Crossing the Mind Field to Possibility

Although every day is a new day, rife with possibility for new beginnings, many of us mark the first of the year as a desirable launching point for change. It’s a chronological line in the sand of time where we can separate what has been from what might be for us. The New Year can be a time to let go of what has not served us and embrace a higher vision for living.

As the busyness of holiday preparations diminish, there is time to reflect on the past year, and ponder our goals for the coming year. My experience with this process over the years has taught me one important truth; you can’t change the future by merely setting goals. Unless we prepare the soil of our minds, the new ideas will be like seeds sown on rocky soil…they will not take hold and grow. In Unity speak this idea is expressed through the two-pronged spiritual tool of denials and affirmations, where a denial refutes the reality of an untruth, and an affirmation avows a new reality based on truth. It is tantamount to sanding an old surface before applying a new finish.

What do we need to release or deny in order to prepare our minds for new possibilities? Everyone will have their own particular list of “untruths,” but generally speaking most of us carry beliefs about ourselves that are rooted in our own story, not based on factual reality nor rooted in our essential being. It’s been said that the biggest impediment to personal growth is not what we don’t know; rather it is what we know that isn’t so.

For many of us these untruths emanate from a sub-personality that becomes a voice in our head, known unaffectionately as the inner critic! This character often lurks in the shadows and pops up at the most inopportune moments to sabotage our creative impulses, or quash a new project or intention. Can you relate to this experience? How often have we set out with great zeal and passion with an idea to do something new and exciting in our life, only to be talked out of it by this critical censor? Too often to count, I admit. So how can we do it differently this year, and break free from the influence of the inner saboteur, and manifest the changes we envision for our lives? You may be surprised to hear that it’s not a battle you must wage with this apparent enemy of your best interests. It’s an approach rooted in compassion, and an exercise of non violent communication. Here’s the rationale and approach:

Your critic, like all aspects of us, has needs and feelings. Try to understand your inner critic’s motives. What if you realized that he or she is not trying to do you harm, rather trying to protect you from being disappointed or hurt. It knows you have been hurt and disappointed in the past when something you tried didn’t work out, so it’s just doing its job as critic to question every new idea where that potential risk exists. From its perspective this is an act of kindness, not antagonism. Once understood, you can thank this voice for its caring concern.

Speaking directly to this inner voice is powerful. It’s worked for me lately as I’ve undertaken this dialogue response to its commentary. By doing so you recognize that it only one aspect of your inner enterprise and by addressing it directly you disarm it. Once you have thanked it, you can then tell it that you are going forward with the idea because it’s very important to you.

Maybe with this new approach we can cease the endless battles with our minds that hold us back from living out new and exciting possibilities in the coming year.