Part 2 of Daring past doable…
What if we erased the concepts of time, money, distance, experience, need and started from desire? Desire almost comes almost a forbidden word for most of us. We were taught better than to tarry there, at least in the South I was. Too often anything seen as outside the realm of experience a parent or community new was labeled dangerous as though new or modern or different was dangerous. We do that to ourselves too as adults, whether its for fear, finances, or the guilt or shame that if that’s true then we’ve wasted our xyz by not dealing with it sooner.
I’m here to tell you, sometimes the most important thing you can do on a day like New Year’s Day or the days after is to consider the concept of “what would truly be desirable to experience…well if you even had enough gumption to consider learning what other possibilities are out there” You may even have to go try out a few teeny tiny experiences before you can even consider if something WOULD be desireable.
Gumption? You need some, a good old healthy dose of it. Yep gumption, for you see it takes daring to open your mind and that takes serious gumption. Some of us have a mind that works like a steel trap where risking new ideas for living comes in. Whether it’s about how to consider that you have limiting beliefs…that maybe even the premise you have set your beliefs on could be flawed….maybe its considering recognizing that folks taught you with good intentions but wrong ones for you. Maybe its realizing that the rules you lived by, were made by….dare I say it…imperfections of their own?
So many couples and adults have the sad history of perceiving “doable” based on the knowledge or the perceived knowledge of what something is without even considering or researching what something their heart of hearts desires might require. We make so many assumptions that something will be too hard, too long, too difficult, too encompassing, too expensive, too much time, too risky to reputation…and we place those heavy forecasts of our dreams possibilities that eventually many of us in adulthood s.t.o.p. even considering that our hearts should be involved. (and too often the truth was it took less than you thought, would matter more than you imagine, or could happen with effort more capably than you’d allow yourself to think)
Gail Hyatt by way of Patsy Clairmont, was quoted as saying “Why do we wait so long to change?” I so ask the same thing after a chosen change is done and was better than I imagined and worth so very much the trouble of arriving to my new normal. It is a well stated reality. This year I want you to visit Sweetieland for a moment. A place where the rules and beliefs of what is “doable” are suspended for a moment or three. Find a place where you can get truly quiet in your spirit…a time where you can think with your heart wide open (so at my house this means removing myself from the should of could of would of needs of the house, Mt Washmore, The dirty dishes mountain chains,…sometimes it means leaving #TheTackyBrownHouse entirely to go drive to a quiet, beautiful space near us or turning on music and getting in the tub. (well not this week, for it still looks like a dirt floor in there) But you know your place, the one where your mind and eyes say “ahhh”….and can actually hear itself think again.
Visit that place….drink it in,….take paper or recorders if that’s your style…and start small….think “What is it that I truly relax and enjoy” For some of you, this is a hard question for you’ve not though of life in terms of enjoyment, it’s more survival and tough survival at that. For others of you, you enjoy everything you’re supposed to, but you, yourself haven’t asked for your own heart’s needs in quite the while. For yet others of you, the thought of what it would take to get to your heart’s desires seems so far, so risky, you shut that conversation down like a smart aleck child who is sent to bed for sassing you at supper. One year for me, it was about finding a list of 50 things I truly enjoyed that I could do with what I already owned. That year it was HARD for me to even perceive I was ALLOWED to add ease purposefully to my life. Comprehende in your world? For me the list was compiled over 30 days after taking time to notice..to gain awareness of what brought peace, or a smile to my heart.
Here it is though, permission, royal permission from Sweetieland….take this day, maybe even the next ten weeks…and work on just thinking and maybe listing what experiences do you want in your life different than they are. Ask friends or someone you appreciate what experiences make their life, their daily doings work for them. Listen to your heart, dare to consider not the cost, time, and effort of change but the outcome of such change. Let the choices resonate….try them out as though they are already done. Pretend for a day, dress the part, try on new ways of thinking. Be bold, risk being ridiculous, but by all means, dare looking past the doable and consider the possible. Michael Hyatt’s Best Year Ever discusses limiting beliefs, as a teacher I can tell you story after story about how my students overcame their limiting beliefs as academians, as athletes, as student leaders, you see young minds believe what you tell them. The secret is, your mind does too.
So what are you telling yourself about your life? Would you take a measure of intention and listen? I know a year ago August I was shocked to truly realize what I told myself. What I allowed others to tell me too about the possiblities of my heart’s desires. The truth is the “others” voices were overcome easily but my own…well, that is another story. However new things begin with new perceptions of possilbiites…and that begins with stopping the input to your mind and heart and pausing for…
yes, you guessed it…
the needs and word of your heart. Go on, you’re allowed. We’re not talking change the world, we’re talking consider past the doable right now and allow your heart to speak its needs, its desires, and its hopes…
who knows, you might find, as I did, that one day those needs, wants, hopes were not only doable…they were worth the price of choosing differently…and before you know it…the desires of your heart may simply exist in your daily existence. It begins at the beginning…a very fine place to start as Julie Andrews taught us…if you peeled your would have, should have, can do’s from your thinking….what desires for this life of yours are there? Get them down, draw them, cut out pictures, journal or list them…nothing more than let them surface.
and see what arises like a zenith from your heart.
See Part 1 here
