How do you know if that life you’re living is a life that works for you? If it is one that lights you up, brings you joy and puts a smile on your face. If it is peaceful and creative, rather than heavy and ponderous. If the life you are currently living is serious and limited rather than joyful and spacious, you might want to ask yourself, “Whose life am I living?”
Most of us were not taught to ask for what we desire and when we did ask, often we were told no, given the reasons why, and it was all based on someone else’s points of view. Once we’ve experienced this scenario enough times, we stop believing that we can have what we desire and therefore stop asking.
Instead of exploring the life that we would truly like to have, most of us pick through the possibilities based on what others around us are choosing and on what they have judged as valuable. It often leads us to living someone else’s life. We give up what we truly desire so we can be acceptable to others and avoid judgment. If you are going to go beyond this and create the life you desire you have to choose allowance for you. Allowance for you is recognizing that the points of view of yours and others that have been running your life, are not right or wrong.
What if you changed all of that? What if you could get clear on what you would like your life to be and started creating it now? You can if you’re willing to change your points of view and that is what allowance is all about.
Allowance is realizing that your point of view is just your point of view. It doesn’t make you right, and it doesn’t make you wrong. Allowance is one of the keys to your freedom.
If you would like to live your life in the way that works for you, all you have to do is choose. It really is that simple and here are some tips to get you started.
1. Acknowledge That Your Points of View Are Creating Your Life
If you’d like to create a life that works for you, you’ve got to acknowledge that it is your points of view that create your life. It’s not your experiences, but the beliefs that you hold onto so tightly about the experience. What you think, what you say and what you believe, is exactly what gets created. Change your points of view and a different experience shows up.
“I can’t get out of debt!” is a point of view that allows you to bring into your life more things that enable you to be in debt.
Or “I just can’t get into a relationship!” Is that actually true? How many possible relationships have you blinded yourself to, living from a fixed point of view that you can’t have one? Or how many wonderful relationships were sabotaged because they were too good to be true?
Our fixed points of view and judgments are the truths of our limited existence, but are not necessarily true.
If you want to have the freedom to create a greater life and world, allow yourself to acknowledge all of the points of view you are aware of. Once you’ve acknowledged them, switch them to being “interesting points of view.” That is, see them as interesting, malleable and changeable, rather than fixed and true.
How do you get there? Each time you notice a point of view, simply repeat the phrase, “Interesting point of view that this person has this point of view,” or “interesting point of view that I have this point of view,” until the energy of the point of view shifts. It’s a bit like thinking that your car’s engine is completely shot and then finding that the error was in the computer the mechanic was using, and there’s really nothing wrong with your engine.
2. Question Everything
A mathematician once gave a lecture to a large group of people. During the course of his talk, he asked how many of the participants were “dumb in math.” He was stunned when all but a few people raised their hands. That is just not statistically possible. Most of the people raising their hands had judged themselves or were judged to be “dumb in math” and as a result, they made choices in their lives based on their math judgment that would prove to themselves and the world that they are dumb in math. Instead of being an astronaut, as they dreamed of when they were children, they had to settle for something else because they knew, in their heart of hearts, that they didn’t have what it takes. They were dumb in math.
What they were missing was questions. What if they had asked themselves, “Am I so dumb in math?” “How do I know?” “That’s an interesting point of view, and it’s an interesting point of view that I have that point of view.” And that’s all it takes. You can also ask, “How are my points of view limiting me? How are my points of view creating what I am not happy with?
Allowance questions everything.
3. Stop Seeking Perfection
Rather than enjoying the possibilities life has to offer, people seek to be perfect, which is to say, always right. They spend great energy and enormous amounts of time on being perfect, bending their world to fit the “right way.” Since everyone seems to have their own point of view about right and wrong, it becomes an exercise in futility.
If you gave up trying to be perfect and allowed yourself to be wrong or even make a ‘mistake,’ what might you discover? Post It® Notes came about after a chemist mistakenly made a glue that didn’t stick right. There are more possibilities to be found in the scrap pile of attempts than there are on the shelf of successes. But with perfection you never look in the scrap pile.
If you are currently not living the life you desire, start practicing allowance and it will start to change quickly. Allowance for you is choosing to question everything. “What else is possible here that I have never considered? If I were including myself in the creation of my life, what would I choose? What brings me joy? What do I know?” Ask, ask and ask again.
Questions open the door to all possibilities. Questions open the door to you discovering and choosing what works for you. This is your life to live and you are the one creating it. If you would like something different, let ‘Interesting point of view’ show you the way.