Driven by Pain vs Drawn by Love...

When we live only in the realm of our egoic orientation, the structure/s that we believe we need to use to reach a goal or desire are very different from the ones we use when we’re orientated from our higher self.

In the egoic state, we employ manipulative strategies upon ourselves (and others if they are involved), to ensure we remain focused on what we think we want; forcing ourselves to make things happen. We control. We complain. We collude. We contrive. If it doesn’t appear to be working out, based on the evidence to hand, we get frustrated, resentful and begin to blame. We beat ourselves up.

The old ‘carrots and (more often) sticks’ become our MO’s. Both of which are manipulative and lack creativity.

Being drawn toward that which you love is very different.

It is falling in love with the end result. Owning that it’s yours for the having and the attributes of how it will be to stand in that destination. It is the asking for it in positive expectation; the letting go of the “how” and even the rationalised “why”. Being in a state of receptivity - of new ideas, new connections of old learnings, of syntropy and synchronicity, co-incidence and co-creation. It is the taking of the obvious natural actions as they arrive - nothing more, nothing less.

When we love life, as it comes, straight out of the box, we don’t think too highly of ourselves - believing, essentially, that we are incomplete and not enough.

There’s pain associated with these beliefs we assume to be true about ourselves and the meaning of life ends up being about compensating for our painful sense of incompleteness in order to avoid ever having to feel the pain we experienced as a child, when we assumed that it meant something about ourselves, others and the world.

For example:

• A need to be seen doing ‘socially agreed’, ‘good deeds’ in order to be perceived as a good and worthy person - compensating for your sense of unworthiness.
• Acquiring symbols of power (wealth, cars, boats, realestate, trophy wife) to compensate for your sense of powerlessness.

[doing and having these things is not the issue - the thing to be aware of is ‘where are you coming from in relation to them?’ - ‘what is your underlying driver?’

The list goes on but you get the picture, and you’ll have your own ways in which you compensate in your life.

Here’s the thing, those assumptions that you’re compensating for are untrue, childhood interpretations.

BUT, whenever we compensate for our beliefs - often unaware that we’re doing so, we reinforce those profoundly limiting assumptions about ourselves, others and the world to be true…when they’re not.

That’s a problem for someone wanting to live a fully expressed life because, by compensating for, and reinforcing your sense of incompleteness you render yourself subject to the conditions that you perceive have the power in your life - because you’re so convinced, by your own assumptions, that it’s not in you!

Conditions do exist (internal and external) but they never have power over you until you decide they do, and compensating for your beliefs about ‘the way it is’ is one way to ensure that you hand your significant, creative power over, rendering yourself subject to conditions.

Usually, we don’t do this intentionally/consciously; it’s something that takes place when we’re living life ‘straight out of the box’; unaware of these dynamics AND when we’re not engaged, consciously in creating what we’d love.

‘Another way in which we reinforce our own lies about ourselves is to beat ourselves up when we perceive that we’ve failed in some way.’

To see an experience you’ve had as a failure requires that you choose only to see  one side of a two-sided story - when you look for the other side you’ll always see it and a good question to ask yourself is, “where’s the ‘gift’ in this?” (As suggested by Patricia Ryan Madson, author of: ‘Improv Wisdom’).

It doesn’t mean that you’re not going to make mistakes along the way or that sometimes, things won’t go as planned, but when you write those moments off as ‘failure’ you miss what’s there for you to learn from; to grow and expand into more of yourself in life.

So, instead of feeling guilty, shameful, embarrassed, silly, humiliated or wrong (AKA: beating yourself up) Find the gift and move on; better for having had the experience and even more willing to lean into the unknown of creating more of what you’d really love in your life.

Anything that ever gets created is the result of tension seeking resolution.

So whenever you’re going for something you want in life, not only can you expect to experience Tension but it would be of concern if you didn’t.

That means being able to create the life you really love requires that you can be with Tension.

And this is where most people struggle because it often feels uncomfortable.

Here’s something that allowed me to be with my Tension:

’Suspend your need to label it’

I noticed that when I’d wake in the middle of the night with concerns in relation to what I was going for in my life I’d be ‘in it’ - there’d be an internal dialogue running its mouth off and I’d be feeling agitated.

And then I noticed something that revolutionised what had been an all-too-familiar pattern of mine (since I was a school kid dreading returning to school, in the morning, after a fun filled weekend away from the place).

I noticed that, actually, I was simply experiencing Tension - the very tension, without which, nothing gets created & with which everything I’d love is possible.

And I noticed that I was suffering.

When I sat with it for a moment what became obvious was that I had unconsciously applied my own meaning to the tension and, as a result, was ‘perceiving’ it in a way that was causing my suffering.

So notice, it wasn’t the tension that was the problem but rather what I was making it mean; labelling it - defining it.

Next, two things occurred to me:

1. I noticed that, as a result of observing what was going on, more objectively, I was no longer ‘in it’.

2. I hadn’t even realised that I was ‘in it’, until I wasn’t.

So, suspending my immediate need to make my tension ‘mean’ anything placed me in the position of Observer.

No longer was my mind racing; trying to problem solve and figure stuff out - stuff that actually had nothing to do with what I was going for (what I’d Love).

Which was all designed to see me, once again pursue another familiar, false End Result in order to distract myself away from leaning into the unknown of creating what I’d love.

I realised that, typically in that scenario, I’d be hell bent on trying to change how shitty I was feeling and baffled by how that always spiralled down, leaving me feeling even worse.

Then, as the observer, I felt calm and centred because of suspending my need to tell myself lies about what the tension meant and why I was experiencing it - NOT because my focus was on trying to change how I was feeling.

I experienced tension, in that moment for the first time because, until then, all I had been experiencing was my self-defeating, Egoic reaction to the the unfamiliar.

I noticed tension contained subtle qualities that I’d been previously too distracted experience.

I began my new relationship with tension - one of ease and collaboration.

And I no longer waste all of that time and energy buying into my own egoic perceptions about tension.

I’ve found this a most liberating awareness on my creative journey.

I hope my experience helps you to experience the subtleties of, and a new relationship with, your tension.

It’s answering the call of your heart as you go for what you love.

Magical creating!

When we get over ourselves enough to step aside and say yes to our creation having a starting point, an interesting, dualistic process begins.

Our resistance (ego) comes along for the ride; diligently poised to ‘offer suggestions’ from the perspective of ensuring our survival and our heart smiles joyfully, ready also to provide the next step as we lean into what is largely the ‘unknown.’

Having seen that crucial ‘starting point’ through; be it the first chapter of our book, the workshop or webinar launch, that ‘live' post on your social feed, the watercolour painting, delivering that presentation at work - or any of a countless variety of undertakings in the spirit of honouring your heart, there’s a point where you ‘check’.

Like skiing down a steep, powdery, slope where your skis are pointing downhill, you’re flying, and then you flick them sideways, across the face, and take a moment before going again.

‘The check’ is a point in the process where you’ll either choose to listen to your heart and what is obvious about the things you learned that you can apply to improve and expand the next steps or, those noisy thoughts & feelings (the voice of your resistance) will successfully capture your attention, and buy in.

The former sees you gain the grace & ease momentum of the heart where inspiration flows and new insights present themselves to you - things begin to feel quite effortless as what you’re creating starts to unfold out of itself.

The latter, however, will often cause you to give up - ‘inwardly’ or ‘outwardly’.

If ‘inwardly’ You will find yourself showing up again but bringing with you those things your ego convinced you were valid takeaways from the initial experience - “That didn’t go smoothly,” “I stumbled over my words when I didn’t stick to reading the script,” “The attendees said they got a lot out of it, but they were just telling me what I wanted to hear”…and on and on.

You’ll feel somewhat depleted and committed to protecting yourself by avoiding mistakes at all costs, not deviating from the script; even if it means disconnecting from your heart and/or your audience; “I just can’t afford to be vulnerable,” becomes the, often unconscious, mantra.

Proceeding from this orientation will result in unsustainable outcomes and certainly outcomes that fall well short of the fully expressed vision you have within you, to be expressed.

Alternatively, should you give up 'outwardly' you’ll observe yourself justifying your decision to stop creating your vision, believing your own egoic stories to be true; often even recruiting others into the validity of those stories (known as collusion).

Either version of giving up sees you no longer honouring the expression of your heart, in that way, and both you and the potential recipients of your offering miss out.

It’s about how you ‘choose’ to see the feedback along the way - as either valuable insights serving you to express more of your truth in life OR as reliable evidence confirming that you don’t have it in you.

When you set out to create what’s true for you, seeing it through to completion is crucial in living a fully expressed life.

Use your assumptions wisely.

From the moment you set out creating your End Result, assume that ‘everything’ that happens along the way is in one way or another supporting you to that end - you’ll, therefore, see evidence of the truth of that.

If you assume anything else you’ll notice that you see evidence that confirms the 'lie', that you don't have it in you.

What you assume to be true is your choice and, one way, serves your greatness while the other, serves your identity’s sense of separation and incompleteness.

You’ve got this!

What do you see when the sky is grey, in between rain showers - ‘Bugger it, another rainy day stopping me from…’

Or, have you tried just being with what is to see what you notice?

Innocence is a state that, by many, is overlooked as nothing more than time wasting child’s play.

For those who know otherwise, innocence is a state they will consciously embody - Why?

In a state of innocence we get to experience reality, as it truly is.

People think that’s what they’re doing all day long; experiencing reality.

But they’re not.

What most people are experiencing, moment to moment, is their perception of reality which is a very different thing altogether.

What happens when we ‘perceive’ reality is that we have an experience and based on our beliefs about ‘the way it is’ (which will often differ person to person) we’ll assign a definition/meaning to what we’re experiencing which then drives up thoughts and feelings and we believe, without question that what we’re experiencing in that moment is reality.

Interestingly, we’re literally just overlaying what we know from our past onto the current moment and in-so-doing, re-creating the past, over and over, whilst thinking we’re experiencing something new.

That’s why two people exposed to the exact same reality can have radically different experiences - sometimes completely opposing perceptions of what happened.

Innocence liberates us from what we already know and allows us to be with the truth of what is.

Not only does this state connect us more intimately with true reality, it gives us access to a source of information beyond what we already know; beyond our biases, and is a state that powerfully supports and informs us in creating results, in our lives, beyond the limitation of what we already know.

Try taking 5 to experience everything in your environment, as if for the very first time, and notice what you observe. It’s a muscle well worth strengthening if you want to experience more depth and fulfilment in your life.