Hello, it's Donna Joy Usher.
And today I want to talk about what we make things mean about us and how that impacts us in our business.
So, have you ever been in a situation where you're having a conversation with someone, and they're just not getting you?
You're trying to get your point across, and they're just not getting it, and then what they're saying back isn't making any sense to you.
Maybe it's a fight you're having, you're trying to explain your point of view, but the fights keep escalating and escalating, and you don't know what's going on.
You can't understand why they can't understand.
Maybe you don't actually mean any offense, but they seem to be getting more and more offended.
So, what's really going on in this situation?
Well, we interpret everything that happens in life, through a lens of what it means about us.
So this filter, this lens comes from a belief system that we formed about ourselves, often when we're a very, very small child.
These belief systems filter every bit of information in the world that we get, so that we interpret it in a way that backs up our belief system.
This is why, two, or three or four people can all observe the same thing, but then they all have a different interpretation of what actually happened, because they've interpreted it through a different filter of what it means about them.
So, when you're having a conversation with someone, it's really your belief system, having a conversation with their belief system, and sometimes this doesn't work.
You get clashing belief systems.
And both of you are interpreting the same information differently.
So, there's what you think, there's what you say, there's what they hear, and there's what they think that you said.
And this is because it's coming through our belief system, at our mouth, into their ears, and through their belief system, to their brain.
So the interpretation is all about what they think it means or what you think it means.
And the same thing is happening to you, when someone's saying something to you, when something's happening in life, you're interpreting it to mean something about you.
And this can be very, very subtle.
So how does it affect us in our business?
Well, if our belief is something like that we are not good enough, we're not smart enough, we're not worthy enough, then the interpretation of things that we get are going to back that up.
Often this isn’t even a belief we are aware of. It is caused by a memory that is kept deep, deep within us in our Hippocampus, the part of a brain responsible for long-term memory.
And these beliefs slow us down, because every time something happens to us, we're interpreting it in a way that is going to have us cringing, or it will make us not want to put ourselves out there.
And if all we are noticing is how little engagement we are getting, or negative comments, then that is us really only paying attention to the stuff that is backing up our belief system.
So let me give you an example…
About a year after I published my first book, “The Seven Steps to Closure”, I realized that there was heaps and heaps of reviews on Amazon about it.
So, I sat down one afternoon and started reading reviews. And it was all these wonderful four-star reviews and five-star reviews saying beautiful things about my book and my work and how I made them laugh.
And then I got to this one-star review.
And it was vicious.
Like, it wasn't just a review about how awful my book was, but it was a personal attack on me from somebody who didn't even know me.
And oh, it was like whoosh, like the rug just got pulled out from underneath my feet.
All my energy was gone.
And I shut the computer and went for a walk on the beach. I even cried a little.
That night, rather than working on my next book, I just lay on the couch, watching tele, and I'm pretty sure I ate like a litre of ice cream.
Because I was looking at what this person had said, and I was letting it back up my personal belief about myself.
So even though I had all these amazing four and five-star reviews, and had won a couple of awards by then, and the book had even been shortlisted for the London Book Festival, and made it into the top 100 on Amazon by that point, even though all of that was there, proving to me that my work was good, this one-star review totally undid that because my fear and my belief was that I wasn't good enough.
So sometimes we see stuff and we only see the bad because that's secretly what we believe about ourselves.
While all around that, there are good things happening.
We see the world through this veil, this filter of our belief system.
And it impacts what we do, what we say.
It impacts us being able to be the best version of ourselves because we're too scared to put ourselves out there.
But in reality, it's all just what we're thinking about ourself.
When people say bad things about us, it's got nothing to do with us at all.
It's all that what's gone on their head about them.
You can be the nicest person in the world, people are still going to choose to hate you, because of what's going on their head, and what they're interpreting what you say to mean about them.
Now, if you need help with this, if secretly deep down inside, you find that you are doing this, you're dragging your heels, you're making stuff mean about you, and it's that fear that you're not good enough, I have a meditation I have created on self-worth.
So if you want this self-guided meditation, reply to this article I will get it out to you so that you can start working on this issue.
So you can stop dragging your heels in your business.
And you can start flowing freely towards your goals, the clients that you want, and you can start to have that dream life and that dream business.
Okay, I hope you got something out of this.
Don't forget, respond to this article if you want that self-worth meditation and I will get it out to you.
I hope to see you guys very very soon for our next training this week.
