How empowered and free we feel in response to our view of the world determines how confidently we engage with it and express ourselves in life. Do you sense a shift in how you want to describe yourself, your relationship with the world and your life?
Self-actualisation is about reclaiming one’s full potential and setting it free out of one’s commitment to personal fulfilment. Based on what is beginning to show up in your consciousness, does it feel like it is time to review what is your place in the world and what is your work here? If that is the case, it may be time for a makeover.

**Bad experiences often turn into limiting mental frameworks that limit you till you confront them and heal them away. **When we have difficult or painful experiences, the emotions that seem too strong and overwhelming to deal with at the time are blocked by the mind and set aside to be dealt with when we can. Simultaneously, the mind also installs an instinctive defensive avoidance to safeguard us from similar hurts in future. Now, we avoid situations and conversations that can reconnect with the same painful emotions. Over time, these patterns of responses become automatic and subconscious and firm up into a framework of behaviours. Limiting beliefs go along with these behaviours to justify them.

The patterns in which we interpret the impacts of people and situations upon us shape our beliefs about others and the world at large, this forms our worldview. Along with our worldview, goes a corresponding view of oneself that is our self-concept.

How empowered and free we feel in response to our view of the world determines how confidently we engage and express ourselves in life. Remaining unquestioned, our worldview and self-concept set limits upon our fulfilment.
While most of such subconscious conditionings are overcome along the way, some hide in our blind zones and their impact can be subtle yet serious and substantial.

Here are some examples-

• Having had a bad experience with a water sport early in life, one may develop a fear-based aversion to swimming and hold beliefs that justify it-‘I can’t swim. It is an unnecessary risk.’

• If one had a bad childhood experience of performing in front of people, like- say while reciting a poem one got a hurtful response, then avoidance of that pain may cause one to subconsciously avoid public speaking all through life. ‘Public speaking is not for me. I just don't have it in me.’ Eventually if one does not confront the fear, it can cause hesitation in accepting career opportunities that need engaging with crowds. Unconsciously, one may self-sabotage growth opportunities.

• Having experienced bullying people are uneasy in the presence of authority. Simple exchanges with superiors at work seem much like dealing with a bully. ‘My boss is such a poor listener, He doesn’t respect people. He singles me out.’

• Some people may go to any lengths to avoid conflicts or difficult conversations or negotiations. ‘Raising this topic might lead to an unpleasant discussion, possibly even an argument. What is the point? Let us see how we can accommodate.’

• Some people are far too self-conscious and would go to any length to seek approval. When saying *‘no’ *becomes a challenge, one is frequently caught in commitments that one would prefer to avoid. While trying to please both, one finds oneself stuck between a demanding boss and unrelenting subordinates.

• People who had been disappointed or deeply hurt in past relationships, close their hearts to the possibility of finding a fulfilling relationship. Now, the genuine seems inauthentic. ‘What does he want from me?’

“We accept the love we think we deserve.” ― Stephen Chbosky

• Facing or seeing someone else face a financial challenge, can trap one in a scarcity mindset, in which one is driven to gather and hoard money even at a cost of mental peace, health and family. The mindset of seeking security and reassurance from money holds a vast majority captive today. Money is the means to obtain the resources necessary for life, it is itself not the primary necessity. Fear of not having enough money seems to control and drive our lives.

According to a Capital One CreditWise survey, 73% of Americans rank their finances as the №1 stress in life.

• When fears run life, one feels an internal pressure to succeed at all costs. Work instead of an easeful opportunity to express seems stressful and life feels tiresome.

Negative mindsets can only hold us as long as we avoid confronting them.

What we perceive is not an accurate representation of reality. Einstein pointed out to Heisenberg in 1926, that building a theory on observable facts is illogical. In truth, it is the theory that determines what we are capable of observing. Our brains are predisposed to recognize only the patterns that were previously created and reinforced. It is almost impossible to observe the world or our situation, without our past experience colouring it. The lens of the past through which we view the world influences what we are able to perceive.

“Man keeps looking for a truth that fits his reality."- Werner Erhard

Our past experiences colour everything — whatever we hear and see. All that we observe is based on the patterns that our brain can recognise, based on what it has stored in the past. The points of view that we have formed in the past distort and shape everything we see.

“Reality is frequently inaccurate.”― Douglas Adams

People only seem the way they do. Our past experiences heavily influence how we look at people and interpret our situations. Different people perceive the very same person differently based on their past with similar people. The same also goes with situations. Some people deal with the same situation more resourcefully than others.

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” ― Anaïs Nin

But in time, life slowly expands our wisdom and the heart begins to sense new, wiser ways of making meaning of what happened. You feel less attached to the view you have had of the situation. Then you see that you have a choice, a say in how the world occurs to you. You can change the view you have of yourself, how you view the situation and how life seems to you and how the world and others seem to you.

“To know that you are a prisoner of your mind is the dawn of wisdom.”— Nisargadatta Maharaj

Life invites you to take responsibility for your worldview. When you are willing to consider that you are creating your own view a new vista of life opens. Your willingness to take ownership of how things appear and to be the cause of how everything seems begins to generate a new view of life in which everything is being shaped by your interpretation. You have a say. Your situations and the world now stop appearing as being fixed and out of your control.

“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”― George Orwell

Step out of the universe of Assessments

We live in a realm of Assessments. In their brilliant book ‘The Art of Possibility’, Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander talk of a World of Measurements. The present-day’s default worldview is the one in which the world appears as a cold, indifferent and tough place, in which life is about battling with challenges. Every resource is scarce– time, money, power, love, inner strength and energy. In pursuit and hope for a better future, everyone strives to collect and accumulate resources and competes for opportunities, attention and approval. Life of such strife puts you in the mode of persistent assessments and comparisons. All stories and movies, even children’s tales feature themes of struggle through peril, overcoming obstacles, and triumphing over adversity. In all this winning and losing, success is not assured. The comfort of victory is fleeting but the pain of failure is profound and long-lasting. The outlook generates stress and ever-present anxiety. A subtle mistrust prevails even among friends and loved ones. In the lurking danger of disappointment and hurt, there is a pervasive need for vigilance. Caution and cleverness are essential to survive.

“In the measurement world, you set a goal and strive for it. In the universe of possibility, you set the context and let life unfold.”― Benjamin Zander, The Art of Possibility

Take a moment to examine how your thoughts reflect a mindset of assessments-

Which aspects of my mindset reflect a survival mindset that reflects scarcity, comparison competition, attachment and anxiety?
Am I good enough? Is what I have enough? Are others doing better than me? How can I win?

When will it be enough?

Ask yourself- ‘is it enough yet?’
Keep confronting this question till you can see how ridiculous this mindset is. Till it makes you laugh.

“Enough is realising that an insatiable appetite for more will push you to the point of regret.” — Morgan Housel, the Psychology of Money

Heal your heart

This worldview and mindset of assessments had been shaped by disappointments of the past that hurt your heart. The pain had closed and hardened it.

But now, you intuitively sense that the world and life seemed tougher than they actually are. You sense that you can heal your heart and drop the survival mindset. Practices like gentle, heart-centred breathing are useful. A good coach or therapist can help. Gently as it heals to ease, your heart will open to new possibilities. Then life would once again touch and move you with its abundance, beauty and joy.

“When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.”― Milan Kundera

Open yourself to a Life of Possibilities

Beyond the life of survival and the mindset of assessments, there is a boundless universe of endless possibilities.

Here, life offers a dazzling array of experiences, opportunities and a variety of shimmering movements in which new things are always becoming possible. It beckons you to embrace curiosity and wonder and to engage joyfully without worrying about scarcity or survival.

Here, you want to have faith. There is a spontaneous willingness to dream and imagine with an open mind- what is possible? You want to take chances and take bold actions to manifest them.

You sense the ease with which everything is interconnected in harmony and interdependence. Everything supports everything else. Everyone serves everyone else. It feels fine to drop the strife for accumulation, to harmonise with the grace of simplicity. Experiences of abundance with no need to possess, own or control, evoke spontaneous generosity and an urge to share. Intuitively, you sense the comforting warmth of an awareness that everything will work out fine. You feel that you are cared for and loved. You are drawn to support others and love. To serve selflessly. Life becomes a joyful journey of shared joy.

Examine your world-view and self-concept

Examine how you describe yourself, others, your situation, the world and your life.

• Which are the fixed ways in which you seem to describe yourself and the world or others? List both the positive and negative aspects.
• Examine which of these descriptions don’t serve you. Drop the negative. Stop talking about yourself, others, your situation, the world and of your life in that negative way.
• Create opposite positive affirmations. Practice affirmations to create your new reality and new views about yourself, others, your situation, the world and your life.
  For example, if you were earlier describing yourself as short-tempered and impatient, use your will to affirm yourself as the opposite- “I am patient, soft-spoken and affectionate.”

Or if an aspect of your life was not working, like, if you are someone who has been neglecting your wellness, affirm that you are now becoming so much more disciplined about your wellness.

Examine how you describe others in your life.

Choose to create a new view and affirm its reality. Repeat the affirmation. Allow it to express itself more in your life and become your reality.

If you sense a lack of love and understanding in a relationship, affirm that there is kindness, understanding and love even though it is yet unexpressed fully.

However, if you find someone particularly angry and hurtful, it may be an aspect where there may be a need for some emotional healing. Some of your past emotional injuries may be making some of the behaviours of this person far too painful and even evoking fear and anxiety. When the emotional response is automatic and instinctive, you may want to take up deeper emotional healing. Deep coaching can change your view of yourself, your view of the situation and life, and your view of others in your world, as it has done for so many others.