Empowering Paradigms: Shifting Perspectives for Less Anxiety and More Choice in Life
Let’s talk about paradigms that will help to lessen some of anxiety, fear and overwhelm. I’m going to share a few of the ones that I’ve been able to integrate into my thinking these past few years.
As a refresher, a paradigm is simply an underlying philosophy or principle that makes you either feel like the creator of your life or the victim of it. It’s not an absolute truth, but it is a useful guideline that helps us unlock a way of thinking that expands our view and our perspective, which ultimately expands our possibilities, which is what I’m always trying to do as a Coach, expand possibilities for my clients, to create choices.
As I begin each of my coaching sessions, I remind myself I’m never fixing or healing my clients, or anyone for that matter, not even my kids! We’re not broken, no matter how much we might be suffering. Healing is an inside job. Someone makes an internal decision to change and then they come to me because they don’t know how to change or they can’t make the change in a way that lasts. So for all of us, when we’re in the mindset of fixing and healing, that’s about fulfilling our own need - not the other person’s. As a coach, I’m not a fixer, I’m not a healer, I am a vision holder. When I work with my client’s, I see, right now, the future version of them they want to become and I have an unwavering belief that they are completely powerful and capable of achieving that future self. So, hopefully some of these paradigms will start to shift your own thinking from having no choices to actually creating choices for yourself and your future.
Let’s explore 5 personal paradigms for you.
Go ahead, take a deep cleansing breath and relax. Take in what lands for you and leave the rest on the curb :)
Paradigms:
1. Nothing changes in the world or anyone else until you change. Transformation starts with you. This is a biggie. If you can change how you think, then you can change how you feel and change how you experience the outside world, the actions you take, and ultimately changing the results you have in your life. I love this one. Incredibly empowering.
2. Every moment, feeling, and experience is perfectly orchestrated for your evolution. Nothing happens to you, everything happens for you. This is a tough one, I know. We may not always like what happens to us. But what I’m asking is for you to consider the perspective that no matter what you feel about an experience, life did something to help you evolve. The reason I say this is a tough one is because some of us have experienced really terrible things. I had an incredibly painful miscarriage while my sister and best friend were pregnant at the same time. I ended up with paralyzing anxiety. I don’t like to think that happened for me. It sure felt like it happened to me. But when I felt like it happened to me, I felt like a victim. When I feel like a victim, I certainly don’t feel empowered. Through my own self work, I was able to take the view that this is happening for me, I got the gift of opening up to a new and different way of thinking about the experience. It doesn’t take away from the fact that it was traumatic. However, now I get to think about it in a new and different way, and that opens me up to new possibilities. As soon as new possibilities opens up, now I have new choice about how I respond or react to that experience. And the truth is that life’s wisdom comes through the ups and sometimes it comes even more powerfully through the downs. In the school of being human, pain is our teacher and we are here to learn. Here’s a truth that you may want to keep in mind…that when people decide that there’s something they want that they don’t currently have, that desire is going to take them in the direction where they’re going to encounter problems, fears, tough times and challenges. You may have experienced this, you feel called to go in a certain direction. Then you encounter all kinds of obstacles along the way. But you triumph over those obstacles. It’s part of the process of getting what we want. The problem is that people see those challenges and those fears and those difficulties as a reason to quit, or that it wasn’t meant to be, or that it’s not going to work out and they sort of fold internally when there’s a challenge. When the truth is…that challenge exists because it’s meant to build our muscle of resilience. And the way we get stronger is by pushing against something. So keep at your goal, keep trying, don’t fold after you give it a shot once or 100 times and it doesn’t work. You’re building resilience, it’s so important because you need to have that capacity to deal with and move through discomfort, challenges and adversity. They’re going to come and that’s normal. There is no such life where everything is just win-win-win-win and everything is rosy all the time. That’s just not what life is. So, when something doesn’t go our way, maybe you ask yourself, what is the learning available from this experience, this pain, this trauma?
3. There is never a downside to taking responsibility for your own experience. Never? I don’t know if I love that…oh my! But the thing about this one is it does put you in the driver’s seat of your life. And I think about my miscarriage again. Am I responsible for causing that in myself? No. I did not willingly sign up for that traumatic experience. However, it happened. How am I going to react? One of my mentors calls it working with life on life’s terms. It happened. How am I going to react? And that puts me in the driver’s seat. I’m not in control of the circumstances, but I am in control of my thoughts, emotions and reactions to how I deal with it. What I do as a coach is to have people open up to the possibility. I help my clients access a feeling of freedom. When they can take responsibility for their experience that is liberating. Doesn’t mean I’m saying that an experience is ok, or that I’m condoning it or I’m happy about it, but I can take responsibility for my experience of it. Beautiful. Empowering.
4. Desire is not selfish, it is a wise compass pointing you in the direction of your life’s purpose. Ah, this is a complex one for most of us to come to terms with. The main point here is we’ve been taught that our desires will lead us astray, particularly as women. God forbid we desire money or sex or food! “Desires are potentially reckless. We should feel guilty about having them. We’ve got to convince ourselves that we’re just fine with what we have. I don’t really want that thing anyway, especially if it’s going to be hard on someone in our lives when we have that thing”. What I want to suggest is to come from a place where the opposite is true, and that desire is actually your wise oracle inside, escorting you to your highest potential, to your highest good. And you could look back in your life at things you desired and moved forward with, and some of them maybe didn’t work out so well. I bet you probably learned the greatest lesson of your life because of them. So, with this paradigm I’m inviting you to trust in the wisdom of your desires.
5. And this brings us to the paradigm that your challenges are your greatest gift. I know that can be hard to believe, especially when the challenges are big, really big. During one session with my coach, I remember saying to her, through tears…why are things so hard for me in certain ways? And she said to me, well Karielle, a big life is going to have some big struggles. A big life is going to have some big struggles. Let that sink in. So instead of judging yourself for where you struggle, consider that your struggle is your greatest teacher, is your greatest portal to transformation. Perhaps it’s also the greatest learning you can share with other people. I mean, look at me, I’m talking about fear, feelings of unworthiness, major trauma in my life, and difficulties in relationships. I’ve had a lot of challenges and I share them as teaching for myself as well as others. I’m getting a PHD in life, and these are the opportunities for transformation.
Ah, take another big, deep, cleansing breath in your nose and out your mouth. Before you go, leave a comment. Let me know which paradigm you love, and which you’re not loving so much. Let me know what landed for you.
And with that, cheers my friends.
Keep Living on Purpose!
Karielle
