When I was about to turn 16, what I wanted most in the world was a red Pontiac Fiero. Despite evidence to the contrary, I convinced myself that it was possible I would get one for my birthday. I woke up that morning, fully picturing and feeling in my heart the car that would surely be gifted to me. I knew it was mine, that when I looked in the driveway, it would be there, waiting for my grabby, grateful hands. The disappointment I felt when I rose from bed and peered out of my bedroom window only to see an empty driveway was crushing. Fast Forward...Around ten years ago when I first dove into the world of personal development, shortly after moving to California, The Secret and other manifestation-type materials flooded the market. It was heady stuff: if I could only change my thinking--focus on what I wanted to attract instead of what I didn't--I would have everything I wanted with no more than the cost of concentration. The problem is that, while changing your thoughts will change your world, simply meditating on that shiny red convertible you covet or the hot bod you want will not make it pop into your world as if your fairy godmother granted your wish. Trust me: my vision boards were filled with things that never manifested themselves into my world, no matter how much I thought about them. Same Ol'Changing your thoughts is a starting place. If you aren't attuned to possibility, if your energy is focused on what you don't want or what you always do in a certain situation, there's no hope for a change of behavior. And if there's no change in behavior, you'll continue to get what you've always gotten: Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. ~Albert Einstein Once you change your perspective and get clear on what you want, you have the opportunity to make different choices than you have in the past. Unfortunately, this is where your habits and resistance kicks in, setting you up for more of the same. The actions we take are the fuel that gets us what we want, whatever that happens to be. We limit what is possible in our lives not only through our old stories and thinking, but also through our actions. To get what we want, we have to DO something different. We have to be willing to be uncomfortable. We have to have discipline, which, as Michael Hyatt quotes Andy Andrews "Discipline is making yourself do something you don't want to do in order to get a result you really want." How to Get (Almost) Everything You WantThe process of creating the life you want is easy, but uncomfortable. I resisted it for years, but once I began to consciously follow this process, my life began to change in the ways I desired.
Sandi Amorim has written an inspired book, The 100 Day Promise, and developed a class around these concepts plus a whole lot more. After three courses of following through on promises to myself, I finally see (duh) that there is no shortcut to doing the work. If you are looking for something to ready you for and guide you through the process, Sandi's guide and coaching can't be beat. For evidence all you need to know is that I. Don't. Run. And yet, I'm running, and I like it. (Well, once it's over, I like it and the happy little endorphins that show up. I still hate it while it's happening. But I'm doing it.) You already know what to do, you just have to be willing to be uncomfortable for a little bit while you step into a new story. Are you?
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I have been fortunate to have the house to myself and very limited items on my To Do list for the past six days. The space and quiet of the past almost-week have been transformative as I've had the time to think deeply and focus on what I want for my life without any interruptions. This morning, after completing my morning ritual of coffee, writing, and study, a simple contemplative question came to me. What story about myself or the world do I need to give up in order to have what I want?We all have stories we tell ourselves or which we learned from our family of origin. Sometimes we don't even recognize it as a story, so True from a habitual stance it is in our brains. Those stories can be useful and form a framework through which you organize your life. But often, especially when they are unexamined or deliberately chosen, they become the walls of our self-imposed prison.
We all have stories that don't serve our highest good. This is not an occasion to beat ourselves up; those stories once served an important purpose in our lives. The key is recognizing when it's time to revise, rewrite, or toss the story altogether. Like anything, it is a process. We come into awareness that something isn't working for us, we desire change, and we seem powerless to make the change. The story is pinchy, but a new story is scary and unknown. Growth demands letting go of the stories that no longer serve us. We have to lean into the discomfort of the unfamiliar to reap the benefits of growth and an expanded sense of what's possible in our lives. This is not easy. It never is. But: it is ultimately liberating and necessary if you want more for your life than you have right now. Albert Einstein said, "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it," and it is the questioning of our stories that creates this new consciousness. So, what story about myself or the world around me do I need to give up in order to have what I want? The two stories that have been nibbling at my edges are thus:
It is not an overnight process of eliminating this thinking from my life, but now that I have awareness, I can practice and write a new story. There's liberation on the other side of the discomfort. I'm curious; what story about yourself or the world around you do YOU need to give up in order to have what you want? I have been feeling like a sad little bear all morning long. My favorite conference in the world, the World Domination Summit, is happening in Portland, Oregon this weekend, and I'm not there. Likewise, my husband and his family are all in wine country in northern California for a family member's wedding. I am here in San Diego, all by myself, and I have been feeling Left Out. I'm seeing the posts of friends at the conference, feeling the desire to be there with them eating waffles in bed and drinking dark and stormies, anticipating the speakers and unbelievable high and connection with others that comes with this event. I Chose This.I was set to attend the wedding, already sad about missing out on WDS, when my youngest cat was diagnosed with asthma. When one of the medications took nearly a month to arrive, I made the decision to miss the wedding as well as it's an inhaled steroid, and there's been a definite learning curve for both me and Henry (the cat) to get used to the AeroKat device. Knowing you chose the path does not make it any easier to walk it sometimes. I was settling in to be like Eeyore for the next few days, and I felt awful. But there is another choice.I am a champion wallower, but this time, I decided to spend some time writing up some goals I have for the summer. The more I worked, the better I felt, and I decided to clear off the cork board to make space for what I want to remember each day instead of the cluttered mess it had become. I even dug out some pretty paper to back my goals, core desired feelings, and current promise for the 100 Day Promise program.
As I worked, I had a revolutionary thought: I can choose how these next few days will feel. If I want to feel like I am rejected and missing out, I can feel that way. But also? If I want to feel nourished, connected, and happy, I can feel that way instead. The difference is the lens I choose to use. Which path would you choose? For me, it's a no-brainer. I am now looking at all the gifts this time at home are giving me, and I am starting to feel excited by the possibilities. It has even occurred to me that the gift of not going to this year's WDS might be learning to feed and inspire myself instead of relying on something or someone outside of myself to do it for me. I can be, must be, the architect of my growth, joy, achievements, and life. If I wait for something outside of me to do it, it will never happen. Of course, I knew this already, in my brain. But my body? My being? Sometimes it takes a little longer for those guys to catch up. The next few days I am creating my own little retreat, just for me. Green juice. Delicious food. Reading. Writing. Creating the space to accomplish my goals and beginning to plug away at them. I get to choose how I feel, and I choose to feel good. What about you? I've been stuck for a long time, trapped by my own perceptions, by an upbringing that was equal parts Pretend and Judge Harshly.
I feel a little sick writing this, but I know it is time. Pretending not to feel the way I feel has never been my strong suit; it is probably the main reason my mother and I fought so deeply most of my life. Her untreated anxiety demanded certain concessions, and my wiring towards telling the truth because of my own anxiety demanded calling bullshit on her expectations. You can imagine the conflict of those two mindsets in the same house. I was expected to pretend, and because I couldn't, there were penalties to pay. I want to say that, flaws and all, I did love my mother. That much is true. But the relationship was a troubled one because I would not, could not, pretend. My friends all know this story. It took years to sift through things to make who I am okay instead of taking the blame for our relationship. I could not be the daughter she wanted me to be, and she could not accept the truth of my experience of being her daughter. The relationship was never more than surface deep because I cannot play pretend, and she could not admit to imperfection. I have come to a place of compassion for my mother. She had untreated anxiety and depression, and she became stuck in her victimhood. I know the devil of anxiety, and when you are in the thick of it, you do what you have to in order to relieve the symptoms. She lived in a time where therapy and medication were huge stigmas, and her perfectionism would not allow her to go there. She suffered, and because she suffered, the rest of us did as well. Or maybe not; maybe I was the only one who suffered. I can only really speak of my experience as my father died shortly before she did and my brother doesn't talk about our lives growing up. I do not know the truth of what they experienced. I do know my own, and it is that story I have kept unexpressed within my family for so long. I have kept quiet because my people don't talk about these sorts of things. There is plenty of shit talking in smaller, behind the scenes groups, but in the collective? Everything is fantastic. Conflicts are set aside, hidden, buried, and passive-aggressively acted out. This is what I fear. Right here. Airing the dirty laundry, betraying my family story. The thing is, I fully accept that others' experiences may be different from my own, and I accept my responsibility for my own part in co-creating our experiences. I have actively distanced myself from others because I did not feel safe. But I don't know if it's safe or not because, other than with my mother, father, and brother, I have never tried to have the difficult conversations. I have assumed that my aunts and uncles disapprove of me because of my choices, especially the one to distance myself from my mother. I have been my own worst critic on this issue; what kind of daughter and all that. But, simultaneously, I hold this thought: Moving to California and setting firm boundaries saved my life. I mean that literally. We can never step into who we truly are and what we deeply want to become if we spend our lives seeking approval and bending ourselves to what others want us to be. My mother expected perfection, so I did as well. Because perfection was not possible, not in my own eyes and definitely not in hers, I set myself up for failure again and again. If perfection was not possible, why even try? It's a silly example, but it's an example of how my mother approached everything: When I was sick, I got yelled at for blowing my nose too much. When my brother was sick, he got yelled at for blowing his nose too little. I never did figure out what the perfect amount of nose blowing would be. It is one of the great mysteries of life. I see this now as a symptom of her anxiety, of wanting her outside world to calm her inside world. I have so much compassion for her, and I wish she'd found some peace. I owe her deep discomfort for setting me off on my own path where I have found a way to manage my anxiety and find not only peace, but true joy. Pressing Publish on this entry might have consequences, but they might not. The truth is, I do not know, and I am already experiencing the separation and disapproval I feared would happen if I spoke my truth. Not at the hands of my family, but at my own hands. Maybe they will be angry, but maybe not. Ultimately, they get to feel how they want to feel about whatever they want to feel it about. Today, however, I reclaim my personal power and my right to feel the way I feel about things. I get to say, These things are true for me, and that's what's informed my choices. No one else has to agree, and their feelings or thoughts about me do not change who I am. But it is time to be free of these fears. I deserve to be free. So be it. |