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Are you holding yourself back?

We live in a vast possibility of choices

Dear *|FNAME|*,

Here is a mind-bending thought: We choose moment-to-moment from a vast realm of possibilities. Yet, what might we cling to so tightly that we don’t know we are choosing?

Nancy is reflecting back: Beginning in elementary school I chose to walk away from possibilities by simply remarking, “I can’t.” I felt a sense of empowerment. My two-year-old was engaged – stamping feet screaming NO. My declaration became automatic, indiscriminate, habitual. It didn’t matter if it was a physical or a mental consideration.

For years, it never occurred to me to take time to consider if I could or couldn’t, if I wanted to or not. I would unconsciously quip, “I can’t.” I can blame the universe, my parentage, my time of birth, my stars, and all else but ultimately I was the one that gave “I can’t” energy and kept it alive.

The sorriest part of the story is that I missed so many experiences by keeping myself small, hidden, and silenced. I stopped being committed to ‘me’. How foolish.


How might you hold yourself back?

What thoughts or beliefs shrink your power?


Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips:  “our lived lives might become a protracted mourning for, or an endless tantrum about, the lives we were unable to live. But the exemptions we suffer, whether forced or chosen, make us who we are.”

It is up to us to create our destiny. Encouraging more freedom of choice for you, here are the last two lines of Invictus by William Ernest Henley:

I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

Honoring Choice,

RelationSmiths, Nancy and Sharon

This week’s challenge: Look carefully for what doesn’t serve your future, but has become automatic.

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