Before I write a single word, I can hear the unbearable groans from everyone who reads this post. I would imagine that it would go on something like this -‘please do not post another positivity snake oil sermon. We get it. Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown has completely shaken up the entire 2020 for us. We do not have a single positive outcome since this pandemic spread out throughout the entire world from mid-March. There is no vaccine in sight, fatalities are increasing across the world, the economy is in shambles, jobs are lost, businesses are being shuttered and the strains in the health care system are beginning to show. We do not need another positivity sermon, please. Thank you’.
In the midst of all the gloom and darkness we are limited by our belief that the worst is yet to come. Michael Hyatt in his book ‘Your Best Year Ever’ explained these limiting beliefs as follows:
- Black and White thinking – If we haven’t achieved perfection, we have failed
- Personalizing – Blaming ourselves for random negative experiences
- Catastrophizing – Assuming the worst with minimal evidence
- Universalizing – Assuming our bad experience to be true across the board
If you think for a minute about the different belief and our present situation- they do match up well. We live in an unreal world – the likes of which no one living has seen or experienced before. We are limited by beliefs such as we have failed as a human race and have been stopped in our tracks of progress by a mere virus. We believe that as a human race we are responsible for what has happened to us. We assume that since nothing is getting better with increasingly bad news everywhere we look, hear or speak, this is going to be the new norm. The only solace is that everyone around the world is in the same boat as we are, some in an even more unfortunate situation.
Martin Luther King believed in the true power of liberation. In his pathbreaking speech, ‘I have a dream‘ he exhorted his fellow men that true liberation begins from our beliefs.
….America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice……
‘I Have a Dream’ delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.
Limiting beliefs are amplified during this current period of deep uncertainty. However this time also provides us with a different opportunity to identify our limiting beliefs that plague us and reject them since they limit us or reframe them differently. For example. lets say you have a limiting belief that you are not good with relationships. You can use this period to either reject that belief completely and try to connect with old acquaintances or reframe the belief as – ‘I may be not good with relationships but I can certainly try to change myself’.
This period of uncertainty does provide the best opportunity to reorient ourselves to something we never were. Why do not we then try to liberate ourselves from what held us back for so long? Why do not we try to be better than we were before and live life differently once this is over? Why do not we try to… be positive.
unsplash-logoPeter Conlan
Tenny Thomas 