I love my life journey. I continually strive to expand my life and be of service to others. The mental block walls I run into are limiting beliefs I have about myself. These beliefs erode my confidence and they can also make me feel I am less than a woman than I am.
I know intellectually this is B.S., but emotionally I hang on to these beliefs as if they were the truth. What makes this so difficult is that I don’t know what I don’t know. I do not know what belief I have that holds me back. It can be frustrating at times because I know there is something there, I just don’t know what.
So what do I do?
I read, I pray, I meditate and I talk about what is going on in my head. What my past experience has proven is if I do this, sooner or later the situation that instilled the limiting belief in me will pop up and I can address it.
That happened to me this past Friday. It happened, of all places, in a small group meeting at my church. We were in deep discussion around a variety of questions and the question was asked to all: ‘Recall a time when someone you loved suffered. How did you respond?’
I was emotional about this question and couldn’t figure out why. When I got home that evening I decided to meditate on it and within 10 minutes … Bingo!
I was taken back to my best friend Brenda from high school. Her mother had passed away giving birth to her. She was raised by a father who mourned his wife. You can imagine my friend had a hole in her soul she was always searching to fill. She contracted leukemia and passed away at 20 years old never being able to fill that hole.
I was taken back to the young woman I was at the time and can clearly see that I decided to take on the task of trying to fill her hole and I had failed to accomplish that before she passed. Today, I can see that it was never my responsibility to take on that task. There was no way I could have possibly succeeded.
What that limiting belief has been doing to me is holding me back to fully give of myself in service today. I was afraid I would fail others like I failed my best friend from my youth. On Friday night, I was able to let go of that limiting belief. Immediately, I felt as if a 50 pound weight had been lifted off of my soul.
And my confidence, it has soared. Life is good.
Debbi Dickinson is a professional woman who understands the challenges of balancing work, home, love and carving time out for you. Her website is filled with blogs, articles and newsletters written specifically for women. To gain access to a free gift designed exclusively for professional women, visit her website at: http://www.steppingintojoy.com