Beyond the Beliefs I Inherited
I’ve come to believe that my opportunity in life is to desire, to dream, to envision and build — to be unlimited. The Divine gathers all the pieces and assembles them for me with great joy.
Finding this freedom has been quite a journey. Never a straight line, it’s taken years of unearthing limitation and accepting my innate worth.
We absorb far more than we realize during childhood. Long before we have language for it, we are taking in what we see, what we hear, what is modeled in quiet moments and casual comments.
These impressions shape how we understand ourselves—our worth, our potential, our sense of what success and abundance are. At the time, we’re rarely aware that these experiences are planting seeds in our thinking. But they take root nonetheless.
For many of us, part of our adult work is the slow and sometimes tender unearthing of these inherited beliefs—the ones that have been quietly educating our perspective for decades. We begin to ask not only what do I believe? but where did this belief come from? And just as importantly, does it still belong to me?
Lately, I’ve been reflecting deeply on abundance. I’m intentionally working to discard a limited sense of life, which means questioning assumptions I didn’t realize were still guiding me. Questions like: Am I worthy of beautiful opportunities? Of ease? Of prosperity? Is it safe—or even good—to want them?
Besides encouragement to be responsible and thankful, I was also taught not to want too much. Gratitude was often framed as restraint. Neediness was something to avoid. Desire could be interpreted as selfishness, or ingratitude. I observed a quiet pride in frugality and philanthropy—as though denying oneself, or giving from scarcity, somehow made a person morally good.
Then came comparisons. Why does it seem easier for some than others? Why do I struggle more than certain peers? Am I less worthy? Do I make more mistakes? Am I insufficiently grateful? Do I not work hard enough? These questions surfaced not because they are true, but because they were taught—directly or indirectly—as explanations of scarcity.
Comparison arrives in many disguises. Some we learn to avoid, while others persist.
This morning, in a quiet moment, something shifted. I sat watching mist rise from long-awaited rainfall, the earth receiving what it needed without apology or hesitation. In that stillness, my own thirst for a breakthrough was quenched.
I saw clearly what must replace those old, weary beliefs—because healing requires not only releasing what no longer serves us, but consciously choosing what takes its place. Otherwise, the old patterns simply return.
While I’ve searched to fully identify with and accept the innate virtues of abundance—like the freedom to be generous and impactful—I’ve noticed something important.
I do not question God’s love for me. I trust that She knows me completely. By grace, Her love is unconditional—awake, attentive, and offered from an expansive vision of infinite possibility.
My favorite childhood parable has a tender moment that shows me the pure love of the Divine. When the prodigal son returns, his father is not withholding, not cautious, not calculating. He is waiting. Watching. And when he sees his child, he runs to meet him. He greets him eagerly, abundantly, exactly where he is.
In this moment, abundance—made visible through the best coat and the ring bestowed on the beloved child—is not a reward but a celebration: pure joy, unlimited good. It needs no moral explanation. It is Life and Love expressing themselves in fullness.
I fully believe in this love, which meets every belief of unworthiness, every trace of shame, every inherited limitation, and answers them with the steady truth that by grace, light and Life are already ours. Mine, yours, and everyone’s.
From this knowing, my gaze turns outward. I begin to see this same light in places of poverty and war, and in those whose own thoughts keep them bound in quiet suffering, as I’ve done.
I release now the old cloaks of righteous limitation. I am ready to put on the garment my divine parent has prepared for me. In this place, generational beliefs don’t influence me. Scarcity no longer defines the edges of my life.
Abundance, I’ve learned, is not something we earn. It’s something we remember. It’s always there, waiting for us to return, to allow its natural gifts into our lives.
“Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation.
The kettle is on, the voice is within you.”
- David Whyte
Honest Heart Journeys offers restorative travel experiences and sisterhood community that reconnect women with themselves, each other, and the joy of living fully - through connection, growth, and celebration.
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