Don’t Believe Everything you THINK !

The elephant has incredible strength. It can uproot a tree with its trunk alone. Yet it will remain in captivity, held only with a light rope. Despite its ability to easily break away, it doesn’t even try.

Why?

It starts when the elephant is young. It is first tied down when its small and not yet strong enough to break the rope. It will try initially as hard as it can to break free, and keep trying but eventually realise it won’t be possible. Suddenly, something attaches itself to that elephant stronger than any rope or chain or fence. It’s the belief that it can’t break free. It’s this belief that holds it back despite the strength and ability. I’ve had these same beliefs and I know you may have too, beliefs that held me back, beliefs that led me to feel unfulfilled in my work, to struggle in my relationships and to live a life that was far from the one I am living now. It was only when I became aware of my ropes and actively pulled against them that I found myself in a different reality.

HOW DO YOU BREAK THE ROPES THAT TIE YOU DOWN?

Don’t believe everything you think.

My teen days, I was bold, outgoing and fearless. I wore message tees that I liked wearing then or it can be phrased as I didn’t wear guided clothes, guided by my self thoughts that told me what would make me happy. I even had a crush and later dated her briefly. As with everything else, I wasn’t afraid to flaunt what I wanted on life. As I grew older, this ‘me’ started to fade. My liveliness was replaced with cowardice, my resistance with obedience, my boldness with fear.

I don’t think any of us leave childhood without some ropes despite our parents best intentions. I grew up with parents who were determined to give me the perfect life. Armed with love and good intentions, they are still doing everything for me to help me be perfect. Right from packing my suitcase for the school trip perfectly, extended help in a school project, and then dad would add his master strokes to make it better. Later he told me when my choice of friend or gang of friends weren’t worth it. Although they just wanted what was best for me, I stopped knowing what was best for me. An unconscious rope was formed. I shouldn’t trust my own chatter box of thoughts and my own ability, and I feared not being perfect. Other ropes attached themselves too. As I grew up the family started to fill up with yelling, loud voices and strong opinions. To keep the peace, I learned to stay quiet, and started to keep a low profile like being invisible at home . In school/college, I experienced and learnt that it’s more important to blend in than stand out. And the pain of being dumped cluelessly led me to hold back in my relationship so I could avoid getting hurt.

I’m not good enough | Don’t speak up | Don’t stand out | Fear from rejection .These were my ropes.

If you’ve ever felt not good enough, lonesome, unwanted, unloved, invisible, powerless, like you don’t belong, you can’t trust yourself, trust others, speak up, stand out, ask for help, let others in, be accepted as you are — these are your ropes. These ropes hold us back.

I found myself agreeing to others opinions when I should have been forming my own, staying quiet when it would have benefited me to be vocal and blending in when I would have been happier where I had to stand out. This led me into a series of jobs that ranged from tolerable to being miserable. In one, I hoped I’d get sick so I could stay home from work. It led me into a series of relationships where I lacked conviction. My beliefs affected the way I perceived the world, which changed how I reacted, which led to a self-fulfilling imagery. I felt small, and my world became smaller.

Post my motorcycle accident back in 2015 I was left with a third degree fracture on my leg and the broken zygoma (cheekbone) leading to diplopia and a visible squint the right eye. I had my reasons to not look at people I had conversations with forcing people to believe either lack confidence or I am arrogant and mannerless. Recently I understood what could have been a perfectly normal conversation instead became an awkward one. You see now what we believe has powerful effects. Decades of social psychology research backs this up. How you see yourself and your circumstances will affect your observation, reaction and what materialise as a result. It’s almost as if our beliefs play a virtual to reality gaming device, a device that allows us to see things that aren’t really there and sends us into a false reality. I remember reading on of Shahrukh Khan’s interviews where he says

“The best way to be, particularly in today’s world where everybody is telling you how you should be or shouldn’t be. My mom wanted me to become an actor but three-hour people from Mumbai whom we knew well told her I’d never make it because I was’t good looking enough. She was hurt but it didn’t bother me because all I wanted to do was to act and I assured her “main kaam karma rehunga” and thirty years later, I am a poster boy!”

Imagine dating someone for a weeks. Then the person have to go on a work trip. For four days don’t hear a word from your partner. How would you interpret this? What will be the first thought in your head? Your beliefs may lead you to wonder what you must have done or said to make this once enthusiastic person change approach towards you.

Let me share some pre-set thoughts:

• Trust issue : “ Was sure he/she was on this trip with another woman/man.

• Fear of rejection : “ Guess he/she was probably upset because I didn’t invite him/her as my date to an upcoming event.

• Commitment issue : “ He/She probably thought we were moving too fast and was taking some space.

Each thought gauged the situation through the gaming device in your heads . Each of these assumption leads to a different response.

• Moving too fast? — I should pull back but what if the person feels rejected.

• Feeling rejected? — I should up my calls and invite him to the event. But what if the person thinks we’re moving too fast.

As this ping-pong around your own thoughts and briefly borrowed thoughts from some friends, the relationship shall die a slow death. Sometimes our thoughts get in the way of our relationships. Just as beliefs can hold us back, they can even propel us forward.

I finally learned this lesson. My thoughts led me to Engineering College. There my beliefs were reinforced: aim for perfection, follow the crowd, fear failure. This was a familiar path. Post my bachelors degree, without thinking much about it, I took admission for Masters Program in Business Management with the promise that MMS shall unleash my creative potentials and adding more value to my resume. To my surprise I had to study economics, accounts, business laws and scarier was to make presentations leading to pull on almost all my ropes. I had to trust my own voice because when it comes to presentation, there is by definition to speak with confidence and self belief. I had to put myself out there because making presentations do not out perform competition from playing it safe. And perhaps most importantly, I had to be willing to fail, and to not be perfect. If I wanted to get it right, I first had to be willing to get it wrong.

In my first bold move since my teen days, I turned down to work under someone reporting and placed myself in a different reality. I experimented with different jobs and took on various freelance projects, opting to ones I previously would have rejected to due to lack of experience, trusting I could figure it out. But somewhere I was still afraid of failing and sometimes I did. I made sure my thoughts don’t stop me. Then one day, I decided to lend my marketing and business development skills to my therapist and I went on to becoming a Business Partner, helping individuals take charge on their emotions and pull them out form their limiting beliefs.

Particularly meaningful for me is now I get to give others what I missed out for so long — a more powerful medium to express and educate. I broke other ropes too.

When I was afraid of rejection and lived my life as expected, I never could have imagined revealing my insecurities to you on a website that at first is solely my idea, web design and writings. That would have sounded more like I am living the life of a famous Bollywood actor, a fancy dream and here I am writing a blog with my observations and experiences. This transition wasn’t easy or quick as it sounds. Each new thought, each new action built on the one before it until I found myself in a new reality. I still have ropes I’m working to break.

In a world before falling and staying down now we can and should opt to get back up again undisturbed. In a world in which nothing is holding us back from our full capacity. What the Business Management course was for me, a seed that gets you to question what you have previously accepted as true, that makes you more aware of your ropes, that helps you see they were always your choice to break. No matter who you are or where you are, in this moment reading my blog, there is the life that you can be living if you break your ropes. You get there one new thought at a time, one new action at a time until one day, you find yourself in a new reality. Wishing you courage and strength to break the ropes you are held with I concluded with my experience “I shouldn’t believe everything I think”. To get the switch ‘OFF’ to my thoughts, I simply had to realise I had ropes that hold me back. Ropes broken. New beliefs lead to new actions.

All the very best!!!