Your 3 Biggest Self-Deceptions and How To Use Them In Your Favor
and Your Love & Money On Purpose Mentor!
I said, “What did it?”
She said, “I read your sales letter for Gifted 2012. I read every word and it moved me deeply. You are speaking from a unique place.” (If you haven’t read this letter, it’s a love letter from me to you so you might want to check it out here. It took several weeks to write.)
Her proposal, now on the contemplation table, got me to thinking about what has shifted in my life over the past several years. In the past six months, this is my second CEO offer, along with venture capital opportunities, several TV offers and much more. A lot is in the hopper and it’s all very exciting from the standpoint of bringing Your Purpose to as many people as are ready to live their truth and stop hiding out behind their excuses and fears.
The change? I am willing to be more support-able, more open to receiving, more self-loving and self-nurturing. With proper rest, good nutrition, lots of dancing, journaling, social time and family time, I come to work focused, excited and well, ready to work!
My self-deception was that I had to do it all myself because I simply didn’t know how to create proper support, personally or professionally. The worst part? I just didn’t listen when people were trying to help me because I didn’t like what they were telling me or I didn’t understand what they were offering me! It hurt to look inside and see the painful truth of my own inadequacies and self-deception.
At our most recent shamanic business master mind, a couple of clients really wanted for myself and my co-mentor to hear something. My co-mentor, Pamelah, wasn’t bothered at all. She said, “No problem. We’re ready to listen.” For myself, I was freaked out! In the past, people would come to me with things and not be direct. I had no idea who was saying what and would just try to shut the whole thing down because I felt like a failure and their passive-aggressiveness just pissed me off. I would think, “Well, let them try it. I’d like to see them try it!”
Instead, I knew this was my opportunity, to quite frankly, just shut my pie hole and listen.
What I heard blew me away. My clients had nuanced and detailed feedback that not only led to our greatest meeting ever but gave me the opportunity to share with them how scared I was that I was on the chopping block. I actually got teary eyed and they didn’t seem to mind a bit. In fact, after my revelation, these clients opened their hearts even wider.
After that provocative meeting of the minds and hearts, I got the courage to put MY HAND PRINTS up on the video screen. This is something I’ve been unwilling to do in almost every meeting I’ve ever held. I just didn’t want to be THAT visible. When the clients saw my prints, I think I heard a few gasps, because my hands have a lot of challenge markings in them. It was especially poignant as we were looking at markings having to do with our heart lessons and the spiritual journey and I have most of these markings. I guess it makes sense I decided to be a professional hand analyst. It was another step forward for me in being more vulnerable and open.
The whole meeting shook me to my core. I feel lighter and happier than I have, well, ever. It got me to thinking about our heart lessons and the spiritual journey. I think our BIGGEST obstacle is self-deception. It’s as plain as the nose on our face, but because it hurts to look, we look away, which only creates more pain.
Another term for your self-deception is your Life Lesson from your fingerprints, which form in utero between the 14th and 16th week of development and don’t change. It’s the source of your greatest illusions and doubts.
“The truth shall set you free” and heal you. I now know this in my heart and my bones. A big part of why I do my work on this planet is to alleviate suffering by sharing what I’ve discovered about healing and living your life purpose.
Herewith are the three (3) biggest self-deceptions I commonly see and how you can use them in your favor – IF you know what to look for!
- Shame
- Dishonesty with Self
- Failure to Speak Your Truth
Self-Deception #1: Shame
This is the kingpin of self-deception and the most elusive to capture. Shame lurks behind our financial hang ups, our sexual frustrations and our mistakes and failures. We feel ashamed of spending too much, holding back, putting forth, saying too much, saying too little, losing our cool or failing to show up. We learn this shame from our families at the pre-verbal stage by modeling our behavior on our parental figures’ hang ups.
In one family, it’s shameful to be rich, in another it’s shameful to be poor. In another family, it’s shameful to be the life of the party, in another it’s shameful to be a wall flower. In one family, it’s shameful to be sexual and expressed and in another family, it’s considered shameful to be introverted and private.
Then there’s the shame of all the horror that so many children experience as a result of physical, emotional, verbal and sexual abuse. There are no words to express this shame; the child only knows something is horribly, unspeakably wrong with what is going on in their home.
One day, you decide to do something big in the world: start a business, start a family, build a home, take an exotic vacation. And maybe you achieve it, maybe you don’t. However, somewhere along the line, you set yourself back. You drive the business into the ground, you get a divorce, your house is not up to code. And it seems you never know when the unexpected is going to hit you… you just notice it seems like you are always starting at the first floor, repeating it over and over again. You might experience success for a while, but at great effort and expense only to snap back to what is familiar and heart breaking. (That’s why so many folks have to go to rehab again and again – the core issue is never healed.)
You can see examples of this everywhere: Whitney Houston (from the ghetto), Elvis (from poverty), Marilyn Monroe (from sexual abuse and foster homes). They made it big and had to smash it down as their commitment was to the pre-verbal family, not who they had become.
Mentor’s Challenge: Journal about your experiences from the womb through age 3. If you can’t remember much, imagine what it was like and write it down. I find imagination is usually accurate because we remember everything in our subconscious mind. Make note of your family’s beliefs about sex, money, religion, success, and freedom. If you are willing to look inside, you will be astonished at what you see. And amazingly, once you see it, it begins to change automatically and effortlessly in your day to day life because you now have more of your own inner resources available to find solutions rather than using so much energy to keep your shame buried and at bay.
Self-Deception #2: Dishonesty with Self
This one is pretty easy. Try this: Think about someone who is getting on your nerves lately. Write down their behavior. Now write down three times in the past month you’ve engaged in this behavior. Bingo! You spot it, you got it! Good and bad.
As Caroline Myss, the great spiritual teacher points out, we like to think that “that event” – the one we don’t like, that doesn’t suit us – is somehow separate from every other event in our lives. However, everything is actually interconnected.
What we resist, what we reject is our own self trying to reveal itself to us! You want to help all your friends fix their lives, but yours is falling apart and you could cry for days in your misery and disappointment. You want that dream love partner but keep dating the same losers you’ve always dated. Take a look at Self-Deception #1 to figure out why that might be! (Hint: That’s what your folks did, too.) You want to be wealthy but then say things like, “All wealthy people are crazy and greedy.” You can’t believe one thing and experience the other.
Mentor’s Challenge: Write down 2 areas of your life you would like to change. Look at the behaviors you currently employ in these areas. Now, write down the opposite behaviors. After doing the shame exercise, you may find you can take on these new behaviors with courage and excitement. Example: You want to write your book. You notice that you never make time for writing. Make time for writing. Watch how often you show up for your writing time. Watch how often you opt to do something else ‘more urgent’ rather than write. Every time you break a commit to yourself, you hurt yourself a little. So either stop making the promises or find a way you can reasonably keep them. No point in pretending you are a writer when you don’t write anymore than a figure skater is a skater without blades and a rink.
Self-Deception #3: Failure to Speak Your Truth
If at first you can’t do this, have someone else do it for you and then step in to claim your words. I know that sounds a little crazy but I have seen more than one client set free by another client saying, “Emily wants to say something but she can’t. She gave me permission to say it. Emily is scared to get in front of the room and…” Then Emily, feeling uncomfortable that she is being spoken for, says, “Yes, I am afraid and I am willing. It’s time for me to come to the front of the class and give my talk. Here goes!”
Another remedy to finding your voice is daily journaling in the morning. Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, calls these ‘morning pages.’ And believe me, some of it is ‘mourning,’ whining, and crying. However, when you get it ALL out, you start to develop the most incredibly intimate, juicy love relationship of your life – the one with yourself!
If you can’t talk with yourself, how on Earth can you hold a client accountable, bring up a difficult issue with your partner or step on stage without feeling like a miserable lying fraud? Unless and until you tell yourself the truth, there is NO WAY you can tell it to others. Start now.
Mentor’s Challenge: Write in your journal, either by hand or on your keyboard, each morning for 5 minutes for the next 30 days. It’s perfectly fine to write longer; however, set your timer for just 5 minutes and you will be amazed at how quickly your life begins to open up. You may find it gets rockier at first if you have a lot of shame and truth to accept. With time, you will make choices that serve your highest good. You will see your world in a new light and be able to take a stand for yourself. You will remember who you are. This ‘real you’ is the only you who can make your life what you want it to be.
Remember, it’s YOUR Purpose – in YOUR hands – nobody else’s!
Carry on my brave spiritual warrior, the best is yet to come!
Baeth
P.S. If you’d like support in moving through these revelations, please consider joining us at Gifted 2012! You will move MUCH FASTER with group support. See you there! Just a few tickets remain!
