The mindset we are living from is often invisible to us. In order to become more self-aware it is important to try and unpack our assumptions and try to discover some of our core beliefs that influence how we interpret the world.
As a country kid growing up with conservative, hardworking, caring, parents during the 1960’s I lived a somewhat sheltered life, with a specific cultural context and socialization that had certain beliefs enmeshed in it.
I am a white, middle class woman born in 1957 and raised on a dairy farm in South East Queensland. (Doesn’t that description come with some pretty boring assumptions attached!)
I went to the local government coed primary and high schools, and had limited experience of the world beyond my small country town.
When I moved to Brisbane at 17 to attend the brand new Griffith University, I first felt like the proverbial fish out of water. How I talked, dressed and thought was very different to most of the other students I encountered. We seemed worlds apart.
It was a confronting, uncomfortable and exciting time: a time when I was overwhelmed by many ideas, concepts, perspectives and experiences. There were so many new priorities and values, systems and expectations, lifestyles and modes of expression. Brisbane hummed with possibilities.
As the years rolled by, I lived overseas for a while and in different parts of Australia. Other worlds and experiences opened up for me. Many of my early assumptions and beliefs became explicit and I was able to throw a lot of them away because they no longer served me. But even though I was growing and changing, some deep seated beliefs remained. Beliefs like
I am incompetent if I make a mistake.
My value depends on what others think.
I am weak and will be hurt if I express my doubts or show my vulnerability.
How I behave as a woman is very different from how I could behave if I was a man.
I am defined by what my employment is, rather than what kind of person I am.
Some of these very unhelpful beliefs have remained to this day, even though I tried to move past them. At times, these beliefs still constrict and contort my view of myself, and sometimes even my view of others.
Thank goodness my awareness of the unhelpful beliefs means they don’t have a totally unconscious influence on the way I live my life.
I read somewhere that there are 3 questions that are very helpful when trying to become more self-aware. They are
What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Where is it taking me?
I would add
What am I assuming? Why am I assuming it? Where is this assumption taking me?
and
What am I believing? Why do I believe it? Where is this belief taking me?
Could I assume or believe something different; something that would give me more options and opportunities; something that would help me live more how I want to, something that would allow me to be kinder to myself and to others? Of course I could……… if I chose to.