You Can’t Let Go of the Old Image of Yourself to Embrace the Image of the New

Your Higher Self asks you to let go of the limited view you have of your past along with its limited self-image. You are ready to see yourself in a new light of self-love.

You have been trying to create a new life through changes in your relation-ships, career or personal health, such as deepening the intimacy with your partner, getting a promotion or losing weight, but you are struggling to see any results. In choosing this card, be reassured, you are moving in the right direction. However, sometimes the struggle to create a new life has less to do with creating a new image (the visualisation) and more to do with letting go of the past. The bridge to the new life you seek will show up when you become aware of your attachment to the past and to living out its legacy. The key to this bridge is to release your attachment to the past by fully connecting to your dissociated self – the parts of you that have been lost – contained within this limited view. Only then will you be able to see yourself in a  new light.

You can look at your life story as a map filled with events, situations and conditioning from parents, families, community and teachers. This map defines your self-image. The signposts/landmarks and coastlines on this map represent the many different experiences you bring from your past. It is a constantly evolving map with new features appearing with every new experience. A feeling is attached to the core of every significant signpost/experience on your map. The composite of these feelings forms the basis of your emotional foundation and creates a sense of self you call ‘ME’. You use this composite of emotional signposts (map) on a regular basis to navigate your life safely. You validate and keep yourself safe by referring to this map.

However, in your case, your map contains a limited view of your past. It only includes the feelings attached to one or two significant events and they have become the focus of your identity. You struggle to release these one or two core feelings because they are all that you know. Your fear is that if you let go of these feelings you would have nothing left. And so without the cohesion and synthesis of all of your experiences to create a sense of wholeness, you recycle each new experience through those limited one or two points of safety.

The result is there is no comprehensive story on your map of ‘ME’. Your identity is a diffuse, incomplete and disconnected picture. When you come to a new experience and ask the question ‘Is it ME?’, the feelings on your current map always answer ‘no’. You stick to the map you know as a guide to keep you safe and therefore find yourself going down the same one or two emotional roads, recreating the same story over and over again, end-lessly in ever repeating patterns. The new is unknown to you and because it does not fit with your old self-image, it does/will not appear on your map called ‘ME’.

Guided by this incomplete map you’re unable to release the old image of self so that no matter what, you’re always a victim, alone, disconnected, in control or like a hero. This feeling is the cornerstone of your identity. It is you – in a limited form. This waft-like floating, gut-wrenching, despair-feeling or super-mum image of you makes it difficult to connect to the new self-image you desire, and is always in direct conflict with the new. For instance, the super mum or workaholic who wants to rest or slow down feels uncomfortable doing so because it does not fit their identity – there is always something more for them to do. Their map contains no rest stops. Another example is the survivor, who only feels affirmed and alive when they are in panic mode. When things get too comfortable, their road map takes them back to the feeling of a survival identity, back to panic.

To expand the map called ‘ME’ you must integrate the multiple feelings from all your different experiences. In this way you will build an identity of wholeness where you feel good about yourself knowing what it is to receive and are connected to self-love and flow. Through this integration you change the foundation of your identity from the emotional ground upwards. The first step in this change is to understand that the old feelings of your limited identity point to the parts of you that are disconnected. When you acknowl-edge and then connect to that moment in time when this feeling took hold, you are able to then link this feeling into a newer, broader picture of you. The feeling will find its right place as one part rather than the whole of your journey. With this integration of multiple feelings you can grow because the boundaries of your map are expanding all the time. This expansion means you can incorporate a new feeling/experience more easily. Allowing the old experience of many experiences to form a composite that shifts, builds and adjusts based on all that has come before is what will allow you to expand from one feeling state to another.

Until now you have missed the point. In avoiding or thinking you’ve already moved on, you’ve kept the unresolved past active within you. However, rather than seeing it as a roadblock you are now ready to understand it is actually the doorway you seek. The key to healing and changing that unresolved emotion is to understand it is there to guide you like an arrow. It points to the dissociated part of yourself that wishes to communicate with you. When you get that feeling of your ever-repeating cycle it is time for you to pick up and answer the phone – your past is calling you. The information you want to create the new life you desire is contained within this phone call from your dissociated feeling. Once you connect to the fullness of and the information contained within this past experience you will no longer need your pain or struggle to act as the arrow pointing to this area of growth.

To move beyond your old image is not as great a leap as you imagine. Your identity is the unfolding story all in a progression, each step building upon what has come before. You are a work in progress, constantly building. There is no requirement to quit the life you had before because the life you had before is you. It is simply time now to open yourself to all of you. Acceptance through your connection to this unresolved experience will allow you to integrate both the old and the new way of being. In placing this experience in its right context of the whole of your life, you will find that the transition to where you want to go becomes only one step. Instead of seeing a great gulf between you and where you want to go, let the body of your life guide the next step.

For instance, you have been single for some time and are now ready to be in relationship. The signpost that has kept you safe and single was a pre-vious partner who hurt you through controlling, manipulative or deceitful behaviour. To integrate the experience, review the person for the ‘gift’ they brought to your life. Look at the point of contact to find the doorway con-taining this gift. Perhaps this person has brought you the gift of self-respect or compassion. Maybe their extreme behaviour of control gave you the gift of providing the boundaries missing in your childhood. Or maybe the reason arrives in the gift of learning how to say no or simply to learn to listen to yourself. Find and place each relationship and experience in their right con-text, not as the whole picture of your life, but rather as one integrated part of that whole. When you understand that each person is there to highlight an aspect of yourself and to help you to connect to that component, only then can you understand the wisdom of your past choice. Only then can you embrace the new identity you seek – a whole, empowered, connected, free to be what you want to be ‘ME’.

To accept the new you must see the past for what it is: the training ground, preparation and the map to where you want to go. Understand that everything you want is already in motion. Every one of your experiences is part of the progression that is leading you to where you want to go. You must accept that all of your past is unfolding in perfect alignment with your life purpose to be the person you want to be and do what you want to do.