Are you playing small? Make this the year you stop settling for less

Last week I was talking with a friend of mine about a mutual friend of ours who has, to put it bluntly, settled for less than she is worth. She is in a relationship with a man who is unable to be authentic with her. He lied about his job when they met, even going to the extent of borrowing a mate’s work uniform when he met her, to carry off the illusion of this career fantasy he had constructed, and went to some effort regaling fake work stories. He only came clean when she found a pay slip in his drawer – some months into their relationship – revealing his employment reality to be much less grandiose than he had claimed. Hardly a solid foundation for a healthy relationship. Yet, for reasons I am not privy to (and nor should I be), she went on to marry him.

When I reflected later on this conversation, I realised that I, too, have settled.

It’s not my place to judge anyone for their romantic choices – particularly given my own gloriously ugly history in this department. But while I respect her right to make her own choices, those choices bother me – even though, as noted, it is none of my damn business. Her choices bother me because it appears to me – from my privileged position on the outside with no understanding of what it’s *actually* like inside that relationship – that she has settled.

I do understand the desire to settle.

Where I grew up, the pressure to get married and produce children was so intense that many times in my 20s I wondered whether it would be easier to just pick a not-right-but-not-wrong guy to achieve the appearance of a successful life, instead of hedging my bets on the possibility (wait make that PROBABILITY!)  that I will meet a man who I connect with on a deep level. I didn’t choose to settle but I’d be lying if I didn’t occasionally regret that. But as the wise Elizabeth Gilbert is fond of noting, the safe option is not actually safe (in this case because it would lead to a lifetime of dissatisfaction and regret).

The word ‘settle’ is a big one for me. Not long after the aforementioned conversation, a very dear friend, the gorgeous blogger Glitter Is My Favourite Colour, sent me a poem that she thought might resonate with me (she was right – it did). I’ll copy it below, but to give you a quick overview, it’s all about stepping out of mediocrity to follow your own path. What stood out to me most strongly was the word ‘settle’. Even though I have not settled in love, there are areas of my life – I now realise – in which I am settling.

When you settle, you say to the Universe: I’m not willing to reach for the amazingness I deserve, I’ll take ‘good enough’. There are all sorts of reasons we might do that, but mostly they come back to fear of failure and lack of appreciation for just how powerful and worthy of greatness we are.

Being honest with myself, I’ve realised there are a couple of friendships in which I’m doing all the work (making the contact, organising the catch-ups) and getting nothing back. This has really been bothering me lately. It bothers me because I’m settling for friendships in which the other person is not emotionally invested nor even particularly interested in participating in. Healthy friendships are a two-way street – and I have a lot of these in my life, which I’m very grateful for. These other friendships are doing nothing but zapping my time and energy. As the meme declares: ain’t nobody got time for that.

I’m also settling in a professional sense. I’m not pitching for meaty stories that would be stretch me and bring me greater satisfaction. I’m not stepping forward with my spiritual business because I’m terrified it will fail. I’m not addressing my volatile financial state because I’m scared I will be poor my entire life. These are all areas that need my attention. They are not easy to fix, but I think shifting the unhealthy mindset behind them is a very good place to start.

The Universe brought this to my attention, I believe, because I’ve been asking for guidance on how I can push forward and expand this year. The message I’m receiving is: don’t settle. Sure, unsatisfying friendships and limited professional development may not appear to be hampering my life in a larger sense, but they kinda are, because through these choices I’m sending the messages that I don’t believe I deserve more.

I do deserve more – and so do you. It’s time to start acting like it.

*Here’s a portion of that poem:

You. Go, now – into the lush, emerald forest of who you really are. Find yourself. Discover your gifts. Share your gritty magic with the world. Follow the promising path of your courageous destiny. Go – Now. Do not settle for an empty half-life. Do not settle for good enough. Do not settle for anything less than exquisite or extraordinary. Oh, sweet wise, wild woman – do not settle – At all.

Source: Elephant Journal.

Making peace with the past, and its scars

In the process of writing last week’s post about transformation I started thinking about my phoenix tattoo, which got me thinking about regret and acceptance.

The phoenix is, of course, a potent symbol of transformation. It’s the mythical bird that rises from the ashes after adversity. The caterpillar emerging from its cocoon into a beautiful butterfly. You get the idea. 
I was certainly making a statement when I chose to get a phoenix tattooed on my upper back at the age of 22. I was also ahead of my time, as Ben Affleck has just done the very same (although his is more colourful and impressive).

To give you some background, at the time I got inked, I had come through the other side of a battle with depression and a redundancy. I wanted to carry a mark that would symbolise my resilience and inner strength. I hoped it would give me something to draw on in challenging times. I believed, in the naïve way that only a 22-year-old could, that I was through my biggest personal crisis. I did not then understand that life is a series of challenges and strength building, and that we are reborn again and again and again (unless, of course, we choose to stay stuck).

Instead of being a badge of honour, the tattoo became a source of regret. It didn’t remind me of my transformation, it only reminded me of the misery that had permeated that chapter of my life. I felt disappointed that I had not grown enough to become the person I had believed I could be on day in a dingy Auckland tattoo studio. Plus, it was kinda ugly. 

So, in my early 30s I decided to have it removed. Unfortunately the laser treatment process was excruciating (vastly more painful that the tattooing process), and was predicted to become more so as treatment progressed. It was also costly. So after five treatments I decided to make peace with the now slightly faded bird, and quit treatment. 

My tattoo removal story in Women's Health magazine

I totally understand how people who have tattoos of their ex’s name on their forearms, or Kermit the Frog tattoos on their butt (I actually know someone in this situation), would want to have those removed. But my tattoo wasn’t that awful. So why had I wanted it erased so badly?

What I’d been trying to do was the equivalent of what people do on Instagram every day – edit out the ugly side and present only the elements of myself that I wanted to be seen. I knew that getting rid of the tattoo would not alter the course of my history, but at least it would mean I wouldn’t have to keep reflecting on it – because every time someone saw the tattoo I had had to explain (in the vaguest of terms) that I had been through “a rough period”. In doing so I was invoking the heavy energy around that period once again. I felt a whiff of the despair and, just like a dementor in Harry Potter, its darkness loomed large. I didn’t want to be dragged down by that chapter any longer. I wanted to put that behind me once and for all. 

So very idealistic.

The past is ugly. It has shadows and it leaves scars. It cannot be erased – even with the heat of a laser. The challenge for me has been in finding a middle ground between acceptance and regret. More than a tattoo could, it was in writing about my battle with depression that I finally made peace with the parts of myself from which I had bled so profusely (read that post here). I now neither embrace nor recoil from reminders of my past struggles. I have taken the lessons and am doing my best to gently move on. I have regrets, but I no longer ruminate on them.

We are all better off for what we’ve been through, good and bad. That’s the unsightly truth.

Transformation is hard. But staying miserable is harder

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of transformation. When I was a kid my favourite TV show was Jem and the Holograms. I loved that mousy Jerrica Benton had the ability to transform into a glamorous and adored popstar just by touching her star-shaped earrings. You can see how the idea of escaping a mediocre life and becoming extraordinary held such appeal to a young girl who was painfully shy and socially awkward. Come to think of it, the Jem narrative is probably the little girl’s equivalent of Clark Kent transforming into Superman. But with fun music and no burden of civic responsibility. And a lot of pink, which is still my favourite colour.

At some point in my childhood, I realised that most people are programmed to follow the same template for who you become. Something like this: get a job in an office, climb up the ranks, marry, have two kids, get two cats that ignore you (I swear I’ll never understand why people bother with cats!), move to a retirement home, forget everything, then die. The idea that you could choose your own direction and change it at any point was foreign to me. I did not yet understand how much power we have to shape the course of our lives, and how restrictive the supposedly safe path we are taught to follow really is.

Last week I went to a Conscious Club event where the Bondi Hipsters (a well-known Sydney comedy duo) did a presentation about their transition from working in well-paid jobs to becoming full-time entertainers (at great financial cost). For one of the brothers, Christiaan, the transformation was fairly dramatic. After returning from a trip through South America, he was at a client lunch when he suddenly started coughing up “buckets of blood”. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis and put into quarantine in hospital for 12 months. Yep, that’s a whole year in hospital with no one to talk to and no freedom to leave – a pretty depressing scenario. While in confinement, motivated by sheer boredom, he started making rap songs poking fun at his situation, and posting them on YouTube. The Fully Sick Rapper clips went viral. 
Christiaan is open about the fact that there were some pretty dark periods while he was in quarantine, but he says at no point in his lowest moments did he wish he had spent more time in the office or at work meetings. At the most challenging time in his life he had woken up to the fact that his career and substantial pay packet – the two things we’re all taught to chase, covet and hold dear – meant nothing. What mattered was how he had spent his 27 years on the planet so far – and that picture just wasn’t satisfying enough. When he was released from hospital he realised he could not go back to his corporate life – he had to keep living a life of creative expression. I’m paraphrasing here, but what he was saying to us was that he could no longer ignore the voice that had been begging him to live fully on his own path instead of dying partially on the conventional path.

If there is something your soul is longing to do, why aren’t you doing that? Maybe you yearn to write a book. Maybe you dream of fostering kids. Maybe you want to be an alpaca farmer (that would be so great – alpacas are really cute!).

Maybe the idea of transformation scares you. I get that. When you go in a direction that doesn’t fit the template, you have no certainty. But here’s the thing: there are no guarantees on the ‘safe’ path either. You could lose your job. Your spouse could die. Your kid could end up a drug addict. You could get tuberculosis. Your life could be thrown into turmoil at any moment. In such a volatile world, isn’t it better to choose a path that makes you happy?

If there is a voice in you telling you that something needs to change, maybe it’s time to listen to it. Transformation is not easy. It creates a rupture in the fabric of your life, and it can cause friction in your most intimate relationships. You might fail. You might end up poor. You might lose your reputation. But there’s one thing harder than transformation: not changing. Not changing leads to regret. And, just like a quarantine hospital ward, regret is a miserable place to live.

You don’t have to own a pair of pink star earrings to transform your life, you just have to listen to your heart. You already know what you need to do.

I’ve got the power – and so do you. Time to stop playing the victim, and use it

If you’re ready to make changes in your life – and since you’re reading this blog, I’m assuming that you are – this is the time to do it. With a full moon tonight in Capricorn – that’s the ultra-ambitious, success-driven sign of the zodiac (shoutout to all the Cappys!) – the energy is right for using your power to create something amazing.

Unfortunately, power has a serious PR problem. We think that it corrupts, dominates and breeds exploitation. In other words, we regard it as a negative entity to be avoided. But in a spiritual sense, power is actually a positive force because it’s what we draw on to make our dreams come true and propel ourselves forward – and for that reason, it’s intrinsically connected to love. It’s only when it’s used out of fear – for example, by world leaders who are so motivated by fear of being inadequate that they fixate on controlling other people – that power gets a bad name.

At many points in my life I have rendered myself powerless. In my early 20s I blamed my flatmates for cooking badly, which gave me an excuse to be overweight. I blamed the economy for my poor cashflow, which gave me an excuse not to manage my funds better. I blamed my industry for being too competitive, which gave me an excuse not to pitch for work I wanted (thereby risking failure). I blamed my city for being too boring, which gave me an excuse not to work harder at overcoming my shyness barrier and extending my social circle (thereby risking rejection). Oh, poor me!

When you’ve cast yourself as the victim, as I had, you are giving away your power. You are blaming other people – your lazy partner, your inept boss, your unforgiving father, whoever it is – for the state of your life. If your problems are someone else’s fault, that (conveniently) means you don’t have to take responsibility for your choices. You have licence to test the patience of your friends by whingeing and complaining all the live long day. Poor you.

It took a very long time for me to accept that nothing was going to change until I did. The point of power was in my decision to adjust the way I had framed these situations in my mind. Even if you can’t change your situation, you can always change the way you think about it. Taking control of your thoughts, and not resenting others for the landscape of your life, is the first step in taking back your power. And that gives rise to action.

If your life isn’t playing out how you’d like it to, ask yourself honestly if you have been blaming someone else for that. Other people may well be involved, complicit and even influential, but ultimately you hold all the cards. You have the power to change the situation and yield a better result – for everyone. To borrow a cliché, the best time to do that is yesterday, and the second best time is today. With 2015 being a ‘number eight year’ (read more here) and the full moon beaming out in Capricorn, this is a – ahem – powerful time to be alive. We have the power to create a shiny new reality for ourselves and others around us. Things that may not have seemed possible in previous years are no longer closed off. Who would have thought the US would finally legalise same-sex marriage?! This proves that wonderful things are possible when you act from a place of love. And despite its image problem, power is all about love. When you truly know how much value you hold, you know that you deserve to have your dreams come true, and you’ll feel inspired to utilise the power available to you to make that happen.  

The onus is on you, right now, to take back your own power and use it to get what you want (what you want, what you really really want). Be bold. Be creative. Be your own hero. The Universe responds to thoughts, prayers and affirmations, but it bends most favourably in your direction when you take action. Go do that.

Help! I think I just did something brave... and I'm terrified!

Ever done something bold and thrilling and daring, then woken up the next day and thought, ‘what the hell have I done?!’

I’m not talking about a party flashback (although, God knows…). I’m talking about the big life-changing decisions that force you into a frightening place of immense vulnerability where your future no longer seems secure as it was. The result: terror and regret. But mostly terror.

Yesterday I signed a lease on a practice room at a holistic health centre in Inner West Sydney, from which I’ll be offering reiki and angel card readings, two days a week. I’d been talking about doing this for months, and I think everyone was as bored with the subject as I was. It was time to put up or shut up. So I did. I put down a hefty deposit and signed a lease which I’m bound to for a year. At the time I felt emboldened, confident and optimistic. But within hours I had that gut-wrenching ‘oh-God-what-have-I-done’ feeling. I don’t need to tell you this is a significant financial risk on my part. There’s also more than a small element of emotional risk too – if I don’t get a healthy client base I’m going to look and feel like a failure. 

As the landlord was asking me about my target audience (um, anyone with a pulse?) and my marketing plan (don’t even know what that is), I suddenly realised I’m in way over my head. I do not have a single client, and I don’t know the first thing about how to get any. I know I’m good at energy healing and angel communication (well, so my feedback indicates) but I also know ability and talent are immaterial if you can’t get anyone to walk through your door.

Guys, this is terrifying. The only thing keeping me from having a full-blown panic attack is the faintest hope that this *just might* work out. And the sense that if I don’t give it a go, I’ll always wonder whether it might have.

In a way, this reminds me of last year when I quit Auckland and moved to Sydney – a decision which also defied logic and threw me into an uncertain future, both financially and personally. And here I am again, staring at a foggy road ahead. Feeling woefully unprepared, but mildly buoyed by some brilliant person's quote that goes something like this: ‘No one is ever really ready for anything’. I’m whispering that silently, and often, to my Richter-scale-level thudding heart.

I know how much is riding on me backing myself and promoting my skills, and I’m genuinely unsure whether I can do that. There’s only one way to find out.