I hear you say you want your life to settle down and for things to go smoothly. But week after week, month after month, year after year, while there may be different players and different facts, it’s always the same old story. You may as well face it—chaos, for you dear friend, is a way of life.
I know this one. I’ve lived this one. And I’ve moved beyond this one. You can too. But before you can create its opposite—elegance, ease, success and peace—you’ll need to understand why you keep creating the chaos.
Take a look at the following seven reasons we create chaos-filled lives. See if one or more of them rings true for you. If so, commit to healing and moving beyond it.
Here are the reasons you may be keeping chaos around:
1. It’s your story
I recently connected with an old childhood friend on Facebook. I was happy to be reconnected to her but soon regretted the connection. She is steeped in stories (related in infinite detail in her posts) about her “unfortunate” luck.
Surgeries botched, health problems galore, failed romance upon failed romance. This woman has nothing but tales of woe and yet, surprisingly her other “posts of choice” are gratitude-related.
Clearly, my friend knows something about counting her blessings, but more often than not, she “talks the talk” but doesn’t “walk the walk.” The story of her life, to the world and to herself, is “Oh, poor me.”
I’m sure my friend doesn’t realize the impact her stories have on the reality she’s creating.
I’ve known people who do know the impact this type of story has but still insist on telling these “oh, poor me” tales, seemingly oblivious to the energy they exude (and the chaos-filled realities they create).
What to do about it:
If you find yourself telling tales of misfortune at every opportunity—stop. Ideally, you will catch yourself before you utter a word, at which point you can tell tales of your successes and/or insights.
You probably won’t find it easy at first. You’ll be so steeped in looking for the negative you’ll have a hard time finding the positive. But commit yourself to looking for it. Tell a story (even if only to yourself) every single day, that includes something wonderful that happened during your day.
It doesn’t have to be big. It can be as inconsequential as, “I really enjoyed my shower today.” Or “Those strawberries I had for breakfast were super sweet.” Or, “That was the funniest TV show I’ve seen all month.”
The more you practice, the more you’ll have to tell. What you focus on is what you draw into your reality—so before you know, it you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything at all that is worth complaining about.
2. It’s your identity
How we think of ourselves is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once we start down a path of identifying ourselves as unfortunate, struggling victims, it becomes harder to pull ourselves out of that mindset. Why? Because the self-identity we’ve created as a victim calls forth more events into our lives to solidify that victim consciousness. As those new, chaos-filled realities reinforce our identity, the vicious cycle continues.
But the victim identity isn’t the only one that keeps us in chaos. The “fixer” identity does as well. Every fixer needs something to fix—so creating chaos and crisis (unconsciously, of course) is a must for fixers who specialize in “coming to the rescue.”
This doesn’t necessarily mean you have one identity or the other. You may have a “victim” identity with your parents (I know I did with my father—and it was the only meeting-point we had) and a “fixer” identity with your children or friends.
What to do about it: Recognize whether you identify with being the victim, being the rescuer, or both. Forgive yourself for that and begin to see (and feel) yourself as one “who lives an easy, elegant, struggle-free life,” and who doesn’t get caught up in whatever chaos is happening around you.
Practice “compassionate detachment” when those you love are feeling challenged. You can care without emotionally jumping into the chaos others are creating.
Yes, it will be difficult to do this in the beginning. And it may not feel real. But if you stick with it, even for a few minutes each day, it will start to feel real. And once it does, your reality will begin to respond, and eventually, your feelings will actually become authentic.
A note on this: You may not be able to shift another’s choice to stop creating chaos in their life. But what you can do is to shift your response to their creation. Coupling that withholding a vision for them as leading an easy, elegant, peaceful and successful life, is all you can do. You can’t make the choice for them.
3. You (secretly) like it
Ah, don’t breeze by this one too fast, my friend. If you didn’t like at least an aspect of the chaos you create, you wouldn’t be creating it. “What on earth,” you might ask, “is there to like about chaos?”
Well, the excitement, for one. Yes, you could do without the flat tire, the never-ending head cold, the leaky roof, the family crisis, the trips to the ER with the kids, but there is something in the excitement of it you just might enjoy.
Wait…you mean I’m creating my kids being hurt? No, they are. But, let’s just say you aren’t helping matters when you are not proactively creating calm and ease.
Another reason you might keep chaos around is that it puts you in the spotlight. If you can’t wait to tell your friends, family, and co-workers about the “bad” things that happen, this might be your “payoff.”
I know, it’s not pretty. But don’t worry. There is a way out.
What to do about it: Again, first forgive yourself. Then commit to finding the excitement and attention (or whatever other payoff you might be receiving) elsewhere. Talk about the “bad” things that happen only on a “need to know basis.” Instead, find only “good” things to talk to people about. Again, this may seem difficult at first. But it will get easier.
4. You don’t really think you have a choice
You can recognize this one as yours if your initial response to the article was something like, “Boy I’d like to stop creating chaos in my life—but that’s ridiculous—chaos and crisis just happen!”
In fact, they don’t just happen. We create them happening. Not by consciously making them happen, but by unconsciously letting them happen.
What to do about it: If this rings true, even slightly, you probably have a belief such as: “I don’t create 100% of my reality.” Simply change it to: “I do create 100% of my reality,” (along with any other beliefs keeping chaos around) and watch your world transform!
5. You believe you deserve it
This is another one you might blow by too quickly. Of course your “conscious, adult self” doesn’t believe you deserve chaos and crisis in your life. But there may be a part of you, perhaps the part of you that is still only 5 years old, that believes you don’t deserve ease, elegance, joy, and peace.
What to do about it: Again, change your belief. The belief might be, “I don’t deserve a wonderful magical life.” If that’s your belief, change it to: “I do deserve a wonderful magical life.” Belief changing is much easier than you might imagine. And you’ll be amazed at how quickly your reality will respond.
6. You have nothing to replace it with
Let’s face it, if you take away the chaos from life you might be left with your “same old boring life.” Again, this is probably not a conscious motivation. We all create from our unconscious selves until we become conscious of the energy we are emitting in the form of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.
What to do about it:
Begin to dream. Create some positive, exciting realities so you won’t need chaos to fill the void. The simple act of imagining some positive futures will help diminish the energy that currently goes into creating chaos.
What if you don’t know what to dream? No worries. Start with knowing how you want to feel. How will peace feel? Safety? Joy? Abundance? Success? Start feeling those feelings. Feelings create your world.
7. Success scares the heck out of you
Ah, there it is, eh? Well, my friend, you are not alone. Let’s face it; we all know failure, crisis, and chaos far too well. And like old, worn furniture, we find it comfortable and familiar. If you dream too big, too far from your “known life,” why, anything could happen.
What to do about it: Yes, anything could happen, if you allow it to. But you won’t create amazing new futures unless you take a look at your fear of success and handle it. What does that look like? It looks like thinking the worst that could happen if you become successful, writing it down, figuring out what beliefs lie behind those fears and then changing them.
Then, decide what you want the consequences of success to be. If you can manifest the dream you can manifest the consequences of that dream.
Remember, creating your current life took years, decades perhaps. Creating a life filled with ease, elegance, peace, safety, success, and love will take time too. You don’t have to do it all today but begin today. Set an intention today. Make a commitment today. Like it or not, the chaos in your life is your creation. And that is good news. Because if you created it, you can change it.
In joyous creation,
P.S. If you need even more help with changing your beliefs, o
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