What or who is holding you back?

You might be more than a little surprised that it’s not what or who you think is holding you back from pursuing literally anything and everything you want for yourself and your life.

Let’s start small with amazing relationships with my family and friends.

If this is what I want, I am the creator and therefore I am at the source of creating the relationships I want.

If they are not quite there yet, guess what? Everything other than “amazing relationships”, will show up because I have zeroed in on this is what I want. I’ve become aware of an area of life that is significant and important to me.

I’m also going to become very aware of what works and what doesn’t work in each of my relationships. I’m going to take 100% responsibility for the way the relationship is or isn’t.

So I am noticing and I am aware and here goes.

My relationship with my mum and dad is the basis or foundation for every relationship in my life.

Every single relationship falls in to are they a character of my mum or are they a character of my dad. Now the funny thing is it has nothing to do with feminine or masculine energy, it has to do with the way the relationship shows up.

You may not be able to see this just yet. The first request you will make of yourself is to be self aware and have self love.

The key statement that has helped me unlock understanding and empathy in this area of my life called amazing relationships with my people, are the affirmation statements "I’m worthy and I deserve".

By having them be present in my life, the way the world presents itself to me is different.

I’m able to see things I haven’t been able to see before. The uncovering of blindspots.

I saw that a disconnected and withdrawn relationship with my dad is as a result of a story I have held on to that I’ll never live up to his expectations. And I’ve been subconsciously trying to prove myself to live up to other people’s expectations of me, not realising the person I was trying to get approval from was my dad.

I’ve been acting like it doesn’t matter if I don’t have a close relationship with my dad even though that is what I want. My desire to prove myself to him is so strong and it’s actually what has me left with feeling not so close because every time something happens between us I’m viewing it through a filter of the past. The actual filter is “he doesn’t love me because I’m not good enough” is the conversation from the past.

I have so much great evidence to support this statement but the problem is as a child this statement may have been true for me at some point but I didn’t say this out loud, I said it quietly and in my head and I made a quick decision, which had me withdraw.

I even remember an incident of seeing my baby sister sit on his lap, thinking to myself these thoughts which was actually an interchange of dialogue, a whole conversation in my mind, why can’t I sit on his lap too?, you’re too big now, don’t ask to sit on his lap, don’t show how you feel, just grow up. All my internal voice.

You see what or who is holding you back is YOU.

The you that was lingering in the background, talking to you, from a place of wanting to protect you from pain was actually the thing that has caused you the most pain. The issue isn’t that something happened. Lots of things happen, It’s just that the you inside was directing the show, without you really realising it. Now, you have to rewind and unwind where all of it comes from.

My relationship with my mum has certainly transformed. But I got to see something really important through this transformation. If I have become my mum, both the good and the bad, I am still the creator and I can transform the things that don’t work. If I can do this so can my mum. Or have I been saying if my mum can do this so can I and I have flipped it to if I can do this, so can my mum.

I have been trying so hard to be heard and listened to. But imagine a child trying to get both their parents to listen to you. However this is my experience, parent a is busy, busy, busy, don’t interrupt me I’m busy. Ok. Person b is speaking another language, oh well can’t talk to them, I WILL JUST TALK TO MYSELF.

Oh my goodness. Ground breaking stuff.

I will just talk to myself. It’s ok I will just talk to myself. I will just talk to myself. I will listen to you. I will talk to you. I will be there for you. Etc and little wonder a three or four year old talking to a three or four year old is not always giving the best advice guys. It can only give the advice of a three of four year old.

He loves me or he doesn’t love me, she loves me or she doesn’t love me. Fundamentally every single thing a child is concerned about is this. As you get older it becomes a little more complex with the addition of learning more language, “he doesn’t love me because I’m not good enough”. "she doesn't love me because I'm smart enough".

So I have got to a point now of being able to put to rest the inner child such that they don’t have to do the protecting any more. I just speak up and express myself and say how I feel in the moment.

Sometimes the other person is not going to like what I have to say. But I know it doesn’t serve me or serve them not to speak my truth. I’m in a really good place now to even be able to say exactly what I mean and exactly what I want to say without a blurred line.

Now that you know what or who is holding you back is you, what is possible?

Remember you can’t see your blindspots, until you shift something within you. When you become introspective and only looking within will the answers arrive.

For my relationship with my mum what I see possible is for her to give up her own story of everything I do is wrong, nothing I can do is right. For my relationship with my dad what I see possible is for him to give up his own story of no matter how hard I try, I’m not good enough. Equally, I give up my stories.

See the science of introspection works when you’re willing to be introspective, you can see all that works and doesn’t work for you from within and then you’ll even begin to see the line between you and the other person. You’ll begin to see what is your part and what is another person’s part.

For my relationship with myself what I see possible is giving up the story or the interpretation or the layer of listening, the veil of perspective, that comes from the past. The inner child, the little voice, who quickly interferes and in the moment disables you. Disables you to some kind of failure.

The little voice can rest and will be acknowledged for sharing. Acknowledged for being there. But the contents of what it says is emptied to a vacuum. So that the void can be filled instead, with possibility.