Do you ever feel like a misfit? Do you ever feel like you can never do anything right? Do you ever make choices to appease another, but the choice doesn’t fit you, and you don’t want to make waves or disappoint? Yet you end up disappointing yourself and you really don’t feel happy! In fact, do you feel stressed, worried, and unhappy? In our new book, Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani, the first section is about “seeking the right way”, the author’s story of growing up, always trying to do what others expected and denying herself.
In the first section, the first six chapters, we learn about Anita’s life. She grew up in different cultures, and had the pressure of her eastern Indian culture’s expectation for her to marry and be a good submissive wife, but she struggled with her passions for travel, independence, and freedom to choose her own way. She felt like a misfit and struggled to fit in, and held the belief that no matter what she did, she couldn’t do things right. If she chose for herself, others were angry or disappointed, and if she chose for them, she was angry, disappointed, stressed, sad, fearful and she really didn’t know what to do. When she agreed to an engagement to make her family and community happy, she was unsettled and afraid. When she listed to her heart and broke it off, she was looked down upon by her whole cultural community. She finally had to “run away” to get herself together.
She finally did meet a man of her heritage that was like her soul mate, and she married him. He was much more independent thinking and loved her for that. She was happy, but all the years of stress, hating herself, feeling like she didn’t belong was eating at her from inside. She had compiled so many hidden negative beliefs about herself. When her friend and then a brother-in-law were diagnosed with cancer, she even became fearful of cancer and questioned life. She then developed cancer herself, lymphoma, and this was the beginning of her journey into dying and then her near death experience and which brought her fully into life.
There are many studies and trains of thought that do show us that worry and stress, negative beliefs about ourselves, and even hating ourself can lead to dis-ease in the body. Some even say that cancer is “eating at ourselves from the inside out.” I have seen those who grew up with parents finding the negative in things, always being sick, and they developed the same traits in themselves. I grew up with a mom who always said, “I’m too busy to be sick” and she rarely was, and I am rarely sick either. But I do identify with the submissive female, as I had many in my life, and it has been major challenge for me to overcome the ingrained beliefs I took on growing up. Also, the pressures of being good, making others happy, and putting myself last, almost always, were other beliefs and personality I took on as I grew up. Overcoming these, and finding my true passions and joys has been my journey and I expect to learn more about this from Anita Moorjani as well. In fact, I am sure we all have our challenges and beliefs about ourselves that we would like to change. No time is better to start than now. Set your goal to be happy and live life to the fullest!
Please join us, Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha, me and the other international co-hosts in finding joy and your best life on Quantum Leap Book Club on Law of Attraction Radio Network at https://www.loaradionetwork.com/quantum-leap or on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thequantumleapbookclub
Co-Host – Tryna Cooper
Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay