When our conditioned patterns are in charge, we’re out of touch with our natural capacity to fully express ourselves in life. Acting as if is a way to experiment beyond these limitations to discover our inherent peace and happiness.
Let’s take feeling inadequate as an example. If this is your reality, you view life through the lens of thoughts telling you you’re not good enough. Then you conclude that you’ll fail or you’re not worthy of being satisfied in life.
You might spend your time thinking about the disappointing things that happened in your past that you blame for your inadequacy. And inside you feel anxious, downtrodden, and hopeless. The inadequate persona inhabits your body by constricting your breathing and weighing down your posture. It affects your relationships and choices in life.
But what if you were to act as if you’re free of the veil of inadequacy? Really get into it, not believing you’re limited in any way, letting the brain and body rearrange so you get the visceral, felt experience of being fully present and open to life.
If you were comfortable in your own skin, how would you walk and stand? What would you say and how would you say it? What would you do when self-critical thoughts appear in the mind?
See how acting as if can be a powerful way to break through false identities?
Accessing Your Deepest Knowing
Acting as if gets you to connect with your natural intelligence that already knows peace and happiness. If you identify as inadequate, how do you know how to act as if you’re free?
What a surprise to realize that something in you already knows unlimited being. The prompt to act as if guides you into truth and clear seeing. It takes you out of the limited, programmed ways of being and delivers you right into the vast potential of your true nature.
If you’ve been waiting for life to bring you what you’re hoping for, you might want to experiment with acting as if.
Reflect on an edge in you that wants to experiment with act as if, and let the new experience land deeply in your mind, heart, and body. Shed ideas about yourself that aren’t true and open to unbounded potential. Here are some possibilities.
Act as if: you’re free of the mind’s limitations.
- How would you make decisions?
- What would your daily life be like?
- What would you do when things don’t go as planned?
Act as if: you’re free of the pain from your past.
- What would you do differently in your life?
- How would you show up in your relationships?
- How would you relate to strong feelings that arise in you?
Act as if: you’re so much bigger than your imagined limits.
- How would you feel in your body?
- What would you do with limiting thoughts?
- How would you relate to other people?
- How would you know what actions to take?
Beyond Fear and Limitation
You may be an expert at acting as if you’re miserable, disappointed, and the subject of your stories of personal lack and unhappiness. And it’s amazing to realize there’s always another possibility.
Act as if the light of universal presence infuses every cell—because it does. Act as if you don’t let fear get in your way—because who you are is way beyond what fear tells you.
What happens to all those limits you thought you were stuck with? They miraculously dissolve, and here you are, with a sweet, knowing smile on your face.
