Is Your Soul On Hold? How Truth Telling (to Self) Can Set You Free
When life feels like its passing us by, there’s something more to see — our souls will call to us until we answer, until we claim the truth of who we are meant to be
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Why is it so hard to tell the truth?
We say we tell the truth.
We believe we tell the truth.
We know that, allegedly, the truth shall set us free…whichsounds pretty reasonable, right? Then why are we still tripping all over it, dancingaround and avoiding it? Because the truth is that many of us were never told howto tell the truth.
We were instead told to be nice (if you have nothing nice tosay, say nothing at all), be polite, don’t cause trouble, etc. And before youknow it, we were telling a little fib here, another one there. Suddenly,swimming in a sea of uncertainty.
This isn’t about the untruths we learned to tell others. No,it’s worse — it’s about the ones we told ourselves. Each story we toldourselves, each truth we buried away, each feeling we denied took us furtherfrom the core essence of who we were meant to be — and all that we were meantto bring to the world.
Yes, YOU. You were meant for greatness.
Greatness doesn’t mean a stage with spotlights and goldstatues (although that certainly could be fun) — it means changing lives with yourlove, kindness, compassion and your connection to self. It’s found in the braveryof the child who steps forward to defend a friend who is being bullied. It isfound in the face of one who doesn’t walk by and ignore the homeless person onthe street. It is found in picking up the phone to call a friend going througha hard time. It can even be found in the illumination of others simply becauseyou are illuminated.
It is grace personified and it swims about us every day, therefor the taking, the ebb and flow of giving and receiving — God’s opportunities.It is found in the stillness where we can hear the soul’s call to us.
Where have you been, she whispers.
Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve been terribly busy rushing aroundchecking things off my to-do list, showing up for others, being who I’m‘supposed’ to be in the world, stepping over my deepest desires, we reply.
And then we ask ourselves, Why am I unhappy? Why am I unfulfilled? How did I end up in this relationship or this job or this life? It goes back to the fibs, the people-pleasing, the not-knowing it was OK to step forward and claim ourselves in all of our glory. Besides, people-pleasing doesn’t really please anyone.
Where did it all start anyway? In all the ways we learned to abandon ourselves.
You know what they are. And when you identify one place, it will lead you to the next. But have no fear. No matter how far out the trail of breadcrumbs extends — you can always find your way home.
I think the biggest fear for most is that when the lightbulb goes on, they believe it means that the only way out is to turn everythingupside down. And that’s a scary proposition. While that may be necessary insome cases, that’s enough to scare anyone back into their denial hole.
But come out, come out wherever you are. It doesn’t have tobe that way. There is no ‘one way’.
We often talk about the body, mind, spirit connection in BestSelf Magazine because there’s just no denying the interconnectedness of ourbeings and our interaction with the rest of the planet.
For much of my life, I was asleep at this wheel.
A backache was a backache. A bad relationship was a bad relationship. Depression was depression. Money strain was money strain. Being irritated by other people was just irritation (and not my fault).
I wasn’t connecting dots. I wasn’t seeing the backacheattached to my fear.
I wasn’t measuring my self-worth as mirrored in myrelationships.
I wasn’t recognizing the depression as a call to shift mylife.
I wasn’t tracing my financial theories of limitation to myupbringing.
I wasn’t identifying the reflection of my own feelings aboutmyself in others.
No, everything was compartmentalized, floating around likeislands unto themselves. There wasn’t a cohesive story — instead there was aseries of alarms being signaled, a destiny being ignored.
And though life didn’t feel awful, it didn’t feel alive andimpassioned. As a matter of fact, I just began to accept it as my norm. Istarted to settle — and I was stuck.
The more we practice this, the more we travel through liferunning on low-grade fuel. But you are worthy of a life running on high octane,truly. And don’t subscribe to all the myths about it being too late, that youare too old, that you don’t have enough money, that you don’t know what to do(or any other excuse you’d like to slip in there)!
I always love to tell the story of how Louise Hay, thefounder of Hay House, started her business when she was 60! But I digress (Isimply can’t allow you to fall down the ageism hole).
Remember, grace is found in mystical moments of silence —when you sit in communion with your deepest self, when you take the hand ofyour fearful inner child and you whisper, Thank you. You’ve done an awesomejob getting me here. I honor the bumps in the road that you have endured, butI’ve got this now. You needn’t be fearful anymore.
Grace is found when you remember who you are. When youreclaim the lost pieces of yourself. When you acknowledge the things that lightyou up. When you tell the truth of who you are to yourself and others.
Ask yourself the questions. Don’t be afraid of the answers.Trust me it’s much scarier to live a life of denial than a life of truth. Themore you practice this, the more you will witness the backache subsiding,authentic relationships emerging, spirits lifting, finances flowing, conflictdissipating.
Where have you abandoned your truth: your career,your relationships, your self-care, your dreams, your belief in possibility andthe goodness of life?
If money, age, people, geography, logistics and any otherslew of excuses you lean on, were no object…what would you be doing with yourlife? Can you find a way back to that vision? Even if you aren’t ready todeclare it to anyone other than yourself, could you take a step in thatdirection — even if it is just to uncover what the direction is?
At the lowest point of my life, when it felt as if I hadseemingly lost everything there was to lose — I surrendered. It began withwitnessing the joy that emerged as I scribbled sweet nothings in a notebook. Itled me to founding a magazine. It led me to a knowingness that if I start myday off writing, it will be a good day. It led me to uncover rituals and smallways that I could delight in every day that didn’t cost me money: meditation,lighting a candle, saying a prayer, languishing in a hot cup of coffee,admiring the sunrise kissing the mountains outside my window. It led me tostepping into new shoes and owning life on my terms.
Call me crazy…I know plenty have.
Was I too old become an entrepreneur, to start all over? Well, I knew this — I was too young to live my life marching to the beat of someone else’s drum.
It isn’t a journey for the faint of heart. But my soul is a gypsy — she has an insatiable desire to see, taste, learn, become, unfold.
Be an entrepreneur of the soul. And when aligned with that truth, what I do know is that I can handle what life throws my way…and so can you. Find your way home because you know what — the truth shall set your best self free!
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As always, I love hearing from you — does this resonate withyou? Is there a place where you’ve denied the truth of who you are and what youalways dreamed you’d be? There’s a reason its calling to you…please share withus in the comments below so we can all have the courage to set our truths free!