Jump Out!: the Ocean of Relationship Possibilities
I recently completed a course on how to Reinvent yourself with Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo. The purpose of Reinvention is to let go of who we are now to become who we most want to be.
The first step of the Reinvention process is recognizing where we are starting from. We identify how we’ve been shaped in unacknowledged and often unconscious ways.
She described the way most of us limit ourselves is like being inside a fish bowl while we are IN the ocean.
That kind of blew my mind.
Can you imagine being IN a little round fish bowl IN the middle of the ocean? We are limited by the walls of our bowl, but we can’t really SEE the walls while we are in the ocean water.
Just sit with that image for a minute. It took me a hot minute to understand the metaphor. Our fish bowl is made of clear walls that we willingly respect, and we stay inside instead of swimming around in the GREAT. BIG. OCEAN.
The really REALLY interesting thing is that I am the one who creates the confining walls of my bowl. With my thoughts and beliefs, I limit myself and prevent myself from swimming around in that big, inviting, endless possibility of an ocean. I might get eaten! I might get lost! (Are Nemo and Dory coming to mind??)
I recognized things I believed about myself, the ways I limit myself from possibilities, by thinking I’m not good enough, smart enough, thin enough. It was challenging to go back and try to identify when I started thinking these thoughts. Why am I still hanging on to them? Are they serving me?
When you answer questions like:
I am a person who…
I’ve always been good at…
I’ve always struggled with…
I am…
I am not…
The answer to these questions reveal who I THINK I am. How attached am I to these answers? These are the thoughts that build the walls of my fish bowl.
When I opened myself up to recognize the (literal) ocean of possibilities out there, I understood more about how I was limiting myself. It was challenging to think of possibilities I had never thought of before, if not just for fun. (The brain doesn’t like unfamiliar, it likes repetitive and safe.)
When I was getting married at 19, it was because I believed that was how it was SUPPOSED to be. My possibilities were limited by my church culture and how much I wanted to comply with those expectations. I couldn’t see the vast ocean of possibilities that existed outside of my little fish bowl.
Ask yourself, if you dare:
What possibilities exist for you outside your little fish bowl?
Are you brave enough to begin to identify what beliefs your clear walls are made of?
Is there something out there in that vast expanse of an ocean that is calling you, but you’re afraid to answer?
Nemo and Dory survived, and they were just little fish. You’re bigger, braver and much smarter!
