What is “your thing” that is holding you back?
Is it guilt?
Fear?
Self doubt?
Feeling unworthy?
Is it negative self talk?
A bad marriage?
Kids out of control?
Maybe it is feeling taken advantage of.
Maybe it is resentment or a lack of boundaries in your life.
Is it a traumatic childhood experience?
A sexual encounter?
What is it costing you? You think—oh it’s just that one bit of me—I’m ok otherwise. Everything else is fine, it is just that one thing. Every time it comes into your mind, you quickly push it away, back to the furthest recesses, praying it stays there. But “your thing” inevitably comes back. Often when you can least afford it.
For me it was mattering. I realized after many years of not being fully engaged with my life that somewhere along the line I had allowed myself to stop mattering. My whole family took precedence, everyone was more important than me. Once I saw it clearly, I realized two things:
1) I had let it happen and
2) It made me mad as hell
Once I saw it? Once I realized what was causing me to feel so lost and unfulfilled? You can bet I changed it pronto. It wasn’t painful and it wasn’t hard.
I saw that all the things that I thought I “should” do as a wife and mother were crushing me. All of the ingrained “have to’s” that I got from my family, society and Martha Stewart were impossible to maintain while still having a sense of self. Once I took a good look at it I took responsibility for where I was and then changed things. I started trusting my abilities as a wife and mom and I made sure that I mattered again.
“Your thing”, that thing you are hiding? You guard it with your life. You protect it with every ounce of your being.
The energy that you expend to hide “your thing” is sucking you dry. Whether you know it or not, it is draining you of your life force. You are spending so much protective energy on keeping it hidden that you are not experiencing your life to the fullest.
Maybe you over shop or over eat or over indulge to avoid facing it. Maybe you over schedule yourself to the point that you don’t have two seconds to ever think about who and what you are. Maybe you are just really cranky with your loved ones. However you mask it, let me assure you the mask is part of hiding “your thing”.
It holds you back. It keeps you from peace and from living the life you desire and deserve.
What if you dealt with it? What if you admitted it to someone? What if you admitted it to yourself? How long are you willing to let this go on?
The amount of energy you expend protecting your demon—that is the amount of energy that you could be using to enjoy your life.
There is no way over it or around it—you have to go through it to get out.
Until you face it you will not be able to fully experience your relationships or your life. Until you deal, you will not be able to fully experience yourself.
There is a little girl inside you that is afraid and sad (or pissed off, she might be pissed off). You can take her hand and let her know that it is ok to come out. You can lead her to a place of safety and in doing so, free yourself.
You think it is so big and scary. You think: “I can’t deal with it. I can’t think about it. I can’t talk about it.” Those thoughts and your avoidance make it worse than it is. As soon as you say it out loud or write it down it loses its power. You end up wondering why it was such a huge deal. You can work through it, you can see it for what it is. Then you can leave it behind you. Then you can BE FREE.
I want to tell you in no uncertain terms—-IT IS NOT WORTH IT. Keeping it inside, keeping it hidden gives it strength it doesn’t deserve. Let it out so you can put it behind you and live your life. It is not as scary and bad as you think. I promise.
Be brave. Face it. Talk about it. Deal with it. I promise you will look back and say it was the best thing you ever did. You will finally leave it in the dust and be able to live free and clear.
What are you coping with? What is it costing you?
Please leave me your comments below.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Elise says
February 7, 2014 at 12:52 amLorna,
This is a great article…and sometimes it’s hard to identify what exactly we are “coping with” because that “thing” has become so ingrained in our being that we don’t even know that we are getting in our own way. My “thing” has been my perfectionism, which I finally met head on and faced about two years ago. But, as you are well aware, it’s a process to let it go. Thank you for writing about a topic that affects so many of us.
Melissa Burkheimer says
February 7, 2014 at 3:33 amI’m coping with a huge upper limit problem. When I get on the phone with future customers, I can sell anything. It’s the step before that that gets my panties in a wad. I’ll face my fear. Thanks for the helpful tips Lorna!
Silvia says
February 7, 2014 at 5:22 pmI think that whenever that thing that we’re hiding rears it’s ugly head…It’s always a good thing. Because as your post attests we can’t fix the thing until we’re willing to look at it.
I’ll tell you a funny but true story. I had a session with a wonderful healer many years ago. She called this thing…the monster under my bed (the thing every kid is scared of). A few days after that I had an appointment at a boutique hotel and I got into the elevator which was all faux painted as a library. I went to push my floor and then looked up. The title of the book that met my gaze was….
“Look Under the Bed”!!!!
Desiree East says
February 8, 2014 at 7:41 pmI feel like I still have this ‘other side’, more EXPANSIVE part of me that is ready to be unleashed to the world, but she’s not quite there yet…I kind of feel this energy inside of me, something that is challenging to say with words, that needs to be released, so I am trying to see where this energy takes me this year by quieting my mind more and (hopefully) letting go of other distractions, so I can listen to my intuition more…we’ll see!