Creating Massive Change: How to Get Out of Our Own Way

Has it ever occurred to you that maybe your life isn’t changing because you’re holding yourself back but don’t know it?

Like maybe there’s something in your conditioning or a subconscious belief that’s preventing you from doing something that could bring you the change you seek?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I took Nadia Colburn’s five-day mindful writing challenge because one of the prompts elicited a profound insight about why I’ve struggled to create the change I want most in life.

Part of the prompt was “Don’t go off somewhere else,” and after a brief meditation at the start of the challenge that gave me a deep sense of calm and clarity, the following insight came to me: 

Roots and wings—that’s what I’ve always wanted. And I always thought roots meant my home, my family of origin. Life away from them was wings. But I’ve spent my whole adult life feeling like I’ve had one foot out the door because I haven’t allowed myself to have roots and wings at the same time. And that’s what I really want. To allow myself to be fully where I am. To believe it’s safe to be where I am. It’s not wrong to be where I am. I’m not wrong, wherever I am.

This was a big aha moment for me because it gave me further insight into something I’ve been reflecting on lately: that in all my moves—fifteen of them within twenty years—I never allowed myself to really settle in. To commit to things. To become part of a community.

This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy my varied chapters or that I regret a single one of them. I did and I don’t. I just never allowed myself to do anything that might make me feel hemmed in.

For a long time, I thought it was insecurity and self-protection—my conditioning from abuse and bullying telling me that no one would truly love me, and that it wasn’t safe to be part of the group. To some extent, it was.

But I know now that I was also trapped by the invisible fence of a limiting belief—that it’s wrong to live far from my family. Both of my siblings still live not just in my home state but in my parents’ home, mere minutes from extended family. And I’ve always felt like the black sheep while desperately wanting to be part of the flock.

So I’ve lived in many places like a traveler, not a resident, to avoid digging my heels in too deep to ever go home, or to visit home whenever I wanted.

That’s all changing now that I have kids because I want them to feel at home. To make real friends. To have commitments and routines. So I’m putting down roots, a second set, and working through the fear that this might mean losing my family.

I have more responsibility and ties than I’ve ever had as an adult, and I always assumed this would mean clipping my wings, yet I feel free. Because the thing I’ve feared the most is also the thing I want the most. And I’m finally overcoming the biggest barriers to experiencing it—the limitations of my own mind.

It’s hard to get past our own internal blocks because they’re often hidden. They’re the stories we’ve told ourselves over and over for years, the lies we tell ourselves so regularly they feel like truth.

But they’re not truth. They’re misinterpretations of past events that have hardened into worldviews. They’re assumptions based on (often painful) experiences that we’ve backed up with so much ‘evidence’ they now seem like facts.

They’re essentially circus mirror glasses, distorting what we see and limiting our options—unless we decide to start the work of taking them off.

It starts with asking ourselves some questions to discover how and why we’re holding ourselves back, including:

What’s the story I’m telling myself about why I can’t do what I want to do? What do I gain from holding onto this narrative? And what might I gain if I let it go?

Which beliefs have I inherited or absorbed from others? Why don’t these beliefs serve my highest good? And what would I do differently if I considered that they’re not actually true?

How might my inner critic be lying to me, attempting to keep me safe? How is this ‘safety’ actually a prison? And what’s the truth that would set me free?

It’s taken me over two decades to get past my internal block to settling in, and only in recent years did I even recognize it was there.

This makes sense, given that I also spent decades cementing the paralyzing beliefs that family should be close but distance = safety.

That’s often the case for a lot of us: Our beliefs were engrained over many years, which means it can take time to unearth and challenge them—and even longer to find the courage to consistently act in spite of them so that we can slowly build up evidence that it’s safe and beneficial to do so.

But it all starts with internal inquiry. It starts with looking within. It starts in silence and stillness and a willingness to question what we think we know.

If you do this, perhaps, like me, you’ll find that sometimes the most important piece of knowledge is the one you’re willing to let go.

If you’re interested in taking the mindful writing challenge I mentioned at the beginning (from Tiny Buddha contributor Nadia Colburn, who’s one of this month’s site sponsors), you can access it for free here.

Each day for five days, you’ll receive a fifteen-minute recording including a short meditation, an evocative poem, and a writing exercise inspired by that piece.

I hope you find the practice as illuminating and empowering as I did!

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