Oh No, Not the Default Setting!

"Staples has water, twenty four in a pack for blah, blah, blah," my friend says. "If I sold them for blah, blah, blah I could make blah, blah, blah." I looked at him for a minute, then I said, "You're better than that." Interesting. He saw water and how selling it would be an opportunity to make a quick buck. I saw water and a chance to hydrate my body. I also saw how he was about to sell himself out for a few dollars.

That scenario with my friend got me to thinking about the power of belief, and how when we don't believe in our greatness we whittle away a great life on activities, jobs, projects, relationships, that are beneath us. Things and people that don't deserve our time and attention. My friend is a brilliant, creative, dynamic speaker, metaphysician and organizer! Once upon a time he hustled for a living. Consequently, when his old self, small thinking self stumbled upon a pack of water it saw opportunity. But is that really an opportunity for someone like him? Didn't the good book, the Bible, say to whom much is given much is required? Wouldn't my friend better serve the planet if rather than chase after a quick dollar he were to pour that same effort and energy into doing the work that he was born to do?

The default setting isn't where my friend wants to live and operate. Then why, you might ask, did he go there? I'm so glad you asked. We fall back to our default settings when we don't believe it's possible to realize our wildest dreams. Our default setting is to what we return when we've yet to mustered the courage to believe fiercely in ourselves. The default setting is our uncomfortable comfort zone. It's what we know.

I have a dream. You have a dream. My dear friend has a dream. Let us be committed to living our dream(s). Even as our knees shake we must put one foot in front of the other in service of our dreams. Even when our dreams seem impossibly big, we must give ourselves to them. Even when others imagine we're out of our minds, we must stay true to our dreams. Don't go back to what you know, back to your default settings where your itty-bitty self lives. Think big. Forge ahead in the direction of your dreams. Dig deep within and dare to believe in you and your dreams and watch your life unfold in miraculous, magical ways.

DeBora M. Ricks

Total Wellness Coach

Author of Love Addicted: One Woman's Spiritual Journey Through Emotional Dependency

www.DeBoraRicks.com

Don't Believe Everything You Think

Life is difficult.<> Those three words open M. Scott Peck's book, The Road Less Travelled. Is life difficult? It is. As much as I've resisted this, even with all that I know about the power of an ever evolving mind, I have decided to accept that life is difficult. And it is in this acceptance that life gets easier, for acceptance shifts our thinking about a thing. As our thinking changes, our experience also changes. When we think life is supposed to be anything that it isn't, like easy or fair, then our unfulfilled expectations and frustrations with life registers as pain.

Besides, it's not the situations, i.e., what's going on out there, that causes us pain. Rather, it's what we think about what's going on that keeps us up nights. You see, we are meaning makers. Stuff happens. Then our minds go to work giving those expressions, events and experiences meaning. Let's say your beloved says he's coming over, "I'll see you in a couple of hours," he says. Those two hours go by and there's no knock at your door. Three hours pass, still no knock. Nor has your phone rang. Ask yourself this question: What did I make that mean? Then listen for the answers. They were largely negative, weren't they? He's doing it again. He's always doing this. He's with someone else! Why does this always happens to me? I knew this wouldn't work. Now ask yourself: It is true? Can I be absolutely sure those things are true? If you would be honest with yourself, you'd have to answer "no." You can't be sure that any of that stuff that you made up is true. And yet, those thoughts have destroyed your peace. Thoughts that your mind thought!

There are horror movies living inside of us. When something happens that looks eerily familiar to something that happened in a painful past experience, our minds go to work. Only the mind isn't very creative, it reaches for one of those 60, 000 thoughts that you had last year when someone did something that you didn't like, something that felt like betrayal. I offer you what a therapist blessed me with years ago, she said, "DeBora, don't believe everything you think." But why shouldn't we believe everything we think? Well, because the mind is a cesspool; it's full of waste, poisons, and toxins that don't serve our highest and best good. The mind is the dumping ground for old tapes from painful childhoods, tapes created by unconscious, wounded other people. It's these old tapes that come on when we're triggered; they tell us we're fatally flawed and unlovable, that we're not good enough, smart enough, educated enough, pretty enough, the right height, skin color, shape, size...you fill in the blank.

Ignore your limiting, condemning thoughts. Better still, blast them with some Denials (talk back to them, denounce them) and Affirmations (affirm the truth, "I am beautiful and powerful and loved). We are much, much more than we think we are. Whatever life brings, we have the power within to meet it. You can believe this, this which comes through your mind from that "still small voice" within: You are MORE than enough...and you are deeply loved. This you can trust and believe!