Several years ago, after my second knee surgery, my physical therapist asked me to do a squat. This would have been at an age where I hadn’t taken a ballet class in over a decade but had danced for more than half my life. I looked at him and asked, “a plie?” He looked baffled and said, “No, a squat, like this.” It was then that I realized I had never done a squat for exercise in my life. Was he crazy – I couldn’t do a squat; I had bad knees!
I think of this often whenever my first thought is, I can’t because [insert excuse here]. To be fair, I did have bad knees, hence the surgeries, but I also had never tried a squat, so how did I know I couldn’t do one? Maybe I had the kind of bad knees that were good at doing squats!
Over the past 7 years, I have slowly been working my way through a long list of self-imposed “I can’ts”. A few that I’m especially proud of moving beyond are:
● I can’t journal because my mind moves too fast (spoiler alert, that’s the point, to help you slow down and reflect).
● I can’t read poetry because it’s too intellectual for me. Turns out, even when I don’t fully comprehend it, I still enjoy the beauty of the words.
● I can’t do a yoga headstand because…okay, I didn’t even have a good excuse for this, I just assumed I couldn’t (kind of like the squats). Now, I love doing a headstand (against the wall) and seeing the room from a different perspective.
These might not seem like they would be life changing, but together, they have made huge improvements to my confidence, my perspective (quite literally when doing the headstand!) and my desire to keep trying new things. There were also the actual life-changing – or should I say, life non-changing ‘I can’ts’, such as ‘I can’t change careers’. Oh boy, there were a million reasons for this one including, but definitely not limited to, I can’t because I’m not smart enough, because I don’t have the right credentials, because it’s not worth the effort – as in, I’m not worth the effort.
Our Internal Stories
I work with folks every day who are figuring out what they can’t and can do in their lives and careers. Turns out, much like me, they aren’t as limited as they think. What I have found to be true for myself, and for many others, is that our limits are directly linked to the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we hold onto that others have told us about ourselves. I probably sound like a broken record by now, but one of the biggest limitations I was told, and then continued to tell myself, was that I wasn’t smart enough. I’m not sure anyone actually came out and said the words, ‘you’re not smart’, but my regular struggles in school were confirmation enough. It took me decades to learn that ‘smart’ and ‘good at school’ aren’t the same thing.
From my clients I hear things like, I can’t because:
● I don’t have the time
● It won’t end in 100% perfect success
● It hasn’t worked in the past
● Nobody will support me
You can respond with all sorts of cliches here – it will never be the right time, perfect isn’t the goal, try, try again, or that’s what friends and family are for, but what these all boil down to is ‘I can’t, because I don’t believe in myself enough’. Before anyone comes at me, I do understand that there are actual logistics that hold us back such as finances, kids’ schedules, and opportunity, but my personal experience was that these were often just excuses for not thinking I could do it.
So, what are the voices telling us why we can’t do something? When I think of the voices that tell me ‘I can’t’, they don’t sound like me – they usually sound like a whiner or younger version of me, or they may sound like a teacher or a parent-like voice. But they don’t sound like the me that makes bold choices, the me that does yoga headstands and reads poetry, and they definitely don’t sound like a voice I want to be taking notes from.
We can call these voices all sorts of things – inner critics, shadows, saboteurs (one client called hers sh!t face). But, some time long ago, these voices developed to protect us – from feeling foolish, from getting hurt, from not belonging. They served a valuable purpose in shaping us and keeping us feeling safe. And while it may seem odd, we should honor the safety they brought us, they were doing their best trying to keep us nuzzled into a little cocoon as we developed. But now, as a grown up, are these voices keeping us safe or stifled? For me, it was stifled. These voices are so deeply engrained in us, we might not even hear them, we just act upon them and see the effects later. So, what are we to do?
Listening and Reflecting
The first step is to truly listen to ourselves. What are those voices saying? Why are they saying it? What’s their purpose – or, what was their original purpose? Listening takes time, intentional reflection, and quiet. I was never a big journaling person, but when I began my journey to shed my ‘I can’ts’, I found journaling healing (even I can’t believe I’m saying that). These thoughts and voices have been with us for a long time, they deserve and require a good deal of time and energy to process the ins and outs of them. Journaling, meditating, talking to a coach or therapist, pausing when you notice the voices starting are all seemingly small steps that lead to creating big changes from within.
Gratitude and Forgiveness
So much easier said than done. As you continue to reflect (because it’s an ongoing process), take time to thank those voices for trying to protect us. They have kept you from many things as you’ve developed, but they were done with good intentions. A client once said she wanted to visualize a nice little retirement home with a garden and picket fence for her inner critic. We don’t need to be violent and cast them away, they are, after all, parts of us, we want them to know that we are ok, and we can do hard things. Those inner critic voices will continue to pop up and we will continue to say, thank you for your care, I’ve got this. Intentions, prayer, chants and journaling (yes, more journaling!) can all help bolster the gratitude and forgiveness you want to give yourself. A colleague recently reminded me of, and taught me more about, the Hawaiian prayer Ho’oponopono: “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you”. What would change if this was your response when you heard the voices that are holding you back?
Creating a New Narrative
Now that we are aware of the voices and in regular communication with them, who do we want to be going forward? For me, I want to be a person who journals and reflects, reads poetry, does random yoga headstands and the occasional exercise squat. But, more importantly, I want to be a person who walks through life with greater intentionality, who is making choices based on service to myself and others and not based on fear. I want to be more in control of my life and my career, and I don’t want to feel small anymore. If feelings are how we show up in the world, then I want to show up with joy, gratitude, ease, and love – with a touch of sass and kick ass. I can’t do that if I’m afraid to try and to change.
Not long after that physical therapist appointment with the squats, my knee surgeon cleared me for regular activities, including running. I said, with these knees? He laughed and said I should be good as new. I still haven’t tried running, but not because I don’t think I can, just because I don’t want to – and, sometimes, that’s an ok reason. I’ve got a long list of other things I want to try before I try running. We don’t always need to do the things we once thought we couldn’t—but we do need to challenge the belief that we can’t.
Journal Prompts
My journal prompt suggestions this month come directly from The Four Questions by Byron Katie. When your voices creep in – or come steamrolling in – ask yourself:
● Is it true?
● Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
● How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
● Who would you be without that thought?
While the interpretations above are mine, a lot of this clarity came to me from the book, No Bad Parts, by Richard C. Schwartz. You can learn more about Internal Family Systems here.
