Uncovering The Hidden Root of My Suffering.
Hold on, so I have nothing and no one to blame out there?
A question I was asking myself when we left an old life in Italy and started a new chapter in Tenerife.
Everything was apparently fine. Place I was living in, people I met there, my physical condition, financial freedom.
So where is the problem?? Why do I feel sad and empty so often?
This was how I gradually shifted from seeking answers in the external world to searching for them within myself.
At some point, the realization came out… I could be wherever I want, having all the free time I want, having the freedom to travel all around the world, being surrounded by the nice people, but I wasn’t happy.
I was trying to find happiness only by changing circumstances in the outside world, but I couldn’t reach it if inside myself I was bringing with me the heavy baggage of my beliefs from the past.
Beliefs play a profound role in shaping my perception and reality.
Trapped in the Victim Mentality
In the first chapter of my life, I often felt that there was a world and situations happening first and separated from myself, and then there was me, my feelings, and internal states as a consequences of those outer situations.
For too long, I pointed fingers at external forces—work, place where I lived, people, weather and many more reasions my mind was daily invented. I felt that what most profoundly influenced how I felt were events that I couldn’t control.
If I didn’t feel good somewhere, the only solution I saw possible was to leave that situation with hope that it won’t comeback to my life anymore.
Well, unfortunately in many cases it showed up again, just maybe in slightly different form.
I was so convinced that I had no power to change what I was seeing. During this phase, when I didn’t feel happy, I blamed external events for my internal states, for how I felt.
When I didn’t pass the test for university in Italy and had no Plan B, I blamed external circumstances, professors, and ultimately myself for not being adequately prepared for the exam.
When faced with challenges at work, my initial response was to blame my boss and the nature of my job, perceiving it as a misfortune to have found such employment.
When I had a conflict with someone close, I first pointed out a finger and saw fault in them.
During a period of my life when I viewed everything around me through a negative lens, my mind daily found dissatisfaction rooted in various aspects: Milan, a city with foggy days, very hot summers, and very cold winters. People were always in a hurry, chasing who knows what, while their life slipped away without them realizing. I observed everything from a higher perspective, criticizing the life that circumstances had led me to live. Many reasons to feel unhappy, right? But was Milan really like that? Or was it just my mind wanting to find each day a new reason and the cause of my unhappiness?
I can’t even count all those times I felt as a victim of what was happening to me. Obviously it was easier to look at my life in this way rather than take a responsibility for my choices.
I wanted to change my life and I was convinced that if I change my job, the environment, the people and relationships with them, I will be finally able to live a happy life.
In that period, I was overlooking the most crucial factor — the roots of my perception.
Chasing Happiness: Navigating the Paradox of External Pursuits
The second phase in my life began when I started leaving everything I believed was causing dissatisfaction in my life. I left a job that didn’t fulfill me, my partner and I left a city where we weren’t very happy, leaving behind certainties and jumped into the unknown.
In this period of my life I was convinced that if I leave everything that was creating me sadness and dissatisfaction behind, I will finally achieve happiness and liberation.
However, once again life showed me it’s not about primarily about what was happening to me out there.
When I was in Tenerife, I fully realized that, at that moment, “out there,” I had everything I wanted. Still, I fell into states of emptiness and inexplicable sadness. That was precisely the beginning of a much-needed transformation in my life when I started doubting whether events in my external world were responsible for how I truly felt.
People around me who knew about my sadness were telling me, “Niki, look where you live, in a paradise, with no health and financial problems, with amazing partner and friends by your side. My god, you live a so called ‘perfect life.’
Despite this, I spend days sitting in my room, crying and asking myself, why do I feel the way I feel?
I had the same feelings as when I lived life in Milan, with the difference that at that moment in Tenerife, I no longer had anyone or anything to blame in the external world because everything was simply what I had always wanted.
This was when I started exploring what lied behind those states.
Coming to the Source of My Suffering
The third phase began when I’ve gradually began to observe how certain situations and emotional states repeats. Whenever I achieve something in life, I feel happy for a bit, but then I quickly fall into a sense of dissatisfaction, like I’m never good enough. At some point, last year in March, I stumbled upon a webinar titled ‘Break the Cycles That Repeat in Your Life’. Without knowing why, my heart skipped a beat, and I was certain this programme held answers to my unanswered questions. So, I signed up.
The programme was led by a therapist from New Zealand with a powerful life story, addressing why certain situations and events persist and repeat even in different forms despite my numerous efforts to change them.
During those two weeks, I figured out something big: my view of things goes deeper than just what’s happening around me — it’s linked to my strong beliefs, some of which I had carried since childhood.
External circumstances are undoubtedly important, but what if it’s the other way around? What if my perception, chooses from a reality of infinite possibilities exactly that what will simply confirm my beliefs?
Even though I’ve tried positive stuff like affirmations and meditation before, I often lost interest over time. These weeks showed me that while I was trying to change my thoughts, my beliefs are much more powerful force, shaping how I see the world more than outside stuff ever could.
Beliefs are intangible, hidden forces. I’m able to perceive the world around me, but I often overlook where this perception come from. I just see it and believe it’s an absolute truth.
However, life has gracefully taught me that the external world and situations are mostly and inherently neutral, in my case even perfect. It’s entirely within my power to choose which “color” I decide to assign to each circumstance.
I’ve discovered that while changing external circumstances is undoubtedly important, they aren’t the primary source of my happiness or dissatisfaction. My suffering largely originates from the beliefs I hold about those external situations.
And maybe by letting go of old beliefs, I create space for new ones to emerge.
And by this, I don’t mean that I should have stayed trapped in a situation where I feel unhappy. What I mean is that perhaps, or as I’ve come to experience, the source of my unhappiness goes beyond what happens out there.
The process of letting go isn’t for me as straightforward as to simply write about it. Unless the unconscious becomes conscious, change becomes a little bit hard. In other words, without identifying the beliefs shaping my perception of the world, changing my view and internal state remains a challenge.
What Colors Were Shaping My Life Up to Now? Creating Space for a New Perspective
This realization marks the beginning of the fourth chapter in my journey. I find myself recognizing old programs and filters that have created my perception since I was born. And 2023 was mostly about this.
Unconscious patterns and associated feelings that all these years were controlling my life are now surfacing.
Somewhere within, I sense an opportunity to acknowledge these patterns and accept the fact that they were creating my identity for so many years. Deep within, I sense an opportunity to not only recognize these old beliefs but also to accept that they have played a crucial role in shaping my reality. Now, it’s time to release them.
And if this is how I’m making room for new beliefs? What if I’m already creating a new perspective that aligns with my desires?
In upcoming articles, I will discuss different stages I was going through, emerging beliefs and how identifying with them is, in some ways, limiting my ability to feel happy and satisfied in the amazing life I have the opportunity to fully embrace whenever I choose.