Saturday, September 8, 2012

A few words on what it means to be shameless

I have been considering this since I began to explore what wildly passionate, happy and successful people do that others do not. What gets in the way of spreading the word?

What gives you pause to consider and not put yourself out there? Why do we hesitate before clicking the send button on an email? Why do we shudder at the thought we could be criticized or judged harshly? Deep inside our hearts and minds, somewhere there is a monster lurking, he whispers in our ears telling us that if we do that the world will not approve.

So we hesitate, we stop, we think-twice as we were taught to do as kids and we shrink away from the risk of putting ourselves out there. We find an excuse, a crutch to lean on and we let the dream die, the lights go out and we draw the curtain and go back to our hiding place or move on to the next thing. If we really think about it long and hard enough we see how foolish it is to listen to anything other than our Highest Self (who also whispers but is drowned out by the monster).

The Highest Self whispers "You can do it, just try, it could be great, people will love you" We need to listen to this voice more often. Why we don't is simply a matter of habit. We are not in the habit of succeeding and we are not in the habit of believing that we can succeed. We don't often look at our successful side; we don't give enough energy to that part of ourselves that experiences little successes every single day.

Everything you do has an outcome, sometimes it is favorable, and sometimes it is painful. The ones that are painful seem to make a bigger and longer-lasting impression and we cling to those. It is actually the opposite of what we should do. The question now is how do we amplify the whisper of the Highest Self so that it becomes the Battle-cry of the Warrior and can drown out the whisper of the monster? It takes practice and a pertinacious spirit.

Build on and celebrate daily small successes and keep building on them day after day. A way that I do this is I write myself a target list each night before falling asleep, I review it in the morning and I focus on how it will feel to get all or most of it accomplished.

It starts by little changes like going for a walk everyday and then each day going just a bit farther than you did the day before. Learning a few new words in a different language each day and practice them on your family and friends. *Hint* Google translate is awesome for this because it says the word out loud so you can hear how it is pronounced.

Shameless does not mean you are never ashamed - shameless means you are able to shake-off the entire negative and become more mindful and decisive in your actions.
We all have a past, we have all done and failed to do things that we would have chosen to do differently if we had taken the time to think it through. It also means you must be willing to put yourself out there and risk rejection over and over again.
Rejection can be painful; you don't have to live there. If we break-down every time someone rejects us, well we will never accomplish anything worthwhile.

I listened to a talk by Brene` Brown on Shame and I'm including the link for you here.

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