Many friends have recommended the award-winning television series, MAD MEN. It sounded rather entertaining and light before bedtime – very unlike the work-related serious books piled high on my nightstand.
Much to my horror and surprise, Mad Men hasn’t been easy to sleep on at all. I’ve been chewing on it from the first dvd. It dramatizes the early 1960’s cultural excess when women were denied in the man’s world, where men did pretty much anything they wanted. Definitely normal for my mother’s generation. Definitely not for mine.
But, ye gads, I see that mentality running in me, and stronger, much stronger than I’d like to think. I’m shocked at how blind I’ve been. I am my mother’s daughter even though for most of my life I thought I was so much smarter and with-it than she and those women on MAD MEN.
What do I do with that realization? The good news is I don’t have to live out their story. We live in a time when we know from brain research that we can change our brain-wiring, cultural conditioning, basically ourselves.
The first step is the awareness that we have these subtle but nevertheless undermining beliefs that not-so-subtly sabotage our hopes and dreams. Awareness breaks their cycle. It also breaks the cycle for our children and theirs.
What beliefs do you have that are interfering with your best intentions and efforts? Notice when you hear them in your inner voice, the ones that you would never admit publicly. Write these limiting thoughts down. Acknowledge and ponder them. What if the opposite was just as true?