Choosing To Change Our Belief Systems
Our belief systems are engraied in us from the time we are small children, choosing to change our beliefs is not always easy. Sometimes, life helps us, whether we are consciously aware of it or not.
When I was 23 my father, Joe, died suddenly. Since then, he’s been leaving pennies for me and my sisters. We find them in the most unusual places and at the most unusual times, and we always know it is a little nod from our dad. I hear you. I see you. I support you. I’m here with you. What makes this particularly meaningful is that my dad was a banker.
Like most people, I adopted the values that my family held dear without thinking much about it. My dad was a workaholic and he taught all three of us girls that life was all about hard work and sacrifice. That’s just the way it was. And for a long, long time I operated under that belief. That’s just the way it was. And this idea, this belief system (who a dear friend of mine affectionately refers to as B.S.) was not just something that started with my father. It came from his father, and his father, and his father, and all the fathers going 90 generations back. This belief goes DEEP into my past, and it had engrained itself into the cellular tissue of my DNA.
But in this life, I decided to transform it.
I spent 28 years climbing the corporate ladder, and coming from an Italian immigrant family I did very well. I became a vice president and made a consistent six figure salary. My dad would have been proud. Yet a Spiritual Awakening in 2014 changed everything for me. I abruptly quit my job, temporarily hung out a shingle as a marketing consultant and moved towards a career as a life coach. Today, I can honestly say, I am living my life on purpose. And being a coach is large part of that purpose.
I’ve been coaching full time now since July of 2016. Yet while I’ve built my business I’ve kept my options open regarding any marketing projects. I left information on my website about being a marketing consultant, entertained marketing consulting gigs and even kept a bank account under the name “Donna Bond Marketing”.
My father would have looked at being a marketing executive as a more respectable living than one of a life coach. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure my father wouldn’t have had a clue about what a life coach even is (hell, neither did I just a couple of years ago!). And, in the back of my mind, as a safety net, I thought if I don’t make it as a coach I can always go back to marketing. This might kill my Spirit, but that’s a topic for another post.
I have done a lot of emotional clearing work. Many coaching sessions as the client and lots of self-exploration and awareness around this BS idea that prosperity and success can only flow to me with hard work and sacrifice. I’ve looked at it, taken it apart, and I now understand where it came from. I have reframed it to: “prosperity and success flow to me with ease and grace”. While I’ve been building my coaching practice, I have suspended my fears about money – and things are flowing just fine.
Yet still, somewhere deep inside there had been this tiny holding back.
This voice of the ego that says things can’t really be different, or that easy. A doubt that creeps in when the flow is on pause, or the old stories that I identified myself with try to replay themselves. In the past, I was literally my job. There was no such thing as my life. There was only work.
A couple of weeks ago I did more emotional processing with some amazing healers with the intention to finally release this belief. We did deep clearing work around this old pattern. In the session, we referred to it as the Italian Mafioso Miasm. A miasm is a heavy cloud of something unpleasant or unhealthy. We cleared it. Again. But this time it had some punch. I felt the release, and I cried the tears.
I was aware that as I cleared this pattern for myself, I was also energetically clearing it for all the generations behind me and all the generations in front of me. We are all connected. And that is the beautiful effect that is so amazing about doing healing work for yourself.
My professor at the University of Santa Monica, Dr. Ron Hulnick says, “Every time one person resolves one issue, all of humanity moves forward.”
A couple of days later I went to the bank to make a deposit. I decided that it was time for me to remove the marketing content on my website and close the bank account for “Donna Bond Marketing”. Thus, fully demonstrating to the universe that I am indeed ALL IN as a professional coach. I love this profession. It’s the one of the most vital professions in the world as far as I am concerned. And I know I am making the world a better place as I assist each person in resolving an issue.
While closing the bank account the banker says, “let me see if we owe you any interest…. Yes,” he says, “we owe you one cent”. He then begins to perform what seems to me like a LOT of paperwork for one cent. Then he walks me over to the teller and I have to stand in line to get my penny. It was taking a really long time while he and the teller are trying to figure additional things out in the computer.
Suddenly, I knew it was my dad.
I was standing there at the teller’s window knowing this whole charade was a nod from Joe. He was giving me his support to live my life differently. To give up the belief system that success and prosperity can only come through hard work and sacrifice. He was acknowledging the release I experienced and from the tie to the BS he unconsciously taught me while growing up. Bye bye Italian Mafioso Miasm.
Hello, ease and grace and joy and fulfillment.
I let the tears trickle down my face. I smiled a huge smile as the banker (the BANKER, mind you, not the teller), handed me a penny. And I thought to myself, I am all in. I am so grateful for my own tenacity in wanting things to be different in my life, and in my consciousness. I am so grateful for the profound life lessons I have been gifted with and my ability to learn from them to make my life better.
I acknowledge myself for not giving up, for continuing to do the emotional work to shape my life into something extraordinary. After all, our beliefs shape our world.
Days later I was on the phone with my coach and shared this story. He asked me, “What year is on the penny?” I said, “I’m not sure I didn’t look that close at it, but I have it right here” I had to take out a magnifying glass. After some fumbling and trying to get it in the light, I was able to see. “Son of a bitch (my father would have said) it’s 1991”, the year my father died.
I said to my coach an affectionate saying among my closest girlfriends, “You just can’t make this shit up.”
When you are interested in updating some old beliefs, email Donna Bond at donna@donnabond.com to learn more about how to do this.
