What stories are you living your life by?
I was in hospital this week. From the outset, let me state that it was nothing serious at all. I simply had to have a tooth removed and it required a general anaesthetic.
However, what made matters worse for me was that I knew it was coming for months so I had quite a long time to prepare for it, which is never a good thing when you suffer from dentophobia. For those sniggering down the back, believe me, this is actually a thing!
Anyhow, fast forward to my first night back home after this was all done, I lay in bed willing sleep to come. I saw every hour on the clock pass by. I just couldn’t switch off my monkey mind. The more I tried the more elusive sleep felt.
It slowly started to dawn on me that what I was experiencing was a tidal wave of relief. I can’t think of any less flowery way of describing it but it just kept coming. I slowly began to realise, that this has not just taken over my mind for the last few days, but it had also taken up a significant amount of headspace since my very first dental visit back in July, almost four months ago.
I see now that without me being fully aware of it everything had become about what I would do once the surgery was over. It was my constant point of reference. Now four months, I know, in the grand scheme of things isn’t forever, but what I find hard to process now is just how much the fear of what was ahead for me took over and impacted on my life in ways I hadn’t even considered.
I deal with fears, doubts and worries when it comes to change all the time. I’ve learned to manage these fears and to help others do the same. But I hadn’t quite noticed when this fear moved into my head and silently took up residence there.
So in taking a large dose of my own medicine, I have been asking of myself:
'What have I learned? What was the lesson for me in all of this?'
And it's this. It’s that fear is insidious. While we may know we feel it, we may even know it’s always there close to us, what we aren’t always aware of is the real impact it has on our everyday life.
In my case, the fear of this dental procedure, whilst not rational, was in fact very real. I was genuinely scared.
I was scared that something would go wrong while I was under, that I’d experience some complications. None of which were true and none of which had any basis in reality. But I had totally bought into the idea and believed this was my fate. So, not dramatic at all!
Yet, the most startling fact was how quickly I slipped into that conditional mode that fear brings with it.
You know sentences like…
“I’ll allow myself to plan more once this is done...”
“I’ll give myself permission to get excited, once this is all out of the way...”
“I’ll focus my full attention on that afterwards…”
I honestly had no idea just how much I was doing this until it was all over and done with. I had no real understanding of just how much head space it had occupied until now.
Eager to learn more, I was determined to figure out just what was at the core of all of this. What had scared me so much and why had I allowed it dominate me these last few months?
So I did what I get all my clients to do. I investigated. I didn’t accept the first, second or third answer. I kept digging. I kept asking ‘is that true?’ followed by a more intensive ‘is that really true? And then what? Is that all? What’s the worst thing that could happen? Is that likely?’
So what did I discover and more specifically, what did I discover about myself?
Spoiler alert (I know this might come across a little nauseating) but I actually learned just how grateful and happy I am with where my life is right now.
I discovered that I really do love this life that I’ve created these past few years. I love the simplicity and the freedom that I get to experience now that I live in the countryside with my husband and my dog.
I also realised that I am fully embracing this person I am becoming and feeling incredibly connected to the vision I am stepping into. It just all feels right.
I feel for the first time, probably in forever, that I am exactly where I should be and I trust that everything is always working out for me.
I have a strong sense that the work I am doing now is exactly the work that I was always supposed to do. All roads have led me to here and I have just simply being following the breadcrumbs.
I am no longer being who I think others want me to be but I am calling in those who need to hear what I have to say, who can connect with who I am and who I can help and inspire to change and it feels incredible.
And I also discovered I am scared. Scared that in the same way as everyone close to me got sick and died, I am going to get sick and die, too.
Now, let me promise you that this thought jumped right off the page for me when I first wrote it too! I’d never entertained thoughts like these before. But as soon as the words landed on the page in front of me, I absolutely knew they were true. They hit home. I had unknowingly held a belief that it was inevitable that I would also develop an illness and die from it before my time was properly up. What had once happened to all of those closest to me would happen to me too.
But when I got to the part where I kept asking myself ‘was it true?', I just couldn’t ignore the facts.
It wasn’t true.
I am in good health. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that I would be any different to the thousands of others who go through these procedures safely every day. But in totally denying the impact that these close bereavements had had on me I had also ignored the belief it had left me with. Despite the fact that none of the evidence pointed to this.
This revelation felt huge. It also left me feeling infinitely lighter and an awful lot clearer about what I needed to do next.
It was finally time for me to release this part of my grief journey.
It was time for me to accept that what had happened to those I loved was simply part of their story. It did not mean it was part of mine.
The relief that had now replaced this fear was the sign I needed that not only had I survived the ordeal but that I had let go of an old story that had led me down a path of no return.
Keep watching out for the beliefs and stories that you are living your life from. Let your fears alert you to something that most likely is happening underneath. And when you uncover it, allow yourself the space to connect to that feeling of relief that comes afterwards. Because it is right here that gratitude lives.
Knowing that what we focus on expands, when we become more aware of everything that is good in our lives then we simply create more of it.
Isn’t that what we all secretly want?