About ten days of mail arrived yesterday via UPS, sent by my brother-in-law who is kindly checking my mail this month. I opened the large envelope this morning and began going through the contents one by one.
In about five minutes, I had opened and reviewed everything. I wadded up the junk and empty envelopes and threw them away. I put the remaining pieces back in the mailer and made coffee.
Ten days of mail sorted and dealt with in five minutes.
Handling mail during a prolonged absence from home is just one of many potential mundane obstacles I once used to distance myself from doing something extraordinary.
“Gone for a month? What about my mail?”
This is the sort of asinine question your lizard brain issues when you are considering doing something that feels impossible, too adventurous, too out-of-the-box.
And, typically, it’s the moment we too often cave. “Oh, right. The mail. Oh, well, I guess I shouldn’t go.”
We will let whatever pops up in our minds stop us: “Who will take care of the kids/dog/plants? What will my clients think? A month? Nobody just saunters off for a month. How could I afford it?”
I imagine at this point your lizard brain is on full gallop, running in circles, cussing and yelling, “SNORT, that’s easy for you to say, Susie, you don’t have [fill in the blank with limiting belief here], [here], and [here]!!!
I can assure you, I’ve had most, if not all of what you are coming up with in terms of obstacles/limiting thoughts.
In fact, I was once the one with arms crossed in front me saying to myself, “Oh, sure, yeah. Right. Can totally create the life I want from this place of crippling debt, marital turmoil and dissolution, and uncertainty in the middle of the Great Recession.”
But I did.
And you can, too.
The 4-minute mile was once considered impossible until May 6, 1954, when Britain’s Roger Bannister hit the tape to become the first person to break the 4-minute mile in Oxford, England. After he did the mile in under 4 minutes, all of a sudden others began doing it as well.
Did they mysteriously pick up athletic prowess in the ether? No. They did, however, pick up the belief … the knowing … that it was, in fact, possible.
Right now, think about what it is that is calling your heart to experience. Ignore the lizard brain chit chat and write it all down in detail.
Maybe it is going on an extended trip, taking time off to learn a new language, starting a side business, diving into your creativity, writing the book that’s been in your heart your entire life, having a wild fling with adventure, taking up a new hobby, or maybe just sitting in a quiet cabin in the woods and going on solo walks.
It is all possible.
Yes, there are things to get sorted out. Things to arrange, budget for, and plan. Just decide you are going to do the thing that is beckoning your spirit, and then focus on finding solutions for each obstacle.
It may take weeks or months to prepare. Refuse to get sidetracked or stopped.
Not only will doing the impossible thing crack open your heart and creativity, it will fill you with this joyful knowing that you CAN create the life you want.
You will find ways to prove this to yourself (and others in your midst) over and over and over, just like breaking the 4-minute mile was an inspiration to Roger and other runners.
Instead of living a life of constricted, self-limiting thinking, you will, decision by decision, rewire your neural pathways toward adventure, freedom, and passion.
