Do you ever have knee jerk rejection against anything new or strange? Do you find yourself shooting up brick walls against things? Like some member of medieval monarchy?
Things like:
- A new instrument
- That patterned shirt you want to wear
- That event outing you were asked to go to?
- Travel to new places?
- New food?
Yeah, me too.
Subconsciously as well we end up putting ourselves into little boxes where we we rule. We know the place off by heart and how small and miserable it can feel.
I find that a lot of this misery comes from restrictions we place on ourselves.
No you can’t do that
- My brain
People don’t do that
- My brain, possibly yours as well
Most people do this
- Brain that won’t shut up
It’s as if we were trained to shoot ourselves down before anyone else.
But what if these restrictions, these negative voices invading out headspace aren’t our own at all?
Lets go back to your childhood
Only recently after trying to rediscover the joy in life I had as a kid, I started to contemplated where these restrictions come from.
Because as kids the joy of life comes from a place of pure unknowing and pure daring to do and try everything.
Did I learn these restrictions myself?
If not, did I inherit them?
Weird as it may sound a Reddit post stirred these questions in me.
It was something like:
Every child is trained by their parents for a world that is one generation out of date.
Wow. Well that’s obvious and superficial I thought but as it sunk in the statement made more and more sense.
Are my boundaries, restrictions, prejudices my own or my parents? Or even my parents parents? Are my dos and don’ts outdated, sexist, racist or just downright stupid?
As I come into my own as an older adult, I’m starting to unravel myself and peek into the dark corners these threads originated from.
Little silly moments with friends confirm to me that these strange beliefs are real. Those moments where you reveal something you’ve believed in your whole life because it was something your parents told you that you never questioned. Then, bam. Your friends burst out laughing, your stomach drops and while wiping away their tears, your friends unravel this weird untruth your parents passed onto you.
But not all these inherited beliefs maybe as weird or obvious and so might be more difficult to spot and untangle. Especially if you are surrounded by those that reinforce them.
Should you throw caution to the wind?
With all this in mind I do not expect you to throw off all the shackles of life and run out into the road naked screaming “You can’t touch this!”.
What I do expect is a pause next time you don’t attempt something because something says: “You can’t do this, you aren’t good enough, this is stupid, that is stupid”.
Ask why or why not? How much of you is held back by beliefs that aren’t actually yours? Question everything and learn more.
Or in this case unlearn.
I’ll get back to you on how it works out for me.
