As it’s Christmas here at B|B|B, I thought I'd take you on a seasonal journey. I recently wrote this article for the NEF (The New Era Forum) 'christmas edition and wanted to share it with you here. It's a journey to your past, present and future...
I want you to look at your present day life. Look at all areas as a snapshot. Look at your relationships. Look at your job, work or business. Take a look at your body and your health. Look at your wellbeing and disposition. Look at your behaviours. Look at how you are with other people. Look at your bank balance. Look at your kids and who they're becoming and how you are as a parent. For a moment, be completely honest with yourself no matter how uncomfortable and ask yourself a simple question...
"Is it good enough?"
Take a moment to reflect. Is what you have today good enough? Do you want better? If you answered, "Yes" and "No" respectively to those last two questions, then good on you! Go off and enjoy your Christmas and I'll see you next year...
For those that answered any other combination then I'm assuming you're still with me and I invite you on our journey. It might get a little bumpy and possibly even a little scary but if you hang in there, you really could have your best Christmas ever!
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Imagine you go to sleep...
You're woken in the dead of night. It's dark and cold outside but you're restless. You hear a noise outside your bedroom door and then it opens... A cloaked figure of average height walks into your room. You're scared and like a small child you pull the bed covers up tight to your chin - as if some cotton is going to protect you from the apparition that is entering. The figure walks in and approaches you on your bed. It looms ominously over your body
"It's time to take stock," comes the voice from within the hood. "It's time to be honest with yourself," the voice continues. "Are you totally happy with life as it is right now for you? Is the world reflecting your true greatness or merely reflecting your fears, limitations and apathies?"
"Not really," you answer honestly.
"Then let me take you on a journey," the hooded figure concludes. You're uncertain but before you know what's happening the figure has you out of your bed and whilst holding your hand stamps its foot twice on the floor… In an instant, you have been whipped out of your bedroom and are present at a familiar scene.
You stand in the scene you know well. It's the one that currently holds you back most in life. Maybe it's work or home or with a partner or friends. Maybe it's just you on your own. Wherever this place is for you, it's the place that is causing you the most resistance in you're life right now. It's the place holding you back most and causing you the most pain. You know what that scene is.
You see yourself enter that scene and you realise you are watching a real life projection of that familiar scene and setting unfold itself. You observe yourself in that situation from the outside for the first time. It looks different from this perspective. You get to see the honest account of this situation. You see yourself interacting with the scene as the familiar pattern unfolds. You struggle to look on. If it was uncomfortable from the inside, this scene looks even worse from the outside looking in. Your hooded guide makes you look on.
"Take it all in," it says, "See it with your own eyes. For the first time in your life, look at your life with honest eyes". And with that you look on as the scene vividly depicts to you just what you're willing to accept in this area of your life.
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Take a few moments now to take yourself to that scene of your own life. Watch it from the outside. Take in all the detail as you see this area of your life in vibrant colour. Look at how you are being. Look at who you are being. Look at what you are willing to accept and how you've resigned yourself to this expectation. Think of the language you use around this situation or area of life. Hear the words in your head, as you would say them in this situation. Acknowledge how you feel in this area of life… And then read on...
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The hooded figure breaks the moment. "Are you brave enough to continue?" it says. You're reluctant but there's something reassuring about the hooded figure's tone now. The voice is strong but sensitive. You think about the answer for a moment. You want to say ‘no’ but you're starting to get the feeling that all this is good for you in some way.
"Yes," you hear your voice saying. "I am brave enough!"
"Good," says the hooded figure and with that stamps its foot twice taking you immediately back to your bedroom where you are lying in bed. You ponder the moment. Were you dreaming? Was it real? Either way the events you experienced have left you very aware that life isn't what it should be for you. You've seen yourself in that area of life with new clarity and perspective. You've seen who you are in that area of your life and it's not good enough. This final certainty flashes across your thoughts... and you fall asleep.
You awaken abruptly to your alarm going off. You're all confused because it's still dark outside. You switch off the alarm, turn on your bedside light and sit up in an attempt to get your head together. The time reads 03.45am. You rub your eyes and nearly fall out of bed as you see a cloaked figure sitting at the end of the bed. Again, its face is concealed in the shadows of the hood. This hooded figure is noticeably smaller, almost childlike in proportions.
"Are you ready?" says the voice of he hooded figure.
"I guess," you say nervously. And with that the little hooded figure jumps off the bed and stamps its foot a single time...
In an instant you find yourself in an enclosed white room with white ceiling, floor and walls. In fact it's difficult to see where the walls stop and the floor and ceiling start. It's just a bright white space.
"What is this place?" you ask.
"Here is where the pain started. No one meant it to be like this, it's just what happens sometimes,” replies the little hooded figure.
"But there's nothing here!" you exclaim.
"It's for you to put in the detail," explains the hooded figure. "Try and think back to when the pain started and as you do, it will start to form in this room," it continued.
You might not be 100% sure when it exactly started but you can remember some traits and incidents which most likely contributed. The hooded figure reassures that it doesn't have to be exact.
"Just do the best you can," it says.
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Close your eyes and imagine the pure white empty room. Start to build it around your memories of when this issue was formed. It doesn’t have to be exact. Just do the best you can. What people contributed to it? What incident or incidents? Really picture it as if you are looking in from the outside. It's not important if you have the exact details, the important thing is that you identify that this issue or area of life that is limiting you arose from somewhere or sometime and that it is not 'you'. Take the time necessary to really connect with the source of what we're dealing with here... And then read on...
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As the images form around you in the room, you become increasingly aware that the area holding you back in life right now was learnt. It isn't who you are as much as what you do. You get a real sense that what you 'do' is just a learnt behaviour or expectation based on your previous experiences, it's not who are as much as who you were made. You just about get enough time to take all this in when the single stamp of the hooded figure jolts you from your thoughts and straight out of the past and right back into your bed again.
Time passes as you lie there and think...
You think about all the things you do. You think about the good stuff and you also think about some of the 'not so' good stuff. You think back to where it all came from. Most you can easily track to its source. Maybe it's a trait you witnesses when you were young? Maybe it was a specific event or set of circumstances? Maybe it comes from a repeated pattern? Wherever they came from, they came from somewhere. And you start to grasp that what you thought was 'you' is actually just a collection of experiences that became your personality, behaviour and ultimately your life.
With that realisation arrives a third hooded apparition.
"Come on, you can't be surprised, you know the story as well as anyone," comes the quiet voice from behind the hood. You get out of bed and prepare for the 'jump'. Predictably the hooded figure stamps its foot three times. However, not so predictably, instead of going somewhere the other two apparitions materialise alongside number three.
" Aren't we going to go to the future?" you ask, somewhat disappointed.
"No," says the apparition. "The future is as you make it. You always have that choice. Choose to do what you do and accept the outcomes. Or, choose to do things differently and embrace the changes that transpire. I've come from the future to share this simple message with you. Make the choices you need to make to create the future of your choosing." The third hooded figure pulls down his hood and a very familiar yet older face speaks. “The future is merely a reflection of the collective thoughts and actions leading up to it." The removed hood reveals the figure to be you. It’s you - but in older form, from your own future.
The second figure removes its hood also revealing a perfect copy of yourself, as you are no. "The choice of what the future holds, is present at every moment in time. Who you are and what you do is not your fault. It was merely learnt behaviour and habits born from your perceptions of chance happenings. With this knowledge comes the responsibility of who you are tomorrow. It's the choices you make that define you. Who you choose to be is who you are. You have been unconsciously creating a life not of your choosing. It's the one you 'learnt' to have. The question is, now you know this, what life will you choose to live?"
The third smaller hooded figure reveals itself as being a younger you: The age where this 'stuff' you've been looking at comes from.
"Please understand that the past only exists in you as long as you carry it,” it says. “You can choose to release the old at any time of your choosing. Your subconscious holds onto the past to protect you from being hurt in your present but, in doing so, it manipulates you from being able to make the free choices required to live the life of your design. It's time to let the hurt go. It's time to be the boss and tell your subconscious it doesn't need to protect you anymore. It's time to trust you and your choices."
The older, third ‘you’ follows on. "Now you're aware of what's going on, why it's going on, and the impact this is having on your life, you know what the future holds. I ask you to ask yourself, if this life you lead and the future it's creating is good enough for you? Is this really what you deserve? Is this really what you are willing to stand for? Or, like us, do you suspect, or in fact 'know' you deserve more? You already know the answers to these questions. You have done so for some time but lived in the frustration of not knowing how to change or believing it possible.”
The ‘you’ of present age seems to predict your next question.
"You already know how to do this. You simply need to make the choices you already want to make and to believe that you can change. It only exists because it perpetuates ‘in’ you. It's all within your influence. Once you truly understand all this and allow yourself to believe life can be different, then you are free to make the choices to live the life and be the person of that choosing. Will you feel fear? Yes, but the power to master your experience in life lies in being able to acknowledge all the choices available to you in the face of that fear. The creation of the life of your choosing is in taking the actions from true authentic choices and not from those simply offered up by your pre-programmed responses to your learnt fears."
You’re starting to get the feeling that life is about to change.
"Live in that possibility," says the second figure. "If you do nothing else, live in the possibility of change", it concludes.
The apparitions disappear as you lie back in your bed and fall asleep knowing that tomorrow morning brings a day full of choices. You know it's going to be scary but equally you know fear doesn't have the same hold over you as it did before. The price you've been paying is too great to let fear prevent you from freeing yourself of your past and living the life and creating the future of you're own choosing.
Tomorrow, things will begin to change... and with that, you fall asleep.
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I wish you all a very happy Christmas and a wonderful new year… of your choosing.
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