’m out of shape.
Maybe they are right…
You will never rise above what you’ve been telling yourself. Considering taking the next step at work, but you’re telling yourself you don’t have the skills? Listening to constant criticism from someone in your life, and you think, maybe they are right? Someone can’t handle all your feels, and you believe you are too much or too difficult?
If you stay here, and for the record, many do, you will continually stifle your greatness. You won’t get the promotion, you won’t find someone who loves you for who you are, and you will always believe what someone else tells you about yourself.
Oh, but here comes the beautiful part. YOU GET TO CHANGE THE STORY. You, and only you, are the author of your story. Stop giving permission to everyone else. If you don’t like your story, change it. I know you might be thinking, Just how do I do that?I’ve been carrying around these thoughts in an outdated suitcase for years.
A theme song for your mental baggage.
The answer is the same way you got there. Little by little. You were not born with limiting self-belief. You were born with a pure soul that believed it to be wholehearted. You arrived on this Earth knowing you could do and be everything, but the experiences and conditions imposed on us by family, culture, and community started to chip away at that existence. It’s not all that bad. We do need to learn ways to thrive in community, but most of the time, we don’t always find or have access to the right community, and for many of us, we are forced to fit in.
Little by little, those values and belief systems chipped away at the wild version of you, and that’s who you see in the mirror today. So, get busy filling in the cracks, one at a time.
The Japanese art of kintsugi (”golden joinery”) inspires the philosophy that repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with gold makes it more beautiful, highlighting, not hiding, its history.
Kintsugi teaches us that our flaws aren’t weaknesses, they’re golden opportunities to grow, heal, and transform.
Ways to fill in the cracks
Work with a coach or therapist
Journal
Assess your input - your friends, partner, family, and what you consume (TV, social media). Take an assessment. Are you surrounded by those who lift you up or tear you down?
After doing the work, little by little, back in the right direction, you will begin to recognize the wild you coming through. The cool thing about your brain is that it will easily get on board with this reframe. Our brains can actually rewire. It’s called neuroplasticity. All the old junk that no longer serves you can be whipped clean. Like erasing the hard drive to clean the system.
It is not hard to think differently if you are willing to do so. Uncomfortable, sure, growth comes with growing pains, but it’s not impossible. Your personal story can be so much better than it is, and you have the power to change it. Then, and only then, will you rise.
Imagine a different life for yourself. What does it look like? Maybe the characters remain the same, your work, your home remain the same, but how you feel on the inside rises to a completely different level. One of peace, joy, and exuberance for living. Imagine what you will draw in from that place! That’s a wild life, and I can see it so clearly for you.
With love,
Abby