“Wow,” you’re thinking, “that last section was so awesome.” (That’s what you’re thinking, right? ;-))
“I would love to live my life free from others’ expectations. I would love to drop the stuff that’s not important to me and start living according to what is important. But it seems so far away… so impossible… so out of reach. How in the hell do you do that?”
Here’s how.
First off, you realize that change is already happening right now.
Really, it is!
It’s happening within you as we speak.
Waking up– becoming your self– it doesn’t happen in one fell swoop. Instead it happens slowly, continuously over time, gaining momentum until one day you find you are just living it.
At least, that’s what happened for me. I went through years and years of struggle– of feeling like “this isn’t quite it.”
I can remember being in college in 2005, sitting in my dorm room and writing in my journal day after day. “There’s got to be another way to live (than what’s expected of me),” I wrote. “There’s got to be a community for me. This ‘normal’ life just doesn’t feel right.”
I knew I felt called to life my own life and to live in a different way, but I didn’t know what that looked like– and even if I had known what it looked like, I certainly didn’t have the courage to live life on my own terms. I still tried hard to fit in in every way possible.
It wasn’t until 2012 that I began to really feel like I knew who I was– and until I had the courage to step out out and unapologetically be myself.
Did you catch that?
The time in between when I felt myself *beginning* to wake up until I became courageous and strong and self-assured enough to truly begin living my own life?
Seven years. (And I am still, of course, in the process now.)
The process of becoming your truest self happens over time, not in one fell swoop.
So what I suggest right now is this: Have faith. Have patience. Know that, even if you don’t yet realize it, you are already in the process of becoming your truest self and waking up. (This sounds a lot like the stuff we learned in Module 2 about “living and trusting the process,” doesn’t it…)
What a long time it can take to become the person one has always been. How often in the process we mask ourselves in faces that are not our own. How much dissolving and shaking of the ego we must endure before we discover our deep identity–the true self within every human being that is the seed of authentic vocation.
– Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak
Here’s another way to think of it: Whenever you find yourself frustrated that you aren’t “further along” in your journey or whenever you find yourself frustrated with all the questions and the struggles in your life, remember that for most of your life you have been asleep, unaware that you were living in the “shoulds.”
The very fact that you are now struggling, asking questions, failing to passively accept the “default” life that you’ve been handed, is already a sign of the progress you’ve made.
It’s a sign that you are no longer living your life unconsciously. CONGRATULATIONS!
See, before, you simply did what was expected of you and lived according to others’ expectations because– well, that was just the way things were. You weren’t even aware that there was any other option. You were living inside a “movie” and you didn’t even know it. For me, that movie was “Go to school. Get a good, “normal” job. Buy a house. Find a husband. Have kids. Spend your life living up to everyone else’s expectations.”
But now– now you’re no longer unknowingly living inside your movie.
Instead, now you’re watching the movie from the OUTSIDE, while sitting in a movie theatre.
Sure, maybe the movie’s still playing (and that’s what’s so dang frustrating).
But don’t forget to acknowledge, and celebrate, the fact that you’re watching it at all– the fact that you’re no longer stuck inside a movie that’s replaying again and again and again without you even realizing that it’s JUST A MOVIE, not real life.
Becoming aware of the movie– realizing it exists– coming to realize that THERE IS ANOTHER WAY– THIS is a step forward in itself– a huge, HUGE sign that progress is being made.
How many years you have lived unconsciously in the “shoulds,” according to other peoples’ standards, without even realizing it?
Twenty years? Thirty years? Even more?
If it took you that long just to wake up to the fact that there even is another option, another way of living, then why do you expect that you ought to be able to suddenly and completely change the way you think and act and show up in the world in a matter of days or weeks or months?
You’ve been asleep a long time. It’s only natural that you’d wake up slowly.
– Paulo Coehlo
Be patient with yourself.
Be kind with yourself.
Again, the fact that you’re even asking questions at all is an indicator that you’ve already made far, FAR more progress than you’ve given yourself credit for.
The process of waking up, not unlike life, is one that happens over time.
You are already well on your way.
It doesn’t matter how hard a sailboat tries; it cannot move on its own.
Same for a seed planted deep within the ground– no matter how it tries to grow, it cannot make itself grow.
It’s the same thing for you!
You are the sailboat. You are the seed.
No matter how you struggle and try to “become yourself” or not to care what other people think, you cannot make it happen. As much as you try to become happy, you cannot make yourself happy.
So, trying too hard will get you nowhere.
Striving to be beautiful makes a person ugly, and trying too hard to be kind is a form of selfishness.
-Lao Tzu
Here’s what you can do:
Plant the seeds.
Till the soil.
Prep the sails.
Do your E & E.
Pay attention to your aliveness– to your truest self.
Put yourself out there.
Stretch outside your comfort zone.
Experiment, experiment, experiment!
Keep taking step after step after step.
When we engage ourselves in the E & E process, we are creating the facilitative conditions that are necessary to allow the seed to grow. We are surrounding ourselves with the soil and the nutrients and the water that are necessary to grow and blossom– surrounding ourselves with the WHO and the WHEREs, the WHATs and the WHYs that are most facilitative to the bringing out of our aliveness– our greatest, grandest selves.
As long as we are doing this, then we are doing our part.
Be patient. Have faith. Continue with your E & E. Continue experimenting.
Keep taking small steps forward, one after another after another.
Have faith that the winds will come and fill your sail.
Have faith that the sun will shine and make the seeds grow.
And yet even as we speak, know that it is already happening– the sun is already warming you and the wind is already beginning to billow your sail.
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Next: Move on to Section 6.3: But What Will Everyone Think?