"Your past doesn’t define your future; it's time to rewrite your story and break free from your life sentence."— James McPartland
Ever feel like you're living out a "life sentence" you didn't choose? From personal experience, that "life sentence" is at least on some level, being served from a "self-made prison."
Think of your life sentence as a conversation you're having with yourself. It's like an instruction manual you've written on how to live life going forward, based on your past experiences, especially the hard ones. This manual is full of sentences about how to protect yourself from others, and it's often rooted in the fear that people might discover something's "wrong" with you.
Here's what this life sentence does:
It's a reflection of who you decided you were after a negative life experience.
It has you striving to produce results that mask or make up for what you think is wrong with you.
It hides you from others and even from yourself, making you fearful of who you really are (or who you were led to believe you are)
It has you pretending to be different from who you fear you are.
And then, it has you pretending that you're not pretending!
Do you want to keep living out this sentence, or are you ready to write a new one?
This is where things get interesting - and maybe even a bit scary or at the very least, uncomfortable:
Rewriting our life sentence isn't easy. It's the ultimate identity crisis!
We are torn between the pain of what we know (yet it's a comfortable and familiar pain), and our fear of the unknown (where we fret over what will happen, what people think, or "what if I fail?")
But remember, this crisis is really just an experience of identity theft. And in order to take your identity back, break out of that self-made prison, and begin to rewrite your life sentence, it helps to ask yourself:
Am I who others told me I was, or was that just a story projected onto me by people wrestling with their own identity?
Where in my life do I have one foot nailed to the floor?
Where is something either not working at all, or not working as well as I'd like?
In what areas of my life do I feel a loss of power, freedom, fulfillment, or self-expression?
And if I want to discover and become my true and best self, can I forgive those who programmed me, and forgive myself for reinforcing that programming all these years? To forgive is to give up resentment. It's a powerful step towards freedom.
To rewrite the entire conversation you've been having with yourself, be selective with the words you choose. Let your words be transformative, generous, and all about possibility! Get creative! Generate a new and inspiring identity for yourself that empowers you to move in a new direction.
And here's another real challenge:
Can you be authentic about the places in your life where you've been inauthentic?
Can you stop pretending that things are okay when they're not?
Wherever we experience a loss of quality in our lives, there's inauthenticity at play. There's something we're pretending about, avoiding, or not taking responsibility for. We've made a decision to be right and justify the conditions and context of life as we see it.
And this game we're playing, where we hide from ourselves and others, keeps us repeating unhealthy patterns and pretending not to know there's something rotting under the surface.
But here's the million-dollar question:
Are you willing to look at what you're avoiding, justifying, pretending, and not taking responsibility for?
Can you be honest with yourself and look at the impact of being inauthentic?
It's time we step out of the boundaries of the self-imposed prisons we've built for ourselves. Our life sentence doesn't have to be for life. We have the power to rewrite it, starting today.
So, what's your new story going to be?
Think about it and then write it and live it out with intention.
Mac 😎
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