Now I know what you might be thinking.
You did what? With who? Hear me out. It’s good, I promise.
My daughter sees a pediatric ophthalmologist, and my ex-husband was coming into town for her appointment.
The morning of the appointment I got that lovely little nudge of inspiration to invite him to lunch with us.
So I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t overthink it. I just did it.
I know better by now – I follow my hunches every time I can.
He had arrived first, and when we arrived and I saw him, the first thing I noticed was how palpable the NON-NEGATIVITY was.
Like seriously. This is the same man with whom I experienced a four-day long panic attack (my body’s way of saying: get out, Lady).
But now? Not a hint of it.
He was pleasant. He was polite. He was friendly, even. FRIENDLY, PEOPLE.
We had a nice lunch, the three of us. We had nice conversation that centered around our daughter. We even laughed.
And it was genuine.
So what was the inspiration behind this invite to lunch together?
I’ve changed my belief about him.
It’s that simple.
And because I’ve done that, I have changed my experience of him, as well.
Our beliefs create what we live. What shows up for us is simply the Universe delivering evidence of our beliefs. The Universe doesn’t care what you believe – it just keeps delivering rendezvous with whatever matches the belief.
So how do you go about changing a belief?
First, you have to want to change it. You have to recognize that it no longer serves you and the life you intend to live. Without this recognition, there isn’t enough power behind the desire to change.
And you’ll need that powerful desire because our beliefs tend to have a good amount of momentum going.
The belief begins to change the instant you become aware of how it isn’t serving you. Then it’s up to you to allow yourself to see the evidence of it.
Here’s how you allow the evidence in:
1. Set the big intention for your new belief.
This will keep reminding you of what you are looking for. There’s a good amount of momentum built up around that old belief, and that’s okay. Use smaller intentions you can fully get behind along the way to help you get behind the larger intention.
For example:
BIG INTENTION: “My ex and I are excellent co-parents.”
Smaller intention you can fully get behind: “My ex and I handled that one issue together well.”
These smaller intentions are what I call bridge beliefs. They help you bridge from an old belief to a new belief.
Remember: Seeing is not believing. BELIEVING is seeing. When you believe it, you will see it.
2. Look for evidence of the intention in your experience.
Every change you get, take stock of ways that your experience is lining up with your new belief, no matter how small the way seems.
3. Follow inspired action
When you feel inspired to reach out or to do something different than you normally would, do it. See where it leads. Either you’ll find evidence of the new belief, or you’ll see that you could use some smaller intentions/bridge beliefs work.
Any time a divine jerk or divinely crappy situation shows up, it’s to give us an opportunity to heal something within.
When I was in the thick of the betrayal with my ex and the drama of court, I was unable to see the gift.
But the situation was such a wake-up call, it provided me with the inspiration to figure out how never to experience anything like that again.
And the only way for me to stay away from experiences like that was to stop drawing them to me.
My ex-husband gave me the greatest gift anyone can give another: an opportunity to change how I view and operate in the world.
It was up to me to unwrap and use the gift, of course.
Now that I truly know this, and have experienced the power of shifting my beliefs on many subjects, I am nothing but grateful for that man and what the experience with him taught me.
With this new way of perceiving the world, he is no longer a toxic ex. He’s a formerly toxic ex. I am using completely different lenses through which to view the world, so he is different, too. I no longer draw out the toxic aspects of him.
Instead, I am able to experience what I’ve wanted all along: that we are excellent co-parents.
You can change any experience this same way.
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Previously published here on Huffington Post.
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