Getting Out of My Own Way
what works for me… (purpose, passion, play)
What has worked and is working for me when it comes to getting out of my own way and living a life full of purpose, passion, and play.
When I look back on my life journey, I am amazed at the many twists, turns, and the constant learning and unlearning that has happened. There have also been deeply painful experiences and mind-blowing realizations (from that pain) that have propelled me into a new dimension of living, being, and sharing my heart with the world.
Maybe this will be helpful for you.
OUTCOME 1:
Getting Out of My Own Way…
This is a non-stop unfolding, where I continue to see how I innocently and unconsciously limit my human experience. My mind is constantly blown as I discover - just how much any difficulty I experience in life has nothing to do with life or other people, and is only a reflection of “me” being in the way.
This discovery has transformed how I relate to any and all difficulty that arises. It's a path of what I call... "Total Experiential Accountability." Everything I experience is to experience my own degree of consciousness. The more pain I experience, the more unconscious is my way of relating. The more joyful and effortless my experience, the more I am seeing reality clearly.
This is a non-negotiable realization; I simply cannot argue with the truth of this anymore. What I find kind of funny is the amount of time I spent avoiding this realization, which was only another reflection of “me” being in my own way. I wanted so badly to believe my inner experience was created by the outside and by other people. This only left me in a state of powerlessness, frustration, and divorced me from the true creative gifts and love within what I am that was waiting to be shared with the world.
OUTCOME 2:
Living on and in… Purpose
The more I got out of my own way, the concept of Purpose became profoundly obvious. The confusion was the belief/thought that purpose was about reaching an outcome or a destination. As in… “my purpose is to be XYZ in the future.” This confusion makes perfect sense, since it's the popular social conditioning that sees the current self as not enough. The conditioning says, “I'm not enough now, so I must become enough tomorrow.” This is so engrained within the human psyche, and becomes an unconscious filter which infects so many aspects of our lives.
What I've realized for myself, is that purpose has nothing to do with tomorrow or becoming some idea of something. Real purpose has everything to do with honoring the truth of what I am, now. As I see what I really am, beyond the social conditioning and the stories about myself, I see that what I am is inherently purposeful. In fact, the reality of everything that IS... is, inherently purposeful. There is nothing in existence, in reality, that is not “on purpose.”
The apparent lack of purpose, always stems from looking for purpose where purpose is not; which is looking for purpose in the mind, in the future, or looking for it in the minds of other people (wanting other people to validate me). Purpose, is so intimately tied to seeing life more clearly, so much so, that it could also be said that my purpose is to see reality more clearly. As I do, then this ‘ultimate purpose’ effortless flows through what I am, and I naturally just do in this life what my human is here to do. The ‘doing’ will always reflect, in some way or another, a beautiful sharing of the love discovered within what I am.
OUTCOME 3:
Living a Passionate Life
Passion is the full-on engagement of life and being human, fueled by a deep reverence and devotion for the miracle of being alive. This “human quality” of passion exists within every human being; however, it has been covered up in many ways, from social conditioning and wanting to be “included” to the poisons we put in our bodies that affect the brain’s capacity to function properly.
Again, this comes back to getting out of my own way. There is a subtle arrogance that “the me” thinks it knows how life should be, which only becomes a delaying tactic that says we cannot yet be passionate, because we first have to fix something. My goodness, this delaying can delay an entire lifetime and result in the classic “life of quiet desperation.”
What I have realized is that if passion seems absent, I am disconnected from purpose, which always comes back to not seeing myself clearly. This is also to say that being disconnected from passion is telling me I am out of alignment with life and the sincerity of my own heart. I must take some time and re-evaluate what I think is going on. Where am I blaming? Where am I hiding? Where am I afraid and what are the imaginary monsters I am creating in an effort to protect my ego? And where am I not being kind to myself in both body and mind?
OUTCOME 4:
A Life of Play; From Serious to Sincere
The realization that life isn't serious, at all, was at first offensive, and then profoundly liberating. I'm not talking about a 'belief' that life isn't serious, where I try to convince myself of something I'm unsure about. I'm talking about a deep seeing about what is real and true. I'm talking about a 'holy shit' moment, where it's seen that God is always smiling (in a manner of speaking), God is always without worry for what was, is, or will be; recognizing that the whole 'experiment' of life and being human is a playful one.
Here's the challenge though: we live in a world where 94% of humans buy into the illusion of seriousness. A seriousness that leads to stress, anxiety, sickness and dis-ease, and a seriousness that deeply validates their painful story of identity. To suggest that life isn't serious, many will see that suggestion as an existential threat to their identity and the way they see the world. This is one of those games that humans play, the game of seriousness, that I had to let go of... for the sake of my own sanity. What I realized, again, for myself, is that all the seriousness I had, had nothing to do with the miracle of being alive, and had everything to do with fighting for "my" version of reality that only served to protect my illusions born from an imaginary inadequacy.
My serious life transformed into a deeply sincere life, and the sincere life is not afraid of losing something in the future. All forms of seriousness stem from a fear of losing something in some other moment than right now. The deeply sincere life is interested in honoring what is deeply real and true in this moment, which includes the sincerity of my own heart and the heart of those I share space with, in the now.
BONUS OUTCOME 5:
Everything beyond now, is unknown
The more I have connected with this deeper purpose, passion, and playful life experience, the more I’ve come to understand what it means to truly be open to the unknown. I’ve come to understand that if I am not open to the unknown, I limit the possibilities that are available to me, and I close off the potential to experience life in its fullness. Fear, always pretends it knows, when really, deep down, we just don’t know.
I’ve also come to realize that being open to the unknown requires me to be willing to take risks, to make mistakes and to embrace fear - all of which are essential for a deep connection to life. When I take risks, I learn about my courage, my capacity for growth and my willingness to be vulnerable. When I make mistakes, I learn about humility, resilience and the power of forgiveness. When I embrace fear, I learn about the strength of my faith, my trust in life, and my ability to make peace with uncertainty.
In connecting with this deeper purpose, passion, and playful life experience, I have come to understand that life is a journey full of joy, love, and beauty. Each day brings a new opportunity to explore, discover, and grow. I have come to understand that life is a journey made up of our choices to move beyond fear and share more love; and how we choose to show up with a willingness to just… keep going. It is a journey of growth and transformation, and it is something to be celebrated.
CONCLUSION:
What I see is that the human experience is full of innocent misunderstandings that confuse reality with what we “think” about reality. I have struggled through so many misunderstandings only to eventually discover how easy and simple it all was, is, and will forever be. All the resentments, the blame, the jealousies, the... "everything" that creates an emotional disturbance, was all a reflection of me not seeing myself and reality clearly. Naturally, if someone had told me this 15 years ago, I would have written them off as a crazy person - as I continued to blame life and other people as the creators of the pain I felt.
It is quite amazing to see how it has taken so many years to come to these realizations, when, as I see them now, it is just so obvious. The “PLAYFUL” and non-serious delay, was only my resistance that feared letting go of control, that feared... being open to support from sources other than my limited way of seeing things. Also, a big one, was my fear of failure; which, again, was only a misunderstanding that saw failure as a real thing - it is not.
Love you, and appreciate the openness within your heart that receives these words, and the love I love to share with the world.
