My speech teacher said, after giving me a D minus, 'Ms. Nicholls, I recommend that you never speak in public. I recommend you get a desk job.'
Here's the beauty of that story: Other people's perception of you ain't none of your business. - Lisa Nichols, badass motivational speaker
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Have you ever seen this photo of a potato? It sold for a million dollars. It's by the artist Kevin Abosch. One potato. One photo. ONE MILLION DOLLARS. For real. No tricks. No gimmicks. It wasn't being auctioned for charity, so no one did this out of the kindness of their heart. Someone wanted to pay it, and someone wanted to sell it for that amount. I don't know about you, but when I hear this it triggers all kinds of intense thoughts in me. The idea that someone did this forces me to question my feelings about greed, value, self-worth, and limitless potential. On the one hand, I'm amazed that someone valued themselves and their work so highly that they didn't bat an eye at this. On the other hand, the idea of doing this myself terrifies me, and so I want to judge the people who participated in this. The only way Kevin could sell a photo of a potato for a million dollars is if he believed he could. If Kevin believed in lack and scarcity, and if he believed art has no real value, then this photo would probably be in a flea market right now, where Kevin would be struggling to sell it for $20. But Kevin doesn't play small. Kevin doesn't limit his potential. Kevin clearly believe that all possibilities are available, and that his work is worth whatever he damn well decides it is. Now, let's be clear here - the price was a million from the get go. Non-negotiable. Potato #345 (2010), as the photo is known, was always priced at $1,000,000. And that was exactly what Kevin told people when he showed it to them. The fact that he had the chutzpah to do this blows me away. Because I don't believe in myself in that way, and I don't believe this is possible, I want to be cynical about this. I want to believe this is just a reflection of the absurdity of wealthy people. I want to believe this is ridiculous, and the reflection of one man's out of control ego. I want to believe this is greedy and wrong. What I don't want to do is ask myself why I would never value my own work in this way. I don't want to have to consider that when I say all things are possible, it includes this. I don't want to have to consider that I am a firm believer in thoughts become things but ONLY in a way that makes me comfortable. If I'm being honest, this challenges so many ideas I have about myself and my potential that I can hardly sit with it. It makes me realize I have constricting and limiting conditions attached to the idea of value. It makes me so uncomfortable I don't want to believe Kevin and I exist on the same planet, with the same sets of Universal, cosmic laws. And yet we do. If I really wanted to, I could stretch and expand myself and face all my worthiness issues until I too did this, in my own way. But as I write this, I don't believe that I can. And since I don't believe it... well as Henry Ford said, "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right!"
Come, gather round the fire. It's story time. Here now is a fable as old as time... the story of the invisible door.
You see that sweet pup below? Yeah, he thinks that his family has closed the screen door on him. It hasn't. But he won't come in until someone "opens" the door. So someone does. Except the door was open all along. He just needed someone to help him BELIEVE it. This "door" represents all of the reasons you have that you can't have or be or do that thing. It represents all the things in your way. Because all those things... they're an illusion. The way through is open. Has been all along. You just need to believe it. I know you can have or be or do anything. But do you? Do you believe the door is open? You are an unlimited being created from the same cosmic star dust as the highest mountains and the most powerful rivers. You are the mountain. You are the river. You are as worthy and valuable as the wild flower in the spring and the colorful leaves in the fall. You have all the tools and resources you need to achieve anything. But maybe you're still waiting for someone to open a door. Maybe you're waiting for that obstacle to be removed, without realizing the only obstacle is your power of belief directed in the wrong way. Maybe today is the day you stop letting illusions hold you back. Maybe today you'll stop waiting for someone or something to open an invisible door. Maybe today you'll realize that belief is so powerful, it can stop you from walking through a wide open doorway.
Often times, the things we want to accomplish or do seem overwhelming and even impossible in their scope. This is usually because we are looking at the whole thing as if it all has to be done now. No one, in the history of humanity, achieved their dreams or ambitions overnight. It is a step by step process. Sometimes, that step is to simply take rest. We often fear taking downtime because we associate that with being lazy, or worse, with the fear that if we aren't constantly going and going nothing is happening. When I look back over some of the incredible things that showed up for me, they always worked out when I least expected it. It wasn't when I was stressed out, burning the candle at both ends. It was after I put in the effort, set my intention, and then turned my focus else where. I let it go. Sometimes consciously, sometimes not. Trusting it's being worked out behind the scenes, and that powerful forces are assisting us, is crucial to not only our success, but our well-being and happiness. Consider today what choices you make in a moment to moment basis. Are they bringing you closer to what you want, or perhaps entrenching you deeper in habits you wish to release? Your life, and your dreams, are built of those small moments. If you find yourself in a moment of worry and exhaustion, pause, breathe and pivot your thoughts to what's going right. And if things are going right, notice how you feel, breathe into it, and expand that feeling of joy and gratitude. Many years ago, after a few half-baked attempts, I finished a novel. Once finished, I began the process of pitching and submitting. As it goes with most writers, I received a lot of rejections, one after another, endlessly. I had always known this was a possibility, that this was the reality of the business, but experiencing it was more crushing than I had anticipated. After a while, my resolve broke and I stopped submitting. Despite this, I still believed in myself as a writer. It was the only thing I’d ever really felt sure of – I was meant to be a writer. Unable to let go and move on, I did something I would forever regret. I self-published the book. I just wanted it to be out there, and I figured once it was, something, anything would happen. After I put together my whole package, the thing I feared worst happened – nothing. I became a drop in the ocean of self-published works. I was a nobody in a sea of nobodys. This step was harder on me than all the rejections combined. I sold few copies, and of those I did, the reviews that didn't come from friends and family were negative. At this point, my fear turned to shame. I had failed. There was no denying it. The fact that I had self-published the book meant everyone knew. I had desperately tried to get book sales to happen, and in doing so, had told everyone about my book. The realization that this project had imploded settled into me. I was drowning in feelings of failure and inadequacy. I needed to feel supported, and so I began talking to people about what I was feeling. And this was when the cheerleading began. Every time I tried to tell someone I had failed they would nearly shout at me “NO YOU DIDN’T!” They wanted to tell me that I had WRITTEN A BOOK (I was aware) and that I had PUBLISHED THAT BOOK (I was also aware of this). The way people reacted to my feelings nearly gave me whiplash. All I wanted was space to feel what I was feeling, and everyone around me was denying my perspective of it. They refused to even let me whisper “I feel like a failure.” In order to respond to other people's experiences we'll often ask ourselves how it would feel if it was us. Sometimes, we just can't handle the pitfalls of other peoples' lives. We want to change them and fix them because they scare and hurt us by proximity. The desire to tell me I hadn’t failed was well-intentioned, but it didn’t help. Instead, it solidified for me that failure is the worst thing that can happen, and it’s so awful, you have to deny it’s existence. This denial negated my experience and my journey. Yes, I wrote a book, and for a lot of people that would be considered a huge accomplishment. But that wasn’t what I wanted, my goal for success was something else, and I had failed to reach it. Because no one allowed me space to breathe into this, I learned to smother my feelings. I buried all this fear and shame and doubt and covered it with a million pounds of rocks. But burying unresolved feelings just pollutes the soil of your soul. You can bury it, but it’s still in there, seeping into the ground you’re trying to rebuild on. Eventually, I got the courage to begin writing again. I switched gears and began writing screenplays. But this time, I felt uncontrollable anxiety around the entire process. No matter what I did, I was stuck with a rock in my stomach and a lump in my throat. It wasn’t until I sat quietly with myself, and looked back, that I realized what I was so afraid of was failure. Because I had already failed once, and had never dealt with it, I was terrified of it happening again. I needed to move through those feelings, to accept them, to love them, and to know they’re just that - feelings. There’s a big difference between feeling like a failure and believing you are a failure. It’s okay to fail. It happens to everyone. In fact, the more success someone has, the more likely they are to have a stack of failures. Learning to navigate these feelings, and to not make them into something bigger than they are, is an essential part of the process. As a culture, we are constantly encouraging people to go chase their dreams. This is a wonderful thing, and a big part of why I began at all. But until we learn how to let people stumble and fall, we’re encouraging based on the caveat that only success is acceptable. That’s a level of pressure no one can live up to. Putting yourself out there encompasses all aspects – success, failure, and everything in between. Trying isn’t just about getting out there and conquering any and all obstacles. It’s a whole journey, and we are still learning how to give ourselves and others space to move through all parts of it. All parts are valid and important, and all feelings, when expressed and moved through fully, lead us into greater awareness and depth of being. I remember hearing once that if you frame a desire in the form of "I wonder..." you will take the pressure off of it. In other words, thinking, "I want a new car. How will I get a new car?" is one kind of energy. It's the kind of energy that asks what you are going to do to get that car. It doesn't ask what the universe is going to do. It doesn't ask what can be done to align all the stars in your favor. It puts it all... on you. But when you ask it a different way, "I wonder how I will get a new car?" the energy flows in a completely different way. For one thing, it assumes you will get the new car. Alright! That's a relief already. And for another, it doesn't ask how you will do it. It just assumes it'll be done, and it will surprise and delight you in how it happens. Try playing with the "I wonder..." wording today and notice how you feel. It might be just the shift in energy that you needed! |