Part Four: Barriers to your Ideal Life- the Not For Me's!
This is part four of a series. You can read Part One here , Part Two here
In the last few posts I’ve written about the ways we build barriers to living our Ideal Lives.
My list (so far) of perspectives and mindsets that keep us away from our ideal includes:
All or nothing thinking
Misperception of cost (time/money)
Fatigue and burnout
It's not for me (worthiness)
Mess/space constraints
Outcome oriented
Perceived payoff doesn't outweigh the perceived effort to begin
Delayed until...
Other people's dreams
Woundings/trauma
Unclear values
Today I'd like to cover a few, beginning with:
It's not for me
Not that long ago I was driving in the rural county where my parents now live in Virginia. On the way to their house is a little cinderblock cottage. It's small. Not fancy, but clearly the person who lives there takes care of it and it's a home. It has little touches like flower pots and some sun catchers in the windows. The paint trim, if I'm not mistaken, is turquoise- a highly idiosyncratic choice and clearly personal.
I found myself feeling envious of that person's little house as if I, too, could not have my own home. This is wild because objectively I have had and do have home(s).
What was more worthy of my contemplation was not so much the reality of my real estate balance sheet but the emotional sentiment of "I don't get to have that.
The "I don't get to have that" might be better understood by changing the phrasing a tad to "it's not available to me" or "that's not for me."
***
Some years ago I attended a gorgeous retreat that was the finale of a long (and very expensive) coaching program. One of the participants there felt out of place- she was not as experienced as travel and felt like she didn't belong there- e.g. "not for me."
I told her that she paid the same exact money to be there as the rest of us and deserved to enjoy herself.
We all have our own unique list of objects/experiences/desires that we believe are not available to us even if realistically we could access them (or already have).
It is helpful to be very clear about what you consider unavailable to YOU.
Here's a list of options- consider what pings your particular "nope not available for me" radar:
- buying all organic food
- going on an international vacation
- taking all of your PTO each year
- sending out snail mail
- having a super organized home
- hiring someone to organize your home!
- having a large cash cushion in your account
- driving a very nice car
- saying no to family or other obligations
- taking the time to tend to your clothes/hair/makeup each day
- the good ground coffee
- buying a very nice handbag
- spending each morning doing two hours of whatever you want
- meeting someone who is as incredible as your dreams
- having an assistant do tasks you hate
- repairing/replacing the socks and underwear with holes
that's a random list of things I came up with. I encourage you to move through your week/month/life and notice what feels out of reach for you.
Now, it's important to note that this practice is not the same as dreaming up all the gorgeous material items you can conjure in your imagination in your wildly abundant future life.
It's noticing the ways we police our own desires in the here and now and limit what we receive on a daily basis. Especially and most importantly with the small things.
What's also interesting is that your "not for me's" will be very different from someone else's and it can be really fun and insightful to discuss them with a friend especially because your friends can then poke holes in them.
Which is what we're going to do next!
We poke holes!
Whenever you notice a "not for me" ask if that's really true. Like, is it really true that I cannot take time to tend to my adornment each day? No, silly, of course that's not true. I could make the time directly after I've walked the dog or after my workout. It takes me 20 minutes to get ready.
If that's the case, then, what's really going on? Obvi you could refer to my blog posts lolz. In all seriousness, I just pop up to my handy list there at the top and scan through it. For me the adornment issue is layered. It's the perceived payoff not being high enough to get me out of warm and cosy clothes. It's giving unclear values too- like do I even care about looking good? I'm not sure at this point. And also maybe a dash of trauma (around being seen).
These are all interesting components keeping me from doing a simple thing that I say I want to do but...don't.
As you might have guessed, I'm going to keep writing newsletters offering examples of why we don't do what we say we want to do and tools to help us decode what is really going on so that we can take the actions we most desire.
It's so easy to say, "Just do the damn thing." But if I have learned anything from the hundreds of women who have come through Ritual + Reward it's this: if we could do the damn thing we would.
So it's important to get underneath the not doing so that we can figure it out and move into mindful action.
Today, I'm not getting dressed until I have to go out to the doctor and then dinner so you'll find me in dog dirt-smeared sweatpants and a plausibly flattering top while I sort out whether I actually want to get dressed in the morning of each day.
What are your own "not for me's?" Comment and let me know!