“Grace means that all of your mistakes now serve a purpose instead of serving shame.”
I’m not famous. I haven’t gone to any Ivy League Schools. I never even learned how to play an instument, really, and I can only sing when I’m singing Christmas carols.
But that’s not to say I haven’t done remarkable things.
My story isn’t pretty, though at the same time it’s beautiful. Sadly, I know many with far uglier pasts than mine. some who have achieved far more than I. But I am proud of how far I have gotten, knowing where I started and what challenges I faced.
“It’s a Long Way Up When You’re Coming From Nowhere”
~Barry Manilow and John Annesi, lyrics of a song of the same name.
Before I go on, I want you to understand that though the book that I’ve written is based on my experiences, I make no claim that everything within is the absolute truth. The material events I’ll share with you actually happened. How I perceived them at the time may be a perspective, wholly different than how I recall them now. I believe this is a by-product of training myself to reframe hurtful moments in the most empowering way possible. As a side effects go, I’ll take it.
What I mean to say is that I’ll give you everything as best I can, but I make no guarantees I’ll get the he said she said details right. And how I recall an event may be 180 degrees away from any one of my siblings memories of the same event. In fact, there’s no guarantee that everyone of us even remember the same moments to begin with.
It’s extremely difficult as well to write about intimate real life experiences without writing about the others who were also there. I’ve changed names where appropriate, but there is one name I just can’t change.
Grace.
There’s no better word to describe her. She was the epitome of the word. Not necessarily light on her feet at nearly 400 lbs, but Grace personified nonetheless.
She was, for me, the living breathing expression of the phrase, “there but for the Grace of God go I.” She was an angel who took me in, championed me, and made me a champion myself as well. In her own way she taught me how to fish for the successes in life.
I had many angels in my life, not all of whoom took me into their homes and hearts like Grace did. Some of them I hardly know, some I’ve never met. But there’s no denying the impact each and every one of them has made.
Not the least of which is Barry Manilow, another player in this story whose name I don’t dare replace. There’s no equivalent fictitious persona I can make up that will instantly give you all the dots to connect as well as just keeping it real. The songs, the lyrics, informed my sensibilities, my values, and my philosophy on life. The music affected the frequecy at which my soul resonates. Not only did his songs soothe and inspire me, they taught me fundamental truths. Without knowing the songs, you won’t be able to appreciate the depth of synchronicity.
The Universe is resolving every problem on a scale grander than we can fathom. Without music, you won’t grok the Miracle of it all.
Most of us consider a cornerstone a good, strong and most importantly, a positive thing. But what if the cornerstone in question is holding up the wall between you and success?
Many of us find ourselves working hard at removing the component bricks that make up the wall between ourselves and success. Brick by brick, stone by stone, we chip away at the mortar that holds our ineffectiveness in place, hoping that someday, one day, we’ll create a hole large enough to squirm through to the life we dream of on the other side. This may be the way we’ve been taught is the process to reaching our own version of success, but what if there is another way? What if we really can fell the wall by digging up just one foundational piece of masonry?
There is.
Instead of taking down the wall from the top, brick by brick, piece by piece, how about we look at what began building the wall in the first place?
A long, long time ago in a childhood far, far away, our sole mission in life was to gather information and make decisions based on that information that would ensure our survival into adulthood. Some decisions we made worked for us. For example, it was a good thing that I decided that jumping off the bridge over the Roaring Branch River during the spring thaw was not a great idea. Of course, seeing my ex-boyfriend Rick in a cast up to his hip helped in making that decision, but the decision itself was my own and it has served me well ever since.
However, there are other decisions that have been made in my life, mostly for the same self-preservationist reasons, and instead of contributing to a safe, happy and injury free life, they in fact became the cornerstones and bricks of the wall between us and success.
For example, one of my Godmother’s favorite sayings was, “Children should be seen and not heard!” A fine maxim for raising polite and well behaved youngsters, don’t you think? I’m sure that was her intention. After all, she made her living as an elementary school librarian.
Unfortunately, I decided that whenever I am around people who are (in my opinion) in authority, older, wiser, deserving of the pedestals I tend to put the people I idolize upon, or just plain somebody I admire, I clam up.
Not the most effective decision for someone who makes her living through communication, eh? It does tend to present its challenges.
I can hear a bunch of you now…. “Well, just speak up! You’re not a kid anymore! State your case and be done with it!”
Well, I’ve tried reminding myself to do that. Probably a couple hundred times, and still, it doesn’t make a difference. I end up just having a conversation with myself in my own head. (“Say something! NO! Go ahead, what have you got to lose? NO!” You know how those conversations go.)
So let’s look a little deeper….
If I were to really be straight about it and tell the truth about what taking my Godmother’s admonition to heart provided for me as a kid, I’d have to say that first and foremost, it helped me avoid being the target of “The Look”.
“The Look” was a way my Godmother had of staring you down that made you feel like if you even breathed wrong in the next 30 seconds, God himself was going to come kick your butt. Avoiding “The Look” was directly related to survival in my childhood.
Furthermore, if I was “good” and waited patiently (and quietly) until a grown up took notice and invited me to speak, I was rewarded with any number of things that were high on my list of desired items… a cookie, a compliment, a hug, a lap to sit on, even a favored standing within the mass of children that were my family.
So for me, waiting to be seen before I got heard was a way of both getting what I wanted and avoiding getting what I didn’t want. Powerful motivational stuff!
But not working especially well for me in the present.
As an adult, I can’t just stand on a corner and wait for someone to say, hey, here’s a nice fat check. How about you write me a few words on your opinion of whatever you want to talk about and have it ready by Friday?
Well, I could stand there and wait… but pretty soon I’d have grab a box and move in, you know what I mean?
But that would be the impact of living at effect of such a childish decision, wouldn’t it? To face facts, my business success is in the hands of a squelched three year old, trying to survive and maybe having a glimmer of hope to get a cookie along the way. Disgusting.
But that’s exactly my business results in the present.
So what can I do to make a difference here and now? How can I be different than the way I’ve always been? What would it take to make an impact on the results I now have in my life?
If I went back to the moments before I heard those words, and look at how I was being, what would I see there?
I’d see a delightful little angel, exuberant, excited about something she was just bursting at the seams to share with the world, especially with those people she knew were the most important people on the planet. I’d see a bright little point of light with ideas and perspectives to be explored adventurously like so much unknown territory. I’d see my Self, unfettered, willing to put it all out there, fully expressing myself ebulliently.
If I can take on being that ebullient three year old again, I just may have a chance of excavating that heavy cornerstone. With each unfettered conversation that I have in the face of that voice in my head (once my Godmother’s voice, now it’s my own) that tells me, “No, don’t say a word, wait until it’s safe to talk…” the masonry that is the barrier between myself and success gets rattled. Each excited, can’t-wait-to-share-this! word falls like the blow of a sledgehammer against that cornerstone, knocking it to kingdom come, destabilizing the wall, destabilizing the many bricks laid on it from above. New experiences of who I am and who I can be lift me up over the rubble, securing my steps over the wreckage of what once was this barrier between me and success. I come to know myself to be someone different than I have experienced myself as in the past.
Living a powerful life is a gift you give yourself when you cease giving away your personal power.
Gratitude
Cultivating a general attitude of gratitude goes a long way toward giving you power in challenging situations.
Why?
Because what we focus our attention on appreciates (grows, expands) and when we begin consciously directing our attention toward finding things to be grateful fo in any situation, no matter how challenging it may seem, the stronger we make the muscle for doing so and the more we attract experiences we enjoy experiencing.
Acknowledging your gratitude for others to them enhances our relatedness, empowers our social capital, and gerneral closeness and affinity with whom we spend most of our time.
Finally, expressing your gratitude for your Self. This is an almost unheard of concept. But really appreciating the finer points of being you and strengthening your ability to be grateful for your power to learn and change when faced with having made mistakes and poor choices is the ultimate access to personal power.
Integrity and Intentionality
Both of these are so powerful, I can’t decide which one is better, so let’s talk about both!
Integrity
Without integrity, really, nothing works. We could get into a long discussion about the finer points of integrity, and the difference between integrity and morality, but the bottom line is this: Do what you said you are going to do, when you say you will do it, doing the best job anyone can expect you to do. If you find you won’t be able to do the thing, communicate that with the people it would impact as soon as you know things have changed to create a new arrangement that works for everyone.
Intentionality
What’s the difference between the passion of the teenager in love and the mundane peck on the lips of the married couple? Nothing but Intentionality. You can bring zest to anything you do simply by being intentional about what you’re out to produce. Bringing passion, enthusiasm, and clarity to your workday can result in more reach, more profits and more joy.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness is one of the most awesome keys to having a powerful life. But let me tell you something about forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean to condone something hurtful that someone has done. In fact, I mean “to give forth”. In other words, to let go of… let go of the pain associated with that experience. Let go of the anger that does more against your own health than anyone else. Let go of repeatedly victimizing yourself in the present with traumatic memories from the past.
Refusing to forgive someone doesn’t hurt them at all. Yet unwillingness to forgive them keeps YOU stuck in a holding pattern from the past. It’s taking poison expecting your nemesis to die. Forgiveness, authentic forgiveness, breeds freedom. With that freedom comes access to your personal power in areas where you have been sacrificing your personal power for years.
Truth
There are many different forms of Truth. There’s my truth, your truth, and objective truth. There’s brutal truth, the whole truth (which is rarely that) and the Absolute Truth (which doesn’t really exist). But the most important form of truth to consider in regaining your Creative Command is Authentic Truth. Your authentic truth is the grand sum of how you were designed by your Creator in conjunction with how your experiences in life shaped you, without energetic hooks drawing chaos or repelling love around you.
Spend a little time each day honoring the GIIFT of Living a Powerful Life.
Gratitude * Integrity* Intention * Forgiveness * Truth
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