Chapter 4 Why Do I Hold On To The Past?
Session 4: Discovering why we hold on to negative self concepts.
Report On Assignment
Objective: By the end of this session each participant will see and understand the power of being nothing providing the motivation to letting go of meaning.
Who am I really? Am I really who I think I am? Why do I hold on to a negative self concept?
This week you have been looking at area’s of your life where you have collapsed events with meanings. Look a little deeper, taking the first event that comes to your mind in these three periods of your life and write them below.
#1 Event from the first time I realized “Something isn’t right” or Early Childhood:
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What I made that mean: __________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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#2 Event from the first time I realized “I don’t fit in here” or Adolescence:
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What I made that mean: __________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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#3 Event from the first time I realized “I’m on my own” or Adulthood:
___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________
What I made that mean: __________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
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Ask the following questions about each assigned meaning or belief.
- Is the meaning true?
- Can you know for certain that the meaning of the belief is true?
- Is it empowering?
- What do you get by holding on to that belief?
- What would you become if you let it go?
Who I think myself to be only exits in the meaning I have assigned to the events in my life. Who I am, is the sum total of the meaning I have assigned to all the events in my past. In other words, I only exist in the illusion of my own thoughts. In reality my thoughts have no meaning except the meaning that I assigned to them. I created myself by my own thinking. I am a fantasy that only exits in my immature creation – or who I think myself to be! If our thoughts about ourselves are positive and pure then we see ourselves and the world as positive and pure. Thus we are positive and pure. If our thoughts are petty and negative then we see ourselves as petty, mean and negative and we do not separate who we are from how we see ourselves or the world around us. Either way, both the positive and the negative thoughts are fantasies. So here is the question – AM I MY PAST? OR AM I WHO I THINK I AM TODAY?
Scam – a fraudulent scheme, often looks very harmless on the surface but underneath the damage of deception is occurring.
Reasons I hold on to my old self perception:
- It allows me to justify and hang on to my self defeating behaviors and thus stay small.
- It allows me to do the negative or the positive things I do; yet still does not come from a place of creation, but a place of “have to” and “better than”.
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- If I let go of the only images I have about myself then who and what would I be? Who would I be if I let my past go and invented myself as new today? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Blank Canvas
Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free but first it may make you angry; you would realize you are Nothing.
Does it make you angry to be nothing? Think about it from the perspective of being a blank canvas. All the old paint has been wiped clean or discarded. Now that you are clean what can you become? What can you create? Right, Anything. Think of the power of becoming anything. That power comes into your live by seeing yourself as nothing. From being nothing comes – everything! The past is gone, it is history and in the past where it belongs. The only way you can get your old self back is to go back into the past and grab hold of those old thoughts and drag them into the present and start thinking them again. If they didn’t work for you the first time why drag them into the present and use them to create a negative future? Let go of the past and be in the place nothing and then create something new!
Assignment:
Your assignment this week is to try on the concept of nothing and dream of the possibilities you can create from that space. A major point to consider is that when you give up your old self, the behavior you came here to eliminate in the first place is automatically gone. Consider the possibility of leading an extraordinary life, of actually making a contribution with you at the source. Identify your scams and try something new. What can you bring into existence? Try it out then return and report. Think about this from the perspective of being a reborn child. You can begin anew with faith, innocence and excitement. But what you have this time is experience. This time when the trash is directed at you say: “No, I tried believing that about myself last time and it didn’t work out well. This time I am opting to believe something else.”
If you are nothing what can you become?
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