The Stories We Tell Ourselves

“Nah, yoga’s not for me. I’ve never been flexible.” It may be the number one reason I hear from people who are unwilling to even try a yoga class. Well, if being flexible means some of the extreme postures some highly experienced yogis can do, then none of us are particularly flexible. But we aren’t asked to be to participate and benefit from yoga.

“I’m so glad to hear you talk about being introverted. I’ve never thought I could be a vice president as an introvert.” A participant in a program for aspiring leaders said this to me about a comment I had made.

‘I don’t want to be ___, because you have to___’ is another version of this way of thinking often known as a limiting belief. While there are many sources of limiting beliefs, I’ve often found it’s our understanding of a concept, idea, or activity that is limited. For example, I know some of you have heard my “Nah, yoga’s not for me. I’ve never been flexible.” It may be the number one reason I hear from people who are unwilling to even try a yoga class. Well, if being flexible means some of the extreme postures some highly experienced yogis can do, then none of us are particularly flexible. But we aren’t asked to be flexible to participate in and benefit from yoga.

“I’m so glad to hear you talk about being introverted. I’ve never thought I could be a vice president as an introvert.” A participant in a program for aspiring leaders said this to me about a comment I had made.

‘I don’t want to be ___, because you have to___’ is another version of this way of thinking often known as a limiting belief. While there are many sources of limiting beliefs, I’ve often found it’s our understanding of a concept, idea, or activity that is limited. For example, I know some of you have heard my creativity story. It goes like this.

Me: (saying to my highly talented and artistic husband) I’m so not creative.
Him: What do you mean you, aren’t creative? When someone comes to you with a problem you come up with fifteen different solutions. You’re one of the most creative people I know.
Me: That’s not creativity. That’s just problem-solving.
That’s a definitional problem. The issue was not my lack of creativity, but my limited idea of what creativity might look like.

Or perhaps it’s not a definition, but the inability to see clearly what you are doing. Another story from my life. I was at a week-long leadership workshop and one of the activities was to form a line by linking hands with six or seven other participants. Each team was given an enlarged picture of three knots from the Boy Scout manual. Our task was to tie ourselves into each knot.
Me: Oh I’m not good at tasks like this. I don’t do this spatial recognition thing well.
Thirty minutes later after our team solved all three knot-puzzles first, one of my teammates turned to me and said, “You do realize that you’re the reason we won. You guided us through every one of those knots.”  And what still fascinates me is that if she had not said that I wouldn’t have seen it. I would have walked away from that exercise with my belief intact in spite of the fact that it was wrong.

What other tasks might I have walked away from because I was sure I couldn’t do them. Maybe the problem is not with our ability to touch our toes but our definition of flexibility. Maybe it’s not that we can’t be leaders, but instead, it’s our ideas about what leadership is. When you hear yourself saying, “I can’t, because” I hope you’ll stop and check things out. Is it true that you can’t or is it the story you are telling yourself?

What if we took our ideas and twisted them around a little bit to see if they are a bit rigid. Maybe the flexibility challenge isn’t in our physique but in our ideas. What limiting ideas do you hold? what stories are you telling yourself about yourself, your team, or your campus community? We could use some creative energy, the ability to see clearly, and the flexibility to try new things now more than ever!

Take care,

Gage

Meditation  https://www.brainpickings.org

Today, I’m not recording a meditation Instead I’m sharing a gift I received this morning. A gift of music that lifted my heart. I encourage you to go to Brain Pickings, click on the video link, and close your eyes. Breathe deeply and ride this soaring music and I have no doubt you will receive the same benefits as you would from traditional meditation. If you have time, I highly recommend clicking on the other links in this post.