Reframe the Meaning and Thrive in Chaos!
“Life is not about waiting on the storm to pass. It is about learning how to dance in the rain.”
Are your beliefs empowering or preventing you from living a happy and fulfilled life? Too often people focus on their painful experiences and form pessimistic beliefs about what it means in their lives. This happens no matter how much good is realized in your life. You allow your story of pain and struggle to be the power. And you support it with more negative stories to legitimize the outcome experienced. But this fear narrative prevents you from achieving your true potential to transform the quality of your life because it only allows limited action. As a result, you remain in your nightmare not able to wake up thinking about that job you hate or relationship that does not serve you. It is especially important during the season of winter when everything is more exaggerated and seems worse than it is. The biggest challenge with your beliefs is that you believe them!
Reframe the Meaning of Your Beliefs!
To change or reframe the meaning of negative situations, you must know that you have a compelling future. It is important not to see the situation worse that it is but as it is and how it can be better. When reframing the meaning, it is not about pretending the situation is great when it is not. It hurts! It is about deciding what could be great, what can be learned, or how to create a better outcome. To change your story, you MUST understand and deal with your limiting beliefs which is a negative feeling of certainty about what something means. The state of your psychological and emotional state determines the meaning of what you are experiencing and how you shape your story to succeed or not.
Do you believe this is the end of something wonderful or the beginning of something unpleasant? Are you being punished for your failure or rewarded for your success? Tony Robbins says, “The minute you decide to focus on something, you assign it a meaning and infuse it with feeling. How you define an event produces emotion and determines the state of your feelings going forward. The meaning you assign to any event, interaction or outcome defines the emotional tone of your experience and the feelings you generate throughout your life. Meaning equals emotion and emotion equals life. The meaning you give your experiences will always change how you feel — and the emotion you feel always becomes the quality of your life.
Your memories are anchors to feelings of a state of being, images, sounds and sensations — all of these aspects rely on the meaning we give to them.” Fortunately, your past does not dictate the present unless you choose to live there! The fear of failure is the key to holding you back. Learn how to use fear and not be destroyed by fear. Do you fear rejection? It puts you in fight or flight mode. But rejection is just the meaning you choose to put on the situation. Were you rejected or were they not available to call you? If they chose to fire you, does it mean there is something better for you? If your career is stagnant, change the meaning and look for the meaning to be bigger than you or your career.
Do you experience guilt, anger, or frustration when it comes to money? How can you change the meaning? Successful people are not lucky. They share the traits of persistence, drive, dedication, and passion despite the circumstances. Remember where your focus goes your energy will flow.
Everyone has patterns and habits that influence how they perceive their life. You will never put forth the effort required if you do not believe it will work. If you are doing this, you are choosing unhappiness over uncertainty.
Do you know it will work or can be done? How much more emotional intensity and effort would you put toward it if you had a positive belief of certainty surrounding the situation? There are three skills required to reframe your life to thrive during chaos:
(1). Recognise Your Belief and Behavior Patterns - without it nothing will change!
(2). Use Your Patterns - create opportunity to turn your limiting beliefs around!
(3). Create New Positive Patterns - live the life you desire!
Reframe the meaning you give to situations to ensure you are satisfied and not disappointed. You can choose to ignite your emotions, make empowered decisions, and elevate your life through the power of the meaning YOU give any situation. Choose wisely.
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to see and find all the barriers
within yourself that you have built against it.”-Rumi
Written by: Gladys Agwai
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