Beyond Expectation: How You Color Your Life into Existence

Let’s try an exercise.  Do you have a white wall you can sit in front of? Or something big and white you can focus on? Sit in front of that now. Take a deep breath and let your attention really sink into it. Don’t lose yourself in it. Just be aware.

Now, I want you to find the green in the white. If you look very closely you can find the color green hidden in the white. A faint shade at first, but really allow your eyes to invite it forward. Breathe. Center yourself. See the green in the white. If you’re having trouble seeing it, pretend you are seeing it. You will start to actually see it. It is there.

Now close your eyes. Cleanse your visual palate. And look again at the white wall. Try to see the blue hidden in the white. Invite the blue forward. Really sit with it and deepen it. 

Cleanse the visual palate. Now find the yellow…the red…the purple.

I’m assuming the vast majority of you are able to pull some amount of color forward. And I imagine now the white wall, while still white, looks more vibrant and colorful to you than it did before. Your expectations of the white wall changed your experiences with the wall and now you have a somewhat different relationship with that white wall. True?

What if I were to tell you that you do this all day long…that your whole life is built and shaped by a process of you pulling your expectations out of the woodwork of whatever is in front of you?

I don’t mean this to be a magical statement. It is simply that our minds are constantly interpreting sensory cues from the environment and that process is relative to and highly affected by whatever we believe we’re going to see. This impacts how we respond to the moment, what doors we’re willing to walk through and, in the larger sense, where we end up in our life stories.

 Personal Responsibility

At some point in any adult life, we have to begin taking responsibility for this process. It is vital that we come to know ourselves. What are your hang-ups, your common misperceptions? What false reality are you pulling forward from the woodwork of your life?

For example, during a certain phase of my life, I was aware of an insecurity I had around other people stealing my intellectual property. I’m an academic and intellectual property is our only currency. When someone would send an email taking an interest in an idea I had, I noticed that I almost always read malice into that email, often when no malice was intended. I came to realize that I couldn’t trust myself to read those emails clearly the first time, so I would always wait a day before responding. Usually, I would reread it the next day and realize the email was completely benign. I was pulling malice out of the woodwork based upon my expectations and my inclination was to shut a door that might have otherwise benefited me in the future.

If we don’t come to know ourselves and act accordingly, our next steps will always be built out of our fears. When we choose a step based on fear, it is almost always a step that shuts a door or limits in some way. If nothing else, it keeps our attention on the very thing we’re afraid of and that brings more of it into our life.

What is the road out of this? Well, obviously EFT is high on the list of solutions, assuming you have the self-awareness to recognize you need to tap on it. But more than that, we need to go through a phase where we stop placing so much trust in our opinions of life. We need to empty ourselves through meditation and EFT and then walk openly through life. Most people have a voice inside their heads telling them what life is. That voice tells you where all the boundaries are, all your limitations, and everything you can expect from the people in your life. That voice has created your world and you have become a prisoner within it.  We have to be quiet for a while. Stop this constant describing. Stop this constant search for affirmation of the known and let life tell us about itself. Let Life Show You. Imagine for a moment that you don’t know and let life show you what it is. Today is a day to open yourself to the unknown. Today is the day you open yourself to what lies beyond the voice in your head. Begin your adventure into the vast world beyond your limited life view. Meditation is the key that unlocks the door to this adventure. Sign up for our free meditation classes. Take our Free EFT Bootcamp. And feel free to ask questions in the comments below. Let’s get a dialogue going. This entire site and the work I do here is designed to help you get beyond your limitations into a life that is actually worth living. Let’s go there together.