Time To Re-define
November 13th, 2009
It usually takes me a good solid year – okay three years – to follow a trend. I held out on buying UGGs and the iPhone because I thought UGGs were, well… ugly and the iPhone was for the kids. Then two things happened: 1) My winter boots fell apart, and 2) I left my corporate job and was kindly asked to leave my blackberry behind. These were desperate times.
Skeptically, I tried on my first pair of UGGs and quickly learned that for as ugly as they are on the outside, that’s how warm and toasty they are on the inside. Who knew? I mean, aside from the masses that wear these boots. Needless to say, I made the purchase.
Then I discovered there was an iPhone app for the 1980’s classic video game, Centipede. I instantly let go of the idea that I was a corporate, blackberry person, embraced my inner Mac person, and bought that gadget with urgency.
The trend I had avoided the longest, though – aside from leggings – was blogging. As a life coach, I was well aware that it is my unwritten duty to blog, yet I was scared and intimidated by the concept. I was blog-phobic. Every day I asked myself, “Who am I to blog?” and I heard Marianne Williamson in my head answer, “Who are you not to blog?”
Yet, any time I tried to write I experienced blogger’s block. If I looked to another blog for inspiration I was overcome with blog envy. All around me it seemed people were operating at heightened levels of blog-ability while I was paralyzed in blog resistance.
Finally, there came a moment when I realized that it wasn’t my blog, but my relationship to my blog, that was stopping me from moving forward. I was the one standing in my way, not the blog or those prolific bloggers. I was not owning my blog-ability. It was time to re-define my relationship to my blog and make this mean monster my fun friend. And here we are.
Every relationship you have, be it to a trend or another person, is a reflection of your relationship with yourself. The key is to observe – ideally without judgment – what’s being mirrored back to you at all times. Once you identify what you perceive in others, you will know what, if anything, needs to shift in you. This is where the real change happens.
In my resistance to start this blog, I was actually rejecting myself. I was closing myself off from my love of writing, my creative self-expression, and my desire to connect. I was operating from fear and relating to myself as small. I was hiding.
As soon as I recognized this, I changed my relationship to the blog from foe to friend. This transformed my relationship with myself. I felt more open. I was kind to myself. I started having fun. There was ease and flow in my writing and also in my day. I was free.
So I ask you – What are the relationships in your life reflecting back to you? What relationships might benefit from re-defining? What do you want these relationships to look like? What’s one thing you can do or one thought you might shift in one or more of your relationships to put this new definition into action?
Try it. It’s time.
Very nice blog, congratulations Stef!!! Keep paying it forward !!!