Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe said, “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” I speak with many people who don’t trust one thing or another in life. Ultimately, what they don’t trust is themselves and their ability to make right choices. The result is dissatisfaction and a feeling of restriction with jobs, relationships, or life. Birds are placed and locked into their cages, we cage ourselves.
Like many of you, I grew up with usual, and some not so usual, beliefs about myself and what my life was supposed to look like. I always knew I was a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, but it took this last year of the most intense inner reflection to acknowledge and embrace that I’m a cube, not a cylinder. Leo Buscaglia once said, and I paraphrase, “Think about how much energy it takes for a peach to try to become a banana to satisfy someone who only likes bananas.” Many of us expend precious life force energy in just such a manner.
When we start our journey called life, people who care for us and have our total trust, repeat their limiting beliefs as facts. There comes a time for many of us, when we realize we were told beliefs, not truths. That’s the moment we can either get stuck in the past or choose to rewrite our life scripts. It’s the moment we can decide to take total possession of our lives.
This last year brought me to a major crossroads in my life. I could have chosen to go in the “logical” direction, but knew it would fragment my soul and my life, a path akin to living like a caged bird. My basic needs would be met, but I wouldn’t be free. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Birds in nature have to put forth more effort, but every day is a new adventure for them.
Our limiting beliefs are our self-imposed cages. Once we decide to trust ourselves, we do know how to live because we learn to ask ourselves the right questions. We also begin to trust right timing rather than attempt to force it. We commit to going beyond our limiting beliefs, whatever they are and however long it takes, so we can expand into who we came here to be. We let go of trying to appease the opinions of others, because it’s folly to believe we can.
Leaving behind the structured path is scary at times, but I see and experience order in the chaos. There is an exhilarating quality about every day because possibilities and potential are everywhere now that I’ve opted not to have everything about my life etched in stone or completely predictable. Life as a free bird in nature is not for everyone. Only those who crave the expansion potential more than the comfort of the cage will even attempt it. You have to be willing to make what you might call “mistakes.” I prefer to call them learning experiences.
If there’s anything about your life you desire to experience differently, first look at your level of self-trust to make the best choices on your behalf. Self-trust is where true security lives. Decide to possess your life. You just might find out that not only can you fly, but you can soar.
Joyce Shafer is a published author, freelance writer and editor, and weekly UPI columnist, as well as published in various online and hardcopy venues. See her books at www.joyceshafer.com. (Contact at jls1422@yahoo.com)