I am trying to do a thing but a part of me is so scared that, if I do it, I will upset people that I don’t want to upset.
This fear is a brick in my heart. It’s rough on my tender heart and it hurts.
Using The Un-Sticking Station practice, I am not sure if I should work with the brick or my heart, so I try working with both of them at once.
i’m just sitting with this, wondering how to work with it, and a big eyeball appears in the sky and beams rainbow beams down onto my heart and the brick.
And somehow I know… the eyeball can see something I can’t.
What is it?
While I wonder about that, the rainbow beams melt away the rough edges of the brick and soften the whole thing so there is still a heavy object blocking my heart but it’s not actually painful.
I float up to the eyeball and ask “Are you not afraid of this thing I am afraid of?”
The eyeball acknowledges that my fear is legitimate but says that no, it’s not afraid of that happening.
Is it because, even if that happens, the benefits of doing this thing outweigh the potential problems that could happen?
The eyeball says: “I want you to think through this fear more deeply. You are afraid of people being upset with you… for doing something you need to do to take care of you.”
Right. That.
That thing where we hold back on our dreams and we hold back on our needs because the people around us want us to be different that we are and we don’t want to upset anyone…. and we forget that all of this holding back is upsetting to US.
The eyeball hands me a mug of tea and says “It’s a classic! A huge part of creative dreaming is getting comfortable with not prioritizing other people’s needs and preferences, to make some space for your own needs, preferences and dreams”
Well shit.
So my choices are:
- DO the thing I want to do, feel inspired to do, and will help me meet my needs.
- DON’T do the thing, squash my inspiration and leave these needs unmet so that no one else gets upset.
The brick pops out of my heart. My heart starts to cheer for option 1.
The brick falls to the ground and says “My bad”
And it’s like… this shouldn’t have felt so scary.
AND let’s validate our feelings… without agreeing with them of course but invalidating them isn’t helpful.
It felt so scary! Of course I hit the brakes to sit with the fear! And now, having thought through it a bit, yeah I am not going to let this stop me. People might get upset, I have to accept that as a part of this.
So what does that mean?
As I plan how I want to do this thing, I need to recognize that people might get upset about and so… I may need some time to process my feelings about that and have some uncomfortable conversations with them.
Which means… I need to leave space in my schedule for this. Not have this overwhelming thing happening while I have other things to focus on.
So: HAVE SPACE TO DEAL WITH POTENTIAL FALLOUT is a step in the plan.
That feels really liberating.
Yes people might get upset and yes I can handle it.
My heart opened up a bit and took a deep breath and I feel like… yes I can move forward coming up with the rest of the plan.
(for people in this situation: you can also make TALK TO THE PEOPLE WHO WILL BE UPSET AND EXPLAIN THAT YOU LOVE THEM AND DON’T WANT TO UPSET THEM AND YOU REALLY NEED TO DO THIS FOR YOU a step in the plan that you do BEFORE you take action, in my situation it makes more sense to do it after)
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