Two people can grow up in the same environment, yet one sees the world as a scary place, whilst the other sees it as full or opportunity and excitement – it’s the same world – but you can pretty much guess how it’s going to turn out for both of them. The interpretation of our early life experience strongly influences how we perceive the world, and thus how we act in it. The reality of how things actually are is one thing, but it’s our perception of how they are that exerts the biggest influence because that’s what determines the choices we make. In short – we are ‘the way we are’ because of our early programming, yet – unless it’s totally obvious – neither us nor our parents tend to know for sure ‘what caused what’ – so how do we fix it?
We all face this same challenge – as adults we (mostly) just don’t know what caused us to be the way we are because we don’t remember what happened – or didn’t happen – when we were very young. Thus when we struggle to solve big problems as adults it is this programming that becomes our blind spot because it makes it hard for us to see what it is about our own perception that is either causing the problem or hindering us from solving it.
How do we break the hold our young programming has over us?
My take on it is that we must first believe that it is possible to do this – because only from there can we find the will or the strength to venture forth and actually solve it.
Secondly I recommend the kind of thinking outlined in Ryan Halliday’s book The Obstacle Is The Way – because it offers a more empowering approach to solving our problems by encouraging us to look at them as gateways to what we want.
In short, when we face our big problems honestly and with integrity, the solutions tend to emerge along the way, but if we don’t face them we can’t find the solutions. Thus a mindset of trying to avoid problems, or skirt around them, is the wrong mindset.
The struggle is mostly internal, we fight with aspects of ourselves – but this can be seen as updating our ‘programming’. The result is – we change. What we experience as we fight with ourselves IS the thing we need to fix – it’s not an external thing that gets fixed, it’s an internal thing – it’s a shift in perception that causes the problem to ‘go away’ – and then of course we move on to another one.
It’s only by having big problems that we can discover what needs to be ‘fixed’!
Infertility is a big problem – but if you allow yourself to change your perception of it – it’s also a gift!
