Listen All Y'all, It's a Sabotage

I just finished reading Debbie Ford's new book: Why Good People Do Bad Things. Her whole thesis is that we need to embrace and love the parts of us that we consider to be bad or wrong. That by burying our 'shameful' aspects, we aren't escaping them. Rather, by denying them, we are inviting them to eventually explode in self-destructive or self-sabotaging acts. In other words: repression will bite you in the ass. And what you resist persists.

The way to release ourselves from the hold of these 'bad' parts is to identify them, accept them, love them and seek the gifts they bring with them. This connects with what I was writing about yesterday, that every experience is a gift and a lesson. An opportunity to evolve.

What does this have to do with the following of dreams? If you are harbouring shame, if you are self-sabotaging, you are holding yourself back from following and achieving your dreams and your true purpose.

Self-sabotage was on my mind as I left for Paris. I was concerned that I would blow off writing and have nothing to show for my time here. That I would give myself the gift of a month in Paris and then sabotage my creative productivity.

I mean, I've done it before.

We all have, I'd wager. We've all been our worst enemy, wrecking our own best-laid plans for no apparent reason. It has to do with not feeling worthy. With believing we don't deserve it because we did X, Y or Z bad thing in the past. That by being a slut in college (or cheating on a licensing exam or whatever your personal shame is) we are somehow not allowed to achieve greatness now.

I could have been a working artist this whole time, but I bailed on myself and my dreams. Just after finishing my Masters, I was well connected in the dance community. I could have just kept performing and working and living my own dreams. But I didn't. I quit. I decided that having a job I could 'take home to Mom and Dad' was more important. And that my marriage (to the wrong person) was more important, and he wasn't too thrilled at his lil' wifey being a dancer (and making $10 an hour). Not sure what that logic was all about, but it made sense at the time.

I sabotaged myself and my dreams. And the universe let me know it. My marriage blew up. I achieved some success in my alternate career, but never felt fulfilled. I'm still the black sheep in my family, so those feelings of acceptance never showed up either. And seven years have passed. So. Was it worth it?

My beliefs about being an artist – the ones that led me astray seven years ago – were here waiting for me when I finally got back. The shameful, not-good-enough beliefs about artists (me!) being flaky and broke and unstable. In order to pass through to the next level of my personal evolution, my job is to look at each of these limiting beliefs. Feel them – have I felt flaky? Yes. Have I been broke? Yes. Have I been unstable? Yes. I am all of that. Accept it.

Look for the gifts. Huh? How is being flaky a gift? Look for the positive aspects of this quality. The silver lining.

Being flaky has given me the gift of movement – never getting stuck in one job or situation too long. Flaky is being responsive to my intuition. Okay, broke. Broke has given me the drive to succeed. Without the experience or feeling of being broke, I would not strive for more or better, whether it is a financial 'more' or a spiritual 'more'. Unstable. This one I've thought about. Being unstable means I am aware of the full spectrum of emotional possibilities. As a writer, this is a huge, huge gift: to have experienced and to be able to articulate the depths of the lows and the exaltation of the highs of human emotion.

Now an interesting thing happens. I become grateful for the things I was ashamed of just moments ago. And the power for them to hold me back dissipates. I can embrace being an artist: responding to my intuitive creative impulses, driving for success and greatness in my work, expressing the great range of the human experience.