We all have some sort of self-imposed “rules” that we feel compelled to follow such as “I must be responsible,” “I must work hard” etc.
If we want to change our life, do the opposite of rules.
The below is the rules that I would have:
“I must make effort”
“I must be responsible/useful”
“I must give something back to others when receiving something”
“I must work and earn money”
“I must ‘struggle’ in order to receive good fortunes”
“I must be inspiring”
“I must not show my limitations and clumsiness”
“I shouldn’t feel vulnerable, I must be strong”
“I shouldn’t be self-centred, must think about others first”
These rules constantly judge us and force us to be a certain way. We believe that we must follow these rules, otherwise we will think we are unworthy and not good enough.
Or we are afraid that other people will judge us as “useless,” “stupid,” “weak” etc.
Those self-imposed rules are not all bad. They serve to protect us.
The rules keep us in a safe zone. We are afraid that if we get outside the zone, we may face hurt, rejection, shame, disappointment etc.
In this way we have learned to protect ourselves, which is good.
The downside of this protective function is that it sacrifices our true self.
I would force myself to make effort when I didn’t want to.
I would be unable to say “no” because I wanted to be useful so as to feel good about myself and be accepted by others.
I would hide my limitations and clumsiness so that no one would notice how dumb I was. But I resulted in not being able to speak my truths.
In order to free ourselves from these constraints, do the opposite.
Give yourself a permission to do the opposite and an affirmation that you are always already worthy anyway even if you do the opposite.
Through bringing our true self forward, we will begin to like to be ourselves!
The practice of accepting all of ourselves is so powerful.
The below is my example. How I gave myself a permission to do the opposite. (Please note that the opposite action may sound impossible or crazy!!)
“I must make effort”
–> I don’t need to make effort. I can rest when I want to.
“I must be responsible/useful”
–> I don’t need to be responsible for everything. It’s OK to be useless.
“I must give something back to others when receiving something”
–> I can receive things for free and don’t need to return anything.
“I must work and earn money”
–> I am worthy of receiving money without hard work.
“I must ‘struggle’ in order to receive good fortunes”
–> I can receive good fortunes through having fun.
“I must be inspiring”
–> I can be boring and that’s OK. I can say boring things.
“I must not show my limitations and clumsiness”
–> It’s OK to reveal my weakness. I am enough regardless.
“I shouldn’t feel vulnerable, I must be strong”
–> I can be sad, upset, disheartened. I don’t need to be strong.
“I shouldn’t be self-centred, must think about others first”
–> I can put myself first.
The opposite affirmation has really helped me to move beyond being stuck and find joy of being myself.
Things began to change slowly but dramatically when I had learned to truly value myself.
If you do this work, I highly recommend you to “write down” things on paper. Just thinking doesn’t help much.
If you want to know more about yourself, please feel free to attend my free seminar this Sunday!
The seminar is about Psychotherapy and Buddhism: Self-compassion, how to be with a tender self and live a life of compassion, courage and authenticity.
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I am currently writing about my process towards realising my dream “Spreading a joy of being oneself with 1000 people.”
I wrote what motivated me to realise this dream here:
My dream “May we all be true to ourselves!”
