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What are you putting up with right now that never used to bother you at all? Think about it. Are there people, habits or things in your life that are draining your energy more than filling you up at this moment? Are there people, habits or things in your life currently that used to light you up but just don’t in the same way they used to? And, instead of reading the signs; the exhaustion, & the overwhelm, do you desperately try to adjust and accommodate – to tolerate- because you have convinced yourself that it must be you?
It is so much easier to blame ourselves than to confront the truth, or hurt someone’s feelings or risk feeling vulnerable or ending up alone.
And so we explain away the discomfort we feel by trying to adapt, accommodate and contort ourselves for others instead. It feels safer to avoid feeling judged or embarrassed, guilty or shamed and to tolerate instead – to carry the burden of the external things we feel like we can’t control or change, so we take away from ourselves to show up for others rather than to face what we really know deep down inside. If only we would listen.
It’s a kind of protective armor that we create to keep ourselves safe from the things on the outside, that might hurt us. Heavy and impermeable, our armor gives us the illusion that we can’t be hurt from the outside, but it doesn’t address the underlying discomfort that stays locked inside of us because we can’t – or rather we won’t- allow ourselves to let it out. Although it may feel like the lesser of the evils, toleration is unsustainable.
It’s also as close as you ever come to your edge – to true enlightenment – to freedom. If you are willing to risk vulnerability, uncertainty, guilt and shame and live into what you know deep down, what you FEEL inside to be the truth.
There needs to be a real audit right now of what external stuff is blocking our energy. We do so much work internally, that we sometimes mistake that to mean that we are obligated to take on all the responsibility, to adjust course when things shift externally instead of being okay with adjusting our own course if things aren’t working the way they used to or the way we want them to. Berating ourselves when old habits don’t produce the same results.
When do favorite things change from anchor to ball and chain, holding you down rather than steadying or centering you – becoming something you put up with rather than address. What are you tolerating right now that cannot be transformed back to something that energizes you? What feels more like bailing out water in a sinking vessel than to keep things afloat. How much blame and guilt are you putting on yourself right now to continue doing what you’ve committed to do and keep what you think you need when the truth is you’ve outgrown it, it doesn’t fit anymore?
Behind your protective armor of toleration and under the fear lies what you really want and I promise you it isn’t nearly as scary or far away as it seems. It’s time to come home again, to nurture and reevaluate what is best for your own growth so that you might continue to thrive in this ever changing world that we live in.
Published in Collaboration with:
Strengthening the Divine Muscle of Choice
Lisa is an ICF Certified Professional Life Coach and Energy Leadership Master Practitioner at Wide Open Stages. She specializes in partnering with highly successful creative people who want to be challenged and inspired to become artists in all areas of their lives. A passionate creative professional herself, Lisa has over 25 years experience working in the performing arts industry as a director/choreographer, producer, writer and dance educator in NYC, nationally and internationally. She is dance faculty at Pace University NYC in the Commercial Dance and Musical Theater BFA programs, and is co-founder of New York Stage Originals, an internationally recognized theatrical production company. Lisa hosts the popular podcast STOPTIME: Live in the Moment and is founder of Wide Open Stages, where she coaches high-performing creatives in the performing arts industry.
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