I’ll break this down for you, because I’ve seen motivational speakers onstage and felt uplifted, but then I still couldn’t face my fears. I always wanted to know exactly how “the expert” navigated his or her fear, like a blow-by-blow demonstration. Of course, I suspected he or she didn’t have any real fear, because he had burly, salty Viking genes, or she grew up on Park Avenue, or someone else actually believed that things were “easy as pie.” I needed my people, people who panted and procrastinated.
I want to give you hope—or as they say in evangelical churches, I want to give a testimony. I’ve struggled with panic, borderline phobias, Jewish relatives (need I say more and What, you don’t want the brisket I just made for you? And what do you know from evangelical churches while we’re here?), and the usual bottlenecks of low self-esteem and trust issues. Yet I have cajoled myself into moving forward consistently—and crafting a mission, career, and life I adore while doing it.
Here’s my usual MO. When I dare something that stretches me, I walk forward both as spiritual warrior and as whimpering inner child. I make nurturing deals with myself. For example, I give myself permission to back out of things. The deal is I am required to step forward. But if I’m too uncomfortable, I can step back. And then begin again. This commitment to myself makes me feel safe. In safety, I am willing to dare things that make me feel unsafe.
I’ll give you an example of facing one of my fears. It’s not exactly a Gandhi or Mandela moment. But it’s what I’ve got. And it works.
I am part claustrophobic, part control freak, and the owner of one finely tuned overactive mind. One summer, I was in New York City on a day that was probably 140 degrees Fahrenheit, but it only felt like 200, and I was riding the subway, which had turned into a trip to the rain forest or, in my guidebook, the ovens of hell. Packed into the uptown 3 train, in which the air conditioner had quit working, I felt walled in by the heat. Naturally, it crossed my mind, compulsively I might add, that I was in a tunnel under a city of more than 8 million people. Normal people read the newspaper, diddled with their phones, or grooved to tunes. This is where “intelligence” is way overrated. My insanity is quick, expressive, and plausible, though missing the big-time obvious point of being self-destructive.
Here’s how I worked with myself. I did not say, “Buck up, for Christ’s sake—no one else here needs a paper bag to breathe into and a therapist, now do they?” And I also didn’t say, “Okay, break the window, hurl yourself out, get to freedom, now, now, now.”
I chose a loving voice within, a sane voice that simply asked gently, “Can you be with this discomfort right now?” It continued with rationality and compassion. “You can get off at the next stop if you need. You can take a cab. I’ll do anything you need, even if it’s expensive. But can you go a little further? Can we try it? Would that be okay?”
The crazy part of me settled down, knowing she was loved and that, unlike times in the past—say, when she had to graduate Harvard Law School—she could have a definitive say. “Yes, I can ride a little longer,” she said with ragged breath. And so it went. I kept that dialogue running for the next six stops, until my station.
I walked off of that train like an Olympic athlete who had taken home the gold. I had turned a knee-jerk situation into a series of mountaintop shamanic awakening experiences. I had stepped beyond the savage pull of stasis and familiar identity. I had moved beyond black-and-white, either-or. I had stepped into the realm of nuance, conscious volition, and new emotional muscles. I had discovered the wonders of staying honest, present, and kind. It’s astounding to experience your own comfort in an uncomfortable situation. You can expand your comfort zone, your world, and your options.
“I want to choose from my soul’s needs—what I passionately want—more than from the involuntary fears and pride that cheapen my potential.”
I have learned to “ride the train” of many of my discomforts. I have stayed with writing when I wanted to burn everything and run to the hills (or at least the mall) because sometimes the more you face something that matters to you, the more you want to run. I have shown up at speaking engagements when some part of me would rather have shown up for brain surgery, as a recipient, with at least the guarantee of some nice high-grade anesthesia. I’ve shown up for “my bliss,” again and again, paused before the terror alerts, and then walked into larger possibilities. Part of me died every time. Part of me was born every time.
When I work with clients I tell them, “We’re not here to prove anything. We’re not here to force growth or commitment. We’re here to stay honest about what is possible in any given moment. So, sit down and write that memoir or begin that conversation with your boss or teenager or get back to lifting weights.” Resistance will kick in; it’s what keeps people from their best lives. “I’m bored. I’m hungry. I suck at this. This isn’t fun. This won’t ever go anywhere,” the complainer will prattle. Steven Pressfield, the author of The War of Art, reminds us, “The more important an activity is to your soul’s evolution, the more resistance you will feel.”
Just as with my clients, I’ll ask you to turn this into a holy encounter with yourself, a meditation or conscious practice. Stay with the activity the wiser part of you wants to do. Stay a little longer. Go a little further. One day you will hear that complaining prattle as some familiar songbird in the yard. It will be in the background. For now, it still grips you.
When you feel resistance, can you stay honest with yourself? Ask yourself, not with derision but with playfulness and presence, “Can I stay with this activity a little longer? Will this boredom kill me? Will hunger really waste my bones if I don’t get up to eat that bagel? Can I experiment with this, even if I don’t have a guaranteed outcome? Or is this too much for me right now?”
Go beyond, just a little, where you have gone before. Walk past that demon of automatic reaction. It’s worth staying present. You can discover an untapped well, a spring of freedom, your atman, a second wind. Ask yourself, will it hurt more to stay with this action, or will it hurt more to not stay with this? Slow down, breathe, and make a conscious choice.
Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön says in her book The Wisdom of No Escape, “Once you know that the purpose of life is to walk forward and continuously use your life to wake up rather than to put you to sleep, then there’s that sense of wholeheartedness about inconvenience.”
I’d love for you to have a life in which you do not shut down to growth and opportunity. Let love guide you more than fear. Meet your Whole Self, the one who can breathe through anything and walk you through any circumstance.
Keep daring. I want you to get where you’re meant to go. I want this for all of us.
Ride your train, no matter how hot—or beautiful—it gets.
TURNING POINTS:
Become Your Own Comfort Zone
Maybe you think that pain is the sign to turn around. But sometimes pain is the index that you’re moving in the right direction.
Your True Self has the mandate not only to stay alive, but to feel alive.
It takes an act of mutiny to step into your destiny. That’s what birth is.
I want to choose from my soul’s needs—what I passionately want—more than from the involuntary fears and pride that cheapen my potential.
Open a door inside yourself that never closes again. . . . Keep walking forward, no matter what. Your destiny calls to you. You ache for it. And you deserve to go past your comfort zone into the stellar zone.
We’re not here to prove anything. We’re not here to force growth or commitment. We’re here to stay honest about what is possible in any given moment.
It’s astounding to experience your own comfort in an uncomfortable situation. You can expand your comfort zone, your world, and your options.
Ask yourself, will it hurt more to stay with this action, or will it hurt more to not stay with this? Slow down, breathe, and make a conscious choic
e.
YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF TO MAKE BRAVER CHOICES
And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
ANAÏS NIN
There’s that horrible analogy about how a frog would never jump into boiling water. But if you heat the water gradually, it tolerates it. It doesn’t register the danger. The frog boils to death in increments. Well, if that’s true, I bet I could save my life in increments. Moment by moment I can make a braver choice.
TAMA KIEVES (journal entry)
In a particularly hard pose in yoga the other day, the kind that has me counting minutes until class is over, and maybe until my life is over, the teacher said something that I swear felt like throwing a diamond at my head: “Stay with this pose for just five more breaths and you’ll have the satisfaction and accomplishment forever.” He continued, “You can have a breakthrough if you go past what you always do. Something new may open up in your life. You will have this result for the rest of your life. You will have it for all your lifetimes.”
I had been just about to crawl into flat-dead-middle-aged woman pose, which I happen to have down cold. For most of the class, I’d been listening to complacency, that muzzy-mouthed companion, and cozying up to being less than I could be.
I’d been making “easy” choices that did not give me ease. I was playing small.
But now, holy Shiva, I was in. I wanted to show up, take the uncomfortable high road for just a few more breaths, and have a new experience, some forward movement in my life, a new result I would have for the rest of this lifetime. Who could resist an offer like that? Then I realized I always have that offer on the table. I can always reach for greatness instead of familiarity. I can always choose comfort in this lifetime over comfort in this moment.
People ask me how I spent twelve years writing This Time I Dance!, how I stayed dedicated for that long, particularly without an agent or publisher or at least a trust fund or savior spouse sheltering me from the financial burdens of real life. I tell them, good strides happen minute by minute. It’s the tiny choices that determine your life. Moments add up to months and years.
When I was writing, I wasn’t thinking of years. I was just doing the best thing in the moment. It felt wrong not to write. I just kept asking myself, “What do I really want?” or “If I were listening to my Highest Self, what would it ask me to believe or to do?” I don’t think I could have consciously made a commitment to years of my life, and, definitely, not to twelve years without a single guarantee. Yet I could commit in each moment.
I just had to listen. There was already a desire there, an instinct or pull to reach for my greatest love and growth, as there is in all of us. Those moments became a direction. That direction reflected a destiny. That destiny has become a growing national organization that inspires others, a bit of a worldwide community, a thousand bubbles that landed on the head of a silver pin. And most meaningful of all, I found a connection to a divine strength that I rely on in every aspect of my life. Those small, conscious choices led to incomprehensible fulfillment and abundance. They still do.
I have often shared in writing workshops that even if This Time I Dance! had never been discovered by my “fairy godmother” (a former publicist for Random House casually trolling Amazon) and then picked up by a major New York publishing house, I still would have enjoyed the result of my choice for the rest of my life. I had given myself a chance. I had acted with formidable self-love and respect. I had written the whole book, and even took a year to self-publish it. I had followed the iridescent butterfly all the way—and would never, ever have to wonder what might have been.
I had trusted my own inner guidance more than the storm warnings of fearful people who battened down their lives and still lived in fear. I had gone beyond my own narrow, “practical” ideas of what I could be or have in this lifetime. I put a toe in the water I wanted to swim in—and it gave me the ultimate leg up on life. It changed the way I slept at night. It took away my fear of death, and my fear of life. It changed the way I stood in a room full of people and it changed the way I sat with myself. It changed the way I say my name, and what I teach the children just by my existence. It has changed every other choice I will make in this lifetime. I know that consequence will last all of my lifetimes.
And if I had not taken the chance and written my book, that would have changed my identity as well. That act of self-denial would have been my ground of being. The truest part of me would have died. Though I may have dressed every day and brushed my teeth at night, I would have wandered the internal gray halls of pointlessness. I would have looked in other windows for joy, with eyes that had already been sealed.
I don’t want to know what that self-betrayal would have cost me. I don’t want you to know it either. You can always choose again. You can choose right now to make a choice that will honor your magnificence. Once you make the choices that honor you, you call upon the higher powers within you. You activate your root strength and raw magic. If you knew the significance of this choice, really there would be no choice.
Believe me, you want to know the experience of being alive in your soul. It doesn’t come from doing what you’ve always done. It doesn’t come from ignoring your potential or deepest desires. Being radically alive doesn’t come from going along with mass consciousness when you have maverick instruction within you—which you do. It doesn’t come from choosing comfort in the moment over comfort in your lifetime.
A Course in Miracles teaches that in a spiritual life walk, we choose between littleness and magnitude. It says, “Littleness and glory are the choices open to your striving and your vigilance. You will always choose one at the expense of the other.” It continues, “There is a deep responsibility you owe yourself, and one you must learn to remember all the time. The lesson may seem hard at first, but you will learn to love it when you realize that it is true and is but a tribute to your power. . . . Every decision you make stems from what you think you are, and represents the value that you put upon yourself.”
Sometimes it doesn’t feel glorious to let go of our littleness. It may require that we make a painful choice now, which pries us out of the habit of choosing less for ourselves. For me, the honorable choice is always the one that increases how much I love and respect myself.
“I can always reach for greatness instead of familiarity. I can always choose comfort in this lifetime over comfort in this moment.”
I’ll dredge up this example from my past. In my twenties, I was briefly crazy about a man named Scott. I was a young lawyer and he was, too. Scott had faraway eyes that hinted of secret sadness and spacious landscapes of emotions. Oh, but let’s get real. He was intermittently emotionally unavailable—that holy grail, the king caviar of aphrodisiacs. This blue-eyed sorcerer was intensely present and loving in a moment, then gone in every way. I was in his tractor beam, miserable, and signing up for every minute of it.
One night he invited me to a party and I leapt at the chance. I hung around him, or in his orbit, for most of the evening while he socialized with every single other person in the room. I waited, knowing that when the crowd finally cleared, I could share the night with him. I had actually thought this scheme was masterful, instead of sad. Then I noticed there was another woman lingering in the shadows, orbiting Scott, too, the same plans smoking in her hooded eyes. I determined to wait it out. So did she. The party thinned as the night turned into morning, but stragglers remained, and so did we.
Finally, I made a choice I am forever proud of and will carry into all of my lifetimes. I walked out the door. I made one fragile, heart-wrenching gesture of self-respect. I sobbed the entire way home. I had not wanted to leave. I did not want to go back to my apartment alone and scared. I did not want to give up on the dream of Scott, though clearly it was already threadbare, a scrap of a nightmare, and nothing more than that.
I have so much gratitude for
the bravery of my younger self in that moment. Her painful choice led to easier and more loving relationships in the future. The familiar and “easier” choice would have led to yet more nights of craving joy instead of moving toward it. I’ve often thought of that other desperate woman. She won the “prize” that night. The result of that choice extended past that evening, maybe into future neglect, competition, therapy sessions, and even future lifetimes.
There is a Tibetan proverb that says, “If you want to know your future, look at what you’re doing in this moment.” I don’t know about you, but when I read that, I felt like somebody had thrown a bucket of seawater in my face. It’s so easy to get caught up in the momentum of not choosing our boldest behaviors or vital aspirations in each moment. It’s easy to settle for what we think we can have, no matter how inferior or flea ridden it is. I’m not talking about momentary spiritual acceptance of what is, which beckons freedom and forward movement. I’m talking about resignation and aligning with fear.
Do you find yourself going through the motions? I invite you to experience the golden blood of devotion moving through you instead. Choose your glory. Don’t let the voice of weakness tell you what’s possible. You are stronger than you know. You are not as tired as you think. Dignity will energize you. Accomplishment will excite you. Go past resistance. Walk through imaginary walls. Give your highest potential the highest potential of success. Always be gentle with yourself—and be fierce.
Glorious choices come from conscious choices. Remember, that autopilot is a kamikaze pilot. When it sees the possibility of moving into new territory or greater love, it dives into the paralysis of the docile. It protects the status quo. It is the guardian of habit. Autopilot will never elevate you. Autopilot can never help you soar.
Thriving Through Uncertainty Page 21