The Freedom Of Possibility

It was one of the stupidest decisions I’ve ever made.

Driving home from a late night out in the big city with a few friends. In front of me was a wide open stretch of highway which for some unknown reason inspired me to wonder just how fast my car could actually go. Fueled by a potentially lethal combination of teenage invincibility and alcohol, I pressed the pedal as hard as I could just to see exactly how fast my ’73 Toyota could go.

My experiment was cut short by a rather unsettling noise coming from the rear tires. Apparently the high rate of speed I was traveling at created a great deal of heat causing the retreads on my tires to separate from the tires, which I discovered after stopping to see if I could find where the noise was coming from. I had no idea that was even possible until I held a piece of a tire in my hand. After that experience, I had no intention of ever finding out exactly how fast that car could go.

Things certainly could have easily turned out much differently.

This far more mature and long-sober version of me often ponders a different sort of experiment. What would the outcome be if I pushed myself to my limits. Like, if I gave life all I had to give, Continue reading “The Freedom Of Possibility” →

Maybe The Broken Aren’t Actually Broken?

Sometimes the heaviest things we carry are the judgments we make about ourselves. The belief system about who we tell ourselves we really are. The belief system which influences our expectations and shape our experiences, reinforcing the belief system as a result.

If you take notice, life has proven to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. We do tend to experience what we expect to experience, even if at times we don’t really want to experience it. If paradise was within our reach, our arms would never be fully extended to reach for it if on some level we don’t believe we are supposed to experience it. The weight of our self-judgment will keep us where we’ve convinced ourselves we’re supposed to be. Wanting. Wishing. But never moving beyond where we’ve accepted we are supposed to be.

Life at times can certainly leave us to believe we are broken. Flawed. Defective. Not worthy. Too Continue reading “Maybe The Broken Aren’t Actually Broken?” →

Are You Worth The Effort?

Perhaps this is a question you’ve never asked of yourself.

Our ability to grow and evolve is a choice we get to make for ourselves. Odds are there are already blueprints for the steps we’ll need to take to grow and evolve into whatever it is we decide we want to grow and evolve into. With an endless amount of information surrounding us, what is needed is a willingness to actually take action.

That’s where we can get stuck.

I’ve enthusiastically stood on the threshold of growth many times, both personally and professionally. I’ve had the opportunity, the ability, and I knew what needed to be done. Yet, quite often, I never did.

Looking back on several of those moments in my life, I’ve found a common theme for my inaction. It wasn’t laziness. It wasn’t ignorance.

It was a matter of worthiness.

There’s a story we always tell ourselves about ourselves. It’s a story of who it is we believe ourselves to be and what we believe is possible for us in our lives. For me, the greatest killer of Continue reading “Are You Worth The Effort?” →

Our Own Sacred Space To Unfold

Growth should come with a warning label. Not to dissuade anyone from starting, but just to let them know what lies ahead.

For some, growth is a luxury, a curiosity-based exploration into the further reaches of human potential. For others, growth is a necessity, driven by the consistent and crushing emotional weight of unresolved trauma and pain, to the point where a journey through the fire becomes the only viable option.

Mine was more of a necessity.

A commitment to growth signs you up for a process of learning and unlearning, of discovering and uncovering, of defining and re-defining, of anxiously diving into the deep end of your emotional pool while questioning your ability to swim.

And knowing nobody is coming to save you once you hit the water.

The journey through my own fires has been a challenging and meandering undertaking, at times Continue reading “Our Own Sacred Space To Unfold” →

The Best Life Hack Is No Hack At All

I’m fairly certain he didn’t notice me.

He was too busy making things happen.

In a rare moment of sitting down and relaxing I spied a spider diligently working spinning his web. Back and forth he went from the light fixture by the back door and up to the gutter creating an ever growing and symmetrical network of whatever spiders make their webs out of.

It was fascinating to watch the process of how he patiently and intentionally created his work of art. What I saw as art, he saw as something far more practical and essential to his survival.

If there were any short cuts to building a web, I don’t believe this spider was aware of them. His task looked pretty straight forward, perhaps even repetitive and monotonous. He knew what he needed to do and he simply did it.

Us humans are often inundated by so-called influencers and self-annointed experts trying to sell us their short cuts and ways to hack the system. Some will tell us that all we need to do is Continue reading “The Best Life Hack Is No Hack At All” →

The Greater Risk Is Not Being Authentically You

Authenticity sounds simple, right? To be yourself, fearlessly. Yet at some point for most of us we learned our authentic self expression was actually something to be feared.

Authenticity comes with great risk, a risk that who we really are won’t be understood or accepted in our most-important relationships. The fear of such isolation often leads us to suppress many of the parts of us which make us so beautifully and authentically unique.

So, to provide a perceived sense of safety, we dim our light for those who can’t handle our brightness, for we fear being left alone in the darkness. Our fear of abandonment leads us to abandon our truest self, an increasingly high price to pay the longer we choose to do so.

Conformity makes everyone comfortable. Except us.

In time we will be pained realizing the greater risk is in not authentically expressing who we are. And Continue reading “The Greater Risk Is Not Being Authentically You” →

Self Compassion Looks Good On You

Mom told us the day was coming, the day we would all stand before our Creator and be held accountable for the way we lived our lives. Awaiting us all will be either a stairway to heaven or a highway to hell.

Judgment Day. The ultimate exit interview. “Heaven or hell? What will it be?”

Many of us need not stand before our Creator at the end of our lives in order to be judged.

We already do this. To ourself.

And we can make our life a living hell in the process.

In a world which can be quite cruel at times, we, too, can be just as cruel. To ourself. Because we know who we really are, don’t we? We know our flaws and shortcomings better than anyone, and no matter how well we may hide them from the rest of the world, we will never be able to hide them from ourself.

And there is so much to judge, isn’t there? Our appearance, our weight, what we haven’t accomplished, what we haven’t become, what we drive, where we live, what we earn, the expectations we’ve not lived up to, both our own or the expectations of others. There is always something we’re falling short of if we just look a little deeper.

We can become quite good at paving our own highway to inner hell.

Sometimes we find ourselves embracing habitual patterns of our own emotional self-destruction without ever knowing why we do so. Sometimes we do so because we’ve simply Continue reading “Self Compassion Looks Good On You” →

Compassionate Moments Of Self-Discovery

“What’s wrong with me?” Gretchen sang, quite painfully.

The high school drama club’s spring production this year was “Mean Girls”, a condensed musical version of the motion picture written by Tina Fey originally released in 2004. It retells the age old story of fitting in and acceptance in the high school environment. Gretchen was in the inner circle of the school’s most important clique led by Regina. In exchange for being somewhat accepted, Gretchen paid the very steep price of essentially sacrificing her authentic self in the process. A painful process which led her to painfully question her own worth and value.

Insecurity is a powerful force. It preys upon our perceptions of unworthiness. It preys up our need to be safely accepted as we are, even if we compromise who we are in the process.

It’s a rather cruel process.

We are exposed to messages of insecurity daily. Our economy needs us to feel insecure about who we are, what we look like, how much we weigh, what we drive, and where we live. Social media is littered Continue reading “Compassionate Moments Of Self-Discovery” →

Smashing Through Your Own Glass Ceiling

Instagram reminded me of an experiment I first saw years ago. Researchers had placed fleas into a glass jar and sealed it shut with the glass lid. Instinctively, the fleas attempted to jump out of the jar to their freedom but with each jump were stymied as they hit the glass lid above them. Frustrated, at some point the fleas simply stopped jumping. And when the researchers removed the glass lid, the fleas remained in the jar, now conditioned to accept their captivity even with the barrier to their freedom removed.

I kind of understand the fleas’ take on this. They tried repeatedly to make it out of the jar without success. At some point, when do you simply stop looking for a way out and accept your limitations and learn to live with them?

As part of my journey, I’ve thought a great deal about my own limitations. Specifically, where did they come from and who put them there? Limitations are an extension of a belief system, and my belief system for a good portion of my life was a belief system I inherited. No one ever sat me down and clearly defined the limitations I would eventually accept as my own. Rather, I witnessed them slowly unfold around me in real time, destined to perpetuate a belief system which I knew wouldn’t serve me but accepted none the less.

The glass ceiling on the jar of my life was never actually there. It didn’t matter, though. I never knew I could actually jump.

Until I decided to started jumping.

The things we choose to believe about who we are and what’s possible for us will greatly shape our identity, which will always shape our life. We can accept the limited version of where we are as some sort of fate or destiny, pointing to our life experience as evidence of such, further conditioned to accept our own form of captivity. Or, we can decide to think outside of the jar, out-jumping the limitations we’ve accepted, free to more fully express ourselves as we choose to redefine our self identity as one of possibility and expansion.

Limitations are simply opinions we’ve accepted as truths. But we get to decide what is true for us.

It doesn’t matter how those limitations got there.

What matters now is what we decide to do with them.

You’ll be amazed at how high you can jump…

Photo by Jilbert Ebrahimi on Unsplash

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding

Tag: personal growth