Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel
There’s no doubt that I’ve travelled a lot. When you’re an Army brat…or Royal Air Force brat in my case you’d better know that travel is part of your lifestyle. Heck what am I talking about, it’s your entire lifestyle. Two years there, two years home. Another couple of years there before heading home yet again. It was quite a life. And perfectly normal for me…it was all I’d known.
Elephant Orphanage Sri Lanka. I kid you not.
In Africa, it was so common to see herds of wildebeest that after a while you hardly noticed! Can you believe that?
So much of the world visited, so blase at such a young age and then we’d come back to a place like this. Usually close to a village with a population of close to…oh maybe three hundred people. Don’t those numbers boggle the mind?
I don’t know why, but every air force base that we lived on was always out in the wilds of… nowhere…forget coffee shops, hey forget shopping altogether. But it was in a place like this that I was called a know-it-all and in public and by a boy that I really, really liked. It was mortifying and embarrassing. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me and I had no response.
I’d talked about my experiences in other countries because it was just normal for me. It happened to be my life. But he had never travelled more than fifty miles out of the village he was born in. I hadn’t meant to sound self important, or all knowing…I was just speaking what I knew. But I began to question myself. Was I likeable? Should I pretend to have never left the country too? The idea of being a know-it-all horrified me.
I began to let this one experience determine who I was. I had accepted a limiting belief and without even knowing what I was doing I began to play small. I had accepted someone else’s view of life and of me as a true measure of who and what I was. I was a kid. I got sick.
My Mum wanted to know what was going on. I told her the story…and how I’d decided I needed to be different because I didn’t want to be a know-it-all. If I hadn’t been so serious and so wretched, I think she might have laughed at me.
She told me be gentle with other people’s needs, but never, never believe that you are less than. You’re not. You’re greater than anything you have yet imagined.
Don’t allow anyone to belittle you and don’t belittle yourself.
If you accept a belief, whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter, it will create events in your life.
Don’t play small to help someone feel better about who they are, you’re keeping them in a prison…it doesn’t serve you or them. See yourself and them as the great beings you are.
It took a while to really get what she was talking about! A long while. Remember, you are what you believe yourself to be. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re anything less than beautiful.
Encourage each other.
Love Elle
xoxo
Images:
ronsaunders47
1 Comment
My observations coincide with yours, in that when people feel threatened (or operate from a fear-based state) they attempt to bring you down to their vibratory level. That allows them to feel empowered and in control of the situation. However, it’s a temporary fix and as you point out to us so often, without changing on the inside we will not have different experiences on the outside. You were wise to listen and replay what your Mum told you. Thank you.
Write on, Elle !