“The greatest barrier to daring leadership is not fear; the greatest barrier is armour, or how we self-protect when we’re in fear.” Brené Brown
I bought a truck.
For those who don’t know… this is a big deal for me, as I have not owned a vehicle for 10 years. I have been sharing a car with my husband. So, this felt like a big leap for me…. But, I really wanted one, and I was super clear about specifics.
I was on my e-bike after having just left the bank, where I had been discussing loan options. I decided to cycle through Campbellton and down ‘car alley’, all the way to the Toyota dealership.
As I peddled over the river, my mind was a whirl of ideas: “Maybe I should hire a broker to save time.” ….“What if I give the dealership a couple of thousand as a deposit so I’ll get the best chance on the model I want?” ….“Universe, just put the darn thing on the side of the road where I can see it and buy it!”
Five minutes later, I was buzzing past the Nissan dealership and there was this unlicensed, pretty, Tacoma… sitting, all shiny-like, in their parking lot!
“Maybe someone working there owns it?”, I reasoned with myself. “Well, there aren’t any plates so….” With a quick shoulder check and a last minute decision, across the highway, through the ditch, over the gravel and right up to the truck, I went. What a beauty!
About 20 minutes later, the dealer was holding out his pen.“Just sign here, Jill, and we will put your bike in the back so you can drive this baby home.”
“What? Now?”
A curious dialogue transpired within me, then. I finally decided I was, indeed, old enough to make this decision on my own. I pulled on my imaginary ‘big girl pants’ and signed on the bottom line. Without any plan, I had bought a truck and surprised everyone, including myself!
I am pretty sure I brokered the Universe that day.
The joy and excitement of owning my own vehicle was so thrilling for the first 2 weeks… and then something else started to settle in.
I started asking myself, “How is it ok for me to own a truck? Am I really old enough and responsible enough to own a vehicle? This is too nice of a truck for me, I should have gotten something older; humbler.”
Journalling this morning, I stumbled upon a quote regarding a mixture of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. It awakened me to a 'hidden belief that I have tended to watch surface in ‘the 11th hour’ of my decision making…. That is, the belief that ‘good things don’t last’. The belief that, ‘what isn’t yours will be taken away’. A deeper dive into this belief revealed that I have had a tendency to push ownership of any substantial things away, covering over a deeper fear conversation with an apparently very confident discussion about how ‘I don’t need anything’. I have asserted that ‘I am ok with what I have’, and that ‘what I have is enough’. (My life-long experience has been one where ‘having things’ comes with a price… a price I am not willing to pay).
So, I have lived vicariously through the success of others; riding on their coattails, to some degree. This was an easy route, in some ways… but, because they weren’t my achievements, they were easily lost. From this, I learned that the pain of losing what I thought was mine was too great… that it rendered a feeling of powerlessness. So, I just did without. This story of ‘not needing things because I am totally happy without’ is really a mechanism of protection. It has been part of my personal armour.
I am so good at camouflaging my armour with stories, I even convince myself. I might have sounded like a proud hero on the journey of minimalism, when what I really was being was super crafty at diversion, delusion and running away. That kind of end game is not helpful to anyone.
The truth is, I do want to be the person who has a large property on which to do the great and important work of our Centre. I do want to have that, all of that, and I want it to come with grace, ease and joy.
So, I am ready to surrender the armour, to expose my heart, to take risks and to jump in with courage. I have learned to hone (and I continue to develop) my ability to source a sense of security, approval and control from within. The Truth is, I can have lots of things, big and small, and hold ownership all by myself without needing external approval. I just have to get on and do it, knowing that, in the ebb and flow of life, things come and go. So be it.
I am always amazed at the depth of conscious work still needing to be done. I know, I know… if I am alive and human, of course there is always more to be revealed.
Metaphysician Ernest Holmes wrote,“to awaken oneself is to be healed, made prosperous, happy and satisfied; to be made every whit whole, to be complete, as we were intended to be.”
I am filled with peace and a faith in a Good that is stronger than any coping mechanism I may have created. As I become more and more myself, the great life I don’t know yet reveals itself. I continue to develop grounded confidence in my personal power as I stride along in my big girl pants!
~ This week, make a list of your desires.
~ Who would you have to be in order to be the person that has those things?
~ Spend time each day visualizing that you already are it, and have it.