Consider something extraordinary, old friend. What if you have spent your entire life imprisoned without ever realizing you were in a prison? Imagine someone who has spent his entire life in a prison cell. The walls are built from old wounds. The iron bars are forged from painful memories. And the chains that bind him are forged from beliefs he formed long ago, when he was too young, too frightened, or too unconscious to question them. At some point in his past, someone told him he wasn’t good enough. He believed it. Someone made him feel unworthy of love. He carried that wound. Someone humiliated or rejected him, leaving him feeling unwanted or afraid to speak openly. Without realizing it, he began building his prison. One experience became a memory. One memory became a belief. One belief became a pattern. And one pattern became a lifetime. Years passed . . . The child became a man. The world around him changed, yet the prison remained. Whenever someone criticized him, an old ...
Consider something rather astonishing, old friend. What if you, who got angry this morning . . . the you who felt jealous last week . . . and the you who suddenly felt small beside someone more talented . . . were three different versions of you? Yet each one claimed to be you. How extraordinary. A single human being . . . inhabited by a whole cast of characters, each convinced it is the rightful owner of your life. And the strangest part? You rarely notice the moment when one character leaves, and another takes its place. Someone says the wrong word, and suddenly the angry self appears, wearing a familiar costume and reciting lines from long ago. A moment of rejection awakens the wounded self, carrying yesterday’s sorrows into today’s encounter. A shadow of uncertainty, and the fearful self begins rehearsing a tomorrow that has not yet arrived. And so, without realizing it, we spend much of our lives slipping into costumes we have worn a thousand times. We believe we a...