Heal Your Meanings: Shift Your Beliefs, Shift Your Business

I have learned that whenever I have a negative experience, I need to examine the meanings I hold about it that led to that experience. It doesn’t mean that all negative experiences stem from faulty meanings. Yet by changing the meaning, we can have a better experience without betraying ourselves.

Let me give an example. I asked a student to review one of my courses, but she refused, saying it was very similar to someone else’s work. Her questioning of my integrity made me feel very angry, which is a normal reaction when our values are violated. I told her I can’t work with people who doubt my integrity. That’s the meaning I hold about the situation. However, I don’t like feeling angry. How else would I like to respond? By accepting it as her opinion, not mine. I know my work comes from my creativity and experience. I still won’t work with her again, but I don’t have a reaction to it.

Another example is that early this week, I felt the pressure to take action and post something on social media about my work. I am completing the publishing of solo books for clients, and I have space for more clients. But nothing is yet on the horizon. The pressure to take action comes from the belief that I have to make it happen, which is false. All my previous publishing projects came from referrals or out-of-the-blue inquiries. No work came to me because of what I did. I changed the meaning from I have to make it happen to I allow it to happen by being happy and grateful in advance.

The lesson here is to take action in your business only when you feel inspired and experience a full-body YES. Go for pleasure and what feels good, rather than obligation.

How we react to situations, people, places, things, animals, or concepts reveals the meanings we hold about our relationships with them. We are meaning makers, and when we feel emotions, we feel our meanings. Meanings and beliefs are the same as thoughts.

To cultivate a robust entrepreneurial mindset that allows us to manifest our vision, we must be vigilant about the beliefs we hold about ourselves, as they shape our identity and drive our business decisions. It’s crucial to continuously examine and upgrade your identity and prosperity mindset to maintain energetic alignment with your vision.

Making this a practice not only allows emotional healing but also heals your relationship with success, so that you can create the impact and abundance you envision.

Driving in Traffic

Another situational example that reveals our meanings is driving in traffic. Have you ever driven on the freeway when another vehicle cuts in front of you? How do you respond? If you graciously allow the vehicle to cut in, your meaning is that people are in a hurry and that’s okay because you will arrive at your destination. If you react by getting angry, your meaning is probably that it shows disrespect when someone cuts in front of you. How dare they? You curse and shout at them and blow the horn.

As we think, so we feel, and we act based on how we feel. Then there are consequences to our actions. I call this the supply chain of the mind. It happens automatically. It’s our default thinking.

So when you have an automatic reaction that makes you feel bad, it’s worth unpacking the meanings you have about it for yourself. It most likely comes from childhood and was adopted from your parents, caregivers, teachers, authority figures, or culture.

Information is Neutral

All information is neutral; it’s just information. There’s nothing inherently good or bad about anything unless we make it so. If our meanings or beliefs lead to something bad, it’s possible that those meanings are outdated and need updating.

Over time, our perception and, therefore, our meanings change. What didn’t matter a while ago might be very important now.

Of course, I’m not talking about feeling bad, as in feeling fear, when you see a lion on your lawn or when someone in a hoodie with a knife in his hand is chasing you down the street. Call for help when you are in physical danger!

I’m talking about when we put ourselves in psychological danger through our thoughts.

Make it a Game

Life is a game of living our meanings. What if we approach exploring and changing our meanings as a game? Then this game of playing with changing our meanings and feeling the changes in our bodies must be played with both negative and positive experiences.

Just changing the thought from “I should wash the dishes” to “I want to wash the dishes now" creates a different feeling in the body. And when you expand that thought further into: “I want to wash the dishes now because I love a clean kitchen, and I love a clean house because it gives me a clear space to be creative,” you look forward to washing the dishes. See what I mean?

Buyer’s Guilt

Have you ever experienced buyer’s guilt? You buy something you want, and afterward you feel guilty and fearful, as if you did something dreadful that will have further negative consequences. This can spiral into feeling that you can’t buy food or pay your rent, and you feel as if your solar plexus is going to explode.

Again, these are the meanings we hold about money and our worthiness.

Avoid buyer’s guilt upfront by exploring why you want to buy that dress, car, coaching program, or service. What would it give you, and why do you deserve it? Make a list and feel into the meanings.

After you make the purchase, and buyer’s guilt creeps in, and it will, because it’s still there, have your list ready. First, feel the guilt. Face it and let it be until it passes.

Once you feel neutral, review the meanings again, add more, and really feel them in your body until you feel happy and grateful. Then take action to integrate the new meanings by spending time with your purchase and feeling appreciation for it. Also, acknowledge yourself for making the purchase to enrich your life.

Romantic Relationships

Say it’s your birthday or anniversary, and you expect to wake up in the morning to breakfast in bed, a gift, flowers, and your partner smiling and saying, “Happy Birthday, my love!”

However, you wake up without any of that. He completely forgot. It felt like any other morning, grabbing a cup of coffee, showering, and out the door. How you feel at that moment reveals the meanings you hold about your relationship and about yourself.

If you think: he doesn’t love me, I’m not important to him, our life together is over, then you’re going to feel miserable all day and might file for divorce!

The thing is, these meanings are based on false assumptions. If it’s your anniversary, why don’t you surprise him in bed? That’s another set of meanings, right?

If, however, you do wake up as you imagined, how do you feel? What are your meanings now? Something like: I love how he loves me; I love how romantic he is and how he always remembers; I love how he makes me feel special; I love that I am special.

Self-Love

The thing is, we have relationships with everyone and everything. Most importantly, it’s our relationship with ourselves that shapes the meanings we assign to every other relationship. Always ask yourself, What does this say about me? Start here and heal the meanings you have about yourself, because self-love is the greatest force for healing everything.

Self-awareness is the first step in identifying the beliefs that no longer serve us and transforming them into those that do. We do that by becoming aware of how we feel. The idea is not to judge yourself but to have compassion and lovingly shape your meanings to create the business and life you want to experience.

The Prosperity Generator Framework is a short program that explores the relationship between self-love, self-worth, and inner alignment in your business and how they benefit your life as a whole.