You have to love, respect, and honor yourself (and others) before you can really tackle reaching your unique potential. This is not to say that the ones you love aren’t important, that spirituality doesn’t matter, or that others don’t have wisdom you need. Instead, it’s simply to point out that you have been gifted with a unique consciousness, and now is the perfect time to acquaint yourself with it (through quiet, meditation, and/or hypnosis) so that you have a way to guide your own path through life.
If you are not in control of your life and what’s happening in it, ask yourself what lessons you can learn about that. Perhaps you don’t trust yourself and are looking to others to define your path, to approve of it or you, or to keep you safe. Maybe it feels too risky to change and fail at something or to be fully seen. You might have made some unwise choices in your life (we all do) and now you’re having to deal with the results. Or perhaps on a really bad day, you wish others would feel sorry for you or take responsibility for your unhappiness, instead of you having to take control of what you are facing.
The reality is that even though we may want sympathy (and we may even get it), sympathy can’t change your life for the better. Those who want to continually rescue you (with the best possible intentions) may seem to be helping, but actually if you don’t experience the consequences of your choices you’ll never have an opportunity to learn from either the choices you’ve made or their consequences. If you truly want to take charge of your life and start things heading in a better direction, look, instead, for those who will help you gain confidence in taking responsibility in your life and will encourage the personal awareness necessary to do so.
This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t choose to be with people who are kind and supportive – we all benefit from kindness and support. Just make sure that kindness and support helps you learn how to trust and honor your own voice and strengths.
Learn more about Libbe Gray, PhD.
