Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t!
“Don’t toot your own horn”,
“Don’t boast!!!!”
“Hide the good things in your life so you don’t make others feel bad about their lives”
“Don’t take more than your fair share”
I used to feel ashamed about not having money and so I pretended I had it, believing that once I had the money, I would no longer feel ashamed.
So here I am, financially free, living the life of my dreams, with wonderful experiences, people and opportunities flowing in my life – and a part of me feels shame about it and believes I need to hide this truth and pretend I don’t have all this abundance.
Perhaps I have too much good in my life. Perhaps I’ve been greedy.
Catch 22 meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Please indulge me a bit here.
It’s time to shed the shame around money, success and receiving all the good in our lives openly and with joy.
It’s time to shed the shame around:
- not having it
- having it
- being in debt
- not being in debt
- not knowing how money works
- knowing how money works and making it work hard for you
- Being successful
- Not being successful
- Being pretty
- Not being pretty
- Being young
- Not being all that young
- Having a wonderful loving relationship
- Not having a wonderful relationship
At a young age we connect a gambit of emotions such as feeling worthy, lovable, happy, as well as feeling guilt, shame and inadequacy to things outside of us.
Things like money, relationships, success, intellect, or our physical appearance.
We create the very wrong belief that we are our circumstances.
We create the belief that our worthiness, happiness, joy and lovability is dependent on a crazy cocktail of these external ingredients.
We are not our circumstance!
Our worthiness is NOT dependent on any of these things.
We are born worthy.
We then spend our time and energy trying to be worthy of love and life and joy - we are chasing fool's gold. There is no worthiness that can be found outside of ourselves.
When we pursue external outcomes in the hope of experiencing emotions we want and run from those that make us feel uncomfortable and bad, believing that when we are wealthy enough, successful enough, pretty enough, fit enough, clever enough those “bad” feelings will disappear and just the “nice” ones will remain.
Here’s The Doozy – The Double Bind – The Real Kicker
Our pursuit is futile. The solution is not outside of us.
Only when we realise there is nothing we need to (or indeed can) do, create, be, or have to make us worthy; can we actually do, create, be and have all we dream of.
Doing, being, creating, having, contributing, taking, experiencing… have absolutely nothing to do with our worth. We just are!
When we can fully embrace this, when we can fully accept the truth that our worth will never come from outside of ourselves, when we de-couple our self-worth from our money, relationships, success, body shape and achievement – that is when it all starts flowing beautifully.
That is when we free ourselves to just play at this wonderful thing called life and pursue the money, relationships, success, intellect and fit healthy bodies because we can!!!
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Have you ever felt the need to play small, to hide all the good in your life so as not to upset anyone? Have you achieved something you were really striving for and then when it happened you felt bad about having it?
Perhaps you felt a bit guilty as though you didn’t work quite as hard as you should have?
Does that make you a cheat?
Do you really deserve it?
Maybe you should just keep quiet about it so you don't upset anyone.
P.S I'd love to hear from you, drop us a mail on [email protected] and share your experience.
