How many times have you heard about someone just like you doing something you'd love to do but can't imagine how you would actually go about making that real for you?
I hear stories just like this from you all the time. You're too young, too old, not experienced enough, not educated enough, too much of an introvert, too nervous, not financially in a position to, not in a position to for so many other reasons, and when it comes right down to it, you're more than a little scared.
Isn't that what most of us feel? Scared?
Afraid to start something we might fail at? Afraid to have to answer to all those naysayers who said we should just play it safe because it makes them feel so much more comfortable when you're not giving them reason to wonder what might also be possible for them?
Here's where I'm going with this. I talk to women every day about all the things they'd rather be doing than what they're doing right now. Just the other day, I encountered a woman who met an old friend she hadn't seen in long time, and the conversation came around to how she could see her opening her own yoga studio.
This was a woman who knew how much she loved yoga but could never imagine herself doing something that big - or as we would go on to talk about, that scary - before.
You know what changed for her? You know what made her realize what might be possible for her?
Someone saw her.
For the first time, someone saw past her identity of who she was at work, who she was with her friends, who she was on a date, who she was with her family, who she was when she was being exactly who she was supposed to be - and this friend who wasn't from her usual group of friends and colleaques, actually saw her.
Do you see how it works for someone to have a vision for you, to picture you somewhere you can't imagine yourself right now? Just the fact that someone can see you in a place you haven't dared yet to believe in, this is so powerful! It's like when we talk about treating children at the level we know they're capable of behaving at - children are so sensitive and so fresh into this world without all the hardened programming that they want to live up to this ideal!
They want to feel that way. They want to live up to that level that we see for them when we treat them as if they're already behaving that way in an attempt to encourage them to see themeselves that way so they'll act the way we know they're capable of.
This is the same thing!
When we let go of all the programming that's done its job to harden us to all the many possibilities and visions for ourselves, we allow ourselves to see again, to be curious again, to imagine again like we haven't allowed ourselves to.
The people who have a vision for you, the ones who can see you in a way that you can't yet see yourself, they give that newly emerging sensitive side of you something to hold onto, something to hope in, something to imagine yourself being that you couldn't see without them.
They make it possible because they're outside of you, they're coming from that same place where you've learned to get your validation from - that external validation whose need for you can't shake.
This is the other side of it where something external can actually benefit you. This is why we need people like this in our life - and why having the opposite, the ones who see a negative vision for you or question how you can ever be more than you are, have such a deeply negative and disillusioning impact on you.
Many years ago when I first began to question who I really was, I stumbled onto a book called Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway. The author Susan Jeffers, knew what she was talking about.
It's not ignoring or pretending we're not afraid that makes the thing we're trying to do possible; it's feeling every part of that fear AND choosing to take a chance on ourselves anyway.
Let's bring the elephant out of the room out in the open and talk about it; fear.
Let's recognize that based on our programming, our conditioning, on all those subconscious beliefs we don't even know we have, that fear is a mighty powerful thing.
But let's do something else with it.
Let's put that fear to work for us and allow it to energize our efforts to realize who and what we might still become. You already know it's not possible if you don't look into what it would take to try it, to take a chance on you this time instead of on a guy who's no different from that other guy you just took the same chance on.
This is your time to take a chance on you!
Humor me if you have to with what that might look like for you. Draw up a plan. Go find someone with the abiblity to see the real you to see if they'll walk through your dreaming/planning/possibility making with you.
Yes, it's scary. But you know what's even scarier? Not doing anything at all!
What about you? When was the last time you thought about what's possible for you? We talk so much about a guy. This time, I want to hear all about you! Share your story with us below in the comments.
Thank you, Jane for another impactful, important entry. For me, fear is very very familiar. It has been for a couple of years now. I think it's a very real thing for many of us as you say. I feel like I'm in the in between space, where I am very aware of the fear and in a very uncertain situation without much of a ground to stand on, but still very much wondering what I'd like to be doing. It's a bit blank at the moment. It's such a strange place to be, where you don't know what you want anymore when you've always been clear cut sure about so much before. It's like going from almost inflexible knowing and determination to a complete halt and not knowing where to go from here. There's the anxiety and the shoulds telling us we should know or figure it out fast and do something, but not knowing makes it all futile and strange. I still struggle with the being in that blank space without forcing myself to find out.
Anytime, Angel. I'm here for all of it. The blank spaces are the hardest places of all.
Wow Jane, how timely can your post be? I'm sitting here wondering what am I doing with my life, nothing that I do is fulfilling. But the way I chase men who are not on the same page with me is on another level, I'm asking myself why can't I take the same energy that I use to chase men and direct it towards my goals and my self fulfillment.
So a lot of people have been telling me that I'm good with people, that I have a gift and I'm a good listener, more especially with the way most people come to me with their problems, the other one recently asked me why can't I open a centre for disadvantaged girls and help them with their self esteem, I have always thought about helping other women on how to love themselves, something along the lines of organizing monthly sessions where we will meet and talk about our experiences, goals and dreams and maybe invite a guest speakers or so who will come and motivate us etc.. However the fear always creeps in when i think of the fact that I'm still struggling with self discovery myself, so I question myself if I'd ever be able to help others when I can't even help myself 😭
So here is what I am planning to do, I give myself three months to focus on myself as a form of self empowerment, I will do everything in my power to direct all the energy to me, i will read self help books, i will medidate, pray, i will go back to gym and most importantly I will take care of myself. And whilst in process of self discovery I will be doing my research in how to go about empowering other women, and when the three months is done I will begin my journey.
Wish me luck.
You go, Lolly! And don't let anyone tell you what you can or can't do. Girl, you share my heart on this. I'll wish you more than luck. I'll tell you you're going to make this happen in your own way and your own time and what that finished product looks like will be yours and all yours. I began this dream of my own through the empowerment of a women's circle before I even knew what it meant to be empowered, let alone to feel it. And wow, you've already got your plan! 🙂