Do you know how it feels to want something so badly that you dread it?
I’m talking about pushing away the very thing you want most, the very life you want most. Because deep down you don’t believe that you can have it. Because you’ve romanticized it and your expectations have gotten so high that you are afraid you’ll mess it up. And what will you have to give up to get it? There’s so much uncertainty, so many questions. It seems unattainable so you pretend you don’t want it. You talk yourself out of it. You see it coming and you run. All of this is disguised in a common escape:
‘I’m not ready.’
Sometimes what we say is ‘I’m not ready’ but what we whisper is ‘I’m not worthy.’
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You’re scared of this life you want but rather than admit that, it’s easier to say you’re not ready. You want to feel deserving and capable but you don’t so you stay where you are. The things you want, the things that are meant for you, become distant and maybe you start to resent them. Cause if you’re driven by the sneaky belief that you’re not worthy, then your actions will reflect that and you’ll never feel ready to receive.
When you say you’re not ready, does that mean you don’t know everything yet? You don’t have enough of something yet? Does it mean you’re afraid you’ll make a mess? Because sometimes you have to make a mess and be a mess and have nothing to be ready to move willingly toward the things you used to run from. Our extremes teach us what really matters and what we can hold onto when everything becomes slippery.
I talk about simplicity and gratitude a lot but I have to tell you that I want a whole lot of things. Not so many tangible things but feelings and experiences. And it wasn’t until the last few years that I stopped pretending that I didn’t want them. It wasn’t until even more recently that I stopped dreading these things, avoiding them, thinking that I would screw them up.
I want to raise my family in a healthy and peaceful environment. I want an abundant, writerly life. I want to collaborate with inspired, creative people. I want to add crazy amounts of love to the world with the things I create. In order to have these things I want and live life this way, I have to know I’m worthy. It took me making a mess and being a mess to finally have this change in perception where I’m not ashamed to want what I want and open myself up to receive.
What do you want?
Do you dread it and run from it? Is it inconvenient? Does it seem impossible? Does it stand up to everything you’ve been taught to fear? You may not know why you want it or how much it means to you until you go after it. You don’t know what the process will look like, how it will affect you or how you will affect the world by pursuing it. But you can be sure that you want what you want for a reason.
When you say you’re not ready, question your reasons. What if being ready is as simple as being prepared to be yourself, taking each experience as it comes, giving the best you are capable of at that time? What if being ready is just a matter of having faith and knowing you are enough? Even as you’re learning and feeling awkward and wishing things were easier, you have to keep showing up and being ready. Miracles happen all the time and how many of them do we miss because we’re supposedly not ready?
