THIS IS RIGHT, WHY IS THIS RIGHT?
Those who are optimistic aren’t ignorant of reality. In fact, they are hyper aware of a broader reality that most of us find hard to see when the clouds roll into our lives: there is always more than meets our myopic eyes. Trouble tends to shrink our vision, but not in a way that has us see the circumstances, feelings or thoughts we’re experiencing, more clearly. The trouble with trouble is our inability to perceive wholly, on the whole. In other words, trouble definitely puts things in a kind of “relief” - however, looking hard at trouble, often brings the opposite of relief, instead of activating a sense of peace or personal power.
Anais Nin wrote, “We see things not as they are, but as we are.”
For a long-ish while, nothing in my life looked right to me. If appearances were to be believed, I was swimming in a sea of trouble. My finances, marriage, parenting, creative life, and my coaching career all seemed completely wrong. No matter which evaluation doorway I entered these parts of my life, each was filled with darkness, a cry of, “Failure!” the only sound to be heard. My self-assessment shrunk the aperture of my vision until I had descended into a pitch-black existence; no light beckoned from the end in any of the tunnels my thoughts and beliefs took me to.
It wasn’t until I surrendered to the fact of the darkness, stopped struggling and considered that the darkness might be ok, that I became aware of a glow permeating reality as I was taking it in, bringing shadows of different perspectives and possibilities into view that I hadn’t been able to perceive before.
The first full surrender happened in a Target parking lot at midnight, where I sat behind the wheel of my parked minivan, for the first time in my life considering checking out. Thankfully I had more reasons to live beyond my own immediate despair. They were both home in their beds, sleeping peacefully. I knew I couldn’t leave, but I didn’t know how I could possibly stay. Then dawn came early with a sudden thought: What if all this pain is right somehow? Why would THIS be right...something I need, in order to get to where I want to be, rather than the roadblock I’ve been declaring it as?
That night was the beginning of the end of living inside of my own self-imposed limitations. It was the moment I forgave and released all my past and future poor decisions, lack of courage, choices and current circumstances. It was the night I let my husband and myself both off the hook and made the decision to get the divorce papers drawn up. It was the first day of the first year in which I quadrupled my income, and learned how to stay above the waterline of the kind of self-rejection that used to take me down.
The arc of learning to get to that first awakening was long - maybe 10 years. Happily, afterwards, the timeline on my ability to stay independent in the face of trouble, to opt instead to embrace it with trust and interest, condensed into a matter first of weeks, then days, and ultimately into a matter of moments now, when I use the simple, practiced phrase, “This is right! WHY is this right?”
Since then, trouble still comes knocking. However, when it does, instead of throwing the door wide open and allowing my fear and judgment of the trouble to wreak havoc on my inner peace, I step out on the doorstep, and with an independent eye, I consider what this visitor might be bringing of value to me.
Melissa McFarlane (She/Her/Hers)
Founder and CEO
CREATIVE SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEURS
Helping Creatives Start and Grow Successful Businesses They Love