Who Told You, You Couldn't? It's A Lie.

I let my limiting belief grow from a single stem weed to an entire field of stink.

I did it to myself, which meant I could undo it too.

The Teenage Moment

When I was a teenager I was having a very existential crisis moment about what to do with my life, and my future career. I was having a moment of self-doubt and concern – though I can’t recall why. I was standing in the living room of my childhood home, when someone close to me said “You can be anything you want, except be a model”.

I felt something in the pit of my stomach. My eyebrows raised in my mind - but I'm not sure that they actually moved in that moment. I was so used to burying hurtful things that I quickly dismissed the comment. I didn't fight back. I didn't cry. I didn't even acknowledge how EFF'D up it was to even say that to me. Maybe in the moment, I didn't even realize that was not something that was okay to say.

Of course I had no interest in being a model. And moreso, I had my own very limiting beliefs on what could or could not be possible. As someone who didn’t come close to the 'standards of beauty', being born with a visible birth-defect, no one had to tell me what doors would or would not be opened for me. As someone who never had teenage crushes, or someone to hold hands at the skating rink – I knew ALL ABOUT crushing my own hopes and dreams before they ever came to the surface.

Lumps of Coal

I gathered limiting beliefs like coal for fuel. Without having the asset of physical attractiveness – I wore determination on my sleeve as armor to fight for a future that I wanted for myself. If I couldn’t lean on my looks, then I leaned on every other asset I could - primarily my mind.

While I didn’t realize it, the seed that was planted within me that day was that my journey was going to be HARD, because I didn’t have the 'looks' to open doors, not to mention I have a voice that I knew sounded different / awkward. And you know what? My journey WAS HARD. Hard was the only thing I knew. Hard is what I was built for, right? That's what it's supposed to be for me, right? Just my lot in life?!

The Doom Scroll That Changed My Life

Fast forward to my early 40’s. I’m doom scrolling on IG when I stop in my tracks. Lighting moment type of stop in my tracks. A woman, Naiomi Glasses, with a cleft-lip-and-palate just like me, was a model in a?Sephora ad . A MODEL.

Well I’ll be damned. Look what the EF was possible all along.

The moment I saw that ad was the moment I remembered that conversation in my childhood home. It was the moment I realized I let another person limit my beliefs on what was possible for MY life. It was the moment I let my uniqueness become my Achillies heel - not just in my career, and in love, but in LIFE.

This is the thing about our inner critics and our limiting beliefs. They don’t know WHAT is possible. They TELL US LIES to keep us from being disappointed because a younger version of ourselves experienced great heartache that we never actually looked at and felt. And because we didn’t know how, or have the tools, we couldn’t heal and turn the open wound into a scab, and then a scar.

While I did achieve great career success, the inner critics in my mind made me miserable on the journey most of the time. I beat myself up at every turn. I would hold back tears in rooms filled with women who had beauty to leverage (which to me was EVERYONE). I put up walls, I beat myself up, and I gave my power away for breadcrumbs of acceptance, acknowledgement and love.??

I cheated myself from all that was possible because I didn't know how to be my own best friend first and foremost. I cheated myself by not embracing all of who I am – physically, emotionally and energetically. I cheated myself from pursuing anything where beauty was a front-and-center attribute.??

I didn’t know how else to be.

I didn’t know how to be kinder to myself.

I didn’t know how to see possibilities.

I didn’t know that I was worthy of everything I could dream of.

I didn’t seek out true advocates and cheerleaders to see possibilities that I could not.

But now?

Now I’m my own best friend.

Now I recognize when I’m taking breadcrumbs in relationships and opportunities.

Now I expect ease, and I do not chase.

Now I magnetize, and I don’t force.

Now I don’t justify, I amplify exactly who I am.

I de-conditioned my mind and my heart inch by inch.

Some people use the term self-healer. I resonate with that, but I also didn’t do it entirely on my own. I found people that supported me and invested my resources of time, money and energy along the way. And frankly, some of my support team was presented to me right when I needed them most - because I was ready for it.

The way I see it is that I needed to?opt-in?to create a different kind of future for myself. A future where I stopped beating myself up, and could be the cheerleader that I was for everyone else. A future where I felt content regardless of any kind of external validation or achievement. A future where?I?was not the one getting in my own way of possibilities.

After I opted in, these are the three things that have helped me to change my life.

1. The?BELIEF?that I?could?change my life.
2. The willingness to?FEEL?the stuff I buried my whole life.??
3. EXPERIMENTING?with?new?thoughts and?new?actions to see exactly what the EFF was actually possible.

I hope that you see that things CAN change for you, no matter what's going on in your life. No matter your circumstances, no matter what happened in the past or the choices you've made in the past. No matter what anyone has told you, or what you have been telling yourself for years. I hope you stop taking the breadcrumbs and start finding the whole loaf that you deserve.

When you are truly ready to step into the next chapter of your life, your immediate next step will unfold. I hope you're paying attention to the signs – I promise they will be there.

It’s fall, and it’s the season for change. The beauty of the world, and the beauty of life intensifies. It shows us what’s possible when we give ourselves permission to do things differently. The old version of you will let go of the dead branches to allow the next version of you to blossom.

They say the higher that you climb

Then when you fall you won’t survive

But it’s comatose

And I can’t live that closed

‘Cause I don’t know how to never try at all

So cheers to the fall.

-??Andra Day,?Cheers to the Fall

Cheers to the fall my friends,

Tosca DiMatteo

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