Did she run away? Did she run away? I don’t know
If she ran away, If she ran away, come back homeJust come home”
~ Excerpt from “Where’s My Love?” by SYML
I sat down at the dining room table in my business coach’s stately home and took a deep breath. I had journals, note pads, sketches of ideas, and a summary of the book I was desperate to write placed to my left and right in protective towers.
My coach looked up at me and smiled, draping her kindness and warmth over my shoulders.
“So, why is this work in innovation and creativity so important to you?”
One simple, seemingly innocuous question launched me into a crying jag that I couldn’t stem. Eight years of pent up frustration, fear, desire, passion, and reaching for the life I desperately wanted erupted out of me in torrents.
She slid the box of Kleenex toward me and listened as I pulled tissue after tissue and spoke in hiccuped syllables between sobs. When I had the courage to meet her eyes, I could see her growing concern.
I was in a full-on, emotional melt down.
By the time we took a break, I had emptied the Kleenex box and was straining to see through eyelids nearly swollen shut.
It felt like some kind of crisis-of-the-soul exorcism had just occurred, extracting an enormous plug out of my side, releasing oozing darkness and spiritual bile. I took a breath, exhaling in a WHOOSH.
My coach looked up at me and smiled, draping her kindness and warmth over my shoulders.
“So, why is this work in innovation and creativity so important to you?”
One simple, seemingly innocuous question launched me into a crying jag that I couldn’t stem. Eight years of pent up frustration, fear, desire, passion, and reaching for the life I desperately wanted erupted out of me in torrents.
She slid the box of Kleenex toward me and listened as I pulled tissue after tissue and spoke in hiccuped syllables between sobs. When I had the courage to meet her eyes, I could see her growing concern.
I was in a full-on, emotional melt down.
By the time we took a break, I had emptied the Kleenex box and was straining to see through eyelids nearly swollen shut.
It felt like some kind of crisis-of-the-soul exorcism had just occurred, extracting an enormous plug out of my side, releasing oozing darkness and spiritual bile. I took a breath, exhaling in a WHOOSH.
I landed back in my body. My brain was back online.
During the hours spent at that dining room table, the truth had been lifted out of the secret caves within me that I had unknowingly carved and protected: I was the road block to creating the business and life I craved.
Thud.
But wait, what? How could that be? I was so clear on what I wanted, and how I saw my future self living and creating in joy. Why would I be making decisions in my real estate business and personal life that kept me stuck and numb, working ungodly hours, and preventing me from having time to think which I craved like a scuba diver reaching for a respirator?
As painful as it was, my behavior actually served me. It was brilliant in keeping me small, hiding away, and safe from the terrifying prospect of doing the work I came here to do. With each decision to remain the bottleneck in my business, refuse myself restorative rest, gobble down an unhealthy meal, or go for days without quiet stillness, I slathered on gobs of mortar to the rows of bricks I placed in neat rows, growing ever higher, blocking out all daylight.
Once my subconscious motives had been outed and pinned up in full view to whip in fresh air, I only had a series of strategic decisions to make to overhaul my business and personal life. To my stunned surprise, the hardest part (that of telling the truth to myself) was already done and behind me.
This is not to say that this was a tidy, linear path with no stumbles or backsliding. If I were to graph my journey from stuck to freedom, it would look like the flight path of a bumble bee.
My progress and creative path continue to look like that today.
Happily, though, when we’ve dug around in our own entrails and have let ourselves see the truth, we can’t stay off track for too long. Our essential selves have gained a taste of freedom and expression; we simply aren’t willing to let those lifelines of ecstasy slip away again into oblivion.
Once my subconscious motives had been outed and pinned up in full view to whip in fresh air, I only had a series of strategic decisions to make to overhaul my business and personal life. To my stunned surprise, the hardest part (that of telling the truth to myself) was already done and behind me.
This is not to say that this was a tidy, linear path with no stumbles or backsliding. If I were to graph my journey from stuck to freedom, it would look like the flight path of a bumble bee.
My progress and creative path continue to look like that today.
Happily, though, when we’ve dug around in our own entrails and have let ourselves see the truth, we can’t stay off track for too long. Our essential selves have gained a taste of freedom and expression; we simply aren’t willing to let those lifelines of ecstasy slip away again into oblivion.
My gentle question for you is this: if you were to spend the day truth telling to a trusted friend, coach, or confidant, what do you think would fly from you? What do you dare not to speak?
What we hold back defines us as much as what we share with the world.
When our bodies feel heavy with dread, resentment, and/or fear, that’s a flashing indicator light that our souls are tugging on our sleeves. Crouch down and tilt an ear toward your painful truth.
Our lightness of being returns in proportion to our willingness to share our vulnerable voices.
