“As I began to love myself
I found that the anguish and emotional suffering
Are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth.
Today, I know, this is Authenticity”
Charlie Chaplin
My father often said to me “you can only be true to yourself”, I was too young and inexperienced at the time to truly understand the profoundness of this statement.
It sounded like an excuse to me.
In Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) we talk about Beliefs and Values, where beliefs are the convictions that we generally hold to be true, usually without actual proof or evidence. Beliefs are basically assumptions that we make about the world and our values stem from those beliefs.
Our beliefs are subjective ideas of what is true and not true. We develop them through the experiences we are exposed to and we modify them through filters of distortion, generalisations and deletions (I covered this in my series about the Meta model, you can read them here “It sure looks like Holmes”). Beliefs can be limiting or supportive and they define the rules of what we can and cannot do.
Our Values are generalizations of what is important to you organized in system of hierarchies, which are important to the order of priorities that we as humans apply in order to act.
As a Coach and NLP trainer I was taught the tools to ask questions and find the values and the beliefs and with that find new ways to frame a situation, we call that a re-frame. This creates new opportunities for the person looking for a change. Always without the imposition of my own content and with out any judgement.
I have had the pleasure to mentor quite a few young people in my time as a coach.
The latest one was a young man around his 30’s and as I wrote this blog I thought of him and asked for his permission to use him as an example. He gave me full permission.
He is a promising lawyer from Colombia who really wanted to be an artist, however with his values and beliefs he decided on a career as a lawyer. He likes his job and lately he has also ventured into teaching, something he also had a calling for.
For a while now he had been dreaming about taking some time and travel around the world, alone. Craving for new experiences with different cultures, dreaming about working on his way and not shy of any type of work.
Something was stopping him. He told me that he was lazy, a belief I couldn’t really match with all the things he had already achieved and how he was planning to finance his adventure. So I began to ask, and he had so many beliefs that stopped him from going so we began a journey together to find different ways of framing and discovering that there is more than one truth. I also gave him homework; it was all related to organizing his trip.
It turns out he was not lazy at all. I saw him the other day and he is ready. His journey is about to begin. He has decided to be true to himself and take a break from the limiting beliefs about what life expects of him and live his dream.
I must admit I look forward to the modern time postcards in form of selfies on whatsapp, from faraway places.
And Charlie Chaplin continues
As I began to love myself
I understood how much it can offend somebody if I try to force my desires on this person,
Even though I knew the time was not right
And the person was not ready for it
And even though this person was me
Today I call this respect.
Charlie Chaplin
(you can read the full poem here)
I hope you are as happy as you would like to be and remember it is for free to be nice.
Best wishes
Ivalo