Purpose

OWNING YOUR BADASSERY

Even after all these years, the thing I still find the hardest to achieve, the mountain which I never seem to have actually fully climbed, and sometimes feel I’m just barely at basecamp with, is the mountain of owning my own badassery, and with it, my right to be happy, enough, and free.

I was journaling just now on ‘things it is time for me to say yes to’. Just another day, another prompt to let my mind wander and flow and reveal what is needed! Most of my journaling is just asking questions, I dunno if they’re even great ones (success is just a matter of asking great questions remember!), but it definitely gets the job done.

It allows me to dig in, or peel back, or just remind myself of what I’m living for. Some days I’ll get into my values and beliefs, other days figure something out that’s been bugging me or making me feel stuck, other days, like today, daydream and feel into the vision of what is still there for me.

So today when I felt to write ‘things it is time for me to say yes to’ at the top of my page, I thought – a list of cool shit to call in around my money, business, perhaps home, relationship, and so on! You know – just another way to get clear on what I want and know is there for me.

And it was … is … but if you do this kind of inner work, the work, essentially, of being in a conversation and relationship with your own SELF (not a bad relationship to invest into!), you’ll know that it’s never that simple,

and the reveal is often in the stuff you didn’t expect or really think of.

For me it was this statement, which popped out like a surprise little jack in the box after I’d written down a few wants and ‘cool goals’ –

“Letting myself be happy, and loving myself as I am now”.

I had to shake my head. Just yesterday I was sorting through boxes of childhood and adulthood memorabilia, a mix of things going right back to when I was a little kid … to a piece of paper I’d saved with a boys phone number on it (I remember it being sent across the schoolyard as a missive – “Jay’s number: XXXX – call me or come and talk to me”. I did) … to letters and cards from my parents and grandparents … to – eek – letter after letter from my first husband after our marriage broke down. Oh, and a letter from my Mum from when I was about 20 in which she expressed worry and disappointment at the way I was choosing to date.

In both the letter from my Mum, and the ones from my first husband, there was talk about the fact that I seemed to have this belief that I wasn’t worthy, or a good person, or allowed to have real love. And that maybe this was why I sabotaged things, destroyed them, made them so broken they seemed impossible to repair.

Ouch. There was a lot more actually, but I already relived all that yesterday! I’m not laying it down here.

As it happened, my second husband (father of my children) happened to be at my house and in my pool yesterday, playing with our son, as I sorted through all of this stuff in my outdoor dining area.

“Do you sometimes think I just screw everything up in the end?”, I asked him. “Like … in the end … I always hurt everyone I’m in a relationship with”.

To be fair, they did some pretty hurtful stuff as well; I’m not casting myself entirely as the problem. But, well, maybe I am. Because sometimes I wonder if it’s just – me.

“Maybe I’m just not capable of being in a happy relationship long-term. Like … there’s something in me that just won’t allow it”.

I had tears in my eyes because, well, this is a real thought I’d had for years. Something I need to cast out and choose out of, pretty sure of THAT. But you know how sometimes we know we need to opt out of something and we just – don’t?

Yeah … THAT.

“No”, he answered. “I don’t think that. You just – you never switch off. You just keep evolving. And you just evolve past people. But I think maybe now you’re more relaxed …

And besides. Everybody hurts other people in some way”.

Welp. That about sums it up.

It was easy to see the patterns, in all these old letters though, you know? And you can look at it in a variety of ways. You can look at it from the perspective of ‘clearly I don’t know how to allow myself to be happy! I need to learn how to freakin’ be with what is better, stay the course better, stop myself blowing shit up!”

But –

on the other hand –

I used to tell myself this with business. Because I never followed through long-term on anything! And I continuously blew shit up! And then 10 or 15 or 20 years on …

I look back and see that the thing I followed through on, actually, was finding my true path. Backing myself in spite of my fears. And listening to and living in to my truth, even when it seemed FLAT out like the wrong thing to do and was terrifying.

Much like how I’ve felt … feel … in relationship.

I thought about all this as I journaled this morning, as this annoying STUFF came up again around not allowing myself to be happy, to feel enough, to relax, to receive, to own my badassery, not FULLY,

and I sighed.

When will I ever actually just let myself be all of me?!

But then again –

when am I ever gonna be the person who doesn’t know there’s another layer to drop into, more depth and truth and FLOW yes available?!

Not in this lifetime I imagine! Nor the one beyond.

However –

and this is where you and I are maybe alike.

It’s a dance, isn’t it? It’s a fine line, the one between knowing there is deeper, further, more for you to say yes to and allow, that you’re still not there yet and never will be – !

And being so.freaking.FULL right now in this moment.

You gotta have some rock solid discernment going on to know which side of the line you’re leaning on.

Fortunately I do, most of the time. And I know you have just as much availability to that as I do. It is of course a practice and a choice to exercise it.

Here’s where I do need to kick my own butt though:

I could get HELLA better at requiring myself to just go to the place where it’s done.

The things I’ve already allowed myself to achieve and become, in business and life, are things which most people would not even consider dreaming of.

I’ve made them my normal.

Yet I still dream of things and put them on a pedestal and wonder if I should dare to!

You too?!

Thought so.

Let’s wrap this up, because it’s actually straightforward as fuck.

The rule is simply this:

Take those things you’re still scared to say yes to, or wonder if you’re good enough for, that you’re straight up just not owning, and JUST DECIDE YOU NOW OWN THEM.

Can it be that easy?

Only one way to find out.

But I’ll tell ya – everything that’s become my normal, this is precisely how I did it. The action followed the decision. The decision maybe followed reaching a point of being so done with my own bullshit I couldn’t stomach it anymore.

You can wait for that point,

on anything.

And it’ll wait for you for as long as you make it.

Maybe even a lifetime.

Or –

you can get TF over yourself and become who you’re meant to be now.

\