In The practice of spirituality, I’ve written about how if a mindset doesn’t serve you, you should drop it.
Mindsets are just stories we tell ourselves.
Once one of my friends knocked on my door late at night, something had happened and they weren’t okay with it.
The statement they said that prompted me to write this was “I don’t accept this, this cannot/should not/does not happen with me.”
What took me aback was that the incident had already happened, it wasn’t something that was about to happen, or something they were sharing as a pattern recognition.
They were in the present, in denial and angry about something that had already happened in the past, because of a notion in their heads around how their life is or how they are.
While I guess I understand how something very unexpected could lead us to similar positions, it also makes me understand how most rigid stories do more harm to us than ever serving us, especially the ones about ourselves.
Stories like:
- This never happens to me
- I am always like this
- I only do this and never that
- I’d never do this
- This always happens with me when I do that
and so on.
to give a more solid example, there are tons of people who believe that “people always leave me”.
Sometimes they believe it so strongly that it also becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
But at all times, does such a rigid belief not serve them at all.
It helps to be more fluid (just like water) and see what the universe has to throw at you.
There’s immense liberation in giving up your identity and the stories that define you, coz that allows you to embrace and appreciate the surprises that come your way.
Think of a coder who speaks well and communicated brilliantly with his team.
Let’s say, in his inner dialogue, he tells himself
”I am a coder, I only code, that’s what I do. Everything else I don’t do, I don’t want to do.”
Next time an event happens and he gets offered to anchor it or do anything outside of this statement, he’ll automatically say no.
But had he had imagined himself in a larger context of maybe something like:
“I’m a curious human, I love to code, but I’m open to learn new things”.
You’d agree, that his life would be totally different.
Right.
so -
pick the stories that serve you, let go of the rest.
pick ones that accommodate the always changing nature of the universe, ones which are fluid and adaptable.
You have 80 and more years to live, even the stories you choose today should and will change tomorrow, don’t let you be the biggest hurdle in your own evolution.