We all have limiting beliefs that we have been building in ourselves since childhood. Unfortunately, these are limitations that we are not aware of.
I am homosexual and I learned to hide my emotions in my adolescence. I also put up an impenetrable barrier: no one could know and I had to act "normal." I grew up believing that there was something wrong with me. I fell into depression and spent 27 years battling that illness in silence.
At 40, I went through the darkest moment of my life because of depression. I finally gave up and accepted that I needed help. Since then, I have experienced a significant process of change: I understood that we are all capable of transforming our present.
The work consists of changing beliefs. The interpretation we give to our reality is based on what we believe, and generally, we do not believe good things about ourselves.
We have learned to believe that we do not deserve it because of the environment in which we grew up. We were taught that to achieve success we needed effort, sacrifice and a lot of work. Finally, a belief was installed in us: if there is no superhuman effort behind it, we are not deserving (and sometimes, we do not even believe it). We are part of a collective mentality that only values what is difficult to obtain and that points to those who are in a better position than us, which makes us feel envious.
Why do we believe that we do not deserve? I told you briefly at the beginning of this post about my depression. Precisely because of that illness, I believed I didn't deserve: by believing there was something wrong with me, I never felt deserving. I felt like a fraud pretending to be someone I wasn't. So I fell into the trap of believing I didn't deserve, and I believed that lie so much that only a few days ago I became aware of it.
I have had to uninstall and install new beliefs in the last two years, which has allowed me to transform my reality. Depression is part of my history, but it doesn't belong to my present or my future. As I continue in my process of self-knowledge, I am able to reach deeper levels of consciousness, which has allowed me to understand my blockages. One of those blockages was that I believed I didn't deserve to receive love.
I got so used to giving and prioritizing the needs of others to hide my homosexuality that I forgot about myself. When I fell into the crises of depression or simply needed a hug, I kept quiet, I wasn't able to communicate that I needed affection. Thus, I created a lonely life in which I sank into moments of sadness and did not feel that I deserved the recognition or words of affection that someone could offer me.
This 2024 has been a new year for me. I moved to another country, left behind my 16-year professional career as a systems engineer and started a new life that gives me satisfaction and well-being, but that still needs some adjustments. I call these adjustments the open wounds post-depression: the mental abuse that I inflicted on myself for so many years makes it so that, sometimes, thoughts and emotions related to my past are triggered on autopilot, without realizing it.
The first four months of this year served to rebirth me. I understood that I had not stopped to feel what I needed in my new life. Today I am aware of the mistake I made: I thought that functioning as I had been doing would serve me in this new reality, and I was wrong. I then fell into a dark moment.
That dark moment was the slap in the face (as I call it) that God gave me with all his love so that I would react and sit down to analyze what I need to move forward in my life project. I experienced the hardest part in April, but I was reborn like the phoenix that I have tattooed on my right arm.
Since January I was falling into a circle of thoughts and emotions that only screamed at me: "Alert! You don't have the skills to be a coach, you're not brave, you screwed up, you made a mistake, you DO NOT deserve to be happy. You failed." And those thoughts grew like a snowball.
I was not able to raise my hand, I did not want to recognize that I needed words of encouragement or a hug (I didn't know how to ask for it either). I was used to doing everything alone and hiding my emotions. But a trip I made to Chile for personal paperwork made me realize my limitation regarding my worthiness.
I arrived in Chile on June 2 and returned to Colombia on June 11. There were 10 days in which I only received displays of affection and love from my family and friends. Every day I had an invitation, I saw the joy on people's faces at the reunion, and I felt loved.
When they asked me about my experience in my new reality, I commented on the mistake of not stopping and how hard it had been for me to understand myself in order to get back on track. Each time I added more to the story, until in a conversation with a friend I accepted that I had not had a good time. I decided to speak and cried.
I was able to become aware of how accustomed I was to giving and how unaccustomed I was to receiving. The trip to Chile allowed me to see that I deserve to receive love, and it is beautiful to receive it.
I want you to know that you have all the power to transform a limiting belief into the new truth you want to believe. There is a path to follow; it is a process that takes time, but it can be achieved. You just need to believe that you will achieve it and do what you know you must do for the transformation to occur.
It is time to ask yourself what you are denying yourself, what you think you do not deserve. Society has taught us to believe that we do not deserve if there is no struggle and suffering behind it, but that is totally false. We all deserve well-being, and the definition of well-being depends on the interpretation you give to your reality. That is why it is important that you believe good things about yourself and that you recognize them. It is also crucial that you believe that you deserve to be happy.
Look at your story and give yourself a hug because you DESERVE to recognize yourself.
Nicolás Quesada Life Coach
Comments