“Big doors swing on small hinges” - Clement Stone

I was talking to a friend today whom after 15 years in her career as an executive, was let go when the changes in this pandemic took hold and rendered her field of work practically obsolete....for now. In being provided a job search counselor by her previous employer, to basically have to reinvent herself, she took the reigns in both hands and as she puts it “is behaving properly”, and following their advised steps. It’s a formula so to speak where each step in isolation looks nothing like the desired final result, but simply has an essence or quality of the end result contained within it. Some may look at each step and see it as a futile process and feel the urge to find(or wait for)a faster or easier path to the goal. In asking what’s next, she states that she just makes sure that she is keeping an appointment on her calendar scheduled for each prescriptive step they advise, in order to feel she is moving forward(going somewhere) with finding the right work opportunity. Sounds simple. I wonder if she realizes what a brilliant strategist she actually is by being both a human being and a human doing. Many people I talk to so easily live in a place of habitual thinking that under these circumstances follow their minds straight into the default response of fear, which breeds blame, shame and anger about what’s happening TO them. They become stuck in their story about the problem and these unfortunate circumstances they are experiencing and begin to make decisions with their fearful emotions and then rationalize them with their logic. Our brains are meaning making powerful machines. Meaning makes us feel safe, helps us make sense of what’s happening to us and we often fill in the blanks with meaning we make up so that through the uncertainty of what’s ahead, we feel like we have some grounding, some control over our future. The challenge in that is that we are using the stories of past similar fear experiences to fill in the blanks, and most often we direct our attention to our negative stories. Our stories become stronger when we are stressed. We ask ourselves, why is this happening to ME? If we stay stuck in our pain and in our mind too long, we become the problem, not separate from it, and the emotion of our story becomes us- the ME, and that begins to grow roots there, stuck and stagnant inside- the E-motion, the Energy in motion, stuck and it hooks us. When this happens there is a point of resistance that comes up when we know what we need to do, but I find that people, myself included many times, lack the motivation to do it. I often find that the barrier to movement forward is that we don’t want to be free of the problem because it means being free of and letting go of a part of ourselves that we’ve clung to for so long- the way we may have defined who we are are and the comfort in what’s been a conditioned response in thinking- our story, our role in who we think we are in our mind’s eye. There’s something we are getting out of holding on to our problem, our story that prevents us from unhooking our self, our power from it. We feel we need our story to survive because who we are, our ME, is wrapped in it. Overcoming this barrier is what sets a person up for success, for happiness, freedom, fulfillment...or not. Getting past the problem, and going beyond that story, past our ME, to the being that we want to BEcome is essential. We get lost in our heads, the thinking habitual mind and can’t find our way out of it. We try to deal with the problem by solely doing more rather dealing with the thing that created it- our thoughts, and being more. To be both the being and the doing is the secret to success. The result of getting through a difficult circumstance is not only becoming free of the problem but also free of the false sense of identity that creates the stuckness and untethering from conditioned thoughts about the circumstance. Change can be hard when in facing rejection, we reject ourselves. We can get stuck in that- in the mind, the egoic mind that is defined by the story. We are more than our story. WAY more. Watching my friend navigate the unchartered waters and unknown of what’s next by living in what’s now has been a breath of fresh air and reminder that all we have certainty of, is THIS moment, and that the great future we desire, is created by a bunch of choices made in the present moment that leads us to a created future moment of greatness and leaves behind a trail of greatness in the moments past that creates an example for others of what’s possible.

Creating greatness requires two things:

(1) BEING forward thinking

Keeping company with thoughts that fuel your vision forward of the great work you want to achieve and what about that goal is important to you. Calling forth to you the Emotion(energy in motion) of FUTURE success, GENERATES the energy NOW as if you’ve already reached that achievement - for example, feeling what its like to be in Hawaii on a beach and anticipating that amazingness in simply the planning of it. Feeling forward and bringing it back to now. And then, your inspiration and motivation is sourced from within, not externally vulnerable so that nothing outside of you can prevent you from generating more of that inspiration to ignite and sustain momentum through the resistance that any worthy goal will inevitably be met with (both physical and mental resistance)

(2) DOING Present Moment Activation

A sequence of small action moments strung together and consistency in doing small things. Being true to the small moment and not neglecting the small step that leads to greatness. It’s honoring and being in service to action in THIS step and this moment, rather than to some future moment where you’re going to be great, so that whatever you are doing NOW, you be in TOTAL in doing it, and fully in each step of action (even when that small step may not look like your future fully played out yet). Each step lived fully leads you to the next best aligned step.

Satisfaction and fulfillment can’t alone come through a vision of a future goal but comes in tandem with entering a state of present moment action, where creativity awakens to its greatest potential when not bound by the past or future limits of our minds experience and perceptions, but instead INspired by the capacity of boundless present moment possibilities one at a time, one next appointment scheduled at a time, while being anchored and ignited by your vision. YOU as the generator of what fuels you. You as the author of your story being rooted in not in fear, but from inspired vision. Can’t wait to see where her future vision activated through present step presence leads her. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

If there’s nobody or no thing in your way, it’s because you’re not going anywhere - Robert Kennedy

Welcome in the resistance...its a flashing message that just means you’re closer to approaching you’re next step, your next adventure, a new door unlocked because you’ve earned your way through the last, a new level of greatness awaiting for you to claim it. Its a choice to claim it. It means it’s time to step forward and be promoted to a better version of yourself. The 2.0 or 3.0 version of you. When you are served a dish of what appears in your first habitual thought to be a negative one, I offer you the opportunity to thank that circumstance, as strange as that may sound, because through it and in it lives the biggest opportunity of an opening, a personalized portal for you to level up your awareness and growth for a better more fulfilled and satisfying life that would not have been available without this circumstance presenting itself. It’s a sign that its time for you, for your next step for you to confidently step into. What will you DO in this step AND how will you BE with this step? Will you be in resistance and fear of this happening TO you…. or…..will you be in support and recognition of an opportunity to level up with this being presented FOR you. Would you feel differently through your circumstance if you had it on the highest authority that it was the latter?

Let me know what in this post spoke to you and if it offers any insight with a circumstance you are facing and what you hear in this that serves you in your forward movement.

Peace in ✌️