Do you feel like a bouncing ball?
Up one week, down the next?
That’s how a client explained how she felt to me this week.
I get it.
When you are making changes, your nervous system gets bouncy.
That’s because there is more than one of you inside your gorgeous frame.
Not in a psycho way, but in the way that humans are complex creatures with many parts vying for attention and for comfort.
When you begin to make choices to live into your life in a bigger way, that ball starts to move. It usually happens when you start to see that the risks you've taken have actually pay off.
You've booked a show. You've finished a manuscript. You've been offered a grant.
You may notice that you get flummoxed or suddenly sad or angry and you will feel that whatever you are feeling is the whole story.
You'll go from dreamy to doomsday.
Even though everything is progressing nicely you will believe the pain you feel is because you have made a grave mistake. You will think all of you is wrong, or bad, or idiotic or just a big ol' looser.
The only way to return to a more functional state is to collect those thoughts and sort out who is touting them. What characters are feeding on your fear to keep your light in the shadows?
Rick Carson, in his book Taming Your Gremlin, calls these thought-mongers "Gremlins."
They are the foot soldiers of our fears.
Over the years, and especially over the past eight years since my husband died, I've gotten to know most of the characters that get my ball bouncing.
I've learned to put enough light between them and the woman I am growing into every day.
I've gotten good at recognizing that when I blame myself, chastise, belittle or otherwise sabotage myself - that is not WHO I AM.
If you can get to know these gremlins, you can see them as just very thin veils.
Very thin, but outrageous larger then life characters whose sole purpose is to prevent you from adopting a behavior that they believe will cause your demise.
Unfortunately, their information system is way out of date. They are taking their cue the threats you may have sensed in your family or environment four or five decades ago at least (If you are as old as I am).
The you of today wants to take risks to grow and play and create, right?
Gremlins know when you are breaking with the status quo even when you don’t know it.
And they don't like it one bit.
So if you find yourself bouncing between courage and despair, clarity and confusion - that’s par for the course of big change.
The good news is that once you see through their veil, you'll feel into some of your most tender longings. Longing gives us current data on what we desire and and opens up the possibilities for us to flourish.
You have to get past the bouncer first!
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