How are you defining yourself ?

I have mentioned William Whitecloud (Secrets of Natural Success) a few times in my blogs because I believe to give credit where credit is due.

This blog is about how we unconsciously assign definitions to people and situations and just assume there is no other way or not be aware of it at all.

Recently I took my son in for surgery. It was the usual tonsillectomy, adenoids and some other thing I couldn’t pronounce type of surgery for a 6 year old. By all accounts, it appeared to be a routine surgery for kids around his age.

But for me, I started to get into panic mode.

What if something happens, what if this is the one time it is not routine, what if he doesn’t wake up from surgery etc. All these terrifying thoughts were flying through my head, and as practiced as I am, I just couldn’t seem to take the power out of these thoughts.

Thanks to Williams’ work, I realised a very important thing that I was doing and it didn’t even realise it at the time. I was defining my son as a victim - a poor, helpless and powerless little person who needed me to be strong for him and tell him there are no worries.

Now, if you are someone who has a core belief relating to not being capable, or good enough, this can reek havoc for your ego. Which is what was happening to me.

The moment I became aware of this, I choose to change my definition of my son and immediately all the angst, all the worry and all the psychological stress I was creating for myself, just somehow dissipated.

I now was seeing my son as a strong, powerful little genius who knows more than anyone what is good for himself and that he has the strength for this procedure. The change was instant. Prior to this when I was feeling all sorts of fear, my son also was expressing how scared he was and what if he died etc (another important lesson for me is that we are connected energetically to our kids, if we are stressed, they can pick this up too) to now a strong, confident little man who saw this for it was – a surgery, plain and simple and one that will help him breathe much better. I was amazed at this sudden change and suffice to say the surgery and recovery went very well.

It then also made me realise that I was defining this whole situation as a terrible, fearful situation and that I was drawing on my experience of having lost many loved ones in my life.

When I changed my definition of my son and the situation, I was purely focused on being mum, instinctively caring and loving the fact that I had all this time with my little man, just me and him. Despite the pain he was in, the lack of sleep we were getting, I never felt closer to my little man.

How are you defining yourself?

I learnt a valuable lesson through this experience, and in times of perceived ‘stress’, I choose to now see myself as Wonder Woman!

Strong, powerful, all knowing, connected and determined.