Is All-or-Nothing Thinking Holding you Back?

Becoming aware of your disbelief will be challenging. It puts you in a spot where light has been shone on a belief you hold that might not be helping you and could be hurting you. Seeing this you can respond in different ways from being agreeable to downright offended and disagreeable. Deciding if you are ready to get curious about your thinking around it will be the determining factor if you are now in a state of awareness.

Encountering Shame and Pride

Before you can begin to get curious you will probably encounter shame and pride. Pride shows up as defending your stance, believing you are right, and not being willing to be wrong. Shame shows up as I can’t do anything right, I need to do better but I just don’t know how. Creating awareness is to see that what you are believing now is not aligning with whom you want to be. Opening up to disbelief is to get curious about your thinking. When you judge your thoughts either from pride or shame, you want to hide or escape. However, if you can see it as just a thought not attached to who you are, you can begin to open up to believing something different.

I have had my fair share of not wanting to be aware of my disbelief and staying in unawareness seemed like the best option, until it wasn’t.  When I can find different perspectives that I was not open to before, it has allowed me to experience some relief. I can then forgive myself for what happened in my life because at times I was unaware of what it was contributing to.

All of Nothing Thinking

One of the stumbling blocks when it comes to becoming open to your unawareness is swinging in your thoughts and action. This can be labeled as the all-or-nothing mentality. You can see it in diets,  Oh darn, I ate a cookie now my diet is ruined I will add a bowl of ice cream and start again tomorrow.  You see it in relationships, you sit and not say a thing then over time it builds up and you exploded with frustration. When you find yourself saying things like, you always do that, this never happens, or why do I always say terrible things? This thinking can get you stuck because over time it will narrow your view of what might be possible.

This is where you will judge yourselves for not being as good as you want to be. Seeing your thoughts as an idea you had or an old belief is a great step in awareness of disbelief. Explore your thought patterns and look for thought errors. Thought errors are thoughts like, food should be comforting, and good kids always obey their parents. Having expectations of what should be and find yourself getting frustrated when it is not. Seeing this is a good sign that you are ready to explore some old beliefs.

Be Gentle as you grow

Awareness of your disbelief starts with deciding that good things can happen when you step back and see your disbelief as a thought that you can change when you are ready to. Just because you see it does not mean you have to change it right now. Sometimes exploring and sitting with it will help you move forward with purpose and not from a sense of lacking but from a sense of being ready and open.