Recently, I heard myself saying, “I’m an emotional person. That’s just who I am.” I gave this justification during an intense, messy situation with a friend. I would have felt happier if I could have responded in a detached, intellectual manner.
The next day, I heard one of my clients saying, “I make things hard. I’ve always been that way.” Imagine how much easier her life would be if she routinely told people, “Things are easy for me. It’s always been like that.”
I believe I’m an emotional person. My client believes she
makes things difficult. As committed as we both are to
those concepts, they’re just concepts. If we make a conscious choice, we can change them this moment.
How would my life improve if I believe I am an emotional person who knows how to detach in certain situations? How would my client’s life improve if she believed she also sometimes knows how to do things the easy way? And, isn’t it actually more accurate? I do detach in certain situations. My client does do some things the easy way.
In what ways do you put yourself in a box? What labels are
you attached to? What are your three favorite ways to describe yourself? Would you be willing to play with expanding each of those three identities this week?
Say you describe yourself as “outgoing,” would you like to find out what it feels like to observe or allow others to approach you first? If you believe you’re someone who can’t pick one thing because you have many interests, would you be willing to experiment for a few days with picking one thing or picking two things and noticing what that’s like for you? When you hear yourself saying, “I can’t, I’m not athletic,” would you be willing to join the softball game anyway?
Enjoy the exploration as you hold yourself a bit more lightly!
