Are You Living Life Or Playing A Role?

If you were a passenger on an aeroplane at risk of going down, which role would you take as the potential disaster unfolds?

I asked this question to one of my clients who was stressed, burnt out and exhausted.

She answered what I had expected;

“I would take the role of chief air hostess, running to all the passengers to check if they had their seatbelts on.”

No surprise there, since she’s unable to delegate at work, and spends her time micromanaging, yet feels completely burnt out in the process.

Would you be the pilot, the air hostess, cabin crew, the person praying for help or the passenger sitting down on their seat awaiting their fate?

I ask this, because how we do one thing is how we do everything, and getting clarity on the role you automatically take when facing challenging situations makes all the difference.

You see, there’s a belief that if you want to make a change in your life, this can be done by superficially changing some of the external components of it.

So you change jobs, partners, country, living arrangements and a multitude of external factors, but in fact, wherever you go, you carry the same person with you. The same behaviours, habits, routines all played out, albeit in a different environment.

Let’s cast our minds back to where it all started.

We were born perfect, pure, uncomplicated (yes I know it seems absurd to imagine)and as we emerge from the womb, we are unleashed, unedited and relish any mode of exploration.

Then a moment in time is experienced which you might have interpreted as ‘unsafe’ and in order to feel okay, you lock in a particular role, a false persona in order to feel accepted by those around you.

And hey presto, this is how we magically transform from the funny, cheeky, excitable and playful child, into a diluted version of who…

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