By Books Author Denise Turney
What if your life was meant to be a success story? How would you change the script? Would you do a re-edit and start over? Fortunately, and despite what you may think about yourself, there are keys in your hands that can open you up to more success. These keys make you an architect, a builder of your life.
Facing Dissociation to Move Forward Into Success
Whether you realize it now or not, you have a lot of influence in your life. You’re not a character in a play – speaking, believing, and doing what someone else has scripted you to speak, believe or do. Admittedly, it can feel like you’re not calling the shots if you feel like you’re failing or if you engage in dissociation, a defense mechanism.
According to the Mayo Clinic, “Dissociative disorders are mental health conditions that involve experiencing a loss of connection between thoughts, memories, feelings, surroundings, behavior and identity. These conditions include escape from reality in ways that are not wanted and not healthy. This causes problems in managing everyday life.”1
More About Dissociation
Dissociation could cause you to feel like your life is not your own. You might feel separated from yourself, uncertain of your identity or feel like you’re unable to deal with work or everyday life situations.
Causes of dissociation vary. Very Well Mind shares that, “Ongoing trauma, especially childhood physical, sexual, or emotional abuse and/or neglect is a very significant risk factor for the development of dissociative disorders and is thought to be the root cause in at least 90% of people with these conditions.”2
If you’re struggling with mental health issues, including dissociation, please get help. There are licensed psychotherapist who can spot the symptoms and work with you to help you regain mental balance. Local mental health facilities, online support services, and your primary physician are places you can turn to get mental health support. Depending on where you live, you could also contact organizations like Mental Health America, Mental Illness in Veterans, SAMHSA or NAMI.
You Can Live a Beautiful Life
However, dissociation isn’t the only reason why you may feel like you don’t have the keys to change your life, to create a life that causes you to experience love, joy, and peace. If there’s something you have wanted to do or achieve and, despite how you’ve tried to fulfill the goal you haven’t been able to get what you want, you might feel as if you don’t have enough power to live the life you want.
Should this be the case, you probably manage daily responsibilities, including work, family, paying bills, and enjoying hobbies, well. The struggle may be related to how you perceive or see yourself.
For instance, you might feel happy if you get a good performance review at work, surpass your sales quota, lose weight, break a sports record, get a date with someone you admire, etc. On the other hand, if you gain weight when you are trying to reduce weight, throw an interception seconds before the end of a close game, get turned down for a date, don’t get a job, or lose a client, you might suddenly feel flat or defeated.
Let this continue and you could start to perceive yourself as a failure, as someone who’s unable to build the life you want. This is a time for faith. Regardless of what’s happening, you can exercise faith. You can believe that you were created to live a victorious life.
Believe in Yourself – Success Awaits
Start small. Instead of trying to lose 15 pounds, aim to lose two pounds in a month. Or instead of continuing to push for a current promotion, look to expand your current role in ways that get you increased exposure to leadership, a choice that could put you in line for a promotion within 16 to 18 months. As with other life experiences, small steps add up.
Accept that this is your life. Don’t try to get rid of it or push it away. After all, you can change, pivoting into real success, the type of success that leads to greater inner peace.
Instead of running from yourself, pray and talk with the Creator, seeking guidance. Read scriptures and other writings that illustrate how someone came out of disbelief and achieved a goal that had seemingly remained out of their grasp for years. Whatever you do, don’t stop believing. Don’t stop believing that good can and will come to you.
Build Success Strategies
Develop a strategy to engage in activities that you love. For example, if you want to write a movie script, create a calendar and outline when you will enroll in scriptwriting classes (if that’s the path you want to take). Then, note when you will start the script’s opening scene. Stick to the calendar you create. Seek out a team to hold you accountable if you start missing deadlines.
All the while, allow yourself to receive love, joy, and peace. You deserve it. You’re worth it. Definitely celebrate your successes, including what you perceive to be small successes.
Celebrate Success
Celebrating your achievements is a great motivator. It’s proof that you’re making progress, a sweet fuel that keeps you moving forward.
As you achieve small goals, your confidence may strengthen, allowing you to take on larger goals. Also, rather than running away from larger undertakings, you might seek them out. If you’re fortunate, other people will see your strength, gifts, talents, and passions and create spaces that allow you to work on projects that give your work greater exposure.
Keep going. Acknowledge what you’re doing, expressing appreciation to the Creator and accepting that you are using your life keys well. Journaling is another good step.
Life Keys Serve Life Success
It’s through journaling that you capture your life’s highlights, dreams, challenges, and triumphs. After you’ve been journaling for several years, you can re-read sections of your journals, clearly seeing how you moved through situations that you thought you’d never recover from.
If you set aside time to review your life mid-way through the year and again at the end of the year, you can see how you’ve used your life keys. Should you spot areas that you want to change, pivot, examine yourself, study ways to let go of what you need to release so you can step forward. At the end of it all, you may look back and see how your life really is a success story.
Resources
- Dissociative disorders – Symptoms and causes – Mayo Clinic
- PTSD Dissociation: The Links Between Trauma and Dissociation