Can you tell when you are acting against your own best interests and creative desires?
I’m going to take a gamble and answer for you – most of the time you probably have no idea. At least not until things get REALLY uncomfortable or challenging on a personal level.
Of course you don’t do this intentionally. Your personal value system, experiences, and upbringing all inform your actions. Add in underlying fears, traumas as well as the impact of life-changing disappointments, and stir. Soon there’s a cocktail of unconscious aspects you didn’t realize were consistently influencing your motivations, mindset and actions the whole time, while you thought you were simply “being yourself”. Well technically you are “being yourself”, but under the influence of all these factors that mask the real you underneath.
You continue to operate from these influences until you realize just how uncomfortable it is to think and act in the same old routines, or something shakes up your whole life picture. Like a pandemic, for example.
Now, none of this insight is mind blowing. It is, however, uniquely mind blowing for each individual faced with how to live with what has changed within and around them. All of a sudden you understand how life can no longer be the same. You are left facing the mystery of what’s next – at the very moment when your personal foundation is completely unstable and uncertain.
It’s also when, in the quiet and aftermath, you begin to notice ways you may have been acting against your own best interests and creative desires for quite some time. An awareness like this can bring up grief, fear, past personal and family trauma, and all of the experiences and emotions you’ve pushed down, or out of your life, to maintain the status quo or simply survive.
This space is where things can suddenly reach that “mind blowing”, chaotic level – and you begin to realize you may have been acting against your own best interests and creative desires without a clue. Acting against yourself can present in the form of pushing, forcing, trying to control the outside influences and how they make you feel. Operating under the influence of conditioning can also do that, especially when you haven’t created space for new possibilities, or willingly come face to face with years of backed up unprocessed thoughts and feelings.
Are you ready to see and understand how you are getting in your own way?
Clues You Are Not the Smooth Operator You Thought You Were
There are several ways you are acting against your own best interests and creative desires on a daily basis – especially if you keep listening to your ego (usually an anxiety state) and emotional reactions rather than your true heart self.
It’s time to stop, breathe, and ask yourself the questions that will open up your mind and heart, and break apart the autopilot, conditioned response you are so used to…
- Are you adhering to old expectations and forcing yourself to meet them, even when they feel stifling and bring you no joy?
- Is there a drive to fulfill the expectations others have of you, rather than spending time asking yourself what you want and enjoy?
- Do you have any clarity around what you love, enjoy, or don’t want to do anymore personally or professionally?
- Can you hear the soft voice in your heart that urges you to relax, play, or try a new path, but instead you listen only to the loud, strong “should” voice in your head?
- When you consider wins, losses and regrets in your life, where do you focus the longest and most easily?
- Are there assumptions you jump to without even thinking, and you are not sure why or how you got there?
- Is there a part of you that gets immediately defensive when reading the suggestion that you might be working against your own best interests and desires?
These are just some of the ways you can take a peek at your inner self using a different lens and perspective. It can kickstart a clarity and understanding of where you can break apart worn out routines, behaviors and ways of thinking to create from a space away from all the built up chaos and noise that’s not in alignment.
Break Apart to Come Back Together, Time After Time To Transform
I personally understand needing this level of deconstruction, and how daunting it can feel. I’ve been doing it for a while now and the layers continue to unfold, as more of the true me is revealed and set free to create and explore fresh paths. Again and again.
The first attempts to dig into what keeps you acting against your own best interests and creative desires are the hardest as you begin deconstruction of what feels familiar, safe and very much like IT IS YOU. In some ways it is, but, you also have to realize you’ve clung to your habits and patterns as things that describe and define you. In reality, it’s a ridiculously small part of you as a human, creative and spiritual creative being. You are so much more expansive!
It’s brave to question the dynamic you have with yourself. Take your time. Be discerning and diligent. Allow yourself to feel uncomfortable without forcing a different emotion or reality on yourself. Stay as present as you possibly can without being afraid of what comes next. It can be amazing and unlike anything your old self would have ever imagined, as easily as it can be the same, predictable, negative experiences you’ve already lived through.
Both of these options, and so many more, are possible. Creating space is how you break free from the predictions and expectations dictated by your past self and finally stay in the present to create from the real you. It’s also how you finally stop acting against your own best interests and creative desires.
You can check out additional posts on similar topics, including Understanding the Ways We Avoid Seeing and Accepting Our Truth and Time to Break Ties With What Is No Longer Your Truth, For Good. Want to connect with me for some 1-1 guidance and chat time? Sign up for a Personal Discovery Session and check out some of my packages. Enjoy being part of a group? Check out my monthly Creative Mastermind Online, designed to help creatives and entrepreneurs thrive. Enjoy podcasts? Check out mine – Flirting With Enlightenment – the podcast that helps you tap into your inner wisdom for self-discovery, clarity and passion with purpose.