Journey of Personal Discovery — Part 4

Freedom from a heavy load

Looking back at our childhood not only enables us to understand who we have become, but also what has shaped us in a positive or negative way. We have all realised by now that life is not a bed or roses, that we are shaped by our personal history, experiences and encounters. At an early age we were not in charge of those and so we have been affected by what we were exposed to, good and bad.

It is important at this stage, having identified key areas of your character and explored how they came into being within you by understanding your childhood more, to create a new list. This is not your personality traits, though it is closely linked. Down the middle of a piece of paper draw a line. At the top on the left write the word “keep” and on the right write the word “discard”. Now I want you to go through your memories, your experiences, your fresh understanding of who you are and start to comprise a list on each side.

What are you going to keep? Think of it as cleaning out the garage or the attic. You have to be ruthless, you have to get rid of the clutter from your mind. You want to keep the most important items, the positive memories and experiences. Going forward these will sustain you. You will reflect on this part of the list in difficult times and the things on this side of the list will “give you life”, they will reaffirm who you are to yourself.

What are you going to discard? All these things have held you back. They may have been suppressed memories, or thoughts from your childhood that now make sense as you have come to terms with and understood your childhood. It may be why you are angry, why you find yourself in a spiral of addiction or why you are emotional about certain things. What you do know is that you have identified these things, you have understood them and you want to let them go as they are holding you back. Write them down so that they are real and tangible.

Now tear the paper down the middle. Keep the left hand side, the positive side with you. Put it in a purse, a wallet or next to your bed. You are going to use this going forward for positive affirmation. You will not dwell on the negative, you will journey forward with positivity and live your life as the real you. Read it, digest it, tell yourself how good you are at being you and how no one else can be as good at being you as you are. When times are hard and there will be times like that, then read the list, and know you are better than what is happening.

It would be so easy to tell you that in burning the negative side of the list you will be free from it all. Sorry, that is just not the case and it is not as easy as that. What is good is that you have identified those things. When you start to behave in a certain way you can identify it more easily and the reason for it. At those times you can go to the positive list and reaffirm what is good about you. Be conscious though of the negative. In being conscious of it, it will not take over your life. In being conscious you can tackle it.

Over time you will see some of the thoughts, words and actions fading away, they will become less impactful on who you are. In time you will let go of them and the burden will become less. You will become freer and become more of the real you. When you rise and when you sleep, recount the positive things. Choose to be them.

Don’t stop the process of actively reflecting and understanding. This is not a one off and it will take practice. What you put into this process you will get out of. You will look back and think, “why didn’t I see that before” or “how did I not realise that sooner”. There is no easy answer for this, only to say that our subconscious mind only picks up things when they come to the front. I trust that this is the influence of the higher power, my God, who enables me to deal with things when they are right for me and when I am ready to deal with them.

This Journey of Personal Discovery is an ongoing process. Make a start though. I hope these steps enable you to begin this. There will be a myriad of books, blogs, videos on such topics and I am sure people write or speak more eloquently than I do, but I do speak from the heart. May your burdens be light and may the sun radiate on you and fill you with life.

Be Open Says;

So pleased to present you 1 of Be Open Golden Stories created by: Veenakshi

Approved by Be Open’s Editors: A Shayens Abran &