If you’re anything like me (and if you’re reading this, I’m guessing you are 🙂 ), then you’re probably pretty intimately aware of your own spiritual hang ups. I’m talking about the area or areas in your life where you continually find yourself feeling stuck, acting out of fear and getting taken out by your ego. For some of us it’s our fear surrounding relationships that keeps us stuck, for others it’s money or career or something else entirely. Regardless, pretty much every one of us has an area of our lives where it feels like no matter how hard we try we keep coming up against the same obstacles over and over again.

Here’s the deal: We all have emotional wounds from our past that cause us to repeat tired, old ego patterns and get in our own way. Maybe, for example, you have a fear of being hurt by a romantic partner so you constantly put up walls or defenses so no one can ever get close to you —- and then you complain about never being able to find a relationship. Whatever the issue is for you, you’re probably fairly aware of when it’s coming up. It’s generally one of those moments where you find yourself feeling triggered and responding or acting in a way that goes against what you actually want. You say or do something and then think, “Wait a minute, that didn’t feel right” or “That wasn’t me.”

We’ve all been there, right?

Last week. I was watching Marianne Williamson speak on one of her Livestream videos. She was talking about how to let go of our wounds from the past so we can act from our highest self. She suggested that whenever we feel a triggering situation coming up, we should ask ourselves, “Am I going to act from my wounded self or my strong self here?” Then she said something that was so simple and yet so incredibly profound it nearly blew me away. She said, when it comes to letting go of old ego patterns sometimes you just need to decide, “I don’t do that any more.” Decide who you want to be in that moment and act from that place.

YES.

So incredibly simple. So. Much. Truth.

That was such a big “a-ha” moment for me because it helped me realize the decision to change is entirely in my hands. At any moment, I can choose to release my wounds if and whenever I am ready to. Can you feel how huge that is?

Many times when it comes to releasing old patterns that don’t serve us, we already know what we need to do. We’ve done the personal growth work, we’ve read all the books and talked it out with our therapist or coach or our go-to spiritual BFF (often to or beyond the point of nausea). We are well aware of our patterns and hang ups, yet we still stay stuck. So what’s the missing piece? We’re not yet making the choice to act differently. 

When you make the decision to act from your highest self the wound disappears. It becomes transmuted. You begin to heal. True, sometimes it’s easier said than done and there are times when there is more work that needs to be completed before a wound can be released. I am certainly not trying to discount those circumstances and if that’s where you currently are then please allow yourself to be there. It’s perfectly ok. However, there are plenty of times (more than we are willing to admit) where we have done the digging, we’ve done the awareness work and yet we continue to act out from our wounded self out of habit, out of fear or simply out of a lack of recognition that we have the power to choose differently. If that sounds like you, I’m asking you to think about choosing differently.

Question for you! In what area of your life have you been letting your wounded self run the show? What would your higher self do in this situation? How can you CHOOSE to respond or react differently?

Sending you so much love,

Kristi