I saw this post on RebelleSociety.com this morning and it “spoke” to me. Since it did, I felt the need to share it so you could learn from it also. More people than you might think suffer from self-sabotage, and until you learn to believe in yourself, to shut down the inner critic, you will remain stuck.

Hope this speaks to you as well.

P.S. I so want to go surf with Bartholomeus.

How to get out of your own way?

Stop judging yourself.

via Rebelle Society on Aug 28, 2013

{Photo credit: crankygoat.com}

By Bartholomeus Nicolaas Engelbertus.

We have met the Enemy and He is Us." (Pogo - Walt Kelly, Cartoonist 1913-1973 US)

Getting out of your own way is simple. What is it you do that is stopping you from doing what you really want to do?

I used to be a master at staying busy doing tasks or jobs that prevented me doing what I really wanted, or needed to do.

You can spend much time working on your sales pitch, getting your website content ‘just right,’ instead of getting out there and asking folk to buy your product.

You can spend much time sorting out little problems, rather than starting with the ‘biggie.’ What about dealing with other people’s problems instead of your own?

When this looks familiar, something is in the way. Now let me save you heaps of time; it is you. You could call it ‘mindset,’ but I still think that is you. For me, it’s me, every time!

How do you get out of your own way? Easy, stop looking at yourself. Do not see yourself from a perspective which is outside of you, the perspective of the narrative. If you are not looking out from your own perspective, ladies and gentlemen, you have left the building, not Elvis!

Notice when you judge yourself. Notice when you compare yourself. You are really looking from the outside in, then take some kind of position of judgment. Stop being your own judge, leave that to other people.

Judging yourself, looking from the outside in, reinforces the belief-systems that previously stopped your aspirations. Be brave, look from the inside out.

Come from the deeper natural side, let the gut, heart, and instinct rule! Use reason to guide it, not the other way around. This way you are beaming a new kind of signal into the shared realities of your roles. Do this long enough and the world responds.

It is nature’s way to evolve, and people respond mostly to ‘why’ you do things, and not to ‘what’ you do. It is the ‘why-drive’ as I like to call it. By mixing in new ingredients in the shared reality you have with others, the recipe changes and the food will taste different. A new thing has been created, and when there are new ingredients there is new opportunity.

What I mean is not like manifesting from a perspective of influence: what power hungry manipulative freak came up with that anyway?

No, this is evolution baby! Working with nature’s way (change), and by doing so, driving its change. Next time you see yourself from the outside in, have a little laugh at your own expense.

You can only fly with the winds of change when you are looking out of your own eyes with love.

You only have your own perspective, so stop pretending, stop judging. Come back home, and if you do not know where that is; it is where the heart is — remember?

Featured in international media, like The Saturday Times, and MSN Extras, Surf Life Coach Bartholomeus Nicolaas Engelbertus’s unique personal growth approach (subtraction of ‘the undesired’ — instead of telling a person ‘what to do’) is the driving force of the anti-conventional Natural Self System. The Epiphanies found from his near death surfing accident, and overcoming dark times resulting from undesired personal life change, are the source and inspiration of this unique approach. Bartholomeus is the creator of The Natural Self System, and runs Life Changing Surf Life Coach Retreats in Cornwall, Portugal, and Mexico. His latest book — ‘Waves of Change’ — focuses on Thriving on Change, by Unleashing your Natural Self. You can connect with Bartholomeus via surflifecoach.com and Facebook.

Reposted with permission. Actual link here.

I never used to think much about light and dark, good and bad, or energy and spirits, but recent events have me thinking about them a LOT.

I've learned that within everyone there is light, and there is darkness. And some of us are fortunate enough to operate in the light far more often than we spend time struggling in the dark.

Being a person who doesn't suffer from depression or sustained periods of sadness, I would have thought I didn't have (much) darkness, and that I lived most of my life in the light. But now I am not so sure.

I didn't realize my need for control, my insomnia from all the endless worry, and the heaviness on my chest were all signs that I was actually spending far too much time in the darkness.

My own inner voice has been my lifelong ticket to visits into that darkness. The voice isn't strong enough to send me into a deep depression, or to turn me toward addictive behaviors, or even to show up in angry outbursts, but it can throw me off my game, quickly and simply. My inner voice is mean.

It's unforgiving. It's perfectionistic. It's relentless.

I've learned that I am not the only one with a harsh inner critic, some of you out there also have one. And you might not even know how much it influences you. How much it shames you. How it puts a chink in your self armor.

So my advice is that you start paying attention.

If you find it hard to believe in yourself, to trust your instincts, or to find the confidence to go forward, maybe you too have a harsh inner critic. And now you need to face her.

Slow down. Attempt quiet. Listen. And pay attention to what she says.

If you don't like what you hear, there are strategies that can help you change that voice to one of loving kindness toward yourself. I know it works, I've changed mine. I didn't even realize until after a recent reiki session that I am waaaay too hard on myself. And that I second guess things that most people let go immediately. All that rumination made for a mushroom cap of crap over my heart that never seemed to dissolve. Until I paid attention, until I started listening and took back my personal power.

We are all a work-in-progress. We all have "stuff". I am hoping to use my natural talents to help others get through  their "stuff" and to live in the light.

If you need assistance, let me know.

Coaching. I'm good at it. It's what I do. I'd love to help you.

Given a free month, and time to do whatever I want, I’d write a book. I’d write the majority of it at my cottage where life somehow simplifies. I’ve let this little beauty of a “dream” roll off my tongue into the real world a few times lately.Dreaming out loud is something I have done a lot in the last few years, so I am no longer surprised when the person I choose to share my dream with gives me the squinty-eyed look of doubt. Is this just another of her crazy ideas?

I don’t blame them. I’ve had many ideas that never got off go. Truth is: I doubt myself. I use dreaming out loud as a step one process to see if those hearing my idea think I could do it. If they seem confident that I could do it, I get more excited and confident as well. Not an ideal way to craft your future.

“I believe I can fly” is what I chose as my motto a few month’s back.

It is less of a motto and more of a pump-me-up, give me confidence kind of theme song, I suppose. An acknowledgment that I lack confidence in myself to truly deliver on my dreams, and a reminder to myself that I know I have the power in me.

I am still convincing myself that I can truly fly.

Now believing that YOU can fly, and seeing exactly how YOU might do it, is not a problem for me. To me, your path, your success, your dots connect right in front of me --- and mine seem to dissipate with each lift of someone’s eyebrow, just before one of the dreaded questions comes at me, what training do you have in this, what makes you an expert at this, what makes you think you can do this?

I hate questions like that. It’s like the little voice inside of me (the one that is always there, always asking) gains strength when someone in the real world asks me as well, and instantly my dream(s) poof. My confidence goes, and in rolls the next idea.

Why is it so hard to believe in myself?

Yet, the idea of writing a book is sticking. When I stop accomplishing, and take things off my plate, I can feel the urge to write. When doubt wriggles in about whether I have the ability or the expertise, I rationalize that no one needs to read it, I really just need to write it. That makes me feel better. Like I won’t let anyone down if it isn’t good.

But there is something else that keeps pulling me back to a book. It’s the support of those who know me best, those who tell me to just start writing already. The husband that sells his beloved musical equipment little by little to pay the house payment, so I have this time to myself to create.

And it’s the absence of a brow lift or a squinty eyed look from those who love me when I dream this dream out loud that give me confidence that I can indeed do it.

It no longer seems like a dream hanging way out there, it is starting to feel like a dream that wants to get out.

So now which book? Yes, there are lots of words rolling around in this girl’s head. Which book do I write first? A well-known author advises: “Write the book you need to read”.

Great advice, except I have needed to read SO many books in the past few months/years. The one about healing a family from the wounds of their 16-year old son’s toxic dating relationship, the one about getting off the accomplishment train and into your life before it is too late, the one about learning to accept and embrace the grey of life ---and stop seeing it in black and white, or the one about how to go about reacquainting yourself with “you” when you reach mid-life, then fully appreciating and accepting that person.

At the rate I am going, I will have a bookcase full of books I needed to read on my to do list to write.

And maybe, just maybe, once I begin, I will truly start believing that ‘I can fly’.