Don’t borrow time from the present moment to create suffering for yourself.
 
We dwell in the past, regret our ‘bad’ choices, replay painful events, or escape into the future.
 
Each time we think about past we are taking the time from the present moment and we are forcing ourselves re-live it and feel the pain of it.

A big part of healing is being able to live more fully in the moment, rather than from the memories of the past. 
 
Reflection questions:
​

• Would it be like to not live from a memory?
  
• To take each moment as is and not taint it with past suffering?

In moments of clarity, presence, and empowerment, we remember that we want more for ourselves. We don’t force this, it arises naturally. In those moments, we feel connected to a deep self-determination and desire to move forward. We become free from the limitations of our past, even if just for a moment.

In those moments, we feel free from shame and self-criticism. We stop defining ourselves by our limitations and instead allow ourselves to see a possibility of all we could be, do, and experience. We are in our true self. 

When we’re in this place, we support ourselves to dream big, create, be inspired, curious, compassionate, energized, and connected. We may decide that the way we currently live our life doesn’t fit us anymore. Maybe we set big goals and make promises to ourselves.

Also naturally, we disconnect from those moments, and go back to our usual ways of living that feel familiar and comfortable, yet constricting. Our conditioned self returns.

Maybe it doesn’t yet feel safe to be in the moments of presence and connection for too long. In these moments our conditioned self may tell us that those desires we felt so connected to in one moment, aren’t possible, or that they don’t happen to people like us, or that we are broken, or that we will fail because we failed in the past.

Our conditioned self is fearful of change and growth.

It wants to bring us back to the state of fear and complacency. That voice may sound like a voice of reason and it may be too loud to ignore. That voice will fight for our limitations and will want us to rebel against the promises we made to ourselves when we felt empowered.

In these moments, we have to remind that voice:

I’m doing this for me.
I’m choosing what supports me.
My true desires are coming from self-love. 
​It is safe and healthy to want more. 

Don’t talk yourself out of something you know is good for you. 

Don’t talk yourself out of things you decided when you felt empowered and inspired.

Don't talk yourself out of desires that lights you up and makes you feel alive.

Don't talk yourself out of your truth.

Don't talk yourself out of anything that feels aligned with your true self. 

You will be tempted to. 

When it becomes difficult, or boring, or challenging, you might notice the urge to negotiate, to give up, or give in...
You might want to convince yourself out of your long-term vision, because of temporary struggles. 

If you find yourself coming up with excuses, convincing yourself out of commitments you made to yourself, remember that your excuses will only hurt you. No matter how convincing those excuses may sound in the moment, no matter how rational they may sound, if you consistently give in, those excuses will negatively impact your life and will affect your outcomes. 

In that moment, remember your long-term goals, remember that struggles are temporary, and time will pass anyway. 

Recently I had an opportunity to be a guest on Next Quest Podcast where I shared about myself, about being a therapist, and how we can grow beyond patterns that restrict our life and limit our growth. I'm sharing some of the main points we discussed in the podcast. As you read through,
see if you can distinguish your patterns and notice in which areas of your life are they prevalent.
 
What are limiting patterns and what are some examples?

Limiting patterns are learned adaptations. They are rigid, inflexible, and constricting ways in which we move through the world. These patterns can be reflected in the ways we perceive our personality, in our beliefs, thoughts, triggers, feelings, relationships, actions that constrict our healing and hinder our growth. Patterns that limit us come from a place of childhood wounding and they reflect an automatic reaction based in conditioning rather than a conscious choice based in the present, adult self. These patterns and beliefs run so deep that they feel as if they are unchangeable parts of who we are. Specific examples are: self-judgment, people pleasing, self-sabotaging, self-hatred, self-criticism, blaming, etc. Essentially, patterns can be any internal identifications or behaviors we are attached to that keep us from being grounded in a present and living a life that allows nuance, flexibility, self-compassion, and self-acceptance.
 
How do we develop these sorts of patterns?
 
During a time when we are most vulnerable we have to fit in and adapt to our environment, because as children, we are helpless and depend on those around us for our survival. These adaptations are ingenious, often subtle ways in which we contour ourselves to successfully navigate the family we are born into. We adapt by being highly attuned to our environment and our caregivers, and we figure out what it is that we need to do and who is it that we need to be to successfully navigate our environment. Oftentimes these patterns are a result of chronic misatunement from caregivers, which is a marker of complex trauma, and they affect psychological and biological functioning. They disrupt our natural development and create a distorted sense of self that we take as a truth of who we are. Social and cultural norms play a big role in this as well. Oftentimes we adapt by foreclosing parts of ourselves that somehow feel threatening or unsafe to show, or that are culturally or socially considered unacceptable. In these situations, one may feel compelled to compromise authenticity and true self-expression for safety and acceptance.
 
How do these patterns, in fact, limit us?
 
Patterns subconsciously guide us through life, restrict our authentic expression and prevent us from engaging with life from a place of personal autonomy, responsibility, choice, and awareness. When we operate from these patterns we are responding from a place of a wounded child, not from a place of an adult that has resources and does not have to rely on false, adopted identities in order to move through life. When we are unaware of being driven by these patterns, we tend to rely on rigid, self-imposed “shoulds” to make decisions. Another way in which these patterns limit us is that they get in a way of living life more fully, authentically, with ease, creativity, and peace. They make life more black and white, and prevent us from seeing our humanness in its nuance, curiosity, complexity, and compassion.
 
What can we do outside of therapy or in addition to therapy to grow beyond these patterns?
 
Although therapy can be one of the best ways to deepen our self-exploration and learn how to relate to ourselves with more compassion and self-trust, there are tools and practices we can utilize outside of (or in addition to) therapy. Self-reflection and curiosity will be keys for increasing our awareness and bringing us to a place of choice and embodying resilience. An important note is that self-reflection is not same as analyzing and overthinking; it is different in a way that there is no self-judgment and identifying with the content of our thoughts and feelings, rather, there is a curious observation. Self-reflection is an invitation to turn inwards, tune out the noise, and connect to one’s inner world with an intention to explore. This kind of exploration is based on getting to know oneself on a deeper level without the goal of getting somewhere, evaluating, and comparing. The excitement of it is in allowing ourselves to be surprised by what new parts we might discover about ourselves.
 
 
If you’d like to begin a guided self-reflection practice, you can take a look at the guided journal I’ve created with the intention of facilitating self-exploration and increasing self-connection. Other ways of doing that is stream of consciousness journaling, where you allow yourself to simply journal about what is on your mind. You can pose yourself questions that will evoke interest and curiosity, and will make you go beyond what you think you already know about yourself. For example:
 
What am I telling myself about this?
What am I making this mean about me?
What have I not considered yet?
Have I chosen to think this away or have I adopted someone else’s view on this?
What am I not allowing myself to know?
What kind of life feels true to me? 
What are may values and how can I live by them?