Embracing Your Gift is all about coming to terms with your hidden commitments, because hidden commitments let you sabotage yourself in plain sight.
Here’s one such example.
After publishing my blog and then my website, I fell into a void.
Thanks to my Challenge Log Routine, where I keep track of my challenges and obstacles, I recognised what was going on:
Publishing the blog and the website had been giant leaps forward,
and that clashed with my inner 7-year old’s need to remain invisible, to fly under the radar.
Related Article: The Challenge Log Routine
However, knowing what it was didn’t immediately resolve it!
I had my next action plan laid out and yet I didn’t take a single step towards completing it!
I did other things, useful things, which allowed me to think I was simply recovering from those giant leaps, especially because I could feel the enthusiasm and the motivation coursing through me.
But here’s the thing: when I’m motivated, I’m unstoppable.
So why wasn’t I moving forward?
Ten days after publishing the website I had gained valuable new insights, but I hadn’t really moved forward in any significant way.
In fact, it was my sense of complacency that had me worried!
Normally when I fall off track, I get anxious and restless.
But not this time.
So I sat down with my guide, to sort this out.
As per our agreement, when there doesn’t seem to be anything concrete to zone in on, we just explore the feeling place of it until we get somewhere. And then, once we get somewhere, the question becomes: And how will you deal with it? That’s just a format that works for me.
So, I sat down for a chat.
‘I’m still not focused,’ I said.
How does that make you feel, my guide asked in return.
‘Worried,’ I said. ‘I’m not as anxious or restless as I normally am at this stage, but that actually worries me even more: like it just doesn’t matter. But it does. I know it does!’
𝛋: And how does that make you feel?
‘Confused. Uncertain. Cos I don’t know what’s going on: am I regrouping or am I stalling? Am I wasting ‘valuable time’ or am I ‘catching my breath’?’
𝛋: Which do you think?
‘I know that when I’m motivated, I just don’t stop. So, what, am I not motivated…?’
𝛋: How does that make you feel?
‘That’s what’s so confusing.
Part of me is very motivated.
And so this points to sabotage.
And that makes me feel powerless.’
𝛋: And how does thát make you feel?
‘Paralysed. Stymied.’
That’s when it struck me:
‘Hmmm…. that is actually what I am. Paralysed. Stymied.
Not moving at all…
Does that mean I’m so worried that this is sabotage that I’ve ‘come to a halt’ without actually figuring out what it is?
𝛋: Sabotage wánts you to stop. It needs you to stop.
Which is why you can’t differentiate, because you’re doing ‘the right thing’.
Except, of course, it isn’t. Not for you.
Hang on, is it – or isn’t it?
𝛋: Well, it’s the right thing for your inner 7-yo you, just not for the adult you, who wants to move forward.
I felt into that for a bit.
It certainly explained the gas/brake feeling I’d been having… my adult-me had her foot on the gas, but my inner 7-yo had both of hers on the brakes!
So of course the next question is:
Now you know. So how will you deal with it?
In this particular case, the answer ties in with the fact that I need to move past a hump.
So I’ve set my timer and will put in One Full Hour towards my Action Plan.
That’s an action that typically serves me to get into gear.
Once I’m past the hump, that hour will very probably turn into six.
And if it doesn’t, there’s something else left to uncover.
But for the first time I can see how two opposing -mutually exclusive!- behaviours both serve me!
They just don’t serve the same version of me…!
