BECOMING:
The Courage to Choose Who You Are (Every Damn Day)
Let’s get one thing straight: It takes guts to show up yet again after life has yet again knocked the living tar out of you.
And what I’m really speaking to is shame. When we fail, we don’t just fail. It’s not just that
something”didn’t work out.” What begins to wrap itself around us like a Burmese python is
SHAME.
There we are, splattered on the sidewalk, and rather than get up, we just…stay there…too afraid
to move, for fear that someone will see us in our weakened, vulnerable state. For some of us - it’s
a fear of parental judgment (yes, even when we are grown-ass adults.) For others, it’s being
exposed to peers or competitors as an amateur. And then there’s just being afraid of what our
friends (even our good friends (especially our good friends?)) might think. What does it take to
get up, slip in the mud and squish our way over to the curb to rinse off? What kind of inner
strength is necessary?
John Wayne said,
“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.”
Shrugging off our need for approval, our need to be liked, is a deep level Jedi move. I mean,
think about it…what else is stopping you from doing x, y, or z? Sure, you could say you’re
distracted, or we’re overwhelmed.
But why?
Why are you distracted? Why are you loading your plate up with too much? Could it be that you
are hiding in your activities and duties? Your responsibilities? And might you be hiding from
your own potential failure and the subsequent judgment that you (imagine) will come from it?
100 bajillion percent.
The moments that cracked you open so wide you weren’t sure what would be left on the other
side are PRECIOUS GIFTS - but not gifts to be treasured, non! These moments are gifts from
which we launch to the next iteration of our expression.
Look, we dove into the pool. We flubbed our dive. We smacked our belly at an awkward angle
and knocked the wind out of our lungs. We can’t even gasp because we’re in shock from the
impact. Drifting to the bottom of the pool, our feet brush the floor. Our toes grip the textured
concrete and then…we PUSH.In those seconds between shoving off from the bottom of the pool to the water’s surface, we
redirect our focus. We use it as rapid-fire upgrade. And when we surface, gasping that beautiful
air, we are laser-focused. We are the DIRECTOR of our attention - training our mind to a very
specific pathway that is not only goal-tethered, but fused with this next reality. We truly are born
anew. Up, up, up…our new coordinates are established and our trajectory is enabled.
I want to tell you something, and I’m asking for your complete attention:
Every single day, you are ALREADY choosing who you are.
It’s just that mostly you’ve been coasting on momentum from past choices…the equivalent of
learning how to walk until you just…walk. You no longer think of articulating through each step.
Moreover, when you’re backed up against a wall and you feel you have no choice whatsoever,
when fear is thick and your inner critic is snidely sneering in your head, when you are faced with
the primal choice of being eating or being eaten -
you can choose WHO.
That’s the Jedi part. We get caught up in “what?” in “how?”
But it’s WHO is making the choice that is the wild, rebellious question.
Perhaps there is flicker of recognition as you read this - a glimpse through the looking glass, a
glitch in the simulation?
That crack in the veneer of this particular slice of the spacetime continuum is everything.
Once we pivot, we have cracked open a new can of reality. Can you hear it? Believe it. Follow it.
Taste it. Drink it. And, like a new lover in the throes of passionate, lusty hunger, fall madly in
love with it.
But wait, where might the quicksand be as you boldly sail forth into unknown worlds? Well, if
you had a foot still standing on the dock as you pushed off, that would be the potential Achilles
heel. Usually, it comes in the form of an old resentment. Some person who legitimately wronged
you still has some of your attention wound around their finger.
Vigilance, my friends, is WHERE IT’S AT.
This is what Don Miguel Ruiz is talking about when he speaks of impeccability. When we are
truly impeccable - with our words, yes, but with our thoughts, then we begin to step into a god-
like space. Judgment becomes something we have outgrown and we develop the ability to detect
its mirage before it materializes.
Right?
You know what I’m saying here? WE HAVE THIS ABILITY! Every scripture, veda, religious
text and tome speaks of rising above a situational skirmish - forgiving not only past wrongs butperceived wrongs. Our perception IS our reality. So we can’t be engaging in any nonsense from
the “before times”…not even when we feel that we are “right” and they are “wrong.”
I’m dead serious about this.
I’m speaking not only to the creatives in the world who are grappling with self-doubt and fear of
failure, but to the larger macrocosm of our present global reality. If we really and truly do want
to create a new world, we need to grow up and leave judgment and resentment behind. It’s time
to regard them as habits that another version of us once engaged in - once upon a conflict.
This isn’t about perfection.
This isn’t about fixing ourselves or others. This is about COMMITMENT.
Becoming the person you are destined to be is BEING the person you are destined TO BE.
So.
BE IT.
(‘or not’…quoth a certain Danish prince.)
And as you walk down the sidewalk, there is no longer any need to stop and exclaim that there is
a mess in front of you.
No need.
Either clean it up, or step over it and KEEP. GOING.
I’ve got a post-it on my wall that says:
“Impress your FUTURE SELF.”
Why? Because that is the reality I am calling in. The version of me required to be on set for that
reality is who I am marrying, over and over.
And it’s not about achievement. It’s about being the you that does the brave thing today that your
future self will look back on and whisper, “Damn. Thank you.”
So choose. Right Now.
Not because you have to. Because you can…because you possess the ability…because deep
down, you already are that - if you commit.
So go ahead. Make your day. I dare you.
