How to change your damn life (starting today)

Hey, I know you, don't I? 

Life feels sucky right now, doesn't it? That dream you were chasing turned out to be a dud. You wake up every morning dreading the commute and the job. Every dollar you make seems to slip through your fingers, and you can never seem to make ends meet (no matter how much you make). The life you thought you wanted feels empty. Your relationships are hollow. You feel like a complete failure, and when things really spiral, you drink or take drugs to numb the pain (which sets off a completely different chain of chaos). 

All the shit that happened in the past feels like a weight around your neck, and no matter how much work you do to deal with it, the thoughts, memories, and pain haunts you.

Maybe on paper things look really good for you. You know, you've done some great stuff - gotten that degree you thought would make you a success, got the job, the house, spouse...and yet, fuck. 

What makes it all worse is that ever since you were little, there's been a nagging voice in the back of your mind, telling you: "you're here to do big things." You know, you were that person with all the potential. All the momentum. The world was at your feet. "Just don't fuck it up," said the Gods. 

And then you did.

You became the cautionary tale. The example of what not to do. Far from doing all the great things you envisioned, you spend your free time looking enviously at the lives of others while sinking further and further into the stories of old...stories which you tell yourself to justify why you are the way you are. Everytime you start that thing you want to start, you know, the thing that you THINK you're passionate about (but really, you do it as a form of escapism thinking it's going to rescue you from the reality you've created), you quit the minute you encounter rejection.

Nothing ever seems to change, and you're forever running on the hamster wheel of 'blame, shame, and everything stays the same.' Nothing has worked, and no matter how many influencers you follow or posts you save or articles you read, it hasn't clicked. 

Well fuck it. Maybe this is your wake-up call. 

I am going to tough-love the shit out of you right now, because I see you for the great and powerful being you are. Coddling and nurturing and baby talk and inspirational feel-good reels that you save and never look at again is over. 

The time for ruthless self-love and change is now. Change doesn't happen online. It happens through hard work, tears, and time (though I have a way to help significantly lessen the time required, if you stick around). 

Open up an Excel spreadsheet (I know you love those). Format three columns: Traumas, Beliefs, and Reframes. 

In the trauma column, and this going to feel tough (but this is why you're here), you're going to list out every. single. trauma that you have ever experienced starting from birth until now. They don't have to be in order. 

That bitch* in grade six who wrote you a nasty note calling you a 'big fat chumbawumba' and who is now inexplicably a friend on Facebook? That goes on the list. *Obviously we will work through your feelings about this person and use better language and perspective in the future, but for now, let yourself feel all the things. That time you and your family were kicked out of the rental because there wasn't enough money for rent, and you forgot your baby blankie under the bed (because of course, you couldn't take anything with you)? On the list. Your first love who broke your heart and smeared it all over the floor? That too. 

The trauma column is a collection of moments in time. So be brief, and even using just one word to bring back the memory is sufficient.

Next, starting with your earliest memory of trauma - the earliest moment of pain - you're going to reflect on what that moment taught you about yourself or the world. Every moment of trauma we experience that goes unhealed (where we hold our breaths in response to the pain in the moment we experience it), creates a belief that is written - like a line of code - in our bodies. A belief which then makes up a part of the program by which we act, think, feel, and make decisions. Look at every trauma you've written down, and next to it, in the Beliefs column, write down what belief it installed. Maybe it was more than one. You can be as brief as you want here, or as detailed. The important thing is to flesh it all out. 

When you've done this with each instance of trauma, you will have an astounding list of limiting beliefs that you may or may not have realized were controlling you this entire time, and you'll know exactly where they've all come from. What I've come to realize doing this work, is that trauma creates a domino effect. The first instance of pain or suffering will create a belief that then, exactly like a line of code, will influence how you respond/react to life. Unhealed trauma creates more trauma, and on and on, creating more and more beliefs, until you wind up exactly where you are now. 

And because our realities are created by our beliefs, if you are operating on beliefs that are limiting, negative, and destructive, then that is going to be the exact experience you have in this lifetime. 

Here's where it all turns around though. 

Because in the next column, Reframe, you're going to go down that same list, and write down at least one thing for each trauma that you are grateful for. Yes, grateful. Because no matter what you've experienced, you are the person you are today because of it. Strong. Resilient. HOPEFUL. Inherent in this work is the understanding that it is in the suffering that we are created. That our most authentic selves are forged in the flames of our own destruction. 

Each moment of pain created a limiting belief, sure, but it did something else too. It planted a seed. 

That seed is now cracking open, and I know that because you are here today, reading this, and maybe you've already opened up a fucking spreadsheet. 

What victimhood teaches is that the only one who can save you, is you. This is power.

Powerlessness teaches that sometimes we must forget who we are in order to fully grasp what we are capable of.

Abuse teaches that the resilience of our bodies is matched and exceeded only by the strength of our hearts to forgive. 

Addiction teaches where the darkness lives within so that we can shine a light there. It is a contrast, a tool, as is so many different forms of suffering. 

Dig deep here, in the reframe. Find the light in each dark moment, in each belief. This work is going to reveal a few things: 

We're going to expand on this project a little. 

In a fourth column, title it 'new beliefs', and for each line of trauma/belief/reframe, you are now going to write in a NEW BELIEF (just like the title says), one that is OPPOSITE and EXPANSIVE to the original. 

This activity might feel hard, because your ego is going rage against it. Your body is likely going to respond as well, because let's face it, how long have you been carrying out the original beliefs? For a long goddamn time. Too long. 

Fortunately, once you have the new lines of code ready to go, we're going to install them. But you have to do the work first, and that means going through each one and coming up with those beautiful new beliefs, even if you don't think it's possible to ever believe them.