By Tara Kanerva - Circa 2018
Many years ago I went to a week-long training in NLP. I barely knew what I was getting into. I was starting to work for myself ... humbly, reluctantly, slowly, with all of my excuses ready at hand in case (read, when) I didn't succeed, as I very cautiously dared to hope I would. I went to do the training because my husband suggested I should and I trust my husband's wisdom and insight. Thank God.
It changed my life. My life wasn't awful, far from it, but I was, like so many people, very focused on all the people and things that were to blame for my lack of success, lack of more happiness, lack of confidence, lack of money ... you name it. I didn't do this because I was a negatively focused person, but because that's what we do in our culture, in this society. We talk about the stuff blocking us from our dreams so that we can feel better about where we are, which in turn makes us feel more validated in accepting things as they are, which in turn makes us feel OK. OK used to be good enough for me. Not any more.
The learning during the training enabled me, unquestionably for the first time, to take full responsibility of my life. Everything I was, was on me. All my failures; all my wins. Simply because I'm the only one who ever decides how I respond to anything that ever happens to me. Once you feel this at the deepest level and practice it in all your spontaneous thoughts and reactions, it's the purest power you'll ever experience.
I tell my clients this all the time. In fact, I've probably lost a client or two this way. Because I say it straight. No messing around. If you aren't prepared to take responsibility for your own life EXACTLY as it is in every single shitty itty bitty nitty gritty way, then I promise, you aren't going to get the change you're seeking.
When someone starts to feel the liberation and limitlessness of this truth, I have to admit, I get downright giddy. Watching a person square themselves off to their own excuses is exhilarating to witness!
Once you realize that your parents or your spouse or the flawed systems or the lousy teachers or shitty bosses or arrogant asses or stupid mass populations or that twit of a hairdresser are not to blame for your problems, life gets SO SIMPLE! Because no one can ever mess up your life, or more importantly, make you feel like they've messed up your life ever again. Cry when it's sad, fight when it's worth it, run when you're scared and then let it go when it's over. Get at cause and notice your choices.
The first step is easy: notice the next time something happens TO you and ask yourself how many trillion ways you could have reacted. Just pause for that one moment. When you realize, in that moment, there are infinite ways you to respond and therefore, infinite ways you can direct your life in any given moment. Everything that happens TO you gives you another opportunity to respond in a way that reflects who you are and what you want.
So the bottom line is this: I'm not saying I don't blame my mom for my thighs. I do, of course. And I also realize that I can choose to love my thighs as they are (which I do), OR workout my thighs like a boss so they're lean and mean (which I don't), OR ignore my thighs and realize my worth is not located in them (which I mostly do) OR just choose to focus instead on feeling really blessed to have a mom at all, who fed me, loved me, taught me and for the record, was blessed with really lovely thighs.
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