It is no secret that life can sometimes feel like a limited paved road laid out before us that we feel the need to stick to. Look at how we are brought up. Most of the time we come into the world and develop our ideas and perceptions from those closest to us – our parents. As time goes on we find ourselves in school, around friends, extended family or even on the internet. These new sources of ‘life’ begin to model ‘what life is’ and so we often follow.
Through these early formative years, we are observing and creating an idea of how life should be; the ‘best way’ to play the game. We’re learning from people who learned from those before them and so on. Very small ideas evolve throughout history, but typically, most of the way life is stays the same. We don’t change a whole lot.
But what happens when it feels like a new future is calling? How does one wake up to the fact that life isn’t limited to this narrow path?
This of the concept of ‘the best decision.’ How many times have we heard “that’s not the best decision” or “that’s not the best decision for the whole family.” When you look at either statement you realize that ‘best’ is subjective. What the ‘best’ is to one person may not be the ‘best to another. Further, both perceptions of ‘the best’ are created from whatever belief systems each of us have been exposed to in our own lives. This is the key factor to realize when feeling the desire to free ourselves from old patterns.
We Get Trapped in Belief Systems
When our experiences lead our neuro-plastic minds create a belief system like this, we limit how we view things. We no longer feel what is ‘best,’ but instead we analyze and define ‘best’ based on a story; often a story from the past, based on entirely different times than the present moment. A story that we don’t check with our feelings, but that we justify with our minds only.
I don’t mean to vilify the mind here. It’s an incredible tool that is part of our experience, that said, can we connect it better with our bodies? Our nature? Can we have our systems work in better harmony? Or should we continue to operate on autopilot where our minds virtually run the show? This is what I want to explore in this piece further.
Let’s take the example of a child coming out of high school today. 9 times out of 10, that child will be told, and may even believe, that the ‘best’ decision they can make for their life is to continue their education at university or college. It does not matter that they do not know what they want to study, or that the education system will potentially cost them $100,000+, many will state that is best – and even have pride about it.
