“No matter how long you’ve traveled in the wrong direction, you can always turn around.”
There are times in our lives where we have a big “Aha!” moment and come to the realization that we’ve been terribly wrong about something.
This could be a method of parenting we’ve adopted, our approach to our job and finances, how we treat our spouse, how we treat people who aren’t “worthy”, how we treat our health and bodies, any addiction we may have, etc.
Some people will be able to change direction into new thoughts and actions, while others won’t be capable of it.
What could the barriers be to stop a person?
The barriers are mostly internal, but external influences keep some people locked into thoughts and behaviors they come to detest.
Guilt and Shame
2 powerful emotions which can cripple a person’s best intentions to change, and both can exert terrible inner messaging our brain starts to hurl at us.
We can come to believe that we somehow deserve to be treated badly, even if it’s our own thoughts beating us up, because we may believe that our past actions and thoughts were just too terrible to be forgiven or to walk away from.
We can get locked into cycles of beating ourselves up, punishing ourselves, thinking this will make amends for our thoughts and actions.
All we are doing is to keep prolonging the negative cycle and to keep inflicting more damage.
Pride
This is a tough one to overcome, because many of us don’t like to admit we were wrong, that our behavior and words were hurtful.
The contrasting characteristic to being prideful is to be humble.
Humility is actually essential to changing and to healing, because we need to be able to admit to ourselves and even to others that we were wrong!
In a society where winning at all costs is equaled to strength and losers are reviled as weak, false pride gets developed as a protective wall to hide any perceived weaknesses from peers and from ourselves.
The ultimate price of winning at all costs is our loss of good character and of our moral compass.
Strangely enough, we’re usually the last ones to realize that we may have lost our humanity, our good values, our moral compass, because over time we’ve made so many small concessions in order to be a winner at all costs, that we’ve convinced ourselves we’re still good guy, until it becomes obvious that our actions have had consequences.
If you feel overwhelmingly that you are right, then you may have false pride. It’s definitely worth thinking about and doing some introspection, because unless you’re able to look honestly at your actions, you’ll be stuck in the cycle.
Appearing disloyal
Ah, this one is a tough one to break free from!
Changing our thoughts and behaviors can feel terribly disloyal to our family, group of friends, a church, an association, to a spouse, a best friend, a boss or colleagues, etc.
This is a tough barrier to overcome when trying to break free from past actions.
As long as we’re mentally tied to NEEDING approval from anyone we may feel we’re being disloyal to, we’re going to struggle with this.
If we’ve given some thought to the effects of our past actions and words, and become convinced that we were wrong, we can slowly release our minds and our hearts from feeling a need to seek out approval from people.
As long as we’re seeking their approval, they still hold the power over us to pull us right back into the very behaviors we wish to change!
Everyday is a new opportunity to change!
Even if you’re a bit of a latecomer to changing, it’s never too late!
You still have the rest of your life to live, how do you wish to live it?
Start today by making the commitment to yourself to change your thoughts and behaviors!
Even if you start small, take baby steps, you’ve going to be moving in the direction you want to!
Be patient with yourself, because it will take time and persistence! Be gentle with yourself and practice speaking kindly to yourself!
These new practices will actually help speed up the changes you make inside of yourself!
I’m sharing more post which may be helpful for you:
- 10 Steps to Owning Our Happiness
- Setting “Boundaries with consequences”
- Making a change… “How do I take that first step?”
- Affirmation: Today is a new day! I can do this!
- As we practice being gentle and kind with ourselves, we actually help to speed the process of helping our lives become more positive!
- Always believe that wonderful things can happen!
- A healthy outside starts from the inside!
- Brain Rewiring
More good stuff:
Teaching ourselves to like, even to love ourselves
By changing our inner dialogue, we change EVERYTHING!
Red Ocean or Blue Ocean? How do you think?
An answer to dealing with the Inner Critic!
My top 10 most viewed posts, plus a few bonuses!
A helpful trick to be able to overcome negatively Comparing Ourselves to others…
Do you only accept yourself if you look a certain way?
Please go to my Archived Posts page to find more wonderful posts to check out!
Blessings!
Thank you for sharing this post and for following me!
Tamara
https://tamarakulish.com/ Archived Posts: https://tamarakulish.com/archived-posts/
My books: Developing Happiness When You Can’t Find It and How to Heal Your Life on a Deep Heart Level are available in paperback and Kindle. Audio book available!
Guided Journals help you work on a particular issue by answering questions to help see patterns and to find solutions:
Removing Inner Blocks, Anger Journal, Guided Anxiety Journal Joy & Mindfulness Journal My Boundaries Journal My Inner Thoughts Journal
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Tamara Kulish 
Wonderful article as usual! I could never take on pride for the fear of appearing arrogant. I also had to learn true humility that did not carry my low sense of self worth with it. To stand proudly as who I am and be humble about my limitations, was a balance and lesson learned. Taking responsibility had to be balanced by holding others accountable for their behaviors towards me and drawing boundaries there. There is tremendous value in this personal growth and healing as described by you.
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🥰🌸 Thanks! We can only write profoundly about what we have lived and learned, and can truly appreciate another’s words when we ourselves have become open to them through experience, otherwise they seem only as esoteric thoughts instead of practical advice!
It makes me happy to hear that you’ve been walking the walk and breathing these lessons into life!
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Much Love :)))
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🌸🌸🌸
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