LIVING WITH AMBIVALENCE 2

 

In order to live with your ambivalence, you need to change your self-talk. It’s your self-talk that keeps you anchored to the negative beliefs you have about yourself.  It imprisons you in that place where you are constantly doubting and questioning your capacity for change; where you keep using the ‘evidence’ of your experience as proof that you could never really be all that you secretly hope. This is such a terrible lie that only feels true because you’re trapped in the cycle of that thinking. Here’s a template to help to show you how you can set yourself free and truly flourish. Set yourself the task of doing this regularly and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the results….

 

I stop and listen…. really listen…. and I can hear the chatter of criticism, doubt and negative judgement…. I can feel the unease and disappointment that those voices create inside of me…. This feeling rarely leaves me…. I’m tired of the way it makes me feel…. it reminds me often throughout the day that I must maintain my many disguises in the world… It calls me to attention over and over again, demanding my obedience…. and I find myself doing its bidding…. I can’t let my mask slip at any time…. It’s frightening to feel its power and influence…. and this is why I know I dare not disobey….. for fear of the shame that will undoubtedly follow, as the world discovers I’m not who I claim to be…. I cannot bear the feeling of that potential humiliation…. and so I scurry around hiding and pretending, hoping I’ll never be found out…. And yet I know there is a part of me that is actually ok… and in fact could be more than ok if I had the courage to be myself, and step away from the awful mirages and lies…. Maybe what I fear is more a construct of my imagination than reality…. maybe it’s much worse in my head…. Maybe accepting all of myself is the key to being free…. Maybe what I think of as dark, ugly and hideous is not my enemy at all… What would happen if I were to accept myself as I am right now?…. Could I?…. What if what is hidden is even worse than I imagined?…. Would it just be better to leave well alone?…. A quiet, determined voice says ‘no’….

 

It’s time to walk the road of acceptance…. and something deep inside of me says I can do it…. I can accept those parts of me that are not yet healed, resolved or even as aware as I’d like them to be…. I understand that some of me is not evolved, compassionate, fearless, understanding, or as generous as I’d like…. I accept that I am failing in some areas of my life and that’s ok…. I’m not defined by those parts, they only tell a part of my story, not the whole story…. In fact I find that when I accept and embrace these parts of me I become more understanding of the whole…. It’s time to broker a truce between the damaged and broken bits and the bits I feel more comfortable with…. As I increasingly understand that I am a work in progress and mistakes are inevitable, then getting things wrong is more easily accepted…. and the need to hide and cower before my nemesis, shame, falls away…. And so I worry less about how I am perceived by others…. I feel myself stepping outside of my limitations where I can and where I’m still not ready, that’s ok too…. There’s such a wonderful sense of peace in this place…. accepting my ambivalence and all that comes with it is definitely the way forward…. I give thanks for this discovery…. I now promise to keep moving forward in this way…. I feel an overwhelming sense of peace….

 


Also see: Living with Ambivalence