160 Your Rules May Not Be Mine!

Hey, this is Anne with your Coaching on the Go. 

Where do your rules come from? 

When you were a little girl or boy, you got instructions from the world around you, your parents, and people who cared for you. 

Some of these rules came from somebody else’s stories. 

When I was little, I had different people in my family who had gone through things, and who shared their stories. 

I share my stories with you constantly in service so that something that I have experienced passively could shift you. 

When people tell their stories, sometimes they are historical or cultural. 

You could have a family story that has been repeating for generations. 

You could have a story of your parent where they lost their job or had a struggle and they share something with you so you don’t go through the pain they experienced, but it might not be for you. 

And all these stories are told by loved ones in a loving way, but no one is living anybody else’s life. 

When I was little, when I was five, my father fell from the top of the house and landed on some electrical wires that were supposed to be coated with a protective coating.

He was being electrocuted. 

He shook himself off of those wires, landing on planter boxes, breaking most of his ribs, breaking his back, breaking his wrist, and hitting his head really hard. 

At that time, there were seven children, the youngest a one-year-old.

I was just five and then the oldest sibling was 13. 

My mom never went to college, but she was super smart. 

She was faced for many months with the possibility that she would be a widow.

She instilled in us being able to take care of ourselves, no matter what happens in our life, not being able to rely on anybody.

There are some great things about that lesson. 

There are also some things that could cause me not to bond completely with my partner. 

Every story can have a positive spin, and it can also be taken to an extreme where you don’t allow the openness or the flexibility to be adaptable.

I see that each of my sisters and I, are very – how should I say it? – we are very much making sure we are in control of our world. 

It has taken training to open parts of my female, parts of my naturally female to receive the support of a male.

Inside of me, the lesson that I got was that you don’t count on anybody. 

It hasn’t supported me in some of my relationships because I would be working against my partner at times, not thinking that he would be available, so I’d have to do it myself. 

Today’s coaching is around cultural, familial stories that you have picked up along the way where somebody has wanted to support you in learning something that maybe was just theirs to learn.

It’s just another story. 

Even history is a story written by somebody from their perspective. 

All of our stories are just stories. 

Which stories suit you to carry forward? 

Which stories do not? 

Which stories are okay to be in the past? 

Which stories have the essence of what you want in your life? 

Here’s another monkey wrench or possibility to throw in:

As you change, shouldn’t your rules change as your life expands? 

Why would the rules that supported you as a child be the same rules that are supporting you as an adult, with all of your new understandings and abilities? 

The lesson I’m wanting to support you in learning here is that rules can be changed.

Rules can be looked at. 

They can be audited. 

They can be updated like a mission statement for a company. 

The mission, the overarching mission may stay the same, or it may change. 

The essence of your purpose may stay the same over a lifetime, but how it looks and how you navigate through it may change.

Your rules get to change to accommodate your growth and the direction you wish to go in. 

Today, look into the stories or the structures that set up some of these big, long-standing rules you might be having a hard time letting yourself be flexible with. 

Have a beautiful day.