028 - A Reflection of You

A Reflection of You

Do you try to squeeze yourself into a box that someone – or something - else has shaped for you? Does it feel artificial, contrived, and far too small? Today we reflect, and observe, that their concept of you is a reflection of them. Your concept of you is a reflection of you.

You don't need to buy-in to limits set by someone else’s story. We are each the hero of our own story. 

What are the limits that you have set for yourself that you believe to be true?

Very often, it seems to me, our limits become limits when we believe them to be true.  We bang up against constraints all the time in the course of our days.  Somehow, the banging hits harder, and hurts more, if we believe those constraints to be solid.

If the shape of the world is carved by the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we are told by others, who is it that carves the shape of you? Who is it that carves the shape of your world?

Somehow, as winter is turning to spring, in this crack of the changing of the seasons, I feel I am seeing many struggles of this kind unfold around me, as people seem to hold on tight, and to hold onto tightly by others…resisting change.

Is someone trying to squeeze you into their box, the small box that is their concept of you? The story line they tell themselves about themselves, are you acting out the role they have given you in their story?  Are you being shaped and carved by someone else’s limits for you? This is an invitation that, often, one can choose to decline.

Their concept of you is a reflection of them.  Your concept of you is a reflection of you.

Have you seen that happening in your life and the life of people around you? Someone has an idea of you, a concept of you:  iIs there a sense that you must be small, squeezed into their limits, by what they say or do, or by what they don’t say or don’t do, or by the veil of silence as they ignore? 

Do you find that you have handed over the sovereignty and authority over your own life to someone else’s picture or concept of you?  Did you somehow take their concept of you as if it were your own?

“Who are you to think you could do that? Women can’t do that. Men aren't like that. People of African descent don’t do that. You can't do that.” Sometimes people are frightened, and weak, and they seek to puff themselves up by seeing other people as being small.

Don’t believe it.  Their concept of you is a reflection of them.  Your concept of you is a reflection of you.

How they think of you, and see you, or don’t see you – how they try to wrap plastic around you to hold you into place, it says a great deal about them.  It says absolutely nothing about you, unless you make a mistake….and believe it. It has nothing to do with you unless you believe it to be true. It is your concept of yourself that matters.

Do you have the confidence that you need to retain – to own your own authority, your own right and responsibility - to shape your own self? Are you the author of your own story?  Are you the hero in your own story? Is there someone, or something, that you need to edit out of your own storyline?

Such stories are only true if we believe them to be.

The story you tell yourself about you isn’t really real either.  It is always also subject to change, an illusion like a reflection of ourselves that we might see in the water.

A concept is just a concept. It is an idea like any idea. It is not really real. So, the boxes we build for ourselves – that we squeeze ourselves into to be shut down or taped in – aren’t really real either.

We don’t need to believe in the limits that we set for ourselves any more than we need to believe in the limits that others might seek to set for us.  We can step out of our smallness and into the vastness of our potential.

Your concept of you is a reflection of you.  Their concept of you is a reflection of them.

Your potential is measured by its limitlessness, not by its limits.

We can enjoy the freedom that comes from living outside of anyone’s box.