Freedom – Universal Soapbox

Like most women who meet a guy who feels too good to be true, one of my girlfriends is afraid to like the man she is dating and is crawling away from flirting with the idea of blocking her blessings and instead running straight towards it at full speed. I know this feeling all too well and I love her so I get right into therapist mode, call out the behavior and begin encouraging her off the cliff of no return.

He makes her happy. She smiles when she talks about him. I mean she is telling me about this man making her feel “butterflies”…..if you’ve ever felt them you know how profound this is…… and how natural it is to talk to and spend time with him. He’s attentive, responsible, mature, willing and just as cautious as her. His greatest downfall may be the one thing that he isn’t -a magician. See this man would have to be one in order to achieve the one miracle needed to get the girl- the ability to heal her heart and erase her memory. I don’t know him but my money is on him doing this if he could.

I focus on the butterflies….how rare and beautiful they are. I remind her how we search far and wide for that feeling and what an accomplishment it is to finally find it. I encourage her to embrace and capture those butterflies so they never leave.

I focus on their natural comfort. How rare it is for people to connect and talk for hours like old friends. How the most valuable relationships tend to share this narrative. I encourage her to keep talking, stay open, keep building.

I focus on their shared pain. I encourage her to feel safe knowing he understands and values her pain/caution especially as he holds his own. I paint a picture of a man who has been wronged and therefore is not likely to wrong someone else. I offer my opinion. “He knows what it feels like to be hurt, why would he hurt you? I mean, who does that?!” This is our favorite question to ask each other after all, and we share a much needed laugh.

I focus on her fear being normal and more importantly, valid. “If you weren’t scared you’d be dumb”, I tell her. She was about to be tearful but we share another laugh because she knows I mean it. I tell her that her anxiety is the spirit of her “ex hurts” (i.e..the exes who have caused emotional damage) trying to keep her hurt and alone. I remind her that the devil’s a liar so she has to remind him “not today!” every time he appears in the form of these old, tired memories.

I focus on the past and regret. I encourage her to remember hers. I speak of the benefit to learning from both of them so she doesn’t make more mistakes or harbor more regrets. I remind her how it feels to play shoulda, woulda, coulda and advise her to let him mess this up so she can walk away knowing she did everything she could with no apology.

I focus on her. I see her for who she is, who she was, who she wanted to be, who she deserves to and can/will be. I highlight how she deserves to have a man who leaves her feeling this way. I beg her to not block her blessings and to let this man love her. I see her smile despite herself at this idea, and I am certain in that moment that all of this is only her brain rejecting what her heart is craving.

I sigh as I witness another woman risk having it all because once upon a time she believed in the wrong fairy tale.

And now I lie in bed praying for the courage, tomorrow, to take my own advice.

I recently learned a valuable lesson about comfort and exploration. I spent the last nine years working for an agency doing work that I LOVED with a population I have dedicated much of my career to- but work that was not allowing me to fulfill my potential. In hindsight I see that there were many occasions wherein the universe sent me messages to move along my journey, which I repeatedly ignored, until ignoring them was no longer an option.

When the end of that leg of my journey came sooner than I wanted, at first I was sad because I knew I’d miss the work. However, as the days went on and more and more opportunities presented themselves the universe made three things painstakingly clear. First, I did miss the work but I did NOT miss my job. Second, I was doing the work I loved in the wrong environment. And third, and most important, doing the work I loved in the wrong environment at a job I didn’t love, was a huge injustice that so many of us do everyday. Because of that, something that I encouraged so many of my clients not to do, I had been guilty of for nine years. I had done what many of you may be doing right now in some aspect of your life- blocking my blessings.

The people the universe spoke through, who tried to encourage me to expand my horizon and see my worth, knew I was comfortable and complacent. My defense to them, despite having had other ambitions, was that I knew that I had found my calling and didn’t need to jump ship like everyone else still searching for their purpose. Today I know that though this sounds good in theory, I didn’t just find my calling during those years. I had also picked my poison…the hill I was going to die on.

This blog is part of my new round of blessings. It’s my demonstration of openness to previously unrecognizable possibilities and desire to share what I’ve learned through my transition with hopes of encouraging and supporting all of you as you navigate yours.

This is where we will discuss the everyday struggles that make us comfortable and complacent. Where we address taboo issues and say things that aren’t easy to say. Here, we discuss the universality of our difficulties and together unpick the poison that we’ve chosen to know and instead encourage our many new and unseen possibilities. This is our reality check. Join me and begin to unblock your blessings.

“It doesn’t matter where your journey starts; only where it ends and what you pass and pick up long the way.”

-Melanie Robinson Findlay

Welcome to my…your…our….

Universal Soapbox

Tag: Freedom

Wanted: A Magician

Pick Your Poison….