Over more than 20 years of working with women, there have been unforgettable, life-altering moments. Moments when things are said in ways that profoundly display the immense genius of us all! Profound-in-their-simple-truth moments… no longer able or willing to keep hidden what so intently lies below and screams to be seen and heard! In reading recent postings by others, one of those moments comes to mind.
With the passage of time, the details of when and where have faded but what has remained is the universal truth of its underpinnings. A wonderful woman (and you know who you are!), faced with the sharp edge of her own evolution, was heard to say with the greatest of earnest: “I really want things to be different…. but I don’t want too much to change!”
Brilliant, don’t you think? In that one, simple statement, we all got to hear and see and feel inside of ourselves our own paralysis in the face of getting what we want! In that short and uncomplicated statement, we got to touch the complexity of intent and desire, interwoven with the terror of getting what we want… and losing what we have.
It is far too often what women do… what we all do. We want things to be different and yet, we are terrified to act in the face of what we anticipate will be the consequences. We want things to change and we are paralyzed by the thought that it might. We long for and sometimes rage about – inside, where we live – the life that we know we deserve.. and should have… and would take were it not for (fill in the blank: lack of money, opportunity, support, the ‘right’ people, timing, etc.).
We know we are powerful beings! We know that we must be very , very cautious about what we ask for since we will likely get it! Far too often, we literally paralyze ourselves… immobilize ourselves physically and emotionally.. in order to slow ourselves down in an attempt to manage (i.e. control) the people and events around us that we might figure out how to respond and avert the likely impending disaster that we know having what we really want is likely to bring.
We are adept at… no, not strong enough!… geniuses at being the biggest obstacle in our own path – and trying to hide that from ourselves. Ouch! As brilliant as that may be, we pay dearly at the last frontier : the physical body. Our body plays out the raging inner battle for permission to live the life we desire; permission to be authentically ourSelf. It need not be a HUGE life or an exemplary life – it need only be the life that reflects the much deeper inner truth of who we know ourselves to be. And for that, we often feel we must pay the price of loss, pain and regret – punishing ourselves for seeking to ‘be’ more, ‘do’ more, ‘have’ more before someone else does it for us.
That is no longer my world! Yes, there was a time when it was – and no longer. That shift did not come in small, measured and closely managed increments. It came as a result of letting go… of complete surrender… and realizing that if I was not living my life – the life I desired – then whose life was I living?
In all the years that I have worked with women, I have come to realize that our greatest fear is not rooted in not getting what we want but in getting what we want! Can we handle it? Will we still be loved? Will we be abandoned… undesirable… unworthy? Will we be alone? Will getting what we want be the evidence of our self-ish and punishable way of ‘being’ in our lives, shunned by those who are more ‘loving’ and ‘loveable’ in their relentless pursuit of approval and acceptance by throwing themselves on the highly polished altar of martyrdom?
One book… a couple of CD’s… an hour here and there… won’t do it. Here’s the bad news: if I am not fully embracing the life I desire, I’m living the life I was given. Not good/bad, right/wrong – just a simple statement of fact.
When I do a ‘reality check’, I choose to pull myself up to the table where I know I will find other women LIVING LARGE and LIVING FULLY. Why do I do that? Because I know that if I don’t, I will have – by default – pulled myself up to the table of women living the lives that were handed to them – and I’ll die.
Breathing is good….
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