We all have those memories of earlier times and experiences where an impression was made on our minds, spirit, and belief systems – positive and happy ones, sad and doubtful, scary and overwhelming, and complete and utter shock. The spectrum of emotions we feel during these memories is infinite, with no two situations and reactions the same. Buried beneath those lifelong memories are silent but destructive beliefs that are running on autopilot. Mere seconds, minutes, and sometimes hours affect our beliefs at their core for the rest of our lives. Some events are so traumatic that you will want to work with a psychiatrist while others we can tackle ourselves. I found it was easier to do this work when talking out loud with others, friends, mentors, or coaches.
An example would be a child being stung at a young age – we’ve all been there and many times remember the first “bee bite”. For some of us, we hold on to the pain and fear we observed as a kid and grow to have an absolute negative reaction to the idea of a bee even flying near us. This kind of impact moment has created a learned fear – something you experienced firsthand and hope to never have to again. We must first recognize where and when the impact moment happened, birthing our fear, so we can consciously choose to react differently the next time it occurs, switching our mentality around the springtime stingers to a more open and accepting one and probably decreasing our chances of being stung again.
Impact moments are unique to each of us. Collectively, we can all experience a similar situation and yet be impacted differently. It’s important to remember not to judge your reaction, this is about Clarity, understanding you, and why you are the way you are. The Clarity of self is the opportunity to pause and make a different decision. So, it’s important to do the work to excavate the impact moments that affect us.
What are emotional reactions, like triggers, that are happening in your life right now that you would like to change? The answers are found by excavating through your past… a task easier said than done. But I promise one that has more benefits to your mental, emotional and even physical wellbeing than you might ever realize. But why must we unearth the tightly packed away traumatic moments if we can’t easily pull them from our memory banks? Isn’t it better to let sleeping dogs lie? No, not even in the slightest; especially if you truly want to understand what has been holding you back in growing yourself, your career, your personal life, and so on and so forth. Discovering what my impact moments were allowed me to understand myself to make different decisions, but best of all, gave me the courage to see I can handle whatever comes my way.
Importance of Identifying My Impact Moments
When I started this work, I was in a position where I had no choice but to look, but today I still find myself in situations where I need to go back in my past to understand my actions in the present. I hate to use this cliche phrase, but it fits like a glove here: “You can’t fix what you don’t know.” How can we pressure ourselves to move toward the lives we’ve always wanted without working through the fears and obstacles that have been preventing us for years?
I want to tell you about what is happening to me today, something I haven’t talked publicly about until now:
I’m sitting in a hematologist oncologist’s office feeling silly, stupid, and unworthy of being there. So many emotions have nothing to do with why I’m there. You see, no one has been able to explain the medical issues I’m having and I’m terrified that I have something terrible or worse, it’ll end with me having a stroke. My blood pressure has been spiking dangerously high off and on when I am in high altitudes plus my white and red blood cells are elevated. So here I am sitting at the office of this nice young Dr. who had been described to me as Doogie Howser waiting to hear what he has to say. “You don’t have a blood disease and good news you’re cancer-free.”
Logic would tell me to be excited and relieved, but instead, I walk out feeling worse. Not because I don’t have the answers. Why then? Talking with a friend, I discover it’s based on a past relationship with a specialist, and Impact Moments. My childhood was filled with trips to specialty doctors trying to figure out what was wrong with me.
Being ADHD was new and I was the first one in my elementary to be diagnosed. We would drive hours to get to the specialist, where they would talk down to me, not care what I wanted, or how I was feeling and seemed to only be concerned about the results I was having in school and how controllable I was.
As soon as I made that connection, it all made sense why I was almost in tears as I left the doctor’s office the other day. I sat in his office as an 8-year-old not as an adult. As my medical mystery continues, I now have the opportunity to dive into this more, and the next opportunity to talk to specialists I can do so as an adult and not feel the shame of taking up their time to deal with me.
I deserve answers; I deserve a healthy life and I feel like I just won the lottery because now I can react differently and become the advocate I need to be for myself.
How to Discover What Your Impact Moments Are
I want to tell you how to find out what your Impact Moments are. How is the work done so we can pull ourselves out of the fear pit?
Let’s take it step by step here and walk you through the process. I crafted not only for my Rebrand You Coaching Program but for my personal use when I was first rediscovering who it was I am.
Step 1 | Write down moments in your past that strongly stand out. They can be of a wonderful birthday party you had, a death of a loved one, or when you were so scared you never told anyone. Beautiful moment count too, that moment when your first love told you “I love you”, or the birth of your first child. Whatever it is, write them all down.
Step 2 | Answer these three questions next to each memory.
- Do I perceive this it a positive or negative?
- Do I still perceive this as a positive or negative?
- Does it still impact me today?
Step 3 | Think about what changes came from this impact moment? How did you apply what you learned from that moment in your life?
How Impact Moments Affect Our Lives
Identifying Impact Moments has been a life-changing experience for me. Something I will continue to do my entire life. Today it’s much easier to look back and quickly see threads of a series of events that all lead back to a moment than it was when I first started. This will take some time so don’t rush the process. Talking it out with someone has always helped me. I developed a lot of my Clarity when I discussed my shortcoming and fears with my business coach Fireman Rob, and yes, he really is a fireman. I am a verbal processor and if you find you are too or want someone to discuss your impact moments with, I would be honored to work with you. All you have to do is reach out and schedule a free Discovery meeting with me.
My gift to you right now, is this Impact Moment download. It’s a page right out of my Rebrand You Coaching program, CORE Identity discovery book. I hope you find Clarity in this activity as I did in my life.
