Dr. Bridget Cooper is a cage rattler. Her penchant for confronting old beliefs and challenging thought patterns is helping people to break from from old negative beliefs and ideas. Dr. B is passionate about showing you that a new way and a new life is possible.
Old Contracts
Many people want so desperately to recover from anxiety issues, but find themselves trapped by old beliefs and ideas that tell them that they are not capable of recovery. The belief that one is less than, not strong enough, not smart enough, or simply not worthy of recovery can be crippling to the process of recovery.
Dr. Bridget frames these old negative beliefs as “old contracts” that you were forced to sign well before you had the knowledge, maturity, or ability to understand them or even sign them. You’ve been given contracts against your will, and you’ve been acting in accordance with those contracts.
Here is news. You are entitled to tear up those old contracts. You didn’t choose them. You didn’t understand them. You didn’t have the ability or opportunity to read them or object to them. You can declare your old contracts null and void. This is the first step toward shattering old beliefs and ideas that have been keeping you stuck.
Confronting The Choice In Front Of You
In order to tear up those old life contracts that have held you back, you often must confront the fact that YOU HAVE A CHOICE. This can be uncomfortable and difficult to do, but it is vital. Coming to grips with the fact that you have power and choice, and choosing to exercise that power and make those choices, is hard. It requires hard work and a willingness to abandon the past and go into new and uncomfortable places. But accepting and exercising your power to make new choices is far more useful and effective than simply re-telling old stories forever.
Time Zones
If old beliefs and ideas are holding you back, you are living in the past.
Anxiety by definition is a future construct.
In reality, the ONLY power we have exists in the present! Refusing to give up the past, or living fearfully and obsessively in the future, are both dead ends. We can not talk about the past forever and expect it to change, nor can be address things that haven’t happened yet and may never happen. All we can do is exist in the NOW, act in the present, and express our power and make changes TODAY.
Awareness Equals Choice. Choice Equals Power.
Once you are aware that you have been governed by old contracts that you can tear up, and you know you have a choice to change, you now have power. The power to make that change, or the power to choose to remain where you are. You can choose to stay stuck. That is a valid choice. But knowing what you know now about those bad contracts, your power, and your ability to choose, you must accept that choosing to remain where you are is YOUR call. There comes a time where you must accept responsibility for staying put. You may have been victimized in your past, but remaining a victim at some point becomes a choice. This is also an uncomfortable thing to hear, but you do near to hear it.
Are You Still Handing Out Your Pain Resumé?
Your pain resumé is the story and collection of all your trauma, all your bad experiences, and all the times you’ve been victimized in your life. Abuse, failed relationships, bad people, bad situations – all get recorded in your pain resumé. We all have one, and we carry it around with us forever. Carrying it with us, however, doesn’t mean we have to hand it out to everyone we meet. When you continually read your pain resumé to the world for years on end, you are remaining connected to everyone that has ever punished you in the past. You are suffering today and allowing them to hurt you without even being present any longer.
When you stop handing out your pain resumé to everyone you meet, you are deciding to cut your ties with the past. Cutting those ties means not letting your past punish you any longer. The past becomes not a source of pain and torture, but a source of wisdom.
Rage. Is. Beautiful.
Sometimes, we must get ANGRY before we can tear up our old contracts, accept our power and our ability to choose a new way, and to cut our ties with our past and the victimization we experienced. Often anger is seen as a negative or unproductive thing. Dr. B sees it differently. She sees rage as a beautiful thing. Not rage expressed as violence or the acting out against another human being or group of human beings. This is the feeling of rage. Dr. B calls views rage as the declaration of the human spirit that “it has been injured, and it deserves better.” She sees rage as the soul screaming out for validation. In this way, Dr. B sees the feeling of rage as a form of love for oneself and one’s spirit and soul.
So … get angry. Feel the rage. Let your spirit declare that it has had enough and demands better. Accept the choices that lie in front of you, accept your power, and choose a new way. Tear up those old contracts. Recovery -and a better life – await when you do.
Dr. Bridget Cooper (Dr. B)
Website: http://drbridgetcooper.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbridgetcooper/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bridget.cannoncooper
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Bridget-Cooper/e/B00LXT7R26
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Podcast Intro/Outro Music: "Afterglow" by Ben Drake (With Permission)
