Delve

He shows me his list.  There are at least ten things on it, maybe a few more.  He’s thought long and hard about what he wants to do in the coming year.  I tell him I wholeheartedly support every action he wants to take.  Some of the tasks will enable others; I see quickly which should be tackled first. I surmise some will take care of themselves if he chooses to start with the priorities.  And as I consider his list a bit more deeply, I recognize this is not just what he wants to do, but who he wants to become.

   

What’s on the list gives all sorts of information about what he values:  His well-being, security, relationships and nature.  He is full of wanderlust, and maybe a touch of just plain lust. I know this feeling of pent up desire; he’s pressing hard on his glass ceiling, not sure he can handle the upheaval he’ll create when he breaks it; not sure he’s willing to put forth the energy needed to live at these new heights, above the safe and familiar bounds of the past he’s looking to leave behind.

It’s certainly normal to question yourself on the threshold of this kind of change.  We all have limits threatening to hold us back.  Some are real and some are imaginary. We’re paralyzed until we address them.

He takes the first step; he is defining who he wants to be. Maybe he’s known this for a while; I don’t know how long his desires have been incubating in his head.  What I do know is he demonstrates a tremendous amount of courage in bringing them to me, and he’s ready to do the work.  Rumi, when he speaks of finding love, says this: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”  It is the same when we seek to become who we want to be.  We need to look within ourselves and understand how we are standing in our own way.  It is amazing what the world seems to set at our feet when we look within and change ourselves instead of trying to change others.

But what happens when we encounter chronic limitations within ourselves requiring continuous effort to materially alter?  Where does the energy come from for this kind of transformation?  How do we be who we want to be within the confines of who we are?

We all have chronic limitations, a default position in some area of our being requiring constant manual override.  Most of us expend an excessive amount of energy attempting to conceal these weaknesses, and when we feel like they are spotted we make excuses for them or we blame someone or something else. What if, instead, we admitted our weaknesses, accepted and assessed them?  Are they real, or have we made them up in our heads?  Is there a “cure”, so to speak, can they be eliminated?  If they can’t be eliminated, how do we manage them?  To manage our weaknesses is to own them. Owning them removes the power they have over us, and replaces it with the fuel we need to manage them. When we’re comfortable saying “This is not my strength, but here’s how I manage it,” we become comfortable with ourselves.  And when we are comfortable with who we are, we can stretch into who we want to be.

So I’m asked who I want to be.  I created a list similar to his over four years ago.  I transformed myself into someone who, to paraphrase Dallas Clayton, pursues what makes her happy with the intent to make others happy. I share my art and writing with the world in hopes I inspire others to put their own creativity out there. I lead with confidence, and pour a tremendous amount of time and energy into coaching others so they can do the same. I create safe places for people to connect by striving to ask thoughtful questions in place of supplying answers.  I use my manual override regularly to manage, among other things, my inherent lack of patience, my desire to control situations and to be outgoing when my shyness wants desperately to prevail.  And these days I’m seeking to understand what prevents me from maintaining my home and why I possess so little faith.

I am a work in progress, driven by my values. I started my journey with a list and a conviction attributed to Socrates:  “The unexamined life is not worth living.”