Arrow Whispers - Inner Blockages

Many people know the feeling: you're just getting ready to shoot, and then you realize after the first shot that nothing's going right today, and no matter what you try, it doesn't get any better. And instead of simply accepting it, you start tinkering with your technique.

You get annoyed and start to doubt yourself. And even if you tell yourself, "It doesn't matter, it's just how it is today," you just can't shake that feeling. A feeling that feels familiar and suddenly takes you back to your childhood.

Why is that?

To understand this, you first have to know that we all carry beliefs in our subconscious that we consider our absolute truth. We learned them at a time in our lives when we couldn't yet differentiate between what we do and who we are.

Here's an example: Little Tim is sitting in the classroom with his classmates during math class. He's anxiously awaiting his test results, which his teacher is distributing to all the students. He knows that math isn't his best and is therefore all the more pleased that he got a B. The first thing he does when he gets home is proudly show his mother his grade. When she sees the result, however, she reacts disappointedly. "A B, but Tim, we had learned so much together before." Tim goes to his room sadly. What he doesn't know, however, is that his mother often didn't get good grades herself and therefore didn't get the apprenticeship she wanted. So, all she wanted was to protect her son from her own mistakes and believed she had done everything right. What actually happened at that moment, however, was that Tim developed a belief for himself. It reads: "I'm not good enough." Tim doesn't understand that the actual sentence: "My performance is not sufficient for the wonderful life my mother wants for me." would be. And so he grows up with the subconscious belief that he's not good enough. If he later starts, for example, to regularly practice archery, it's not surprising that he tends to never be satisfied with his performance and then defines his self-worth by it.

What can we do?

So we know that many programs running in our subconscious aren't necessarily beneficial to our lives or even true. Just knowing this can, I think, lift a lot of the burden. For those who want to go a step further, here's another tool that I personally consider invaluable:

Take a few minutes before you go to bed, take a few deep breaths, and try to relax as much as possible. When you feel ready, remember the feeling you had when you lost control of your emotions. It doesn't matter whether it was just a feeling you experienced on your own or whether others noticed it too. Go into that emotion again without thinking too much about it. Then ask yourself the question: Where do I know this feeling from, and when did I first experience it? And then wait and see what reveals itself. This takes some practice, and it's quite possible that some things that haven't been revealed in a long time will resurface. But even things that haven't been on the surface for a long time have always been there and definitely need to be dealt with. Once you've reached this point, things get exciting. You may suddenly experience a deep insight, and even if not, there is a way to resolve the issue for yourself. The fact is that the brain cannot distinguish between past and present when it comes to a thought. This is demonstrated by the feeling we immediately experience when we remember something. If you use this to your advantage, you can also take the fear out of a situation. You simply build something protective or comical into the experience; there are no limits to your imagination. It sounds banal but it works. You just need a bit of imagination and a little practice. For example, it could be your favorite stuffed animal at the time that comes to life with a gigantic urge and immediately pees on the leg of anyone who tries to raise their voice too loudly. Or even a superhero who puts his cape protectively over you. The important thing here is to immerse yourself completely in the role of the small child in order to really be able to overcome it on the child level on which it was created.

Of course, I realize that we are not machines. But precisely for that reason, I consider it our duty to face our old wounds. To express what our heart calls for, unbending and free. Just as with archery, so with many other challenges in life, we are allowed to grow from them. We are allowed to continue to develop, to face our fears, and then to redefine ourselves again and again. We are not here to go around in circles, and with what we have learned, our challenges are allowed to grow with us.

Because growth means life!