Release the shackles that stop you having the life of your dreams...
In some ways this is self love and care 101. It raises the question, where am I settling? What am I not doing with my life? As we age and the years go by, we start to bargain with ourselves, telling ourselves that we will pursue our wildest dreams when we retire, or when our kids leave home, or when the house is done, or when, when, when!!!
The date usually never comes, or it’s too late to come or we just plain don’t want to do it anymore because we have stepped past the younger years of our life. Plus with children staying at home longer and the retirement age generally creeping up, it’s tricky to know if the time that we have pencilled in will ever really be there.
In many ways this is a type of binding, we bind ourselves to a particular course of action because we think we have to. We bind ourselves to situations that create entrapment. This stops us from truly being who we are.
With this in mind living our greatness needs to start now, yes now, right now. It doesn’t mean upping sticks with the family and moving to a kibbutz. It just needs to be the action of taking active steps everyday to create the life that we want to have, doing the things that we want to do and cultivating a road to the dreams that have resided within us since we were children.
If we really want to go to a kibbutz, we could visit one. There are always options of smaller actions that can lead to a bigger dream. Most of us tend not to reach the pinnacle because we put insurmountable walls in our own way. We tell ourselves it’s an unrealistic proposition, we move out of the way of what we love because we think we have to.
Honestly most of us hit adulthood saddled with so many responsibilities that any kind of greatness gets lost on the journey of life. However, if our greatness is to give singing a go, design the next best sports car, run the London marathon and we keep ignoring this, we will start to feel an uneasy feeling.
The reason for this is because the act of self love is when we honour our wants needs and desires. When we ignore or put back what we want to do and do other things in their place, we are not being caring to ourselves. In fact when we do this we are creating upset within our being. It’s also worth knowing that this upset can cause illness, sleep problems, back problems, headaches. You name it there may be physical or mental fall out from ignoring our call to greatness. Or just a general dissatisfaction that slowly chips away creating a sense of discontent.
In the big scheme of things it is very easy to hide our light. In childhood something might have happened that made us protect our genius and hide it away. We may have been told that it was a fanciful idea and that a proper job would give us a better life. There maybe issues around areas of deserving, we feel we are not good enough, or we fear being our greatest self.
The question is, are we living someone else’s dreams for us? This is a tricky one, as dreams, ideas, beliefs etc get funneled down to us over the years from the people that we come into contact with. The trick is to be vigilant, to work out whether the dreams that we are living really belong to us. For many of us, if we feel that there is something that we are not doing, this is the message that we are not listening to our own innate calling.
Finding greatness it is to access what scares us, or feels futile and insurmountable. Be aware that we know deep in your heart what you really want: Whatever the dream is, the answer is to find ways to incorporate aspects of it into our lives.
It’s that old chestnut from Susan Jeffers again, feel the fear and do it anyway. The main problem can be that we do not have an understanding of why we have the fear. Throughout our lives we are taught that if we fear something, we need to be wary of it, as it may not be for us.
In some ways this can be correct, yet there are reasons why something that would really benefit our lives can end up in the saber toothed tiger pile. This unnecessary fear and the possibility that real bodily harm may come to us, can trigger a response that makes it almost impossible to play big.
In love terms this is limitation and it stops a deep kind of love, that allows us to be our authentic self. Self love will stop us from censoring our deepest desires; it helps us to find a way around anything that stops us from moving into our greatest life. The truth is that the possibilities are there for all of us.
Upbringing, experiences, culture, friends, family, teachers can have an impact on our possibilities. It would be nice to say that all the experiences, messages and beliefs that we learn are positive, however in reality they tend to be a mix of both. They depend on our personality, our point of reference and how we felt as a child. Stepping into our greatness can be difficult if we received messages that negated or criticised our values and beliefs when we were children.
To get through these feelings we have to know what they are, we need to own them. Once we have awareness moving through the fear becomes easier. Of course if the fear is a very deep fear, there are therapies that can help to move through the pain barrier and into a great life.
It really is worth reaching out to someone if lost…
If we can name the feelings, own them and maybe even attribute them to where they came from, we will be able to re-write the story that is holding us apart from our greatness (self love). It may take strength to go against inner programming. Yet it is to remember: That it’s possible with inner work to release programming that we may not have been aware of.
The message here is to step into greatness we need to truly honour ourselves. We need to understand the barriers that have been created in our lives. Barriers that stop us from engaging in a life that would be more beneficial to us. It is easy to say that we are happy, when in reality there is something amiss that we can’t put our finger on.
Stepping into our greatest life, trusting that the choices that we are making are for the best and moving in the direction of what we truly desire will light the way to happiness.
My Thoughts
Believe me I understand how it feels, I am still on a learning curve, moving slowly to get to whatever my greatness is. Yes, I was reticent and truly it all feels like too much work sometimes. The one thing that keeps me going is that I have this life for a reason and I might as well really enjoy it, doing what I want to be doing. Wow, best case scenario, I might even wind up doing something I love doing.
I believe that stepping into greatness is worth it, never know it might take me to a brilliant life, that I could never have imagined. Plus, I do not want to let fear run the show anymore.
Xx
It may take some time, there may be some tweaks. We might need to save money, leave a job, leave a relationship that drags life down, move house, change direction or take a career break.
For the many people that have ignored their dreams, there are as many that are living these dreams. This possibility is available to us all.
Find inspiration, find love, be whatever creates a life that is fabulous. This is self love 101. When we trap ourselves in spaces that we don’t want to be in, doing jobs that we don’t want to be doing, we are not caring about ourselves at all.
To step into greatness we really have to consider our decisions, our choices, we need to take time to pause and feel the direction that we want to be going in. Often when we are not living our greatness we are sailing on a boat full of ideas that come from other people. We are do not hear our own voice over the loudness of other people's opinions. This is a people pleaser mode; where we are living life for others and not for ourselves.
All of us do this to some degree at one time or other in our life; just know that if this sounds familiar; self love says take a step back. It is time to take stock and to know what creates brilliance. If we feel that we are being swayed by the agenda of others, we need to stay rooted within our heart, like a tree. Creating from this space is easier and there is no other space that our desires ought to come from.
Also remember that there is no wrong, often we don’t step into our greatness because we think that we are making a wrong decision, or that we may be taking our life in the wrong direction.
It’s not possible; it is for us to accept that where we are going is where we are meant to be going, even if it leads to darkness.
We are not here to only experience joy, there will be challenges, and there will be tough times. It’s making it through these challenges that make us who we are.
Do something that scares you everyday - this will help you to move into your greatness.
So now you see there is no way that we can get this wrong, it’s impossible. With this in mind surely it’s worth going in the direction of a long held dream, never know we could end up at the top of the world :) …
