Last night I
clicked on a link that posed a question like “What’s holding you back from
living your dreams?”
I don’t
often participate in those types of internet polls but this one drew me in
because it was from Tony Robbins.
After a few
brief questions something like “Do you make friends easily or do you stand
against a wall and observe?,” this is what came flashing across my screen: “Now,
based on our responses, it’s extremely likely that the success blocker that’s
putting the brakes on your reaching your dream life is a very specific subconscious
self limiting belief called, “I’m not worthy.”
I had to
chuckle. Didn’t I recently recognize that very thinking within me and write about
the
value of self-approval?
Uh, huh…somebody
cue The Twilight Zone theme tune…
As the
little quiz likely showed, there are many reasons people aren’t achieving their
goals.
Often times
the elements which hold us back are within our power to change, but there are
also many factors which are completely out of our control.
As some of
you know, Fave is one of millions with an Olympic dream, and is among a
fraction of those who might actually make it to that stage.
So many
years of blood, sweat, and tears—figuratively and literally—go into the making
of an Olympic athlete.
Nutrition,
physical and mental health, genetics, knowledge, practice, training equipment
and travel and coaches and funds to provide all of those things are vital to an
elite competitor’s success.
But
sometimes even the best of all of that isn’t enough.
An athlete
makes it to a world class competition fit and ready and peaked in her sport.
Maybe it’s the
result of a biased judge’s marks, an unexpected injury, the product of an
impartial jury’s opinion, some fluke in the rules that alters an outcome, or
some type of sabotage (remember Nancy Kerrigan?) that precludes her from the
podium.
Regardless, she
knows she should be there, but she’s not.
She’s bummed
and mad and shaken and frustrated and doubtful if she can continue, if her body
will carry on, holding up to the rigors she demands of it.
She might
even wonder if she wants to continue
on this arduous adventure.
She wonders
if she could have done more, if she missed something, if her expectations for
herself are reasonable.
Sometimes
she might feel as if the very universe that gave her this talent and provided a
path for her is now conspiring against her success.
I watch her
and my heart breaks a little.
The fixer
in me wants to jump up and down and scream and holler at injustice and then
it wants to soothe her aching heart by telling her it’s going to be okay, that
she’s strong and smart and sassy and she’s going to be able to recover.
But as we
all know, no one can fix loss, and the
only person who can heal her hurts is she, herself.
Oh, the rest
of the world can provide resource and wisdom, tools that she might use to
reconcile her pains, but only she can put it into the perspective that suits
her.
To that end,
what I have to offer are some of the greatest gifts I’ve been given on my own yellow
brick road of life, loss, and learning.
This is my
humble contribution to her, the one on a path to recovery.
Dear
Hopeful,
Though in a
different context, I know how it feels to work toward a goal, giving it
everything you’ve got, and then to have that objective terminated.
The day my
son died, I felt as if all of my hopes and dreams for a future with him had
been annihilated.
Though the
quests for Gold and Motherhood might seem completely unrelated, what I’ve
realized as I’ve been pondering my thoughts for you is this: We are all Olympic
hopefuls in this exercise we call Life.
On the most
significant platform we have, sometimes we lose and sometimes we win.
Sometimes we
fail at the expense of our own mistakes and sometimes we fall short due to some
outside influence.
It matters
not what vision has been stripped from our future, the questions we ask
ourselves are surprisingly, yet understandably, much the same, for the
experience of loss is just that.
Loss.
The first
step in healing is to honor our grief.
Regardless
of the logistics or the nature of our loss, we must mourn that which did not
manifest itself in the way we had perceived it should.
That
mourning will include Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief: Denial, Anger,
Depression, Bargaining, and Acceptance.
One of the most
valuable pieces of her extraordinary work is that there is no rhyme or reason
to grief and that it is different for each and every one of us and varies with
each and every occurrence.
Know this,
Journeyer. Repeat it over and over if you need to. There is no grief formula that you will follow.
There is no
right or wrong way to grieve.
Counselor
Hank once asked me, “Annah, why are you getting depressed about being depressed?”
Do not
apologize or chastise yourself or feel sorry for feeling sorrow.
And when you
do begin the berating, for we all do at some point in our bereavement, remind
that skull chatter that you are okay, that you’ve been tossed into unknown
waters on a journey that has provided neither map nor instruction.
If you feel
sad, be sad.
If you feel
anger, be mad.
If you need
to plead with the universe for answers, then shout your questions out from the bottom
of your lungs.
The second
step in healing is to accept that we have everything we need to recover.
Once you
have decided that Sadness no longer suits you, it’s time to begin mending,
moving forward toward the life that you do want.
As you
ponder the points of your sorrow, get in touch with your five facets—your
academic, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual sides—and hone in on your
greatest strengths.
Each of us
is born with these traits, Journeyer, born
with them, the tools we need to not
only survive sorrow, but to triumph over it.
Often, when
we look to other people who have overcome similar strife, we compare in ways
that strand us on sorrow’s island: She has more money, better doctors or coaches
or acquaintances or access…
In reality,
Journeyer, she has nothing that you don’t have. It’s just that the details of her
resources are different than yours.
If the
successful person you are trying to relate to hadn’t tapped into her five
facets, hadn’t honed in on those things that motivate and move her, then she,
too, would still be sitting on that island, trying to overcome her conflict.
After you’ve
digested that, contemplate this: Where is your focus generally directed?
The third
step in healing is to tap into and prioritize your facets.
Are you
someone who generally craves knowledge and finds answers in data? If so, the
academic facet is likely your greatest asset.
Are you
someone who often learns something about yourself while reading or listening to
others stories? If so, the social facet might be at the top of your list.
I have a
friend who recently ran (another) full marathon. The thought of running
twenty-point-something miles makes me queasy and light-headed, Journeyers, but
she says she does some of her best thinking and has solved some of life’s
greatest issues while doing this type of physical exercise.
One
interesting point of note is that our conflicts are tied to those same facets.
If you are
feeling stress, focus on the source.
If you are
worried about what others might think, that is your social facet.
If you are
hashing over the logistics of the event, that is your academic facet.
If you are
questioning God or fate or the universe as to why certain events transpired,
that is your spiritual facet.
Once you
have a better understanding of what is motivating your strife, then you are in
a position to improve your quality of life.
Healing is,
in essence, nothing more than flipping grief on its head.
The fourth
step in healing is to do the hard work of recovery.
Healing doesn’t mean that the tragedy or
misfortune or loss never existed.
It doesn’t diminish the fact that we don’t
like what transpired and it doesn’t dishonor memory or existence.
Healing simply means that we are no longer
held back by or tormented by conflict surrounding the loss.
It is simply about a shift in our thoughts
and feelings, and it is often about reconciliation between the two.
It’s about change, about breaking
out of our comfort zones, those places we’ve believed in and trusted most,
if not all of our lives.
Altering our perspectives, finding new
information, asking different questions, opening our minds to other possibilities
is time consuming, frustrating, back-breaking, and often agonizing work.
I believe the process can be so infuriating because
we often don’t know what questions to ask when we are entering new territory,
not because we are inadequate or stupid or silly, simply because we don’t know
what the options are.
For example, an expert Warren and I were working
with failed to fulfill certain promises she’d made and after we expressed our
upset, she asked us, “What can I do to make it up to you?”
“We can’t tell you that because we have no
clue about the many possibilities that exist within your field. Why don’t you
put together a plan and then we’ll go from there.”
Breaking the patterns of behavior and thought
within each facet comes with its own set of uncertainties.
I consider my greatest strength to be the
social side of me, which means I’m usually connecting with people.
It also means that I’m often sharing my fears,
my feelings of failure, and making myself vulnerable.
One of the things I’ve done, however, is to accept
that one way I grow and mature is to search for emotional and academic options
that exist by networking with others.
I take what I need from others’ experiences
and thoughts and assimilate those pieces into my life.
For instance, I used to think that I wanted
to change the world, and I do mean The
Entire World.
I would dream about ending a universe of
suffering and hurt and injustice.
I felt a great sense of frustration and often
like a failure as that proverbial ticking clock of calendar years passed by and
I wasn’t anywhere near my goal.
“Geez, Annah,” a friend once responded to my lamentations,
“even the Bible didn’t do that.”
That’s when I contemplated what I really
wanted and challenged myself with this question, What if I were to help only one person in this journey of life, would I
be okay with that?
The reply was a resounding Yes.
The
final step in healing is to embrace and live what we’ve learned.
Years after I reconciled that internal
strife, I stumbled across the quote above, one I included in jars of
inspirational messages I gathered and gave out as gifts to family and friends for
Mother’s Day.
One of the recipients later returned this
slip in a greeting card, an act that signified to me that I had somehow
impacted her life.
I leave it hanging on my refrigerator as a
daily reminder of my mission.
Just one teeny tiny morsel of another’s
insight had made a world of difference for me.
It’s easy enough to fall back into the old habits
and ways of thinking that had once comprised our grief, but if we take steps to
reinforce and practice these new thoughts and behaviors, then we are better
able to ensconce ourselves in their many benefits.
Winston
Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage
to continue that counts.”
Regardless
of what’s holding you back from living your dreams, Courage is there, Journeyer,
your constant companion as you try to reconcile loss and life…
Yours in
healing…
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