Many of us have gone through our lives with other people or things determining our paths. As kids, our parents did this for us and for some they still do, even if they are no longer with us. Most of the time this is completely unconscious. We have just always done it this way. To follow the teacher, the professor, the boss, the media, the church, the government, the norm without really considering it or examining it has been the routine. It feels safe.
There is an insidious force in you that continues to do this today. It is your subconscious and inner programming. It is your ego, your freddy (as I learned to call him from Larry Bilotta), your inner critic, or resistance (as Steven Pressfield calls it) – the collection of inaccurate ideas, limiting beliefs, fears stored up and used (by the amygdala) to stop you from being the real you and being in control of your thoughts and actions. You can name it anything you like, and I recommend you do so that you can begin to understand it is not the real you. Your parents’ beliefs are in there. Every wound and limit is also in there. As is every tragedy, big or tiny, every slight, everything ever labeled as negative, dangerous or bad.
The issue is that for the most part, we have lived our lives unaware of this force and the impact it has on us. It has been making choices or stopping us, the real us, at every turn. For at every turn freddy sees danger. He sees a threat to his existence and he is right. For once we are aware, we can choose to eliminate the resistance, beliefs, fears that have been holding us back. We can begin to examine each one and determine, is this true and accurate and the way I want to live and be? No? Okay well we release it then.
If you don’t really love or respect yourself you are going to be fine staying small and blending in, staying “safe,” despite the fact that it isn’t really safe at all. As we move into knowing, loving and respecting ourselves, the natural progression of that is expression of the real you and that does not, cannot, include freddy.
