First, for those of you reading, forgive me for the time that's gone by. A few weeks ago, I sat at my computer, intent on writing Step 5. In those beginning moments of writing, when I'm accustomed to centering myself and gathering my thoughts, I instead experienced a complete and total paralysis. It was not writer's block; it was much bigger than that. I would perhaps call it life block. Unexpectedly, and with no warning, I felt an overwhelming frustration. It was an all-encompassing, mind-halting, horrible feeling. I knew what I wanted to say, but quite literally could not convince my mind to join me in the task of writing. As I recall it now, I remember thinking that the feeling must have been something like what a person with chronic ADD feels. I simply could not focus, and I began to feel frantic. After about an hour of this struggle, I gave in. Step 5 was not going to be written that day.
I then took a step back from this blog, accepting that something in my own life must need attention before I could write the next step in achieving a life of personal power. I was unclear about the details, but knew I was not in the position to be offering any sort of guiding thought; there was a realization I needed to come to.
Step 5 is about getting clear on what it is we actually want. Many self improvement philosophies contain this concept. They pretty much all repeat that, in order to create the happiness, relationships, and success you desire, you must get crystal clear about what exactly it is that you want. Until you've done this, you're providing the universe with mixed messages, and strong results cannot be delivered in such an environment.
Initially, when I sat to write Step 5 a few weeks ago, my intent was to capsulize my own take on this concept, phrase it in a way that I thought would be most useful, and send it out there for you all to read. What I did not consider, though - and perhaps I was to a certain extent in my own place of denial - was that I've been struggling greatly with this concept recently in my own personal life.
I realized just last night (so this is fresh off the press, my friends), that there is a reason why the idea of needing to get clear on what we want invites a huge amount of fear for many people. I can only tell you what I've experienced, but I'm wagering a guess that there are many, many people out there who can relate.
For me, the idea of getting clear on what exactly it is that I want seems to close a part of me. It's as though I physically feel limitation, and yet cannot pin point why. Last night, I found myself giving this some serious thought. I've accepted for years that I must get clear on what I want before I can get it, so why did the process of determining the specifics make me feel claustrophobic? That's when I realized an underlying assumption I had been making. I realized that, within the process of clearly naming what it was that I wanted, I felt the need to determine what it was exactly that I wanted for the rest of my life.
Can you imagine the pressure? In the middle of trying to specify what I wanted the next months or year of my life to look like, I felt locked in a crazy world of labyrinths all leading to different possible futures. Needless to say, in this atmosphere, nothing but insanity ensues. We can't help but think: "What if I choose the wrong thing? What if doing this now will not lead to what I want to be doing five years from now? Or thirty years from now? I need to figure out what I want to be doing thirty years from now in order to know what I should be wanting to do now! " I'm sorry, but in the words of Frank Berone from Everybody Loves Raymond, "Holy Crap!!!"
The notion that we should know what we want the rest of our lives to look like is absurd and in fact limiting in its own way, and yet, at the end of the day, we all feel this pressure. I felt it immensely. But I see something much more clearly now, and I hope traveling this odd blog entry with me will help you see it too. What I realized last night is this: If we were able to sit here, right now, and determine exactly, with crystal clear clarity, what we wanted the rest of our life to look like, there would be no point in living it.
Truthfully, my friends, I cannot imagine a more stagnant life than one I planned out for myself one day in September 2010. First of all, why would I do that to myself? Why would I hold myself hostage for the rest of my life to the person I was at thirty-one years old? Why would I stunt my growth and close myself off to possibilities that don't even exist yet? I'm getting this comical vision of myself at age fifty or sixty saying, "Hello, possibility. You look awfully great but you see, I'm living the life I planned out for myself a few decades ago, so take care, bye-bye now!"
Secondly, even if I wanted to consciously choose such an absurd path, I literally don't think it would be possible. It is human nature to evolve, and evolution directly determines desire. We cannot know we want something until we've been introduced to it. So, deciding right now, today, what we want for the rest of our life presupposes that every single thing we will be introduced to from here forward, we will not want. Every single new idea or invention will hold no temptation. Every single new person we meet will not be significant. This is not possible. Not if your heart is beating. Also, life would have absolutely no luster. I would dare call this sort of life "lifeless," which kind of defeats the point, doesn't it?
So, with all of this rambling in mind, I'd just like to say that, while it is important to reach for a certain amount of clarity in life, there is never a need to feel bound. Be kind to yourself, both present and future. Respect the path you're traveling. Know that it's leading you where you want to go, even as the itinerary changes. Instead of stressing yourself out trying to predict every color and brush stroke on your life's canvas, trust that you will have a blast painting in each detail as you get there.
Certainty is most definitely a gift, but the danger that follows is in thinking we should do nothing if we are not certain. If there is something you want, right now, today, DO IT. Don't get caught up in whether or not it fits in to some foggy, distant plan. Things have a way of fitting. Experiences come together in myriad ways, providing ever new and more exciting opportunities. My guess is, when we are all old and looking back on our lives, we won't regret one single instance when we decided to "go for it." In fact, it's kind of fun to think about a life as a series of "go for it" moments. What will your next one be? I implore you, for the sake of your happiness and the happiness of those who love you - don't get stuck in a two-dimensional picture of what you think your life should look like. Go out and live it. You might just amaze yourself.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Becoming Powerful YOU: Step 4
There is a well-hidden treasure trove burried within the journey of discovering our own personal power. Unearthing it, I assure you, is a life-changing event. It is found when we take a look at certain aspects of life that, left unexamined, seem completely mysterious. Since these aspects of life have no obvious function or purpose, we often take the option of letting them run on auto-pilot. We haven't taken the time to notice their impact on our day-to-day life, so we go about living in the dark of what are actually powerful forces that drive many of our actions.
The most significant of these mysterious forces is our beliefs. We don't often - if ever - think about it, but every single action we take begins with a belief. We get into our car and drive to work in the morning because we believe we will have a safe journey. We lie in bed at night and drift off to sleep because we believe that we will wake up the following morning. We call a friend and make plans because we believe we will enjoy the visit.
In Step 3, we talked about the practice of self-vigilance, which allows us to witness our thought process from a place of deep connection with our inner, most genuine selves. If you've tried this practice, you'll surely have had some surprising revelations! By taking a step back and creating a gap between our true self (our inner "I") and our thoughts, we begin to realize the vast variety and quantity of thoughts that stream through our mind. Most likely, you'll also have noticed that far more of those thoughts than you would have predicted are negative and/or self-deprecating.
This point of realization is where we enter the arena of belief. A belief, simply put, is a practiced thought. We've thought the thought enough times that we've determined it to be undeniably true, and it is added to our list of belief statements. Usually, we've thought the thought as many times as we have because of life circumstances - i.e. we've driven our car to work safely enough times that we no longer merely think we will arrive safely, we believe we will. Of course, it is easy to see with this example that a belief is not a guarantee. Life may have shown us that it is reasonable to expect a safe travel to work, but there is always the slight chance that we will get into an accident. This is a risk we are willing to take; it is small enough that it does not alter our belief.
What, then, about the beliefs we hold about ourselves? Or others? Or money? Or love? Or health? A belief is nothing more than a practiced thought. I invite you to choose a belief you hold about any of these topics and really sit with it for a minute.
No, seriously. Pick one. It might not be as easy as it sounds. You might need to focus on a topic for a moment. Don't worry. Consciously follow your train of thought and you'll find one.
Where does this belief come from? What life experiences have formed it? And - here's the real zinger - how does this belief fuel your present and future decisions? Does it allow you to enjoy your life, perhaps even passionately? Or does it hold you back in some way? Does it encourage growth and/or any version of success you'd like to have? Or does it keep you in a place you consider mediocre? Does it foster positive interaction with other people? Or does it tend to lead to disappointment? Does it make you feel fearless? Or fearful?
In the same way that thoughts are not inherently bad, beliefs are not inherently bad. They are, however, often inherently flawed. Beliefs, like thoughts, are tools that act as the creating force behind our actions. The difference between a thought and a belief is as follows: A thought arises spontaneously, leaving us the choice to accept or deny it. A belief is molded over time, made up of thoughts we have already decided to accept. Therefore, there is a consciousness, and should be a level of ownership associated with a belief.
Why, then, do we so often hold such negative, limiting beliefs? Friends, this whole business of belief can get pretty messy when we remember that, without the practice of self-vigilance, we have been blindly and unconsciously accepting thoughts all of our life! We build our beliefs out of thoughts we've previously collected. If we were collecting those thoughts without paying attention to whether we really wanted to call them our own, then we are building beliefs out of foreign, unknowable, and perhaps even damaged materials! The building blocks of our beliefs are ours and ours only. So, it naturally follows that, if we have been forming beliefs all of our life out of thoughts we have not fully examined, we are walking around with all sorts of misshapen, poorly structured beliefs that do not represent who we really are. Our beliefs are flawed - not because they are wrong, but simply because they do not reflect our true nature.
Here is the treasure trove: Your beliefs are yours and they are powerfully moving you through every moment of your life. If you are willing to pay attention to your thoughts, to accept only those that serve you and mold new beliefs that truly define who you are, you will begin to experience unprecedented levels of power over your personal self. It is not even necessary to dismantle your old, flawed beliefs. With your new, more conscious, more stable ones in tow, the old beliefs will, quite quickly and uneventfully, crumble. They will crumble. So don't even focus there. Just start building, my friends. Take every thought that moves you, every thought that makes you smile, every thought that rings a note that resonates in your heart, and start building.
The most significant of these mysterious forces is our beliefs. We don't often - if ever - think about it, but every single action we take begins with a belief. We get into our car and drive to work in the morning because we believe we will have a safe journey. We lie in bed at night and drift off to sleep because we believe that we will wake up the following morning. We call a friend and make plans because we believe we will enjoy the visit.
In Step 3, we talked about the practice of self-vigilance, which allows us to witness our thought process from a place of deep connection with our inner, most genuine selves. If you've tried this practice, you'll surely have had some surprising revelations! By taking a step back and creating a gap between our true self (our inner "I") and our thoughts, we begin to realize the vast variety and quantity of thoughts that stream through our mind. Most likely, you'll also have noticed that far more of those thoughts than you would have predicted are negative and/or self-deprecating.
This point of realization is where we enter the arena of belief. A belief, simply put, is a practiced thought. We've thought the thought enough times that we've determined it to be undeniably true, and it is added to our list of belief statements. Usually, we've thought the thought as many times as we have because of life circumstances - i.e. we've driven our car to work safely enough times that we no longer merely think we will arrive safely, we believe we will. Of course, it is easy to see with this example that a belief is not a guarantee. Life may have shown us that it is reasonable to expect a safe travel to work, but there is always the slight chance that we will get into an accident. This is a risk we are willing to take; it is small enough that it does not alter our belief.
What, then, about the beliefs we hold about ourselves? Or others? Or money? Or love? Or health? A belief is nothing more than a practiced thought. I invite you to choose a belief you hold about any of these topics and really sit with it for a minute.
No, seriously. Pick one. It might not be as easy as it sounds. You might need to focus on a topic for a moment. Don't worry. Consciously follow your train of thought and you'll find one.
Where does this belief come from? What life experiences have formed it? And - here's the real zinger - how does this belief fuel your present and future decisions? Does it allow you to enjoy your life, perhaps even passionately? Or does it hold you back in some way? Does it encourage growth and/or any version of success you'd like to have? Or does it keep you in a place you consider mediocre? Does it foster positive interaction with other people? Or does it tend to lead to disappointment? Does it make you feel fearless? Or fearful?
In the same way that thoughts are not inherently bad, beliefs are not inherently bad. They are, however, often inherently flawed. Beliefs, like thoughts, are tools that act as the creating force behind our actions. The difference between a thought and a belief is as follows: A thought arises spontaneously, leaving us the choice to accept or deny it. A belief is molded over time, made up of thoughts we have already decided to accept. Therefore, there is a consciousness, and should be a level of ownership associated with a belief.
Why, then, do we so often hold such negative, limiting beliefs? Friends, this whole business of belief can get pretty messy when we remember that, without the practice of self-vigilance, we have been blindly and unconsciously accepting thoughts all of our life! We build our beliefs out of thoughts we've previously collected. If we were collecting those thoughts without paying attention to whether we really wanted to call them our own, then we are building beliefs out of foreign, unknowable, and perhaps even damaged materials! The building blocks of our beliefs are ours and ours only. So, it naturally follows that, if we have been forming beliefs all of our life out of thoughts we have not fully examined, we are walking around with all sorts of misshapen, poorly structured beliefs that do not represent who we really are. Our beliefs are flawed - not because they are wrong, but simply because they do not reflect our true nature.
Here is the treasure trove: Your beliefs are yours and they are powerfully moving you through every moment of your life. If you are willing to pay attention to your thoughts, to accept only those that serve you and mold new beliefs that truly define who you are, you will begin to experience unprecedented levels of power over your personal self. It is not even necessary to dismantle your old, flawed beliefs. With your new, more conscious, more stable ones in tow, the old beliefs will, quite quickly and uneventfully, crumble. They will crumble. So don't even focus there. Just start building, my friends. Take every thought that moves you, every thought that makes you smile, every thought that rings a note that resonates in your heart, and start building.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Becoming Powerful YOU: Step 3
Attaining power over your personal self is much like training for a triathlon. There are many incremental steps you will take along the way, and you will work to strengthen multiple skills at once. The great thing, though, about cultivating power over your personal self, is that a new awareness of one area of focus creates space for another area of focus to enter. In other words, embracing a new concept and trying it out in your own life will naturally prepare you for the next concept you wish to explore.
With this in mind, I'd like to talk about an essential practice that must be part of your foundation if you are going to live a life of personal power. Think of something you would never leave the house without. Your car keys. Your cell phone. Your wallet. Whatever it may be. That is how important this practice is. I urge you to carry it with you at all times and use it as often as possible throughout the day. Over time, it will become habit, but it would be helpful at first to have something that serves as a reminder. Tie a string around your wrist for a week. Put a sticker on the back of your cell phone. Paint your fingernails a funky color. Do something different that you will notice many times throughout your day and tell yourself that, every time you notice it, you will practice.
You get it. This is important. So what is this crucial practice that is about to become part of the backdrop of your life? It is what I call self-vigilance. Now, most often when someone thinks of a vigil, they think of either a religious ceremony, or an event to honor an ill person(s) or someone(s) who has tragically passed away. A vigil also tends to be associated with nighttime. What, then, does it mean to be vigilant with yourself? I use this word quite purposefully; I am not stretching its meaning or recreating it to serve my purpose. There is just one definition in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary for the word "vigilant." It reads:
vigilant : alertly watchful esp. to avoid danger.
Additionally, there is a broader use of the word "vigil" that does not pertain to a specific event or ceremony. In The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it is definition #4. It reads:
vigil : 4 : an act or a time of keeping awake when sleep is customary.
If you think about this for a moment from the perspective of achieving power over your personal self, you will see how perfectly it relates. In fact, with some thought, the implication is crystal clear. Self-vigilance is the practice of watching yourself. It is the call to be "alertly watchful" within your own mind and heart. Customarily, we are asleep to our own inner thinking. We do not consciously realize that there is an "I" that is separate from our thoughts. We think we are our thoughts and therefore we let our thoughts run our life. But, as demonstrated in Step 2, our thoughts frequently differ from our genuine intentions, and often do not serve us in our quest to live happy, fulfilling lives. Our task, then, is to take a step back from our thoughts, to "keep awake when sleep is customary" so that we can be aware of how our thoughts have a tendency to take us in directions we had not planned on and do not want.
You may be wondering - what is this "I" that is separate from our thoughts? The "I" that I am referring to is the constant, unshakeable consciousness that is You. It is home. Sometimes it is quiet, sometimes it is loud. Either way, you recognize it. It is the inner awareness that tells you when something feels correct or when something feels wrong. It is the inner guide that pulls from stored knowledge and allows you to make the best decision for you. It is the inner presence whose joy it is to constantly improve upon itself. It is the very essence that is acting out the reason you are here on this planet. Bluntly put, it is You, without the bull-shit. It is You, minus any sense of insecurity, doubt, limitation, or fear.
To get in touch with this inner "I" is the most valuable thing you will ever do for yourself. Make no mistake of that. Once you are consciously aware of the distinction between your inner "I" and your stream of thoughts, you can begin the most important work you have ever done. Simply by observing your thoughts from the perspective of the inner "I", you will widen the space between that which is real and that which has held you back in life. As the space widens, it becomes easier and easier to notice when you are having destructive thought patterns. And here is the gem: the more time you spend in the presence of your inner "I", the less powerful your thoughts are. Welcome to a world of complete freedom, a world where nothing keeps you from living the life you most want and deserve.
Just as a side note, I would like to point out that thoughts are not inherently bad. We are reasoning, thinking beings and this serves us well in terms of creating the material reality that surrounds us. By being vigilant of our self, however, we are able to filter and, once we've practiced for a while, even edit our thought process. The basic premise is this: thoughts are meant to be tools that our inner "I" uses to exist in this physical world. They are the horse. They are not the person plowing the field.
When we let our thoughts run our life, it is like letting a horse plow a field. (I know, my technology is outdated, but the analogy does not work with a tractor!) A horse would have no sense of the task we want to accomplish. It would run willy-nilly around the field, creating a mess. Our crops would have no chance! And that, friends, is my point. The inner "I", the real You, has purpose. We harvest that purpose by constantly returning to our real selves, our inner "I", and observing the thoughts that are running through our mind.
By practicing self-vigilance, we give our purpose a chance. It is that simple. Whatever you most want from your life, whatever you most desire to give, whatever you most wish to feel... All of it is possible. Begin by committing to yourself, this week, that you will "be awake when customarily asleep," that you will be "alertly watchful" of your thoughts so as to avoid the danger of letting them run the show. Let your inner "I" tell you when a thought does not feel good. If it does not speak to what you know, deep down, to be good and true about yourself, dismiss it. You are a powerful, intelligent, creative being. You know that, and you can begin to live it right now.
With this in mind, I'd like to talk about an essential practice that must be part of your foundation if you are going to live a life of personal power. Think of something you would never leave the house without. Your car keys. Your cell phone. Your wallet. Whatever it may be. That is how important this practice is. I urge you to carry it with you at all times and use it as often as possible throughout the day. Over time, it will become habit, but it would be helpful at first to have something that serves as a reminder. Tie a string around your wrist for a week. Put a sticker on the back of your cell phone. Paint your fingernails a funky color. Do something different that you will notice many times throughout your day and tell yourself that, every time you notice it, you will practice.
You get it. This is important. So what is this crucial practice that is about to become part of the backdrop of your life? It is what I call self-vigilance. Now, most often when someone thinks of a vigil, they think of either a religious ceremony, or an event to honor an ill person(s) or someone(s) who has tragically passed away. A vigil also tends to be associated with nighttime. What, then, does it mean to be vigilant with yourself? I use this word quite purposefully; I am not stretching its meaning or recreating it to serve my purpose. There is just one definition in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary for the word "vigilant." It reads:
vigilant : alertly watchful esp. to avoid danger.
Additionally, there is a broader use of the word "vigil" that does not pertain to a specific event or ceremony. In The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it is definition #4. It reads:
vigil : 4 : an act or a time of keeping awake when sleep is customary.
If you think about this for a moment from the perspective of achieving power over your personal self, you will see how perfectly it relates. In fact, with some thought, the implication is crystal clear. Self-vigilance is the practice of watching yourself. It is the call to be "alertly watchful" within your own mind and heart. Customarily, we are asleep to our own inner thinking. We do not consciously realize that there is an "I" that is separate from our thoughts. We think we are our thoughts and therefore we let our thoughts run our life. But, as demonstrated in Step 2, our thoughts frequently differ from our genuine intentions, and often do not serve us in our quest to live happy, fulfilling lives. Our task, then, is to take a step back from our thoughts, to "keep awake when sleep is customary" so that we can be aware of how our thoughts have a tendency to take us in directions we had not planned on and do not want.
You may be wondering - what is this "I" that is separate from our thoughts? The "I" that I am referring to is the constant, unshakeable consciousness that is You. It is home. Sometimes it is quiet, sometimes it is loud. Either way, you recognize it. It is the inner awareness that tells you when something feels correct or when something feels wrong. It is the inner guide that pulls from stored knowledge and allows you to make the best decision for you. It is the inner presence whose joy it is to constantly improve upon itself. It is the very essence that is acting out the reason you are here on this planet. Bluntly put, it is You, without the bull-shit. It is You, minus any sense of insecurity, doubt, limitation, or fear.
To get in touch with this inner "I" is the most valuable thing you will ever do for yourself. Make no mistake of that. Once you are consciously aware of the distinction between your inner "I" and your stream of thoughts, you can begin the most important work you have ever done. Simply by observing your thoughts from the perspective of the inner "I", you will widen the space between that which is real and that which has held you back in life. As the space widens, it becomes easier and easier to notice when you are having destructive thought patterns. And here is the gem: the more time you spend in the presence of your inner "I", the less powerful your thoughts are. Welcome to a world of complete freedom, a world where nothing keeps you from living the life you most want and deserve.
Just as a side note, I would like to point out that thoughts are not inherently bad. We are reasoning, thinking beings and this serves us well in terms of creating the material reality that surrounds us. By being vigilant of our self, however, we are able to filter and, once we've practiced for a while, even edit our thought process. The basic premise is this: thoughts are meant to be tools that our inner "I" uses to exist in this physical world. They are the horse. They are not the person plowing the field.
When we let our thoughts run our life, it is like letting a horse plow a field. (I know, my technology is outdated, but the analogy does not work with a tractor!) A horse would have no sense of the task we want to accomplish. It would run willy-nilly around the field, creating a mess. Our crops would have no chance! And that, friends, is my point. The inner "I", the real You, has purpose. We harvest that purpose by constantly returning to our real selves, our inner "I", and observing the thoughts that are running through our mind.
By practicing self-vigilance, we give our purpose a chance. It is that simple. Whatever you most want from your life, whatever you most desire to give, whatever you most wish to feel... All of it is possible. Begin by committing to yourself, this week, that you will "be awake when customarily asleep," that you will be "alertly watchful" of your thoughts so as to avoid the danger of letting them run the show. Let your inner "I" tell you when a thought does not feel good. If it does not speak to what you know, deep down, to be good and true about yourself, dismiss it. You are a powerful, intelligent, creative being. You know that, and you can begin to live it right now.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Becoming Powerful YOU: Step 2
In general, I believe that the "how" of things should be left to the universe. That is to say that, once you've committed to do something, the next step will naturally present itself, and then the next step after that, and so forth. It is not necessary to see the finish line, or to become an expert navigator before beginning the trek. It does occur to me though that anyone who has not yet experienced a sense of personal power in their own life might benefit from a push-off point.
It's easy enough to be invited to take ownership of your life. It's also pretty easy to consider how great life would be if you accepted that invitation. I think we can all agree, though, that it's another thing entirely to take that first step. So, we're there. We're in the driver's seat of our lives, we've got a positive frame of mind, and the key is in the ignition. Now what? For most people, now is right about when things get really tough. We start to think some pretty heavy thoughts. "What if I'm no good at this?" "What if I try, and it goes really well for a while, and then something terrible happens and I lose all my progress?" "What if this whole thing is just hogwash?" "My life was okay before. Maybe this will be too hard, or maybe it won't even be worth it." "Maybe I should just count my blessings and not be greedy for a better life."
Woah! We haven't even moved yet, and we've got this whole journey pegged as a sham or, even more astounding, we're convincing ourselves that a path toward personal empowerment is one that we don't deserve taking. Friends, there's a reason why we are met with such inner confusion and negativity the instant we decide to engage our potential. That reason is the one and only actual limitation we as people exhibit. It is called self-doubt. I've never met a person immune to it. But I have met people who overcame it.
Have you ever been fired or laid off from a job? If not, I'm sure you know someone who has. The feeling is terrible. Not much makes us appear less in control of our own lives. Our finances, as well as a certain sense of our identity are most often dependent on our jobs. How incredible that it can all be taken away in an instant. And even more incredible? Someone else - often just one person such as a supervisor or department head - had the power to make such a huge decision about your life.
I'd like you to consider something now. When it comes to your life and how you live it, YOU are that one person. You can take stock of your life, the faculties and principles you employ, and lay off the ones that are not serving you. Let me take a minute to state this very clearly. You are the boss of how you live your life and, if you so choose, you can terminate your self-doubt.
I had a friend in college who once said something to me that I found quite profound. She was dealing with a situation she found rather frustrating and, at one point, she threw up her hands and said, "Why do I let all these things rent space in my head for free?" Although her statement initially came from a place of agitation, it didn't take long for her to see the simple truth of what she'd said. She realized that she had been holding on to thoughts - about others and about herself - that did not help her lead a happy life. She kept those thoughts in her head, calling them hers and allowing them to be a part of who she was, but they offered nothing useful in return.
Friends, I want to say unequivocally that it is possible to live a life unaflicted by self-doubt. That is not to say you will never experience insecure moments. What I am saying, though, is that how you choose to respond to those moments and, ultimately, how long they last, is entirely up to you.
I want to come at this from a place of love. So let me pause for a moment and think of the kindest way to put this...
It's time to wake up now, my friend. The world is waiting for you and you have been sleeping in a bed of self-made limitation. The truth is this: you are an eternal, limitless being whose life creations are wanted and needed by those around you. You can throw off the blanket of self-doubt that has held your potential at bay. You can rise from your slumber and bless this world with whatever offerings you feel destined to give. You can.
And, potentially, there are millions of people who hope that you do...
It's easy enough to be invited to take ownership of your life. It's also pretty easy to consider how great life would be if you accepted that invitation. I think we can all agree, though, that it's another thing entirely to take that first step. So, we're there. We're in the driver's seat of our lives, we've got a positive frame of mind, and the key is in the ignition. Now what? For most people, now is right about when things get really tough. We start to think some pretty heavy thoughts. "What if I'm no good at this?" "What if I try, and it goes really well for a while, and then something terrible happens and I lose all my progress?" "What if this whole thing is just hogwash?" "My life was okay before. Maybe this will be too hard, or maybe it won't even be worth it." "Maybe I should just count my blessings and not be greedy for a better life."
Woah! We haven't even moved yet, and we've got this whole journey pegged as a sham or, even more astounding, we're convincing ourselves that a path toward personal empowerment is one that we don't deserve taking. Friends, there's a reason why we are met with such inner confusion and negativity the instant we decide to engage our potential. That reason is the one and only actual limitation we as people exhibit. It is called self-doubt. I've never met a person immune to it. But I have met people who overcame it.
Have you ever been fired or laid off from a job? If not, I'm sure you know someone who has. The feeling is terrible. Not much makes us appear less in control of our own lives. Our finances, as well as a certain sense of our identity are most often dependent on our jobs. How incredible that it can all be taken away in an instant. And even more incredible? Someone else - often just one person such as a supervisor or department head - had the power to make such a huge decision about your life.
I'd like you to consider something now. When it comes to your life and how you live it, YOU are that one person. You can take stock of your life, the faculties and principles you employ, and lay off the ones that are not serving you. Let me take a minute to state this very clearly. You are the boss of how you live your life and, if you so choose, you can terminate your self-doubt.
I had a friend in college who once said something to me that I found quite profound. She was dealing with a situation she found rather frustrating and, at one point, she threw up her hands and said, "Why do I let all these things rent space in my head for free?" Although her statement initially came from a place of agitation, it didn't take long for her to see the simple truth of what she'd said. She realized that she had been holding on to thoughts - about others and about herself - that did not help her lead a happy life. She kept those thoughts in her head, calling them hers and allowing them to be a part of who she was, but they offered nothing useful in return.
Friends, I want to say unequivocally that it is possible to live a life unaflicted by self-doubt. That is not to say you will never experience insecure moments. What I am saying, though, is that how you choose to respond to those moments and, ultimately, how long they last, is entirely up to you.
I want to come at this from a place of love. So let me pause for a moment and think of the kindest way to put this...
It's time to wake up now, my friend. The world is waiting for you and you have been sleeping in a bed of self-made limitation. The truth is this: you are an eternal, limitless being whose life creations are wanted and needed by those around you. You can throw off the blanket of self-doubt that has held your potential at bay. You can rise from your slumber and bless this world with whatever offerings you feel destined to give. You can.
And, potentially, there are millions of people who hope that you do...
Monday, August 2, 2010
Becoming Powerful YOU: Step 1
On this earth, we as people are arguably more interested in attaining power over our own lives than any other achievement there is. For sure, the allure of money, finding the perfect spouse, and living in a beautiful home are among many things everyone thinks about, but none of these embody true meaning – nor can they be fully enjoyed - without first experiencing a genuine sense of personal power.
What do I mean by power? I am not speaking of a strictly physical force; muscle and brawn are minute factors in the landscape of personal power. I am also not speaking of power over other people, for this is a path that, at best, leads to a superficially successful life that never actually satisfies and, at worst, leads to a slow self destruction. Friends, the power I am speaking of is much more profound. The power I want to talk about is the only power, in my view, that means anything. It is the power over your personal self.
Achieving power over your personal self is the only way to experience real, undeniable freedom in your life. Freedom from financial burden, freedom from relationship drama/turmoil, freedom from worry, and freedom from self-criticism, to name a few. If you master power over your personal self, you will be free of virtually all of life's day-to-day burdens that keep us far away from reaching our potential.
As with any journey from Point A to Point B, practice practice practice makes perfect. The first thing you must practice in order to obtain true power over your personal self is ownership. Now, for many people, this concept can be a hard pill to swallow. In fact, it is the reason why many people who would like to experience a sense of personal power quit before they really get started. It is a tall order, I will grant you that. Sometimes, it will be scary. Frequently, it will challenge your pride and you will feel foolish. And there will be plenty of occasions when you get so lost in the story of your life that the whole concept seems wrong. Stick with it. Once you've got a good handle on the idea, with experience to back up its worth, you'll be hard pressed to find much else in life that can be more satisfying.
What I mean by ownership is this: you must own everything you do, say, think, and feel. This does not mean that you are defined by your actions, words, thoughts, or feelings. It simply means that they are yours. No one forced you to do them, and no one placed them in your head. What it boils down to is this: you must freely relinquish from your life all sense of blame. You must accept that no other person, event, or chance occurrence is at fault for your life circumstances. Your life looks the way it does, today looks the way it does, because of you.
Now, this is not to say that your life is your fault. No way! In fact, what it means is that your life is your creation. Think about that statement for a moment. Your life is your creation. Look around. What characteristics describe your life? What are the details? What is the general mood? Take inventory. Chances are, you will notice areas where you feel content, and areas that need improvement. Where does the balance lie? If your life is your masterpiece, a continuously evolving work of art, would you, at this very moment, display it on a wall in your home? Because that, friends, is a well-lived life; one that, foibles and all, we would happily offer to others to witness, to learn from, and to laugh with.
Most likely, though, this is not where you're at. It's not where most of us are at. If I may, allow me to be completely blunt for a moment. There is one reason, and one reason only, why we are not all jumping at the bit to show off our lives to everyone we meet, to have our whole, transparent lives be, metaphorically speaking, the first thing people see when they enter our home. That reason is shame. To varying extents, we all feel it. We all feel like we could have done more, we should be more, we are not living to our potential and, therefore, we feel embarrassed by the picture our life is. We know it is not the masterpiece it could be.
I believe this sense of shame people share stems from an innate knowledge that we can own our own lives. We can, but we choose not to. So often, in the moment, it is easier to take the backseat, to allow the vehicle of our life to meander aimlessly until it either crashes or runs out of gas. Then we get out, point at our surroundings and say, “I don't like this, and this is not my fault. I was not driving this car.” But who got out of the driver's seat? Who made that decision? And while we're at it, I must remind you, there was no one in the driver's seat. Not your mother, not your boss, not your spouse or children, and not the cashier who was rude to you at the grocery store. When we throw away ownership of our life, we are not handing it over to someone else whom we can later blame for how things turn out. We are leaving the driver's seat empty.
I invite you to care enough about yourself to stay in the driver's seat of your life, to never again make the choice to be a bystander in the only arena where you were born to be center stage. From here forward, you can decisively refuse to think of yourself as a victim. You can - right now, today, as you are - begin the most incredible journey you will ever travel. Take ownership of your life and watch your own personal power begin to bubble to the surface. Practice, practice, practice, and before you know it, you'll be hanging that ever-evolving masterpiece right on your front door.
What do I mean by power? I am not speaking of a strictly physical force; muscle and brawn are minute factors in the landscape of personal power. I am also not speaking of power over other people, for this is a path that, at best, leads to a superficially successful life that never actually satisfies and, at worst, leads to a slow self destruction. Friends, the power I am speaking of is much more profound. The power I want to talk about is the only power, in my view, that means anything. It is the power over your personal self.
Achieving power over your personal self is the only way to experience real, undeniable freedom in your life. Freedom from financial burden, freedom from relationship drama/turmoil, freedom from worry, and freedom from self-criticism, to name a few. If you master power over your personal self, you will be free of virtually all of life's day-to-day burdens that keep us far away from reaching our potential.
As with any journey from Point A to Point B, practice practice practice makes perfect. The first thing you must practice in order to obtain true power over your personal self is ownership. Now, for many people, this concept can be a hard pill to swallow. In fact, it is the reason why many people who would like to experience a sense of personal power quit before they really get started. It is a tall order, I will grant you that. Sometimes, it will be scary. Frequently, it will challenge your pride and you will feel foolish. And there will be plenty of occasions when you get so lost in the story of your life that the whole concept seems wrong. Stick with it. Once you've got a good handle on the idea, with experience to back up its worth, you'll be hard pressed to find much else in life that can be more satisfying.
What I mean by ownership is this: you must own everything you do, say, think, and feel. This does not mean that you are defined by your actions, words, thoughts, or feelings. It simply means that they are yours. No one forced you to do them, and no one placed them in your head. What it boils down to is this: you must freely relinquish from your life all sense of blame. You must accept that no other person, event, or chance occurrence is at fault for your life circumstances. Your life looks the way it does, today looks the way it does, because of you.
Now, this is not to say that your life is your fault. No way! In fact, what it means is that your life is your creation. Think about that statement for a moment. Your life is your creation. Look around. What characteristics describe your life? What are the details? What is the general mood? Take inventory. Chances are, you will notice areas where you feel content, and areas that need improvement. Where does the balance lie? If your life is your masterpiece, a continuously evolving work of art, would you, at this very moment, display it on a wall in your home? Because that, friends, is a well-lived life; one that, foibles and all, we would happily offer to others to witness, to learn from, and to laugh with.
Most likely, though, this is not where you're at. It's not where most of us are at. If I may, allow me to be completely blunt for a moment. There is one reason, and one reason only, why we are not all jumping at the bit to show off our lives to everyone we meet, to have our whole, transparent lives be, metaphorically speaking, the first thing people see when they enter our home. That reason is shame. To varying extents, we all feel it. We all feel like we could have done more, we should be more, we are not living to our potential and, therefore, we feel embarrassed by the picture our life is. We know it is not the masterpiece it could be.
I believe this sense of shame people share stems from an innate knowledge that we can own our own lives. We can, but we choose not to. So often, in the moment, it is easier to take the backseat, to allow the vehicle of our life to meander aimlessly until it either crashes or runs out of gas. Then we get out, point at our surroundings and say, “I don't like this, and this is not my fault. I was not driving this car.” But who got out of the driver's seat? Who made that decision? And while we're at it, I must remind you, there was no one in the driver's seat. Not your mother, not your boss, not your spouse or children, and not the cashier who was rude to you at the grocery store. When we throw away ownership of our life, we are not handing it over to someone else whom we can later blame for how things turn out. We are leaving the driver's seat empty.
I invite you to care enough about yourself to stay in the driver's seat of your life, to never again make the choice to be a bystander in the only arena where you were born to be center stage. From here forward, you can decisively refuse to think of yourself as a victim. You can - right now, today, as you are - begin the most incredible journey you will ever travel. Take ownership of your life and watch your own personal power begin to bubble to the surface. Practice, practice, practice, and before you know it, you'll be hanging that ever-evolving masterpiece right on your front door.
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