Life Commandments

It came to my attention last night that I have been taught throughout my life that my opinions are not valued.  We were doing some communication exercises, one in which I was the “speaker” so I was talking about my childhood fear of bees.  I kept repeating throughout my story of how it was an irrational fear and that statement was questioned by the “listener”.  He wanted to know why I thought it was an irrational fear when I had told him that I got stung a lot as a child – that question made me stop and think, why did I call it an irrational fear?  And then it dawned on me that my parents had told me over and over again that my fear of bees was irrational, told me this so often that I came to believe it even to this day. This belief that I have been taught is what is termed a life commandment – something that I live my life by to some degree.  Some life commandments are good, such as being taught to brush your teeth morning and night, but others like the above example can be damaging and cause us to question who we are.  The key is to learn to recognize these life commandments, sort the good from the bad, and then break the bad ones.  I don’t know yet how I will tackle breaking the life commandment that has taught me that my opinions have no value, but it is good that I now recognize it as an incorrect belief.  And as I tackle this one, perhaps I will be able to uncover more life commandments that need to be modified, one step at a time.