I went for my morning walk today and I must have stepped over 100 dead earthworms. It was a little gross, to tell the truth. It rained heavily last night , and I had an instant flashback memory of something I hadn’t thought about since I was a kid.
When I was a little girl, I’d walk myself to the bus stop. I’d amble down the sidewalk in my little Catholic school uniform, sometimes skipping and kicking sticks with my ugly blue oxford shoes. One day, I noticed a lot of dead worms on the sidewalk. Avoiding them with said ugly blue oxfords, I wondered why all these worms died on the same day, as if they decided to commit simultaneous suicide. (Actually, I don’t think I knew what suicide was when I was 8 years old!)
The next day, I walked down the sidewalk and the worms were gone. Several days later, or weeks later, they appeared again. So it was only over time that I realized that they came out after the rain, and I thought it was simply that the rain drowned them. I wondered why they were so dumb as to come out of the ground just to drown.
I never figured it out, actually. I never asked, never sought out the answer, but slowly over time, I’d simply figured it was a worm thing. They had their reasons, and it wasn’t something I was so interested in I needed to find out.
What does this have to do with consciousness? This is a perfect example of what our subconscious does. This memory came instantly to my consciousness when I began noticing the dead earthworms on my walk this morning. This is what our brain does—it provides memories and experience to back up and understand an experience we’re having in the moment. If this worm suicide happened before the age of 6 or 7, I wouldn’t necessarily have the ability to consciously know why I had this reaction to the worms because I wouldn’t have necessarily had the conscious awareness of the memory that came with words, pictures and feelings. If I weren’t able to conjure up the memory consciously, I would have just had a feeling of confusion and a sense of it being a stronger icky feeling.
This is what happens to us all the time in life. When we are afraid and not quite sure where the fear comes from, we stop doing things we know are going to help us; We sabotage ourselves in many ways, and it is all based on fears. The fears are based on memories, many of which are subconscious…meaning, below our conscious awareness. Other ways these behaviors and fears can show themselves are when we care too much what people think about us, when we want to be a good girl, are afraid to rock the boat or think people will laugh at us. These are all things that originate from experiences in our childhood.
Why is this important? Because we need to acknowledge how insidious the subconscious is. It will have you start to justify sabotaging behaviors, thoughts and decisions just so that you don’t change (because your subconscious is scared of what it doesn’t know.) Then, your fears start being substantiated because you’re doing things to reinforce them. It is the little voice that tells you that you can’t do something, be something, buy something or learn something. It’s the voice that tells you you can’t afford to coach with someone—which is exactly what would change everything.
It’s a big. Fat. Liar. And the universe is always reflecting back to you those false lying belief systems.
These lies and fears become more substantiated as we continue in the same pattern and think the same thoughts. Until… we do something different. You need to have the experience of doing something different and getting a different result—basically challenging the lie, winning, and then doing it over again. Start with something small. Then do it again and again, building up an equity of the new behavior. In time, it will become your default behavior and thus much easier. But you have to stay vigilant!
I’ll conclude with another worm story.
When my daughter was in 6th grade, she mentioned to a friend that she had “floaters” in her eyes (those moving things that appear in your field of vision). Her friend told her she had worms in her eyes. Though horrified, my daughter said nothing to us for a good long time until it happened to come up in conversation and we corrected her. Her belief was challenged by facts, but if it hadn’t, been, she would have continued for a long time to believe something that was false. This is just like the false beliefs that hide in our subconscious.
So, challenge those “worms in your eyes”—those lies, fears, insecurities and sabotaging behaviors. Look at them for what they are, then do exactly what you’re afraid of. It can change your life.
It is scary. I’m not going to lie. But you have to do it if you want things to change.
If you’d like to explore this with me, drop me a line at teri@terigoetz.com. It is the best way to uncover the liar and shine the light on your divine self! That can change your life, too!
