The definition of SKILL is the learned power of doing something competently: a developed aptitude or ability.
My definition of skill is “something I have practiced.”
During my tenure here on earth, I have practiced many skill sets that served me in the past but do not serve me here in the present.
For example, as a young child being beaten by my caretakers, I cowered and cried for mercy. However, I don’t need to cower and cry these days.
When I lived in NYC as a young woman, sarcasm came in handy with cheeky men and hateful coworkers. No need for sarcasm anymore…although I still use it from time to time, sorry to say.
While on vacation recently, I found myself in a bit of a bind when the outfit I brought for a wedding was suddenly not the thing to wear. I had to allow myself the luxury of the emotions that I felt and at the same time had to call upon new skill sets, like forgiveness and letting go, to help me navigate the incident.
I came through and I chalked it up to just another life lesson. One of the most important skills I used there was the skill of GRATITUDE. I made a mental list of all the things that had gone right and made a determined effort not to allow a few negatives to outweigh all of the positives.
One of the things I used to do was to allow negative life events to have more “weight” than positive life events. I now give every event the same score. Even if I feel like weighing one more than the next, I still do not trust myself to give a realistic score, so everything gets a score of one. At the end of the day, if I have more positives than negatives, I am good!
I am still trying to figure out which things need to be weighed heavier than others and which things are deal breakers. This is a good start for me, for in the past everything was a deal breaker and I was always ready to flee from a tense situation. Now I can call upon new skill sets to deal with the issues at hand and not infest the present with the hurts of the past.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got from a therapist is this….
“Indrani, this is not a court of law, stop your case building.”
Ouch.
So I have been trying to unlearn that very skill…Case Building. Now I look for the things I am grateful for and hope that there is more on the plus side than not.
Skills I no longer need:
1. Temper tantrums.
2. Sarcasm. (Well, I might need this one sometimes.)
3. Case building. No more dredging up all the old hurts and bringing it into the present moment.
4. Feeling worthless.
5. Minding other people’s business.
6. Giving my power away.
I can go on and on…I hope you get the picture.
A skill is something you have learned to do. If you can learn it, you can unlearn it.
Sometimes, unlearning is just what you need to have a more peaceful life.
I wrote a blog long ago about expiration dates on beliefs…you can read it here:
http://indranislight.org/2009/11/out-dated-beliefs/
I hope you take a few ideas from these two posts to apply new skills and let go of expired ones.
Love and light,
Indrani