53: Monday Moment: Where We Get Caught

A ring becomes tangled with a bracelet in the middle of the night, and an ordinary moment becomes an unexpected metaphor for how old beliefs can quietly attach themselves to the life we're trying to build. In this Monday Moment, Tania reflects on the gift of awareness and why sometimes the first step isn't untangling everything, it's simply turning on the light. 

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Happy Monday. Today's episode is inspired by something that happened to me the other night. When I went to bed, I was wearing this little gold bracelet that was gifted to me by my grandma. She gave it to me at my baptism when I was just a baby, and for years, I kept it tucked away in a little box in my drawer because it just felt too precious to wear. But recently, I thought, "What am I saving this for?" So I started wearing it, and I had it on my left wrist when I went to bed the other night. Now, on my right hand, I was wearing a silver ring that my daughter bought me on a recent trip to Italy. It's much newer, and I really love it, and I wear it every day. Now, that night, sometime around 2:00 in the morning, I woke up because somehow my ring had become hooked onto my bracelet, and I have no idea how that even happened. So now you can picture my right hand was essentially handcuffed to my left wrist, and there I was, half asleep, trying to untangle myself without breaking the bracelet. I didn't wanna turn on the light, which might have been a really good idea, because I was convinced I would wake up too much. So instead, I struggled in the dark for what felt like forever. Eventually, I managed to work the ring off my finger by slowly, and may I add painfully, pushing it up with my thumb. So I was then free to go back to sleep, but the ring was still attached to the bracelet. When the morning came, I turned on the light, and instantly I could see exactly where it had become caught. And that little experience stayed with me because it felt like a powerful metaphor. The bracelet made me think about my past, all the stories that I've carried, the beliefs that I have inherited, and the way I've used them to protect myself. And the ring, being new, made me think about the life that I'm building now. And I think that's often what happens. We step into something new, a new relationship, a new opportunity, a new chapter, a new dream, and suddenly we discover that something from our past has become tangled up in it. Ultimately, we're still hooked, hooked to an old fear, an old belief, an old story about who we are. And I think what struck me the most about this silly experience was that, you know, I was able to get the ring off my finger in order to get back to sleep, but it remained hooked on the bracelet, and that felt familiar to how we sometimes progress in life. Maybe we take a courageous step, we finally speak up, or we start the business, we launch the podcast, we leave the relationship, or we set the boundary, and we feel like we're moving forward, but we're still carrying an old belief that has quietly attached itself to the new thing And it isn't until we slow down and bring some awareness to it that we can finally see where we've become caught. And sometimes that awareness begins just with a simple question. For example, you know, maybe you've started doing work you really love, but you find that you still feel anxious. You keep wondering if you're doing enough because somewhere along the way, you learned that work has to be hard to be worthwhile. In a moment like that, asking a simple question like, "Is that actually true? Does important work need to be hard?" can be a really powerful question. And I think that's the gift of awareness. It doesn't erase the past. It simply shines enough light for us to notice where yesterday is still snagging today. And once we see it, we get to choose. We get to decide whether the old story still belongs in the future that we're creating. And maybe that's why awareness matters so much. These hidden beliefs have a way of running our lives until they're brought into the light. And each week with every episode, my hope isn't to help you fix yourself or your past. It's simply to turn on the light, to bring hidden beliefs into the open so they can be seen for what they are. Because once we can see them, they begin to lose their power. So here's my invitation for you this week. Is there something new you're trying to build that keeps feeling harder than it should? If that's the case, Maybe instead of asking what's wrong with me, simply try asking, "Is there an old belief that's become tangled up into something new?" And maybe today isn't about untangling it all. Maybe it's simply about turning on the light. Have a beautiful week