What If You Chose Not To Believe What You’ve Always Believed?

It’s funny, isn’t it, how we get stuck in our perception of ourselves? We have this concept of self that we adhere to, even when we receive evidence to the contrary, even when it doesn’t serve us. This crystalline, immutable template of you, arresting potential and limiting possibility.

For example, here are 5 of my beliefs….

• I don’t like whisky.
• I’m not artistic.
• I have dark auburn hair.
• I am not a poet.
• I’m hopeless at marketing.

Are these true? Do they offer an accurate reflection of me as I am now? Or are these just beliefs that seemed valid at one time and that I’m still hanging onto now?

You see, I’ve discovered that I do actually quite like whisky. I’m tasting different single malts from different areas of Scotland, and I like knowing that I can begin to identify one from another. The story behind its production. The smoky, peaty taste on my tongue. The heat in my throat. The warmth in my belly.

And I’ve discovered, too, that I am quite artistic. Perhaps I don’t demonstrate that through painting or drawing. But I do through my photography, my knitting, my cooking… my way of looking at the world. And surely, this is what renders one artistic – their perspective, and how they choose to express it.

Also, I don’t have dark auburn hair. I may think of myself as a brunette, but I’ve not been that for years now. I began to get the first strands of silver through my dark hair when I was a teenager. By the time I had my kids in my late teens and early twenties, my hair was noticeably lighter. As a 33 year old, the mix of reddish brown with white has rendered me blonde.

And am I really not a poet? Well, my mind played an interesting trick on me recently. I started writing these small, playful pieces of prose – they play with alliteration, use imagery, a little rhyme. They evoke emotional response through their use of language. When I was describing them to a friend I called them prose poems. And then stopped – stunned…. I’m writing poetry? Maybe I am a poet after all…

As for marketing, well, if I was completely hopeless at it, I wouldn’t have any business whatsoever. I wouldn’t sell any products. My offerings would stay ‘on the shelf’. I maybe don’t promote my work according to a traditional marketing model. And, to be fair, my approach could be improved. But hopeless? No. Not hopeless.

 As I go through each of these “false” beliefs, I see that I am holding onto a picture of myself which, when I look objectively, compassionately, just isn’t me. At least, not me any more. And it makes me wonder what other beliefs I’m holding onto that are no longer valid.

What do you believe about yourself, that is just not true any more? How are you limiting the true expression of yourself?