What’s Your Identity?

According to Tony Robbins, “the strongest force in the human personality is the need to stay consistent with how we define ourselves. In other words, your identity is who you believe you are and not what you can really do. We are our only limitation and we limit ourselves by our beliefs. So how do we develop our belief system?

From the time we are born to 6 years of age, we are conditioned and have been modeling the behaviors of those around us. However, as a child 7 years of age and even into adulthood, the rest of our belief system comes from the meanings we attach to events in our life. Depending on whether we attached negative versus positive meanings is how we show up in life. We are in total control of how we show up in life and how we experience life.

The good thing is that if we assess ourselves, then we can see if we like the person we have become and change it. So how do we change? We must break out own pattern that we have created in our brain. This is a conscious and consistent effort. Awareness, owning who you are, and then taking steps to disrupt these old patterns of behavior is what creates a new you. This is a personal journey as this means that we have to take full responsibility for our actions, thoughts and language.

The next time a difficult life event occurs, instead of reacting to the event negatively or like you normally would react, take deep breathes and ask yourself what you can learn from this event. The next time someone passes from your life whether too early or not, how about think about how they reached a land that you desire to go to just a bit earlier than you or that their prayers were answered instead of your own, or even if they passed by suicide ask yourself what can you learn from this event so that you can help others from repeating it. We have choices in the meanings we attach the events that occur in our lives and I am not saying that we did not create some of these difficulties for ourselves and if we did we need to forgive ourselves and learn something as this is what personal growth looks like. The next time you get upset, stop saying things like, “this always happens to me” your subconscious mind does not know the difference between what is real and what is not so be careful what kind of language you use as you will believe yourself. We all will have walk kicking moments, but how we react to them is what makes all the difference to our happiness in life. Reacting positively will not relieve us from the emotions such as a sadness or sorrow, but no matter what we do not have to let this steal our joy.

We can’t change our past, but we can change the meanings we attached to those past events. It is never too late to have a great childhood. Our parents did the best they could with what they knew and the resources they had so no time for the blame game. You have to release yourself from being the “reason” something happening or not going like you wish it would have. Forgive yourself, your parents, or anyone who has trespassed you and this will set you free. Forgiveness, owning your thoughts, your actions, and you language will lead you to breaking the cycle and patterns that are not serving you or your happiness. Here’s to you building your new beliefs and your new identity.