Have you ever heard of the question – If you could have dinner with anyone dead or alive, who would you want to have to a dinner party? Eleanor Roosevelt is on my list. She seems to have been a remarkable woman. Her advice?
“Do one thing everyday that scares you” – Eleanor Roosevelt
I don’t live up to this quote, but I do try to do things that scare me. First I procrastinate on them a little, though. Most of the things that scare me, are things that I have never tried to do before. So every year part of my goals, are to do things that I don’t currently know how to do.
Do you remember when you were a kid and you got your first bike? I remember being so excited to be able to ride a bike like all of the bigger kids did. It was a symbol of growing older. A lot like getting your drivers license or turning 21, a true milestone. First though you had to have training wheels. It took a time or two to figure out that they were keeping you from falling, because you had to learn to trust them. Then came the day that you had probably been whining about, the day they took the training wheels off. You were ready to balance the bike and ride it all alone. After a fall or two, you figured out how to balance the bike and from then on you were no longer a baby.
What I remember most, is that even though I was scared of falling and getting hurt, I wanted those training wheels off. Being accepted into the big kids group was more important than letting the fear stop me. Always remember that when you are scared, you are thinking about doing something that requires you to be brave. Riding a bicycle without training wheels for a 5 year old is being very brave.
“If it’s both terrifying and amazing then you should definitely pursue it” – Erada
What is something that you have done this past year that required you to be very brave? What were the training wheels that you removed, the thing that you were depending on, that you needed to let go, so that you could grow?
When I took my drivers training class, it was part of high school. The class started right after school, and the first time behind the wheel you had to drive off a side street bordering the high school. All of your friends would gather around the stop sign, waiting for you to drive the car out of the lot and up to the stop sign on the side road. Of course, there were several sudden jerking stops as you drove toward the stop sign and all of your friends would laugh. It was like a hazing in a way, because it eventually happened to everyone you knew. At some point we would all be the object of ridicule. But at the same time, it was like – cool, I’m driving a car!
These are the two examples that I keep in my head when I am trying to break through and do something that scares me. Both of those things scared me, but at the same time, it was cool, look at what I am doing! It reminds me of the hit song from “Panic At The Disco”, “Hey look ma, I made it”. It also helps to have mentors like Eleanor Roosevelt. People that you admire, who you can look to for guidance. Albert Einstein is another of my dinner party guests. He said:
“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new” – Albert Einstein
I think that sometimes you are scared to want something so badly that it hurts. You are scared of not only failing, but of succeeding and then being disappointed. Of succeeding only to lose it later. So you tell yourself that you are afraid of failure, but in reality, you are afraid of success not being enough. Of success not lasting.
“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new” – Brian Tracy
I have really thought about this fear of failure/success. I love the breakdown of the process in the above picture – that moving out of your comfort zone is actually a process of moving from fear, to learning and then to growth. (note: the photo is from Adobe and I can’t fix the typo)
Once I move past fear the feeling I have shifts into anticipation. Like fear, it also begins and ends in the stomach. Like riding the roller coaster as it climbs up and up to the sky, and then hurtles you down to the earth, whipping you back and forth through the turns. The wind blowing against you, your stomach lurching up your chest as you hold on tight. Then all of sudden the ride is over and you are running back to the end of the line to do it again. This kind of fear is telling you that being scared can be a thrill, because you are learning and extending your comfort zone at the same time. That what you are about to experience by entering the growth zone is worth breaking through the hesitation and going full out.
“Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing” – Denis Waitley
They say that at the end of a persons life, what they talk about is the things that they didn’t take the risk and try to do. Being in love, is one of those risks. Being afraid of being vulnerable, of being rejected, they hold back the words. At the end of their life they regret not telling people how they really felt, not saying “I love you” enough to those that mattered to them. When they had the opportunity, they shrunk back telling themselves, “they know how I feel”. While that may be true, what any person wants and needs is to hear those words.
“If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you” – Unknown
So whether it is learning to ride a bike, drive a car, ride a roller coaster or say “I love you” – don’t let fear hold you back. Be brave. Say the words, do the deeds. Feel the fear and do it because it is scary. Do the things that both excite you and scare you at the same time. Live your life as fully expressed, as bravely, and as committed as you can. Just maybe if you can do that, you’ll get more than you ever could have imagined.
“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them” – Walt Disney
I used to work for a company that owned hospitals and healthcare centers, doing accounting. The majority partner in the business would have the same order for lunch, every single day. A turkey sandwich with potato chips. Every single day, he ate the same lunch. They ordered lunch from TGIF, so it wasn’t like he didn’t have any other options.
I think many of us live in a rut. Stuck in a groove we can’t get out of, whether it’s our job, family drama or the little frustrations of everyday life. – Brian Pinkerton
I always wondered if he ate the same breakfast every morning, and the same dinner every evening. He was definitely a man stuck in a rut. Rush Limbaugh says that when you are in this experience, you “are out of contact with your own genius”. You have had this happen in your life at some point and time. The rut is a place of safety. You may have had a fear of the unknown, so the rut was a place of safety, because it is always the same. When you turn the page, who knows what might happen?
So what Zella is telling us, is that being in a rut, can actually be part of the journey – the point is once you recognize that you are stuck, then you can start going backwards, or forging ahead out of the rut. That you can blaze your own trail off the beaten path to your destination. That you can escape the rut. That you can get back in contact with your personal genius. This is because living your life on purpose through your personal genius, is when you know that you are home.
Changing a behavior is like driving down an old, rutted, dirt road. In order to get out of the rut and onto a new path, you need to jerk the wheel really hard. If you don’t jerk the wheel hard enough, you’ll just bounce right back on the same, old, rutted path. So for change to happen, hold on tight, jerk that wheel as hard as you can and get ready for a happy ride. Change is just beyond, on the other side. – Perfectharmonysolutions.com
When you listen to your personal genius, your souls voice, it leads you to amazing places. You find yourself living and doing things that previously you would only read about. Things that you could never imagine yourself doing. It is a conscious choice to listen to this voice that emanates from deep within.
We’ve all been there. The stress of moving your household. First packing then unpacking. It is exhausting, bad breaking labor. Or not? Maybe it’s a chance to play outside the box of go, go, go and instead find the joy in the moment. That is a totally inside job.
The choices that come from the outside are harder to deal with. The tragedy knocks you down and makes you a victim. Even the blessing, is a harder choice, because the blessing usually starts out like the tragedy. It becomes the blessing because you realize that you were stuck and needed your world turned upside down to shake you loose. The result of the blessing is that you took life’s lemons and made them into lemonade.
Being stuck in the past is like walking forward with your back facing front. You’ll always miss out on what’s in front of you. – thedailyquotes.com
How do you recognize that you are in a rut? One sign is reliving the past. It happens because you were comfortable there. You may complain about it, but you make no movement to actually change it. Another is repeating the past mistakes over and over again. Why do you repeat patterns of mistakes? Because you have convinced yourself that this time will be different. My mom was married five times, and every single man she married, she met in the bar that she was working in. One of the things that every single man had in common? They were all alcoholics. I remember telling her as a teenager, that maybe if she met men some place besides work, it might work out better?
You must learn a new way to think, before you can master a new way to be. – Marianne Williamson
This is how you get out of the rut. You don’t try to solve problems in your life with the same thinking that created them. You step up and out of the rut. And you begin blazing a new trail. So instead of stepping backward into the rut, step forward into growth. See where life is taking you. Listen to the voice of your soul, and wake up. Live your life with the intention to grow, live your life from your true reason and purpose for being here, and love your life with a passion that is on fire!
Life is too short to think small. If you think that something can be done, then it is too small. If you think something is probably impossible, that is the goal to go for. Not because the goal itself is the thing, but because of how trying to reach it will grow you.
If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you. Go for the moon shot kind of goals.
Moon shot goals involve others in coming together as a community to make the really big goals happen. Moon shot goals help others to reach out past their own boundaries and limitations as they buy into helping you accomplish yours.
The will to win. The desire to succeed. The urge to reach your full potential.., these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence. – Sabine Mondestin
The hard work of the goal is in making the vision clear. When you can see the minute detail, then you can make plans. With plans come steps. With steps, you begin moving into action. You gain a tremendous feeling of confidence when this happens. This confidence, grants you personal empowerment. Empowerment fuels your passion to bring the goals into reality. This is how the miracles begin.
It is like the infinity circle in which one part feeds and fuels the next part, in an never ending cycle. Clarity fuels the plans. Then plans fuel the steps.
Then steps start the wheels moving and you get action. Action gets you excited that stuff is finally happening.
Personal empowerment comes from actions taking place. Personal empowerment in turn fuels passion. Passion feeds back into clarity. Clarity begins the whole process again.
This is because as the vision starts moving forward into implementation, you get more clarity. Clarity starts new plans. New plans lead to revised actions. The whole cycle begins spinning again.
With engagement the divine one moves in with synchronicities and doors begin to open. People show up, all to bring your goals into reality. You are not meant to accomplish things by yourself. But no one can help you, until you help yourself.
I used to extinguish under the weight of living, but one day, I reached into my chest, dusted off my courage, and asked myself, “where’s your fire?” – D. Antoinette Foy
Be strong about your goals, and flexible about your methods. Be willing to try things you don’t think will work. To try things that you have never done. You learn by discovering what will work for you.
Has anyone ever tried you train you by having you watch them do the job? They walk you through a program. They tell you what your inputs should be. You go back to your desk, and you can’t remember what to do. Your notes don’t make any sense to you.
But when someone sits beside you, and guides you as you do the work, now it sinks in. You learn by doing it yourself. As you do the work, you have the space to think of the questions you need to ask to understand the process. When you just learn the process you are just a cog in a machine. When you understand the process, now you can innovate. Now you can teach it.
When you become visible, you take a huge risk. Because not everyone is going to like you. Some people are going to hate you, just because you are different. There will be those people that will be mean and cruel. That needs to be okay. You need to understand that you are not here for everyone.
You are not here with your gifts for those who don’t want them. You are here for those that do.
The only real difference between us, is that some of us have remembered why we are here. Others are still asleep to their true purpose. They don’t remember their divine inheritance. They will find fault with what you are doing, without really understanding why it bothers them so much. They act as a challenge to help you reach your highest potential.
If you are persistent, you will get it. If you are consistent you will keep it. – Unknown
Such an interesting quote. Being persistent is how you learn something. Have you ever listened to a two year old, asking “why”? They are the most persistent creatures in the universe. Persistence is how you learn. Understanding comes from doing it consistently.
You literally sink the learning down into your bones. I like to think of learning, as how you learned to ride a bike. Most of us can ride a bike.
You were persistent enough to learn to ride, getting back on every time you fell. But were you consistent enough to go past the basics and learn all of the tricks of riding a bike – did you become a master?
How do you let the amazing out?
Curiosity is the compass that leads you to your purpose. Your reason for being here now.
When you are tempted to give up, your breakthrough is probably just around the corner. – Joyce Meyer
Then you work on your true inheritance, and accept that as you become masters on this earth, that your signature will become your autograph.
A signature is so much more than just a splash of ink across the paper. A signature is style. It is a “look”. It is something that says who you are. When you see the Nike symbol, what pops into your mind? Nike is not just about shoes.
When you hear the Coca Cola jingle, “I’d like to teach the world to sing” how does it make you feel? Coca Cola is more than just a drink. That is what a signature is.
You have so much inside of your soul waiting to come out. That is why you will risk becoming visible. That is why you can’t think small.
Because some part of you deep inside knows how truly magnificent you really are. Each of us is a thread in Gods tapestry. Each of us has a part to play. Each of us has to become visible, in order for the pattern to be seen. Each of us has that special one of a kind signature that the world needs to see, feel, and hear.
She who leaves a trail of glitter is never forgotten. Do you believe this about yourself and your life? Or do you think it only about someone else. Someone who is more beautiful, more intelligent, richer than you? Too many of us don’t even feel worthy to have the glitter, yet alone leave a trail of it for others to follow.
I just wish I hadn’t spent so much time worrying about not being someone else’s definition of enough. – Sophia Bush
So many of us come out of childhood thinking that we are not enough. Not enough to have our parents love us the way they should have. Not smart enough. Not talented enough (insert – don’t sing, don’t dance, don’t draw). Not pretty enough. The list is endless about how we are not enough, to be loved, accepted, to have our dreams become a reality.
Always know you are more than enough. You are precious, unique, and worth being adored, cherished and treasured! – Kandee Johnson
Try to say nothing negative about yourself for one hour, for one day, for one week, for one month. The longer you can maintain this test, the more amazing your life will become. It has been said that the biggest disease affecting humanity is “I am not enough”.
It is the driver of every act of self sabotage. When your mind thinks “I am not enough”, you will subconsciously self sabotage yourself out of anything that doesn’t affirm that lie.
Marissa Peer is a bestseller author, celebrity hypnotist and speaker. A lot of her focus is on helping people overcome this limiting belief to help them stop sabotaging their lives.
One of the things that she recommends is putting on your phone a timed text message stating “I am enough” and having it text you each morning and evening.
Write on the mirrors in your home, especially in your bathroom and carry around a piece of paper to remind you
So think about your language and how often do you say things like –
What is that something about yourself? That quality you think is missing? That place where you don’t think you are enough?
When you get praise, how often do you reject praise, and you add in a piece of criticism? “That is a beautiful outfit you have on today”, and you say – “this old thing, it makes me look fat”. Even scarier, do your sons and daughters say these things about themselves? When they are 1, 2 or 3 years old we celebrated that they took their first step, their first word, the first time they went potty in the potty chair. But there comes a time when they start school and they start being compared to others. Now they are experiencing the “not enough” and they start believing it.
The fear of not getting the reward becomes the fear of rejection. The fear of not being good enough. . . is what makes us try to change, what makes us create an image. – Miguel Angel Ruiz
The book, “The Four Agreements” by Miguel Angel Ruiz is a wonderful book that teaches you about the masks that you began wearing when you were children. You will wear these masks all of your life, if you don’t learn how to remove them. You need to be who you truly are, without the fear of rejection and not being enough. Turn it around for yourself, for your children. Learn to accept praise without feeling unworthy. Hear the words you say about yourself, and change them when they are downgrading or demeaning. I always wanted my mother to say I did a good job – I made it a point to say to my children that they did a good job.
Lie to your brain, cheat your fear, and steal back your life of “I am more than enough” feeling that you had as a very young child.
Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
At some point in our childhood we start looking at trying and failing, as being a loser, because we did not do it perfectly the first time we tried. A baby learns how to roll over; then crawl; then walk. A baby learns how to say words. Think of any 1 – 2 year old and they do not pronounce each word perfectly. I remember my boys saying truck, but the “T” blended with the “R” sounded like an “F” and peoples heads would turn when they said the word, like they were swearing. My boys didn’t decide that because they couldn’t say the word perfectly the first time, that they would never attempt to say the word again. A baby who stands up for the first time and then plops back down on their bum doesn’t decide that crawling is safer, so that is all they are going to do forever.
If you believe the doubts in your mind you won’t achieve the dreams in your heart.
– Marinela Reka
A girlfriend and I were discussing this, and I thought that it must have something to do with peer pressure. When we enter daycare or some other classroom experience and discover that some kids can do things better than we can. At some point the comparison starts shutting us down. We don’t want to risk the possibility of being wrong, so we don’t raise our hands when the teacher asks the class a question. We put a label on not being perfect, as being a total failure. In our minds we see kids with mean faces, laughing at us. Or maybe we see our parents or teachers telling us that we are just stupid or dumb. That we can’t learn anything. That we will never be anything.
Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s a stepping stone to success.
– Elli Stassinopoulos
What if we were to consciously try to change that meaning in our own head. What if failure is part of success and something to be enjoyed? Just as much as we celebrate crossing the finish line in a race as the winner, we were to celebrate crossing the finish line even 1 second faster than we had before, even if it was 100th place in the race?
Winston Churchill had that kind of thinking. I think that if he had been of a different mentality, WWII for England might have turned out differently. One of my favorite quotes of his –
Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.
– Winston Churchill
The reality of the situation is that each time we try something new, it is going to be full of things that we can do differently to be more successful the next time. They say that it takes 10,000 hours to become a master of something. So each time we do it, we are a little more successful. We can look at what happened and determine what we can shift, take out, put it, tweak the next time to make it even better.
What makes someone talented successful? Michael Jordon summed it up with,
I’ve never been afraid to fail.
– Michael Jordon
We have to be willing to take the leap of faith off the cliff. We may not land perfectly, but when we replay it in our mind, we can determine what we did, and what we can change. Then we can go back up to the top and try it again.
If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.
– Ken Robinson
Everything can be improved. 10,000 tries allows for an awful lot of improvements, step by step. Step by step, we place each thing that didn’t work as the stones that we step on as we try it one more time. Failures are part of the process of living a life that is worth living. It is how we grow, by changing something and trying something new. True success can only come from doing something new, failing at it and doing it again, just differently.
Never let success get to your head, and never let failure get to your heart.
– unknown
Like the irritation to the oyster, which gets coated over and over again, each new thing we learn becomes a pearl of priceless beauty. Can you look back at your life and say thank you, for the mistakes you made that taught you to laugh at yourself? Those stories that felt painful at the time. Now they are the funniest stories that you and your friends tell each other. It always starts with, “Remember when I . . . ” and then ends with laughter.
Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.
– Jack Canfield
How many opportunities in our life have we walked past, because we were afraid to try? There is nothing worse than a life that you didn’t even try to live. That is where the true regrets in your life come from. The things you did not do.
Love this quote (which didn’t have who wrote it, so unknown)
I AM STRONG
because I know my Weaknesses
I AM BEAUTIFUL
because I am aware of my Flaws
I AM FEARLESS
because I learnt to recognize, illusion from Real
I AM WISE
because I learn from my Mistakes
I AM A LOVER
because I have felt Hate
and . . . ,
I CAN LAUGH
because I have known Sadness
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What’s life without a little risk?
– J.K. Rowling
Life is about taking risks. Every choice is in reality a risk. A risk of achieving something great and wonderful; a risk of failure; a risk of not doing or doing the right thing. The great secret of the phrase, “taking a risk”, is that no matter what happens, we get something wonderful. If we take a risk and it turns out just like we wanted, we are happy. If we take a risk, and it doesn’t turn out well, we still have something wonderful from the experience, we have knowledge, experience, and the combination of those two things is wisdom. We can then look at what we tried to do, remove a piece, tinker with it, add something new and try again. The only way to truly fail, is to do nothing, to risk nothing.
And then there is the most dangerous risk of all – the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.
– Randy Komisar
Being wise beyond our fears, means recognizing that the true directions of the heart, require no words. There is simply a knowing inside. It just feels better, when we go in the direction of the heart. When you make the decision based on the hearts guidance, you feel the weight of the decision slide off your shoulders. There is no second guessing.
To live your greatest life, you must first become a leader within yourself. Take charge of your life. Begin attracting and manifesting all that you desire in life.
– Sonia Ricotti
When you say the words out loud, that only your soul has dared to whisper to the heart, that is when miracles happen. The declaration, both verbal and written gives notice to the divine that you are listening. Listen to your dreams. That is when you open to the unexpected, and miracles happen. When your mind and heart is too filled with the worlds noise, your dreams may be the only way that your souls whisper can be heard by the heart.
Let your heart be your guide on all things, but you have to listen closely because it speaks so softly.
– John St. Augustine
Each whisper of the soul to your heart speaks of the next leg of your journey. There are times on your journey when experience and reason tell you not to follow that path. Your mind sees the risks and wants to play it safe. But you have to give it a try. I’ve always loved the play on words – when you find yourself “now here” instead of “no where” is that moment of just being. That moment of space of being fully conscious, because you have to be fully conscious to hear the whispers of your heart.
Sometimes, you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself.
– Unknown
When you don’t listen to the whispers of the soul to your heart, sooner or later, that whisper turns into a scream. When the whisper has turned to screaming in desperation, it is usually a sign that your life is about to shift into some sort of test. This comes about because instead of listening to your own heart, you are playing it safe. Playing it safe, is being a diamond in the ruff. A raw diamond looks a lot like common quartz, it is cloudy looking.. But cut it perfectly and shine it up, and everyone knows it is a diamond. We all have these exceptional qualities and potential. But we are afraid to stand out from the crowd, and so we hide ourselves, even from ourselves. Everybody wants to be a diamond, but very few are willing to get cut.
Take risks in your life. If you win, you can lead. If you lose, you can guide.
– Swami Vivekananda
It is so easy to become focused on others instead of ourselves. We get pushed and pulled in all directions by our work, our friends and our families. When those that we are surrounded by see us listening to our heart, they get scared. Changes that you make in your life, will impact theirs. They are afraid of many things, but primarily that you may out grown them. That you will leave them behind.
The only difference between fear and excitement is your attitude about it.
– Unknown
Don’t let their fears break your soul. They may try to expose your shadows, your imperfections, the things that lurk inside of you with feelings of shame or guilt. They are just trying to stop you from listening to the heart. God has put into our hearts, an intuitive guidance system to guide us to what we need, the next step on our path. Follow that guidance. When you do, you will know it because your heart will be at peace. Even the most painful and difficult decisions are correct, if the heart is at peace with it.
Take charge of your choices. Choose to look up, when life presses you down. Choose to smile, when life frowns at you. Choose victory, over defeat.
– Unknown
Be wise beyond your fears ,and keep heading towards your glorious destiny. If the dream keeps reappearing in your thoughts, go for it. That is destiny calling you and it is always worth the price of admission.
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People living deeply have no fear of death – Anais Nin
Living your life so that fear of death can never enter your heart is a tall order. It would mean looking at your thoughts, words, deeds, and actions through a light of always being the best person you can be, and forgiving yourself when you fall short, and resolve to do better. I have always believed that at death we go on to the next great adventure. I have more of a regret that it might come too soon, because I have so many things yet to accomplish with my life.
Trouble no one about their religion, respect others in their view and demand that they respect yours – if just this one sentence was followed by every living person, our world would have true peace.
It is really interesting when you learn about other cultures, other religions, people with different languages. Words don’t always translate across from language to language. Even when you are raised in the same language, same country, same religion there are differences. Going from the north of the United States to the south can be a culture shock. Going from the country to the big city, can be a big culture shock. You tend to judge others when you don’t understand.
Your experience of life doesn’t have to create a barrier with someone who’s had a difference experience. Instead, if you can widen out your mind to try and truly understand another person’s experience of life, you gain their respect, and they gain yours.
One of the truest signs of maturity is the ability to disagree with someone while still remaining truthful – Dave Willis
Life is made up of the space between two dates and a dash. The day you were born and the day you die. Make the most of the dash. How sad it is, when someone dies who really never lived. They existed but were too afraid to fully live. Too afraid to take risks. Too afraid to succeed or to risk failing. Too afraid to try something new every day. Too afraid of feeling strongly about anything, to wring out every emotion in their life, and drink deeply of everything that life has to offer.
The true meaning of life lies in the dash of taking risks; trying and failing and trying again; contributing to the lives of others by living your life as an example of doing your best to live a life of meaning and purpose.
It is difficult to feel greatness after a lapse of 200 years, but Tecumseh truly seems admirable. He was noble in his speech and behavior, adamant in his opposition to U.S. expansion, farsighted in his policies, brave in battle, yet merciful and protective toward captives – Devin Bent in Tecumseh: A Brief Biography, said of Tecumseh
Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well – Voltaire
Then one day it happens. We notice that we are missing something. We want more. We wake up to the fact that “more” is not more money; it is not a better job; or house, or car. It is elusive, and we may not know what “it” is, but we begin to figure out what “it” isn’t. It is our birthright, and it is what takes our life from “normal” to “greatness”.
Men like Steve Jobs and Richard Branson figured out what that was for them. And while they had all of the things that people think will make them happy, it was the “more” they woke up to, that actually brought them to greatness. “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” Martin Buber. They may have started out after all of the material things, but they ended up with the “more”.
Joseph Campbell said , “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” This something else is transcendence. Transcendence happens when we “reclaim the visionary, the utopian, the dream of the better or happier world” – when everything that we touch becomes a prayer.
So how do we discover what it is? We have to walk out the door of the safe comfortable space we have created for ourselves, and we have to walk down that path to the unknown. We have to enter the dark forest. You have to embark on the Hero’s journey. It is how you discover the vast resources that reside within you. A hero’s journey – finding the edge of your unknown forest, and entering into the heart of darkness.
What do you find there? You explore the caves of the past and you wake up to the dreams of the future. You let go of the life of existence, of “go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed and repeat over and over again”.
Traveling down into the depths of the abyss we recover treasures of life. We recover the dreams we let die; we see that the stories that we have told ourselves about past hurts are not entirely true. We become excavator’s and dig up the bones of the past, and let them blow away like dust on the winds of healing. We see that most of the problems in our life have been mirrors being held up to us, but we were too blind or too scared to acknowledge the truth. By exploring the darkness we become enlightened.
We become curious, our mind opens up to new ideas. Changes begin as we see new worlds to explore that have lain beneath the normalcy of our past life. We see possibilities instead of complications. We wonder. We release. We transform. We heal and become whole for the first time.
We realize that although we were damaged, we survived and that makes us dangerous. Because we now know how to not only survive, we know how to become whole again. We become those that Rumi spoke about when he said, “the wound is the place where the light enters you.” We become both a mentor and a teacher for ourselves.
Being a mentor to oneself with love, light, grace and compassion. Being a teacher to yourself with rage, darkness, fear, and judgment. We are both, and both are required for the heroes journey. Speaking love to overcome rage, speaking light to overcome darkness, speaking grace to overcome fear and speaking compassion to overcome judgment.
“I guess that’s the thing about a hero’s journey. You might not start out a hero, and you might not even come back that way. But you change, which is the same as everything changing. The journey changes you, whether or not you know it, and whether or not you want it to.” Kami Garcia
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“Alice: How long is forever?
White Rabbit: Sometimes, just one second”
– Lewis Carroll
Life seems like that sometimes. I remember years ago that we were driving north on I-5 in Oregon and we had just crested the top of a hill around Roseberg. You could see quite a way in front of you as the road sloped down into a valley. Ahead of us was a semi-tractor trailer and he ran over something that looked like shiny metal in the road. Immediately his tires blew and he started swerving and then the whole rig tipped onto its side.
For a moment it was like slow motion. I could see so many small details as the whole scene played out like a movie. Then whoosh, time sped back up and my husband was pulling off the road and running back to make sure the driver was ok. The driver was just shocked by what had happened. But for me, it was the weirdest experience of time I have ever had. It was like the rabbit said, forever came in just one second.
“I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then” – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
In order to embrace change, you need a great deal of courage. Change in your life today is speeding up, faster and faster. This speed of change is impacting every facet of your life. It changes the education system, the business world, and your personal life.
I saw a cute video the other day where the family was in a hotel room and the dad handed the telephone receiver to his young daughter to hang it up. She didn’t know what to do. All she had experience with was a cell phone. She didn’t understand the receiver had to go onto the cradle of the phone.
Technology changes your world moment by moment. Political upheaval can change all of the rules you live by in a moment. Your belief systems can swing from one absolute truth, to a new absolute truth. It takes a lot of courage to stay in that place of curiosity . To not become mired into taking rigid stands against someone whose belief is different from yours.
It takes a lot of courage to change beliefs that you have had for a long time. It could be that you have to finally acknowledge that you have outgrown them. Or it could be that science, technology, and even a simple virus has totally changed the world as you know it.
It takes a lot of courage to have a love affair with the unknown. It means that you are constantly learning something new. Each new thing demands that we let go of an old belief. You may think like Alice “this is impossible” but as the Mad Hatter replied, “Only if you think it is.” My favorite line is “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
“May I have the courage today to live the life that I would love. To postpone my dream no longer. But do at last what I came here for and waste my heart on fear no more” – John O’Donohue
Transformation was a big topic in the story. One pill made her smaller, Cake made her larger. The Cheshire Cat became invisible. Animals can talk. You can kill the Jabberwocky.
Nothing remained the same for long in Wonderland. It feels like right now that we are all walking through Wonderland. The world is shifting day by day, and no one knows what to expect to have happened at the end of the day. Are you approaching the madness with curiosity? With courage?
I think that the most interesting thing about curiosity is that it hides something most of us are afraid of admitting. It cloaks your ignorance about something or someone. Most of us wouldn’t want to admit we don’t know something. But we aren’t afraid of being curious.
Being curious is a great gift. At the moment that you use this gift –
“Running away from your problems is a race that you will never win.” Unknown.
Be brave. Fight for what you believe in, and make your dreams a reality. You are the only one who can. We are who we are, based on the choices that we make.
What is the difference between leaving something that doesn’t serve you and running away? I think it is several things. The realization that there is nothing that you can do to change the situation. You can only change yourself, and if the situation doesn’t change when you do, then it is time to ask yourself “why am I still here?”
Years ago I had interviewed for a new job and was hired. The first hour of my first day at the new job, I knew that I had made a mistake. The owner of the company had a lot of issues with anger and how he treated his employees. He wasn’t the person that I had interviewed with, and when I interviewed he wasn’t in the office. If he had been, I would not have accepted the position. As an example, when he would walk through the office, he would pull out the fax machine paper trays and if the paper wasn’t completely full, he would start yelling and swearing at the receptionist – even if she had filled them up just five minutes before.
The Saturday of my first week there, I had come in the office to set up my desk with the various underwriting guidelines they used for several companies. While I was there, the owner of the company came in and we started talking. I had already worked for an owner like him, and I had sworn I would never allow someone to treat me like that again. So I told him very clearly that the first time he yelled and swore at me, like I had seen him do with others, would be the day I quit.
The day eventually came when it happened. I went into the storage area and grabbed a box, and started putting my personal things in the box. Shocked, he asked me what I was doing. I reminded him of that conversation and said I was quitting. As far as I know, I was the first person that he ever apologized to for his bad behavior, and he never yelled or swore at me again.
Now I needed that job to support my family. But I had made a promise to myself to never let anyone demean me again. It took a tremendous amount of courage to go and grab that box. I was determined to be true to my word to myself. I chose to love myself, over fear of losing the job and income needed to support my family.
So many of us stay in bad relationships – with our employment, our family, our spouse, our friends. We tell ourselves that we have no choice but to stay. But we always have choices. Our happiness starts with us, and how we not only treat ourselves, but how we give permission to others to treat us. I could only make that choice because I loved myself, and trusted that doing the right thing would work out in the end.
The job, the relationships with friends and family, this is not what makes us happy or unhappy. It is how we treat ourselves with our inner voice inside our heads. The way we talk to and about ourselves, is how we give unconscious permission for others to treat us.
Words like, “you are so sensitive, can’t you take a joke?”, or “how stupid can I be?” or, “how naive and gullible you are”, or “You are making things worse, this is all your fault”. “I am always that last choice, never good enough.”
You have to believe that when you leave the wrong people or situations in your life, that the right things will start happening. The only way to get that kind of trust, is to just leap in faith that it will work out. It is like the chicken or the egg scenario, they both happen at the same time.
Paulo Coelho said, “If you’re brave to say “good bye”. life will reward you with a new “hello”. He also said, “You are what you believe yourself to be.” If that is true, what not believe yourself to be brave? Be the person that you are afraid to be, the one that doesn’t fit in, the misfit, the strange one. The words to the song, “Renegades” “long live the pioneers, rebels and mutineers, go forth and have no fears.”
The only way to discover what you are truly capable of, is to take leaps of faith across the chasms and up into the heights of trees. It is what is necessary to push out the boundaries of your comfort zone, or to decrease the size of your tolerance zone, as the case may be.
Refuse to be confined in accepting a mere existence for a life. Existence isn’t real security, but is instead an cage. May your heart be brave, your mind be fierce, and your spirit be free.