We’re on a journey to find, embrace, and fully express who you are, in all your authentic glory.
Last week I talked about rediscovering your dreams and uncovering their essence, or “bones.” Did you write down what you wanted to be at ten or eleven years old? What was it? Let’s say you wrote, “nurse.” My next question is, did the answer come from your gut, or from what you thought other people wanted you to be?
I promised I would talk, this week, about putting some muscle on your dream bones, through intention and action. But I find I have more to say about “weeds,” first. In the metaphor I was using, weeds are the things that choke out the true essence of who you are, what you long for, your Life Purpose, your soul’s calling. If you wanted to be a nurse because it would make your parents proud of you, rather than because it made you happier than anything else did, that’s a weed.
This is an example of the kind of weed that is seeded through good intentions. It’s planted to protect you in some form or another, but never-the-less acts like aggressive weeds do, shoving a more authentic impulse to one side. This kind of weed grows from the second obstacle listed by Paul Coehlo, in his preface to The Alchemist. I listed them last week – let me repeat them. These are the four obstacles we must move through in order to embrace our calling:
- Uncovering our buried dreams
- Fear of losing love
- Fear of defeats
- Fear of realizing our dream
The first level requires digging up dreams you put away because you were told you couldn’t do what you wanted, or it wasn’t a good idea, or “only an idiot would do something like that.” When you uncover the dreams as an adult, your impulse is to do it when no one is looking. You don’t want to say what your dream was out loud, for fear that someone will make you feel ashamed of it yet again.
The second obstacle, the fear of losing love, is equally insidious. You decided to be a nurse because that’s what your parents wanted you to be. After your creative writing exercises, your memory combing, etc., you’ve realized you really wanted to join the circus and be a tightrope walker. Even if you can learn to be proud of that longing, and you actually do something about it, take a tightrope walking class, perform at the kids’ school Halloween party, etc., you find yourself terrified that if you take it any further, it would “kill” your parents.
Because of the way our approval centers shift as we age, it will more likely become about what your spouse would do, rather than continuing to be about your parents. If you became a circus performer, your spouse would leave you. So you better remain a nurse, because that way you keep the love you (and all of us) need.
(An aside, about the “bones” of this creative dream. It might be the grace of performing under pressure. It might be making what is dangerous look easy and beautiful. It might be the delight of achieving, growing continually more than you thought possible. It might be that you love succeeding at a balancing act. Whoever has this dream would need to identify her own dream bones in order to decide how to best express it now that it has been uncovered.)
So you see how tricky this kind of weed, the one that guarantees someone’s love for us is? It’s like planting nasturtiums in your vegetable garden, (is it to keep off the aphids? It’s some little anti-pest guard…), and having them choke out the very plant you wanted them to protect.
Fear makes those “protective” weeds bigger, bolder, stronger, and more life-and-soul threatening. Paul Coehlo points out that finally, we learn that those who love us want us to thrive. So doing what lights us up, is what they want us to do as well. It’s not so much a reality of losing love, as our fear of losing love that gets us.
One more thing about weeds before I let you go. You are the only one who gets to say which parts of your behavior, your thought patterns, your beliefs, etc., are weeds. Undoubtedly you’ve been through being criticized for a way you’ve behaved. Let’s say at work, for example. Your boss gives you a demerit on your work evaluation because he or she finds your behavior less than desirable. The natural thing to do is to take that as something you need to root out. You treat it like a weed.
Every weed has a place where it is not a weed, but a native plant, doing its job, perfectly in balance with its environment, thriving, giving beauty, nourishment, shelter – and so forth, to the rest of the world. You’ve been criticized for getting overwhelmed or stressed? That same sensitivity might make you shine when you work with sick animals, or sad people. You’ve been told you’re too pushy? You’re a natural leader. You just need to sit in the front seat now, instead of the back. You’ve been called selfish? Knowing how to serve your own spirit fully, so you can truly be of service to others, is a rare quality too few of us embody. Take that misidentified “selfishness,” and teach others how to do it!
Just because someone criticizes something about you does not make it a weed. Maybe you’re just trying to grow in the wrong garden.
Coach’s Challenge: Step 1: Take a closer look at all the reasons on your list of why you can’t do/be/have what you really want. Last week I told you they are weeds. What kind of weed are they? Who planted it? Did they plant that belief for what they thought was “your own good?” Probably it really did protect you, support you, etc. for a while. But is it still serving to keep you safe, loved, healthy, whatever, in the same way it was when you were a child? Step 2: Look at the flip side of any criticism you receive. What does it mean you do really well? In what other environment or circumstance, does that same quality make you shine?
