Just over a week ago I had a Firestarter one-on-one session with the White Hot Truth teller herself, Danielle LaPorte.
We were chatting about what fires me up, my website, what I’m creating and what I want to create and she said:
“You know, it’s all here. You’ve got it. You’re already doing it. But you’re hiding.”
And I said, “Yes.”
Just like that.
I hadn’t thought about it that way before and yet as soon as she said it I knew it was true. (In fact, I felt it so fast and deep it was as though my heart knew it a second before she said it.)
See, I already knew I was afraid.
Afraid of looking stupid, afraid of not meeting people’s expectations (and my own), afraid of getting it wrong (in some impossible-to-define way).
Afraid above all of TRYING and failing. Because when you’re not trying, you can always give yourself an out. You can always believe you had the potential to do more, if only you’d TRIED. The land of potential unrealised is a kinda safe place to hang out. Sad, but safe.
So, I knew all about this fear, and I was working with it.
Talking to the monsters. Turning over the old stories and seeing what lay underneath. Questioning. All useful stuff that was helping with internal shifts.
And in the meantime I was, I thought, ‘putting myself out there’. Talking about how to get to the sweet spot in your business, and the dirty M-word and giving up on being a know-it-all. Stuff I believe in. Stuff straight from my heart and gut.
But something didn’t feel right.
The writing, my message, wants to rip itself out of my chest, yet the process gets so constipated, so suffocated by fear.
Enter white hot truth teller. Realisation.
It’s not the fear precisely (there will probably always be fear). It’s what I do with it. And what I’ve been doing is hiding.
A very sneaky sort of hiding* where I write something that screams to be written, hit publish and then tell no-one. Where I sigh with relief as each post slips from the front page into the archives. Where I give cryptic links to the ‘sign up for updates’ page.
* Sidenote: That’s not to say hiding is always a bad thing. I think it can be a very good thing. It’s done plenty for me. It’s helped me get here.
I don’t want to hide anymore.
Never fear, good readers, that doesn’t mean I’m going to start flashing you with indecent sales pitches or fleshy tales of my awesome expertness.
This ‘unhiding’ is about inhabiting my power. Owning this thing that is, in fact, already working through me. Letting it burst out. Testing it. Savouring it. Taking it places I haven’t even thought of yet. Stuff I can’t do while I’m busy hiding.
Here’s the funny thing.
Back in January I was talking about yearning for wholeness – and part of that was being wholly me in my business. I said:
“When I work with people to uncover their core message, many have some element of their business or themselves that they’re trying to hide or gloss over. Because it’s not ‘special’ enough. Because they think other people aren’t interested or don’t want to hear about it.
Often this is the very thing that becomes an important part of their core message — that in turn gives them the confidence to go out into the world as their true selves and really connect with the people they want to serve.”
It’s important to ask what you might be hiding. The true gift we give to others is often the gift we need most ourselves.
As Danielle said to me: “You’re really good at helping others shine their message, shine their work in the world. Your evolution is now to shine your own message as well.”
Shine on.
21 Jun 10 | Read more on Life, Learning etc. | Join the conversation (10 Comments) »
Who the hell do you think you are?
What makes you think you have anything worthwhile to say?
You are one deluded chickadee if you think anyone wants to listen to you.
You are so boring. So self-involved. Don’t you know that everyone would be a lot happier if you just kept quiet and let us get on with whatever we are doing?
Who the hell do I think I am?
I’m a life unravelling. Alongside 6 billion others.
I’m told I’m an incarnate soul. I’m not sure if I grasp the meaning of that, but I know I’m a complex thing.
I’m conscious. I’m aware.
I can be transported by the flickering shower spray caught in the beam of sun coming through my bathroom window.
I’m having this experience. I’m creating this experience.
I’m infinitely unimportant. But I can decide.
I’m one leaf fluttering and flipping its way to the ground. Delighting in the flight.
I’m the boss of me.
I think. I write.
Sometimes I think I’m a person whose thoughts and words and actions are of no use to anyone. But then, I remember they’ve already been of use to some.
I’m telling you a little of what it’s like to be me. And you might tell me a little of what it’s like to be you. No moment can be a waste in this way.
I can be only who I am.
I’m a vulnerable explorer. Who are you?
.
5 Jun 10 | Read more on Life, Learning etc. | Join the conversation (2 Comments) »
Gut Time is an occasional series in which I talk with my gut — my figurative gut (as in, the place where gut feelings come from) and my literal gut (as in my somewhat broken digestive system). Because, in mindful business and in life, knowing yourself is important.
A month ago I gave a presentation to a group of teenagers with IBD (inflammatory bowel disease). I had so much I wanted to say, it was hard to decide what to leave out. That’s probably the greatest challenge of any speaker or writer — letting go of almost everything so that what is left is clear and unemcumbered.
What was left with is partly to do with IBD, but mostly to do with life. It’s what I’m still learning everyday. This is what I talked about…
IBD (read: a lot of stuff in life) SUCKS
and no amount of positive thinking will change that.
On the day, everyone in the group shared their number one suckiest thing about IBD. And nearly every example was different (one person’s sucky can be another person’s OK, and vice versa).
We all have really hard days. And it sucks. (Knowing that other people have hard days too in no way reduces your own suck in that moment. People who tell you to ‘think positive’ also suck.)
I’ve lain on the floor of my shower and cried from the pain. Nothing will make that suck less.
I’ve felt angry. And helpless. And alone. I’ve felt sorry for myself and wanted to give up. And that’s OK. Now, I try to let myself feel that way and stay there for as long as I need.
Then, at some point, when I’m all cried and raged out, I roll over onto my back, open my eyes and think, “I’m still here, I’ve still got IBD, what am I going to do next?”
We’ve got one life on this amazing planet
I’m not trying to be all Monty-Python-Always-Look-On-The-Bright-Side-Of-Life here, but when you think about the whole globe and everything in it — the cities, the wilderness, the oceans, all the creatures, all the sunrises and night skies, all the people, all the experiences you can have; and you think about your body which, for all its faults, keeps going and it holds you and allows you to move around in this world and do so many different things; and you think about you, thinking about you, aware and creative and sensitive… well that is pretty freaking amazing.
On the day of my talk, everyone shared three things that don’t suck (for me it was my cats, beautiful days spent watching clouds go by, and chocolate – just for starters!).
This does not make the sucky stuff suck less. But it’s useful to remember that there’s also a lot of stuff that doesn’t suck.
This is your show.
It’s up to us what happens next. But it’s really hard to remember that all the time. We feel limited. By our bodies. By other people. By our circumstances.
Yet we always have choices. And that is not an easy thing. When we get that it really is our show, it’s a big thing to live up to, all that possibility. When we do stuff because of other people, in reaction to what other people are saying or doing, we lose a bit of that bigness, we make ourselves smaller.
I’m not talking about doing the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ thing – I’m talking about making conscious choices. I’m talking about being in charge of your own show and deciding what you want to do with the amazing life you have on the planet.
Like I said, it’s hard to remember we have this power, because we feel limited. And here’s the reason…
We always have choices except when we think we don’t.
There are conversations happening in your (and my) head. You know, when you are deciding whether or not to do something, or thinking about something already done, and a certain kind of response pops into your head:
I have to be strong and do this by myself.
Because of ______ I’ll never be able to ______.
Why do I always mess things up?
And then you debate it. Who’s doing the debating? They’re the voices, stories, beliefs, assumptions, standards we carry around with us, often without even realising it. And the most powerful thing we can do is take part in these conversations. And ask questions. And push back… gently.
I limit myself far more than any sucky disease ever could.
I know this.
And it has everything to do with those voices, stories, beliefs, assumptions, standards I carry around with me.
But I can’t fight them or hate them or drive them out (well I can try, but not much good will come of it). Because they are part of me. And in a beautifully crazy-making kind of way, I can see that beating on any part of myself is just another story, another standard, that’s keeping me limited, that’s keeping me from realising my BIGNESS.
So my final advice to the lovely people I met on the day of my talk, and what I try to remind myself (not always successfully) every day is:
Please, be gentle with you.
(And make friends with your gut.)
21 Apr 10 | Read more on Gut Time | Join the conversation (10 Comments) »
