I AM

We are the stories we tell ourselves. I recently became acquainted with a young gentleman by the name of Taylor who happens to be the lifeguard at a local swimming pool I frequent as I’ve recently developed a penchant for swimming. Typically, our conversations begin with an exchange of pleasantries;

Taylor: How are you?

Me: “Not bad”. Yourself?

Taylor: Always good.

His optimism for life is evident in his response and this made me ponder my response, as the phrase “Not bad” implicitly minimises anything good. Begs the salient question, “where does our default pessimism emanate from?”

A few hundred years ago and beyond, being negative actually saved your life. For our ancestors, the thought that one could be devoured by a beast at any point in the day managed their expectations of life, and as such, looking out for danger somewhat protected them from pain. Over time, what was once a survival mechanism has filtered down culturally as a coping mechanism. Strangely, we now use pessimism as a mechanism for managing expectations or preventing disappointment. Even worse, we use self-deprecation as a show of humility in an attempt not to come across as overly confident or braggadocios. We’ve developed and embedded a secular culture of flippant use of words, and our common language is littered with limiting words and stories we tell ourselves. We’ve become desensitised to the fact that subtle words have profound meaning on our everyday reality when used repetitiously, and that binary definitive statements we make about ourselves are potent and capable of shaping our realities.

The strongest force in us humans is that we act in a way that completely reflects the way we define ourselves. Being mindful of the limiting beliefs that emanate from self-deprecation is sufficient reason to “opt for” and expect only the best. Mohamed Ali once said, “I told myself I was the greatest long before I even was and then something amazing happened, I became the greatest”. He could have simply said “I am not a bad boxer”, instead he said, “I am the greatest”. And despite suffering five bruising career defeats, people still regard and remember him as the greatest because that was the story he told himself, and he and everyone believed it.

Fascinatingly, the mind is very suggestible and malleable, it doesn’t know or care if what you’re telling it is true or false, good or bad, it just absorbs and embeds it as a belief. The words and stories we tell ourselves are like programming codes into the operating systems of our being. If only we become aware that using self-deprecating words like “I am not organised, I am not good at this or that” only creates feelings and actions that are congruent with those words and in turn our reality, we’d probably refrain from using them. Therefore, my charge to Self and You the reader is to develop a sense of self-awareness, to make subtle alterations to your vocabulary, and to catch yourself anytime you adopt a language of self-deprecation.

Remember - “I Am are two of the most powerful words, for what you put after them shapes your reality” - Gary Hensel

Peace, Love & Light.