I had a long lists of wants for my life.
Top things on my list:
- I want peace and happiness
- I want to be a good person
- I want to be kind
- I want someone else to do all of the dirty work to get me there
#1, 2 and 3 were extremely important, but impossible to reach from the space I was in. It seemed like I could get 1 or 2 of those ducks lined up, but when I added the 3rd it all fell apart again. I didn’t write down #4. I never even acknowledged it existed.
In hindsight, I clung so tightly to the first 3 because of the 4th. They were my escape and my excuse to not be brave. They were the high horse I sat on that kept my hands clean.
If someone handed me the life I wanted, then my face would never be marred with blood or sweat and I could walk gracefully into that peaceful happy life without any battle scars and my ego fully intact.
But that’s not the way it works.
Nobody hands you the life you want. That ended the day you received your agency and desire. You are the only one who can feel what’s in your heart and to what extent it lives there.
The small celebrations of becoming one year older and slowly being handed the reins throughout our teenage years, were the signs of receiving the agency we need to create the life we desire. Where we can live to the fullest of our human potential.
I received the agency and then made a rash of adult choices that put me right back into my comfort zone of letting someone else take the reins and take responsibility for the parts of my life I didn’t want to be responsible for.
So long as I was willing to hide amongst my “wants”, that’s what they remained. And I continued to be powerless.
Eventually we all need to take back the reins.
I had to stop obsessing and hiding behind the first 3 items on the list.
The process wasn’t pretty. My face was bloody and tear stained. I felt a lot of dark and ugly feelings that didn’t feel like kindness but more like bitterness and resentment, and the word hate came out of my mouth and I meant it when I said it.
Now that I’m on the other side of it, I can see that I wanted the top 3 things on the list because I was holding all of that darkness inside of me and pretending it wasn’t there because I was afraid of it.
Now that darkness has been released and cleared, I live in peace. I can always choose kindness. I am a good person. The top 3 items on my list fell off because I don’t want them anymore, I choose them now.
I have taken the reins back and I am making the choices that line up with what’s in my heart.
It all starts with self-accountability.
Nobody is going to do it for you, and nobody should because you would miss the journey, the clearing, and the rebuilding, and all of the little choices you get to make along the way.
You would miss the magic, the shaping of your soul and all of the feathers that will become your wings.
“That part — the shaping of your soul — nobody can do for you. That’s entirely your job…and I would argue that it’s your only job. This is how you learn to use your wings.” – Elizabeth Gilbert