When I was young, maybe 7 or 8, my mom used to take me clothes shopping for school. I remember going into the Colony Shop in the Altoona Mall and seeing all the beautiful dresses. I liked to walk around the displays with my eyes wide with all the colors, running my fingertips over the fabric and delighting in the ribbons and bows.
I loved looking at the dresses and imagining myself in them. How I would walk, and twirl and dance in them! It was so much fun. Then I would get to try the dresses on, and oh how big and special I would feel as I took that first look into the mirror. I would see myself in the perfect dress and feel like a princess. Everything was right with the world and then…
My Mom would look at me and say that it didn’t fit well enough and that we couldn’t purchase it. She would fuss at the shoulders of the dress usually and say how it didn’t fit in the shoulders right and I couldn’t have the dress. This perfect dress. The one with the pink tulip buds on it, the one that had the pink and green sash and bow. The one with the perfectly pleated and flared skirt. The one that my heart was set on.
My mom only wanted me to look my best. That was important to her. She wasn’t being mean or cheap – in her way she was looking out for me. Unfortunately, she didn’t know what lesson I took away from that dress experience that was then repeated many times over.
What I heard was “you are not good enough for this dress.” “Your shoulders are not the right size for this dress.” But I was in love with the dress. I wanted the dress. It looked divine on me. Why couldn’t we just buy the dress and make my dreams come true?
Then it happened. The lie I began to live by was started by a seemingly trivial experience of buying a dress. The lie I lived most of my life with began that day and was:
“Don’t want anything. The minute you desire something, you won’t get it and you’ll be disappointed and that hurts way too much. Just don’t want anything.”
That lie became a truth in my life. I can see evidence everywhere of how I made that belief come true over and over again. When our mind believes something it works very hard to create a reality that matches that belief. Over and over I would want something and see it disappear. It didn’t take long before, as a child, I stopped wanting things, I stopped dreaming of my future because I believed dreaming and wanting was the surest way of not getting it.
I tell you this story to illustrate the amazingly effective way our brains take events and create meaning and a code we live our life by.
- What events jump out at you when you recall your childhood?
- What story do you tell about yourself or the world based on that experience?
- Are you willing to see the event as something different and rewrite your story and create a new way of moving through life?
My efforts are going to be placed on rewriting the belief that wanting something creates hurt.
What belief are you wanting to rewrite?
I know this isn’t directly related to veterinary medicine…or is it? We are humans and we come to work every day with our beliefs firmly entrenched, for good or for bad. We carry baggage into the office every day that affects how we experience our co-workers and clients. I, for one, want to lessen the baggage, so that I am more fully present and healthy to do my job. The less I carry into work, the less I carry home.
What are your beliefs about clients? Does death have to be devastating and sad? Are you good enough? Smart enough?
What baggage are you ready to drop?