You know that there are beliefs in your life that aren’t serving you, and when you search “how to stop believing XYZ,” you find hundreds of articles on how to “quickly” or “automatically” change your beliefs.
We so often talk about personal development and changing our lives as if it’s this something that can happen immediately.
However, the truth is that most of the time, you can’t “just stop” believing what you have believed for years. Our beliefs – even the ones that hold us back – have been woven into our subconscious from birth. We cannot expect ourselves to undo 20, 30, 40+ years of conditioning in a split second. I constantly see everyone from friends and neighbors to my one-on-one coaching clients get so frustrated when they realize that they have a negative belief and then they can’t immediately cut it out of their lives. We gotta have some compassion on ourselves. Changing our beliefs system is a process. Transformation is a process.
In personal growth, we talk about the caterpillar-to-butterfly transformation a lot. It sounds so nice and clean – like it’s an easy transformation. Yes, there’s some time “in process” while the caterpillar is evolving in the chrysalis, but that’s it. So no wonder that when we use this metaphor, people get so frustrated and want to give up halfway through their transformation.
The truth of the caterpillar’s transformation? It’s messy – oh so freaking messy. After a caterpillar spins its cocoon, it goes inside and literally becomes goop. GOOP, Y’ALL. The caterpillar must first UNbecome everything that is to ultimately BECOME a butterfly.
The same is true for us. To become who we are meant to be, we first have to UNbecome everything that we are not meant to be. However, we don’t just spin 20% of our lives in process like caterpillars. We are constantly in process. That is the journey of the human experience – not that we go around in cycles being the same person but that we grow, evolve, and transform.
And you know what? God is okay with that. He designed us to be beings that are constantly in process. If you look at the human brain, in constantly changes throughout the duration of our lives. If God didn’t want us to be in process, neuroplasticity would not exist.
My favorite example of how I know God is okay with process?
Jesus.
Jesus, whether your believe he is Savior of the world or just an amazing teacher, was born as a baby.
He had to learn to poop in a toilet. He had to learn to speak. He had to learn the laws of Torah. Jesus went through process… and if the Son of God went through process, I think it’s okay for us to be in process.
Friends, this stuff takes time. It takes time to rewire your brain. As you learn to take ownership of your life, give yourself some compassion that the “yard” isn’t going to be perfect right away. Trust the process. Creating a life you love on your terms takes time, and that’s okay.
PS: You don’t have to figure this all out on your own. Come join my free life coaching Facebook community where we help support one another as we create the lives we always dreamed about.
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