Sometimes the very stories we wish to release can become the very ones we have grown the most attached to. In all their complex, painful, intertwined ways. We somehow feel that our wounds have come to define who we are. Our badges of honour to show our worth, how far we have come and all we are capable of overcoming.

And so when faced with the choice to release those stories, to compose a new ending, middle or beginning there can be a real resistance, a literal fight to the death. To save that which it seems our very life breath rests on.

And why? Because when the very foundations of what we have based a lifetime on and this can be: I never fall in Love, I dont deserve success, life must be a struggle- starts to crumble it can feel like our very life is falling apart. Yes it may have been something we wished to change but actually we had no real idea what that change would involve. That the very process could shake our very foundations and cause us to question every decision we ever made, every path we ever followed and most of all where we find ourselves now.

So when faced with this prospect what do we do? We do what we always did. What the story has forever dictated is our modus operandi. Be this fight, attack, run away, find distractions, undermine, self sabotague. For our resistance to letting go often holds the hallmarks of the way we have approached life to this point. Did we run when it became too intimate? Did we attack when we felt threatened, did we walk away even before the work could begin, did we find fault in the very thing we yearned for.  And the puzzle is we know it is this behaviour that has led us into the life we wish to change. And then when presented with the opportunity for change we yet again play the very part that has strangled our truth for so long.

How do we break out of this? Personally and what I now often say to clients from my own experiences, we need to ask: how much do I want this? How much do I want to break free of this? How much do I want what lies on the other side. When undergoing my Shamanic Initiations what often kept me going in some deeply challenging moments was what I was wanting on the other side. The question to ask is: if you want to feel more at peace, if you want more Love, if you want better health, if you want to feel an ease inside you- how much do you want it? And what would you be prepared to do for it? I know there is not much I would not do for the things my heart yearns for.

The paradox can lie often in the fact that the very thing we yearn for can also be that which we are most afraid of. And often this yearning and burning is Spirit’s way of pushing us every forwards. For we do not yearn for something that one some level we have not already attained or tasted. Whether that be in the dream world only for now. If you have tasted it once in whatever capacity then its possible you can attain it. Be this Love, Parenthood, Success, Abundance. What can happen is we want Love and to be in a relationship but fear Intimacy. We want Success but feel we are not worthy of the attention, we want Abundance but worry what we will do when we get it- will we somehow lose our Soul in the process?

We need to ask ourselves what do I gain from holding onto my wounds, my old stories? Sure there may be a familiarity, it may even feel comfortable in a strange way, but other than that what are you actually gaining? How is your life enriched by say pushing away intimacy, or believing life must be a struggle? What would it take to change your story? What would it take to say I can be the person who finds the easier path in life, I can be the person who allows their defences down and welcomes intimacy in. Even if you start that shift in the dream scape, in the mental imaginings, that is a large leap in the work. We can dream anything so why limit yourself to the old story?

To want a different life and then not allow that difference to manifest into new ways of thinking or relating turns the notion of healing into some terrible film. Where the protagonist keeps running away from the prize- whatever that may be- only to have it fall into his/her lap, or chase after him or her. Truly in life- we need to meet the things we wish for half way. If we are waiting for our new life to come after us, wrestle our old stories to the ground and make us accept a new way of being- we may well be waiting a very long time.

Being Masters of our own Destiny means showing up, fighting for what we want- and most of the time the fight is with ourselves and being more than willing to let go of the old stories that limited us to make way for the new we wish to be co creators of.