As a child you were told magical stories called fairy tales. They were full of wonder – a way for you to connect with love, magic, courage and the endless possibilities available to you in the world. You took the stories that meant the most to you and wove their magic into your play, creating your own tales of spellbinding miracles and keeping yourself entertained with an imagination that ran wild and free.
Then suddenly, even though you were still really young, and the world was the same place you’d always lived in, the adults around you started to look at you differently. They started to temper your dreams, suggesting things you should be doing and who you should become.
Your stories started to involve less magic and more discipline, less imagination and more ‘soldiering on’. Your life became about giving everything to everyone else and you had to learn to quickly silence your inner voice when it asked: ‘what about me?’
Then came adulthood and your view of the world became clouded with ‘reality’.
Your stories become about the daily grind and the reasons why it was no longer possible for you to do, be and achieve certain things.
You became afraid to do things, and you developed a fear that the world would see the truth about who you ‘really’ are. So you created a version of yourself that was small and colourless.
Despite all of this, the impact of those fairy tales remains imprinted on your soul.
You retain a small, hidden part inside of yourself that yearns for love and adventure, for courage and for the light at the end of the tunnel. The light that will bring meaning back into your life.
Isn’t it time you let that light shine?
Those stories that you’ve created around why you can’t be, have or do something in your life – the ones that start with “I can’t because …” – are common.
The way beyond them is to shift your perception of them … so you can see that every time you say “I can’t” about something, you’re creating a distraction so you don’t have to challenge the things you’ve been told you’re ‘capable of’, or ‘allowed’ to do.
While you remain stuck doing what you’re ‘supposed’ to do, you’re actually making yourself busy living a life someone else has given you. You weigh yourself down with obligations that aren’t yours, and generally do far too many things that are stressful, uninspiring and exhausting. This leads you to a highly overwhelmed and unfulfilled life where you end up totally disconnected from yourself, desperately unhappy and significantly unwell.
It can seem that the great successes in life are on the other end of a step that you’re really afraid to take. But when you apply a simple shift of perception to this, then it’s easy to see that all it takes is a simple step to let go and move, no matter the direction. With movement comes energy. With energy comes intent.
Reducing the impact of the “I can’t do that because …” in your life is as simple as taking a deep breath, asking yourself the question “how can I look at this a little bit differently?” and taking one step in any direction.
It’s the movement that makes all the difference. Which “I can’t …” will you challenge today?
The next step is up to you.
Bronwen Sciortino is a Simplicity Expert, Professional Speaker and an Internationally renowned author. You can buy her books and access free resources from https://www.bronwensciortino.com/books and you can follow her on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.
This article first appeared in ‘Get It’ Magazine – December issue. You can read the article by clicking here and going to page 12.
