When My Life and My Story Don't Match

The stories I think to write bore me. Every blog post I try to concoct falls flat. 

I am living happily ever after and I am bored with my story... How can this be? It makes no sense? 

Well, I am having a hard time coming up with a new story line in my mind (Ok, stick with me).  In my head I hear the same story, the same thoughts over and over, “I’m not doing good enough. I haven’t earned this. They won’t understand. This won’t last, it’s only a matter of time until the bottom drops out. You better get busy getting better.” 

Of course the story is not true and I have spent the last 5 years successfully listening to the story, inquiring about it, questioning it and moving beyond it. I am choosing not to believe that about myself thus opening up options to do something else entirely. 

There was a time in my life I believed those thoughts and my life reflected it. I put myself in situations where I needed to prove myself, where I over promised and under delivered. I was constantly disappointed with the results of my life and myself. 

Now the results of my life are drastically, beautifully, happily different AND YET my story hasn’t changed. I still hear the same thoughts, I feel the same sadness, dread, anxiety, irritation, etc. 

For example last weekend I was leading a workshop called Beyond Reasons where we facilitate people identifying their personal story they tell that keeps what they want just out of reach. It is a two-day workshop and at the end of the first day I went home after leading it and I could hear all the old familiar thoughts arise, “Oh man, this isn’t going well. I am not doing a great job leading them through this process. I shouldn’t be doing this yet. I need more training...etc.” 

This is not a new, I know these thoughts well. I just listened as my mind ranted, kicked, screamed and came up with really creative ways to fake my own kidnapping to get out of going back the second day. I even dreamt about people getting up and leaving in the middle of the workshop demanding their money back. 

I actually woke up laughing. My mind was working at a level of desperation to convince me to bail that I had not experienced before. Yet, I remained detached (Go me!). I listened to myself like I do my two-year-old niece coming up with all kinds of reasons not to eat her vegetables ending with a brilliant closing argument on why cookies are a more suitable dinner. I listen to her with fascination, compassion and a loving “No, sorry kid.” 

While I was brushing my teeth Sunday morning preparing for the workshop I was trying to avoid, I looked at myself in the mirror, admired my toothpaste lip liner, then looked into my own eyes and said out loud, “It ain’t over yet. I’m going to nail it today and I know exactly how I am going to do it.” 

The greatest thing happened after that; thoughts flooded my mind of all the ways I could pull the workshop together, what stories I could share to support the people in the workshop, ways I could ask questions to further the participants self-discovery and an overwhelming sense of assurance. 

Sunday night as I was hugging participants from the workshop goodbye, thoroughly enjoying our connection, I smiled inside. None of this would have happened if I believed my stinkin’ thinkin’. Not just from the night before but also from the thoughts the week before and the year before and so on. I made a very important decision years ago that I am capable of more than I think, and I won’t let old stories stop me from having what I want. 

I am in awe of the power of my mind and the creativity it exercises. Its ability to take something that I love and enjoy and create a story filled with doom and disappointment amazes me. AND that only happens when I stop giving it direction. Just like my niece would reach for the cookie if I weren’t watching, my mind easily wanders to the old story when I stop paying attention.  

When I lose site of celebrating my life, focusing on what I appreciate and being deliberate with my purpose and intention then my mind is apt to create the same, old, dull story. I am also noticing when I am so intently involved with my purpose, like in the workshop, that when I go to rest I should expect that in the down time my mind will run wild with that boring, old story. 

Until, one day, my life will only be punctuated by this story. It will cease to pervade my thoughts. I am sure it will creep up occasionally, especially when I raise the bar for myself and push myself beyond what I think is possible. As I enter this unknown territory it will rear its familiar head and I will, with fascination compassionately and lovingly say "No, sorry kid." 

Choosing to Be Like Water

What if you had the power to choose anything you want? What would that power mean in your life? What would change? 

I choose a great career. I feel very blessed to have found this work early in my life. I work with people to develop their self awareness so they can make more conscious choices and close the gap between what they have and what they want. 

In order to mentor someone in this process it is essential that I am a living example of the process. It is a true honor for me to live this way and share it with others.

We hired a new employee and her job is to deliver a presentation called, “Does Your Thinking Limit Your Success?” to enroll people in our workshops where we discover the thinking that is in the way of living the life we truly want.  

I am in charge of training and development of new hires. She has been training for six weeks and this week I made the decision that she was ready to lead the presentation for a group of 50 on her own. 

I shadowed her presentation and as she went on I could see that she was losing confidence. People were asking her questions that she couldn’t answer and although she did her best to answer them she lost the conviction necessary to move a room. 

While watching her, I thought, “Oh no, I let her go up too soon. She is going to be pissed. I let her down. I let the company down. I was over confident. This is terrible.” 

I felt dread, sadness and a strong disappointment in myself.

At that moment and overwhelming sense of calm took over my body and I thought, ‘No, this is perfect. This will be wonderful for her development. She will use this experience to become an example of our work. I am thrilled.” 

So as we drove home that night she was pissed. She was disappointed in herself because she thought she blew it. I stayed calm and encouraged her to look at her results and asked her questions about how her thinking limited her success. By the end of our car ride she saw how her unconscious fears and beliefs created her experience and she knew what to do next time she went up to present. 

Three nights later she delivered the same presentation on her own and enrolled 6 people by telling her story and demonstrating that they can experience the same results. 

There is so much to celebrate in this story. What excites me most is that everything happened as it should. There was an event (her presentation) and I had a million choices in the way I could interpret the event and I chose to interpret it as perfect, necessary and exactly what I want to happen to make my vision of people living happier and healthier lives come true. 

Habitually, I would have believed I screwed up and did something wrong because it is very familiar for me to see myself as a disappointment (long story). If I had gone down that line of thinking and interpreting I would have killed her spirit by agreeing that she blew it and that she isn’t ready yet. Thus discouraging her before the presentation she did three days later where she nailed it! 

That is INCREDIBLE! I am in awe of the power of this experience and this is the work that we do with people every day! In a matter of a moment I captured my habituated reaction, thought of what’s important to me which is more people living happier, healthier lives, connected myself to the new belief that everything happens for a reason and re-interpreted the situation to fit the vision of what I want.  From there I acted in a way that brought out the best in her, ultimately aiding her and myself in leading a happy, healthy life.  

Bruce Lee said, "Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind; be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; you put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; you put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend." 

I can be like water. With practice, I can be formless and shapeless and move with life as it unfolds. Water is powerful. It moves with the land to get where it longs to go. Water doesn’t need the rock to move, water moves around the rock. If I give up the notion that I know how to get where I want to go and focus my energy in the belief that I will get there, extraordinary things unfold before me. 

I can create whatever experience I want regardless of the external circumstances because I have the power to see what is happening in front of me and choose my responce and flow with it like water. 

 

  

Writing a Blog

Do you like jokes? 
 
This one used to be my favorite: 
What do you call a mailman without a job? 

Just some dude. 

Trust me if used at the right time with the right people that joke can be extremely comedic. I won over my 9 year old niece and her six friends this last weekend. It was a huge hit. 

Here is another one:  
What do you call Conscious Girl without a blog? 


Just some chick. 

I do not consider myself a writer. I am sure I can't call myself a blogger, as there must be some kind of formal metric regarding the number of followers/readers one must have to qualify, which I do not. I have no official plan for this blog, no structure, no outline. In fact Ms. Summer my 10th grade English teacher, would be extremely disappointed in my lack of conceptual framework for telling my story. 

I am simply some chick that enjoys pushing her growth with public accountability. I do not have troves of readers or a community following my story. In fact I think my projects seem nebulous to the people who graciously read these posts. 

The truth is that the project and system is vague to me as well. I am trying to figure myself out in a way I haven’t seen out in the world before. I value the writings and teachings of gurus and enlightened, awakened beings but they are writing from their perspective at the top of the mountain looking down. I am looking up my mountain, attempting to document my journey as I transverse unknown territory. 

This is a tenuous process where at times I am not sure what is going to happen or how my life will unfold. So as the week goes on I watch myself and look for what may be worth a share or a second look. 

There are times I sit down in front of the computer and unconditionally vigorously write. The story is inside me begging to get out. As I write I achieve clarity through careful contemplation of sorting out a beginning, middle and end. 

Some times I sit in front of the computer and make myself write. Force creativity through a manufactured deadline that generates the perfect blend of anxiety and determination. This blend gets the job done and keeps me consistent but doesn’t yield transformative or entertaining results. 

This last week I waited. I started to write and the story I was telling didn’t feel genuine so I put it aside and watched myself, hoping that I would get some kind of lightening bolt of inspiration but it never came. I watched my weekly blog commitment come and go, lamenting the loss I feel when I break my word to myself. 

Then I  considered this process I engage in weekly and I started to reflect. I have not gone back and read my posts. No real reason why not; I just don’t think to do it. I also started to consider what I share and don’t share in this format. 

I clearly have no problem sharing my spiritual journey, my relationship or lack there of with God and my mother. I openly share my thoughts about myself, my family, my friends and my husband and our relationship (I love them so stinking much I really enjoy sharing about my relationships). I have no reservation sharing my vision, hopes and dreams and the fears that get in the way and hold me back.

Humm… so when I think about what is important to me...that’s it. What else is there? Oh yeah!! I have skillfully omitted the following: 

-       My work, what I do for a living

-       My fears about starting a family

-       My political views 

Ohh and by the way...These three topics have occupied my mind-space for the last two weeks and I largely consider them off limits. 

Why are they off limits? Easy. Reasons as follows:

-       My work is my life. I am deeply passionate about the work I do AND I make a living at it so there is a sleazy quality I feel when I share it with others.

-       My big fear about having kids is that they will get in the way of the work I love. That I will want to be with them all the time, quit my job and end up resenting my children because I gave up my dream (GULP, did I really share that in public)

-       My political views are different from the people I know and when I share my position on an issue and don’t get to explain my thought process I feel cold and misunderstood. 

Well, there is a lot to be explored here and I won’t go into it too deeply now, however, it is my intention to courageously uncover my limits and move beyond them. I feel most alive when I notice I am holding back or hiding and choose to challenge the thinking and perspectives that make me want to hide. I feel unstoppable when fear steps in to overcome my senses, pushing me down and yet I find a way to push up against it, unwilling to acquiesce. I am most powerful when I make a stand for living full out, refusing to withdrawal any of myself in any form. 

By doing this I make my life truly extraordinary and it is my intention to open that possibility in the lives of others by sharing it. So I’m not a blogger or a writer, I am just some chick excited about the possibility of everyone living in a way that is worth writing about. 

Living in a way that I am proud to pass down to my hypothetical children that I am deathly afraid of and love more then anything.

So don’t worry Ms. Summer, I have my next three topics already outlined…stay tuned.