When joy is your goal everything created will therefore be the right outcome.
Laying in bed at 4 in the morning I found myself waking yet again, sifting through the escalating thoughts of “Am I doing enough? Why is life so challenging? Why do I keep making mistakes?” …and “Is it all worth it?”
The usual response came! A rush of voices screaming back at me “You have to work hard to succeed! You’re struggling because you’re not doing what you need to be doing yet! You fail because it’s ingrained in you and will never get away from it!” ….and “Why bother?”
And so, the repeated turmoil of my mind as usual, undid all the good work I’d done that day!
Sound familiar?
This morning however, the brakes ground on to my destructive mind chatter as my intuitive voice came screaming to the surface like a diver running out of breath and I heard “Wait! What the heck are you doing again?”
Rewind!
18 months previously I met a man and fell in love! “Great” you may say. “How lovely!”
“Yes,” I would reply “It’s like I woke up for the first time and realised who I was. Reflected back from this mighty figure in a 5-foot 5-inch jacket, I saw clearly for the first time in my life that I was worthy to be me!”
Prior to that, (re-wind more so) and to summarise 50 years of my life in a few short sentences (which is insane short story writing to say the least), here goes:
A frightened child in an uncertain world carried a cartload of negative programming with her unknowingly into her young adulthood which attracted what seemed like an uncontrollable roller coaster of bad situations created by poor choices. The crash came when illness struck her down and out of that chrysalis was born a choice – she wanted to live. Struck with that, she opened up and revealed her vulnerability and found her purpose. Helping others get ‘unstuck’ gave her reason enough to live and build a life worthwhile.
Back to now!
What we originally think we are, we are not as we are becoming
On paper it seemed the answer to everything, but it came at a price. Direction, dedication, responsibility, focus, faith, goals, attitude, repetition, strength, structure, learning, mantras, prayer and success was my driving force.
However, the downside was pressure, vulnerability, fear, anxiety, stress, uncertainty, poor health, relationship difficulties and addictions.
So, I stuck all the last paragraph’s words in a box and marked it FAILURE!
But that box uncontrollably opened to taunt me when I least expected it until eventually 18 months ago something shifted in me enough to get a glimpse into my possible authentic self and not the one I thought I was sculpting from the limited self-belief of my past!
Relationships are the most extraordinarily diverse experience we can ever encounter. Each one of us can act completely differently in front of different people, all be it perhaps with slight adjustments to our mannerisms, but we speak and reflect back a completely different language to every single person we encounter.
Hence why when we look at how relationships and business are linked, we start to understand our authentic selves and from that our purpose when we meet authentic people and vice versa.
What I’d been playing around at through the formative years of my consultancy work helping clients, was merely a shadow of me. I genuinely thought I was being true to myself, but still lived in a world of relative fear and had come to accept that that just might be the best I should expect. I justified it by rationalising that at least it wasn’t the fear that I had once lived, but it was still fear (all be it residual), which I carried around with me in a back pack strapped to my back, which corrosively spilled into my thoughts at night and undid all that I was trying to achieve, to live the life I really wanted.
Relationships are mirrors to our soul’s growth
Relationships, after the initial attraction are to help us learn something about ourselves. The mirror that I met in my relationship whipped me into the land of ‘possibility’ to see my essence. For the first time I discovered self-acceptance which triggered self-worth and self-love. I didn’t have to learn how to love myself, it just awoke in me like I’d been asleep for a hundred years. But it was only the start.
It felt like I’d stepped into a fairy tale, yet I feared how people would judge me as it felt absurd and unjustified because of my programs of my past. The more vulnerable I became as my authentic self was emerging, instead of feeling the celebration of my liberation, I tried to shut it down through fear of failing, so I categorised and controlled it. I was growing inside but losing my joy.
I saw joy disappearing but was so desperate to hold onto the ride of expanding into my newly emerging me, that I thought by accepting that loss for the sake of keeping everything keeping on keeping on, it would return when I was less ‘busy being busy.’
So, this morning when I woke up, my habitual thoughts came to a crescendo with “but I’m still sick, so what must people think? I’m a failure!”
And my intuitive voice came through loud and clear with “Failure? Of course you’ve failed! You were meant to. You saw failing as personal though and not business.”
Failure is consequential and not emotional
It was right! I saw failure as an emotion, not a consequence of my actions! I saw it through judgement of not being where I thought I should be instead of reward for my newly emerging self and expanding business. My self-worth button had only been partially on until my intuitive voice finally spoke clearly to me “Oh….so finally you’re listening to me then?”
I hadn’t realised that by the business of doing and creating a wonderful new life, I had suppressed joy in order to channel everything into what I thought was succeeding! After experiencing adversity, it’s natural to have your foot fully on the accelerator when it feels like you’ve a chance to flee for the hills in the opposite direction. As soon as I saw my life becoming what I’d always wanted, I left joy behind in order to keep control! This morning, my intuitive voice gave me permission to go back and pick her up and return with her to my current location.
So I abated my nagging mind that I didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to do my daily yoga, chanting, affirmations, walk the dog, social media, emails, build my network, work on the business, get aligned to my purpose, post my inspirations, make sure I’ve got food for the family tonight, do the washing, take the hair out of the shower plug and bleach it again, and re-do that ‘to do’ list of all the ever growing things I need to do achieve to get there…………..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Instead, I got up out of bed and crept downstairs so as not to wake the family and opened my lap top to write!!! I felt like a kid who’d sneaked down to open her Christmas presents before anyone else woke up.
It was a light bulb moment! What was the purpose of living my purpose if I didn’t honour the thing I loved to do more than anything else in this world? I realised then that I didn’t need and have never needed permission to be in my joy. Writing is my bliss so why had I slipped into only writing when asked to serve my business?
Where no joy exists, passion fades!
Writing is my business, more importantly it’s part of my purpose and most of all, it’s my passion.
I made a pact this morning to no longer see my purpose as business driven but to accept and fully embrace the emotional side of business. Sitting here right now writing this post is like sitting on a tranquil island beach, listening to the waves kiss the shore line…it is utter heaven to me. So why have I put this on hold, why have I denied my joy? It was simply fear!
Stepping back, I now give myself permission to finally allow the wonderful people I have in my life to ‘fully’ support me and ‘trust’ my business growth will emerge authentically. I also give myself permission to fully immerse my whole vulnerable, emotional, passionate and joyful self to bathe in all its glory.
Today and every day to come, no matter what life throws at me, joy is my ultimate goal and everything created then will therefore be the right outcome.
If you’d love to explore working together, book a FREE half hour consultation here at: https://calendly.com/info-5754
Working in collaboration with other women & making a difference? Join our Facebook group here at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/empoweringwomenempoweringwomen/
Or sign up to our FREE Newsletter at www.amanda-hart.co.uk to receive your bi-monthly dose of inspiration from thought leaders and change makers from around the world.