In this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, I face down the task of sharing a somewhat private struggle — fear of failure, fear of success.
From @natlue Instagram Stories
Some nuggets about help versus support from the episode:
“One of the great myths that a lot of people peddle to themselves is this notion that once you’ve done a little bit of self-work, or once you get into a relationship; or once you have the job you want (or the business/child/house/money/right breasts/waist size or whatever it is) that everything will come together. That you won’t have to do any more work — and that’s just not true.”
“What we want, including me, is to do a little bit of work and be sorted. We don’t want to have lessons all the time. We’re like, ‘Jaysus, what the hell’s going on with this? Why have I got another lesson?”
Everybody has a struggle. Mine is fear of failure, fear of success. Other people I know it’s fertility or not being in the relationship they want. There’s something.
I talk about this sense of being behind schedule and needing to catch up, and how we settle for less than what we need, desire and deserve as a result.
Sometimes we need to talk to our loved ones about our struggles so that they can mirror to us who we really are.
As we move up in our life, our old fears rear their heads in new ways. “New level, new devil” as Denise Duffield-Thomas says.
I talk about how you think stuff like, This doesn’t look how I thought it would look after I worked for it so I must be failing. I must be getting it wrong. I must be no the wrong path. This kind of thinking causes us to go round in circles.
We don’t know how growth looks so sometimes when we’re in the raw, when we’re in the deep, when we’re in the pain is when we’re actually doing the greatest amount of growth. But for us, we think we’re sinking right down to the bottom with rocks tied around our bloody ankles.”
I talk about the murky world of business Facebook groups that have an almost pyramid scheme feel to them.
Sometimes when we listen to our inner voice, and it’s asking us to trust ourselves or to keep going, our rational brain goes, “You’re not a business expert” or “You don’t know about email marketing” or “You don’t know how to get a relationship”. This is us being simplistic with our inner voice or intuition. We then keep turning back to the “gurus” and disregard innate knowledge that we have from within.
A lot of the time, we want the gratification. We want the pat on the back. At every step. “I would try something and not get an instant result. You’ve just taken one step. Maybe you’ve got to take ten, maybe you’ve got to take twenty. But you want an immediate pat on the back, immediate signs that you’re on the right path.”
From @natlue Instagram stories
“Sometimes we want one step to cover off all steps.”
We want certainty. We want to know that if we take this step that we have proof that everything is going to go our way and go according to plan. That’s just not how life works. We’ve got to take a step, any step, however imperfect it might be… and then take another and tweak and listen along the way.”
If your role within your family is to be the one who doesn’t do as well as someone else (or who has to be the high achiever), you will sabotage your growth. You will grapple with conflicting feelings from being over-responsible.
Sometimes my inner critic tells me that I should be setting a better example. I’m not setting an example by being a perfectionist. What kind of example is that going to set?
When people say stuff like ‘Why are you still single? Why aren’t you more successful? Why don’t you have a book deal?’ it feels to us as if they’re looking for the bad smell, the horns and tail, the secret problem. It’s like, ‘You should be able to get it together by society’s standards so, what’s wrong with you?’ This stuff worms its way into your psyche when you’re vulnerable due to going through challenges.
I have reckoned with this silent shame. We all have it. Everybody has something. Business is therapy so you what you won’t deal with in your interpersonal relationships, you’ll deal with at (or through your) work.
We have to be careful of hanging everything on a particular outcome while missing lots of other things along the way.
“Sometimes we want something so badly that it feels like a need, and because it feels like a need, we start doing things that take us out of alignment. Whereas if we can acknowledge that yeah, we want this stuff, but we’re not about to crucify ourselves in order to get it, then we can actually move towards these things while still trying to enjoy our life and without losing sight of who we are.”
My plan is not the plan. “I’m not supposed to be the forty-year-old celebrated, best-selling author.”
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Yep, I’ve been one of those to whom others would say “why aren’t you happy as is? You’ve got a high paying job, can save for retirement, live in a cool house” and so on. What folk here never understood is my need for connection, especially someone on my level intellectually and physically, a job where I am intellectually and creativity-wise challenged yet allows me enough time to maintain a high level of activity. Never could morph into a sitting down, television watching, “settle” sort. Overall, and I suspect this may be the issue for many of us, it’s not just a horrid breakup or lack of a rship, or no possibility of a rship but a compendium of many things awry in our lives that’s making us unhappy campers. It’s hard work to delve into all of this crap and go over each aspect of one’s life; see what you can fix vs things that are going to take a major change in one’s life, perhaps as radical as giving up a career and leaving for the unknown. Coupled with this is that things change, not always for the better, and often these are things over which we have little control. For myself, the atmosphere at my campus significantly deteriorated, my dad’s decline and debts he left behind, and that dating-wise, I’d be repeatedly stigmatized or cheated upon, or rejected for living in a remote, poverty stricken, mountain town were in no way things I could’ve predicted or counteracted. I myself am guilty of wondering why others aren’t further ahead in life and that is unfair. I look at my neighbors, some friends, and would wonder why they just don’t rise up , rebel as I did long ago but they’re not me. Family and other emotional ties, disabilities, obligations, despair keep many from moving ahead or embracing change. Folks are who they are.
NATALIE
on 13/08/2018 at 12:34 pm
I can only imagine how frustrating your situation is. I’m glad that you’ve made the decision to leave your position, to take control of the things you can. Where we live matters because we need environments that stimulate and align with our values. If so much time and energy is spent being drained by our environment, feeling judged and yes, doing our own judging, it leaves little to feed and nourish our soul. Sometimes an area goes through a set of experiences over a period of time that affect the collective psyche of the community, and as a result, it takes a few generations to work that through. There are so many factors that contribute to family dynamics as well as how people respond to their circumstances. Everyone is doing their best to survive — but it might not look and feel like how we’d be and do things.
NATALIE
on 23/08/2018 at 10:26 am
You have been through a lot, Noquay, and at some point, you were bound to raise your hands and say, “I’m out”. This wasn’t a ‘deal’ that could work for you, try as you did. You have done the right thing in making the break. For whatever reason, you living where you did and going through those experiences was pivotal to your own growth. It wasn’t all bad, undoubtedly, and there were aspects of living there that really resonated with your values, but you can also experience those and other things somewhere else without selling your soul.
Life invites us to see what we couldn’t see before through our present-day challenges. I suspect that in the experiences of entire generations in a broken down area, there are clues to previous generations of your own family. You are breaking that pattern in your family which is healing to both previous generations and the future ones.
Noquay
on 13/08/2018 at 2:48 pm
Nat
Miigwetch (thanks) for your wise words. Yep, my generation (50-70+) never recovered from the last mine closure here in ‘83. Changing demographics, different job market and really no place for the uneducated, unhealthy, older population has left them in a place of despair and confusion. This, coupled with the increasing expense of living here in Colorado has left them with nowhere else to go. No wonder there were no functional rships to be had within miles of here!
Some future generation will do much, much, better here.
This past year the signs that it is time to go were getting progressively stronger; further deterioration at work, the house I bought for my late dad selling, getting his debt paid off, seeing men I’d been attracted to with someone else repeatedly while I’m sitting alone, more on line fails. Right now I’m looking at where the highest peak in Colorado is and the entire mountain range is obscured by forest fire smoke; we have over 100 fires burning in the Southwest. Every morning involves a sore throat, pissed off sinuses, coughing up a lung before morning coffee. Record heat and drought, seasonal rains didn’t show. The new normal.
I feel bad that I’m hurting some folk by leaving, one in particular; an 80 year old man, well educated, well read and travelled (nope, doesn’t live here) whom I love dearly and who loves me despite differences in age and activity levels. However, unless he stepped up and wished to marry or cohabit, I cannot afford to live in his area or anywhere near it despite my former high paying job. Most of unruined Colorado is unaffordable to most. It’s the first time I’ve been able to converse with a man at the level I wish to, talking about climate change, the environment, the human condition. The sort of rship I’d had with my ex husband, one of love, caring, great respect. I feel awful letting that go but again, doing the right thing doesn’t always feel good ???
Suki
on 13/08/2018 at 6:30 pm
Nat, the new podcasts are great! The bandwidth one, and especially this one. I can see that honoring your bandwidth has brought you back stronger than ever.
I liked your discussion of disappointment – part of the fear of success is a fear of disappointing yourself, that you may not live up to your own success and so youre not willing to just settle into it fully. You are always waiting for the other shoe to drop – thats something I would like to hear more about, the ‘other shoe’ feeling whether in work or relationships. You want to occupy a smaller space, even as you strive for and achieve success. And yes this is sometimes where other people prefer to see us – as our success can make them feel like they lack something. I’m lucky in that my close friends and family want me to occupy my space more fully but I struggle to on my own – its my own fears of not ‘getting ahead of myself’, or ‘pride before a fall’ or ‘who am I to deserve this’ and of disappointing myself which keep me restricted to a sort of low level constant fear. It also means that I feel that I need to be perfect before I can deserve and accept certain things that come with success.
NATALIE
on 23/08/2018 at 10:29 am
This is so brilliantly expressed, Suki. Thank you. And, oh my goodness, I used to hear that saying “pride comes before a fall” throughout my entire childhood. Something for me to explore. And I so identify with needing to be perfect. I know it isn’t true, but it still rears its ugly head and I have to kindly but firmly tell it sit the hell down. A lot of this is about those younger aspects of us – our inner child. Little Nat and Little Suki prided themselves on being good and perfect in order to survive and cope. Sometimes they still think that we’re still in that same place, and so we need to reassure them and take the lead so that they stop thinking it’s their job to worry and to mitigate for terrible possibilities.
Veronica
on 16/08/2018 at 2:21 am
I absolutely loved this episode – thrilled that the podcast is back. I continue to return to many past episodes and I think this will be one of those episodes. Thank you Natalie!
NATALIE
on 23/08/2018 at 10:29 am
Aw, thank you so much, Veronica. Love it!
Eyes Wide Open
on 16/08/2018 at 3:28 am
Hear absolutely all of this. Have been so positive over the last 6 years working towards outer and inner goals but the past 6 months I have been feeling depression. It seems like life has been nothing BUT a lesson with no harvest to speak of for over 3 decades. To work so hard at being a genuine, skilled person and to have nothing to show for it – no career, no friendships, no love relationships – is just breaking my heart this year.
I have come to realize that everything was a lie. Working hard guarantees nothing. Trying hard guarantees nothing. Positive mentality and standards lead to nothing. All I am is someone who is better at things, who is smart and open-minded. Gave myself a reality shot yesterday. “You’re lonely? At least you don’t have frenemies whom take all day and heap misery and offer no mutuality and joy.” “You desire intimacy? Well, all the abusers you were with never offered you that, and now you honor your standards so is it better to be alone and not abused or settle for less.” “No career?” No excuse for that one, lol. I am tired of all this spiritual growth shit. When all you do is plant seeds and your harvest is talents and skills that lead to nothing it can make you want to give up. I don’t even see the point of living is if all it is is a perpetual classroom with no shared love and joy.
NATALIE
on 23/08/2018 at 10:41 am
Hi Eyes Wide Open. I get your frustration. I think one of the great lies that so many of us have been sold is this notion that we’re in a meritocracy environment. “Work hard and you will get the grades. Be good and you will please your parents. Be good and you will please teachers and other authorities. Do as you’re told and nothing will go wrong. If you’re not bright, just be good and you will be OK. Go to university and you will get the job. Work hard and you will get the promotion. Be a good person and you will get the guy/woman”
That’s bullshit. There are people who do less than what you do, who are happy and fulfilled.
There are people who appear to do less than others at work and they get the promotion.
There are people who never mistreat others who have terrible things happen to them.
There are shady folks who appear to have what we want, which might be material wealth, a family, opportunities, accolades.
This is not a meritocracy environment so it’s critical for us to know why we do what we do and to be ourselves. Being and doing things because we think we’ll be rewarded or that we’ll avoid the unpleasant aspects of life, is the path to pain and disillusionment.
Yes, we do have a lot of learning to do in our lifetimes – it’s on-the-job training – but we’re here to experience life. In experiencing, we learn at the same time.
And right now, there isn’t the harvest that you think that there should be there. There’s something else instead.
This is a bit like if I look at the harvest of my work and personal growth as ‘getting a book deal and accolades’. Relative to that, in theory, my harvest hasn’t come through either. But that’s just one idea of harvest.
And it’s hard when it feels as if everything is wrong or that it’s falling down. But I wonder, Eyes Wide Open, if your life is speaking to you and letting you know that all the things you thought you had to do in order to be you, the rules etc, are not you. Are not necessary. You have cleared a lot of your decks, letting go of all that isn’t serving you — you just want something to replace the lost relationships. And it’s not there right now. And it’s OK to feel understandably angry and frustrated about that — just don’t take up residence there or give up. Those periods in my life that have felt dark and desolate have marked what turned out to be the start of joy. I wonder if it could be this way for you too.
Lauren
on 28/08/2018 at 8:05 am
Down with the meritocracy!
For me, Robert Ohotto’s book Transforming Fate into Destiny was a good guide to use the realities of life – what is actually happening – as orientation in reaching goals. If we are resisting the actual results, or thinking that the results are an indication of lack of worthiness, that will only push us further from our destinations. He also explains how Law of Attraction culture synchs up with our societal remnants of Catholic guilt in that if we don’t get the results we want when we want them, we think we’re not ‘manifesting’ the right way.
I think that those of us who have spent a lot of time in introspection may actually encounter more push back from the world around us in achieving our goals because our colossal inner power, from all that thinking and learning about ourselves and relationships, can be off-putting to those who haven’t dug this deeply for reasons they may not consciously realize. Those with a highly developed sensitivity to the nuances of human interaction will choose not to go down many predatory pathways that another more ‘easy-going’ person may not be affected by as deeply.
#mayjahfan xoxo
Lauren
on 27/08/2018 at 8:41 pm
Being ‘successful’ as a personal development leader, or substitute whatever term, if you’re on the leading edge, you’re not necessarily going to be ‘popular’ because most people don’t have the capacity to go where you’re going. Even though you’re a very advanced communicator and have the ability to keep the language casual, and you’re talking about universal subjects, there is an element to your work that requires deep self-honesty and most people are not ready or willing to go there yet. The people who I have sent to your website love the concept of it, but they seem to stop at the concept instead of doing the work. For me, I realize that ‘success’ is about connection – unless you already have the capital to do your vision FIRST and then invite people into it, you’re always going to need to connect to create opportunities, and maintain those connections at a comfortable level. I have the same few problems relating to people that always halt my connections, so I recognize that as a lifelong barrier – and I’m still trying to figure it out.
Enjoying the shows! Much love
Margo
on 01/09/2018 at 3:15 pm
I’m 37, unemployed because of illness, no kids, no relationship. I want to be happy and really… I need a few friends, a little joy, some hope….but I am treated by others like a leper. You know what I can’t understand? That I never complain to people. But still they treat me like a hot potato. some are “cute” enough to tell me I am simply pathetic but having no “achievements” in my life. I survived a horrendous abuse, I am still alive – that IS a special achievement.
I’ve always been empathetic towards others, but to be honest I have no idea what to do when I am completely ignored (best case scenario), harshly judged (worst case scenario) and simply … abandoned. I like a lot my FB friends, they are great, but I miss having ones in real life… well, as soon as people find out about my situation, they lose interest (maybe they fear I might ask them for help or something?) I don’t think I’m a failure, just people treat me like one. And I have no clue how to break the vicious circle! It’s like a constant revictimization. Once I was “hit” by my abusive bf, now people “punish me” for being unable to be “successful”.
Thanks for all your articles, Nat! They keep me sense my dignity as a human being.
Ashwini
on 17/09/2018 at 6:55 pm
Thank you so much for this blog… It means a lot for me…
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![Before you beat yourself up for not being perfect, for fucking up, for not being as successful as [whoever you compare yourself to], remember that you are not alone in your struggle or in feeling as you do. You might beat yourself up about relationships. Someone else beats themselves up about their body, or not being as successful as they think they should be, or about not having the 'right' background/family/experiences. The best thing you can do is talk about it and cut yourself some slack.](https://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/fear-of-failure-nat-lue-750x675.jpg)
![Before you beat yourself up for not being perfect, for fucking up, for not being as successful as [whoever you compare yourself to], remember that you are not alone in your struggle or in feeling as you do. You might beat yourself up about relationships. Someone else beats themselves up about their body, or not being as successful as they think they should be, or about not having the 'right' background/family/experiences. The best thing you can do is talk about it and cut yourself some slack.](https://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/fear-of-failure-nat-lue-576x1024.jpg)
Yep, I’ve been one of those to whom others would say “why aren’t you happy as is? You’ve got a high paying job, can save for retirement, live in a cool house” and so on. What folk here never understood is my need for connection, especially someone on my level intellectually and physically, a job where I am intellectually and creativity-wise challenged yet allows me enough time to maintain a high level of activity. Never could morph into a sitting down, television watching, “settle” sort. Overall, and I suspect this may be the issue for many of us, it’s not just a horrid breakup or lack of a rship, or no possibility of a rship but a compendium of many things awry in our lives that’s making us unhappy campers. It’s hard work to delve into all of this crap and go over each aspect of one’s life; see what you can fix vs things that are going to take a major change in one’s life, perhaps as radical as giving up a career and leaving for the unknown. Coupled with this is that things change, not always for the better, and often these are things over which we have little control. For myself, the atmosphere at my campus significantly deteriorated, my dad’s decline and debts he left behind, and that dating-wise, I’d be repeatedly stigmatized or cheated upon, or rejected for living in a remote, poverty stricken, mountain town were in no way things I could’ve predicted or counteracted. I myself am guilty of wondering why others aren’t further ahead in life and that is unfair. I look at my neighbors, some friends, and would wonder why they just don’t rise up , rebel as I did long ago but they’re not me. Family and other emotional ties, disabilities, obligations, despair keep many from moving ahead or embracing change. Folks are who they are.
I can only imagine how frustrating your situation is. I’m glad that you’ve made the decision to leave your position, to take control of the things you can. Where we live matters because we need environments that stimulate and align with our values. If so much time and energy is spent being drained by our environment, feeling judged and yes, doing our own judging, it leaves little to feed and nourish our soul. Sometimes an area goes through a set of experiences over a period of time that affect the collective psyche of the community, and as a result, it takes a few generations to work that through. There are so many factors that contribute to family dynamics as well as how people respond to their circumstances. Everyone is doing their best to survive — but it might not look and feel like how we’d be and do things.
You have been through a lot, Noquay, and at some point, you were bound to raise your hands and say, “I’m out”. This wasn’t a ‘deal’ that could work for you, try as you did. You have done the right thing in making the break. For whatever reason, you living where you did and going through those experiences was pivotal to your own growth. It wasn’t all bad, undoubtedly, and there were aspects of living there that really resonated with your values, but you can also experience those and other things somewhere else without selling your soul.
Life invites us to see what we couldn’t see before through our present-day challenges. I suspect that in the experiences of entire generations in a broken down area, there are clues to previous generations of your own family. You are breaking that pattern in your family which is healing to both previous generations and the future ones.
Nat
Miigwetch (thanks) for your wise words. Yep, my generation (50-70+) never recovered from the last mine closure here in ‘83. Changing demographics, different job market and really no place for the uneducated, unhealthy, older population has left them in a place of despair and confusion. This, coupled with the increasing expense of living here in Colorado has left them with nowhere else to go. No wonder there were no functional rships to be had within miles of here!
Some future generation will do much, much, better here.
This past year the signs that it is time to go were getting progressively stronger; further deterioration at work, the house I bought for my late dad selling, getting his debt paid off, seeing men I’d been attracted to with someone else repeatedly while I’m sitting alone, more on line fails. Right now I’m looking at where the highest peak in Colorado is and the entire mountain range is obscured by forest fire smoke; we have over 100 fires burning in the Southwest. Every morning involves a sore throat, pissed off sinuses, coughing up a lung before morning coffee. Record heat and drought, seasonal rains didn’t show. The new normal.
I feel bad that I’m hurting some folk by leaving, one in particular; an 80 year old man, well educated, well read and travelled (nope, doesn’t live here) whom I love dearly and who loves me despite differences in age and activity levels. However, unless he stepped up and wished to marry or cohabit, I cannot afford to live in his area or anywhere near it despite my former high paying job. Most of unruined Colorado is unaffordable to most. It’s the first time I’ve been able to converse with a man at the level I wish to, talking about climate change, the environment, the human condition. The sort of rship I’d had with my ex husband, one of love, caring, great respect. I feel awful letting that go but again, doing the right thing doesn’t always feel good ???
Nat, the new podcasts are great! The bandwidth one, and especially this one. I can see that honoring your bandwidth has brought you back stronger than ever.
I liked your discussion of disappointment – part of the fear of success is a fear of disappointing yourself, that you may not live up to your own success and so youre not willing to just settle into it fully. You are always waiting for the other shoe to drop – thats something I would like to hear more about, the ‘other shoe’ feeling whether in work or relationships. You want to occupy a smaller space, even as you strive for and achieve success. And yes this is sometimes where other people prefer to see us – as our success can make them feel like they lack something. I’m lucky in that my close friends and family want me to occupy my space more fully but I struggle to on my own – its my own fears of not ‘getting ahead of myself’, or ‘pride before a fall’ or ‘who am I to deserve this’ and of disappointing myself which keep me restricted to a sort of low level constant fear. It also means that I feel that I need to be perfect before I can deserve and accept certain things that come with success.
This is so brilliantly expressed, Suki. Thank you. And, oh my goodness, I used to hear that saying “pride comes before a fall” throughout my entire childhood. Something for me to explore. And I so identify with needing to be perfect. I know it isn’t true, but it still rears its ugly head and I have to kindly but firmly tell it sit the hell down. A lot of this is about those younger aspects of us – our inner child. Little Nat and Little Suki prided themselves on being good and perfect in order to survive and cope. Sometimes they still think that we’re still in that same place, and so we need to reassure them and take the lead so that they stop thinking it’s their job to worry and to mitigate for terrible possibilities.
I absolutely loved this episode – thrilled that the podcast is back. I continue to return to many past episodes and I think this will be one of those episodes. Thank you Natalie!
Aw, thank you so much, Veronica. Love it!
Hear absolutely all of this. Have been so positive over the last 6 years working towards outer and inner goals but the past 6 months I have been feeling depression. It seems like life has been nothing BUT a lesson with no harvest to speak of for over 3 decades. To work so hard at being a genuine, skilled person and to have nothing to show for it – no career, no friendships, no love relationships – is just breaking my heart this year.
I have come to realize that everything was a lie. Working hard guarantees nothing. Trying hard guarantees nothing. Positive mentality and standards lead to nothing. All I am is someone who is better at things, who is smart and open-minded. Gave myself a reality shot yesterday. “You’re lonely? At least you don’t have frenemies whom take all day and heap misery and offer no mutuality and joy.” “You desire intimacy? Well, all the abusers you were with never offered you that, and now you honor your standards so is it better to be alone and not abused or settle for less.” “No career?” No excuse for that one, lol. I am tired of all this spiritual growth shit. When all you do is plant seeds and your harvest is talents and skills that lead to nothing it can make you want to give up. I don’t even see the point of living is if all it is is a perpetual classroom with no shared love and joy.
Hi Eyes Wide Open. I get your frustration. I think one of the great lies that so many of us have been sold is this notion that we’re in a meritocracy environment. “Work hard and you will get the grades. Be good and you will please your parents. Be good and you will please teachers and other authorities. Do as you’re told and nothing will go wrong. If you’re not bright, just be good and you will be OK. Go to university and you will get the job. Work hard and you will get the promotion. Be a good person and you will get the guy/woman”
That’s bullshit. There are people who do less than what you do, who are happy and fulfilled.
There are people who appear to do less than others at work and they get the promotion.
There are people who never mistreat others who have terrible things happen to them.
There are shady folks who appear to have what we want, which might be material wealth, a family, opportunities, accolades.
This is not a meritocracy environment so it’s critical for us to know why we do what we do and to be ourselves. Being and doing things because we think we’ll be rewarded or that we’ll avoid the unpleasant aspects of life, is the path to pain and disillusionment.
Yes, we do have a lot of learning to do in our lifetimes – it’s on-the-job training – but we’re here to experience life. In experiencing, we learn at the same time.
And right now, there isn’t the harvest that you think that there should be there. There’s something else instead.
This is a bit like if I look at the harvest of my work and personal growth as ‘getting a book deal and accolades’. Relative to that, in theory, my harvest hasn’t come through either. But that’s just one idea of harvest.
And it’s hard when it feels as if everything is wrong or that it’s falling down. But I wonder, Eyes Wide Open, if your life is speaking to you and letting you know that all the things you thought you had to do in order to be you, the rules etc, are not you. Are not necessary. You have cleared a lot of your decks, letting go of all that isn’t serving you — you just want something to replace the lost relationships. And it’s not there right now. And it’s OK to feel understandably angry and frustrated about that — just don’t take up residence there or give up. Those periods in my life that have felt dark and desolate have marked what turned out to be the start of joy. I wonder if it could be this way for you too.
Down with the meritocracy!
For me, Robert Ohotto’s book Transforming Fate into Destiny was a good guide to use the realities of life – what is actually happening – as orientation in reaching goals. If we are resisting the actual results, or thinking that the results are an indication of lack of worthiness, that will only push us further from our destinations. He also explains how Law of Attraction culture synchs up with our societal remnants of Catholic guilt in that if we don’t get the results we want when we want them, we think we’re not ‘manifesting’ the right way.
I think that those of us who have spent a lot of time in introspection may actually encounter more push back from the world around us in achieving our goals because our colossal inner power, from all that thinking and learning about ourselves and relationships, can be off-putting to those who haven’t dug this deeply for reasons they may not consciously realize. Those with a highly developed sensitivity to the nuances of human interaction will choose not to go down many predatory pathways that another more ‘easy-going’ person may not be affected by as deeply.
#mayjahfan xoxo
Being ‘successful’ as a personal development leader, or substitute whatever term, if you’re on the leading edge, you’re not necessarily going to be ‘popular’ because most people don’t have the capacity to go where you’re going. Even though you’re a very advanced communicator and have the ability to keep the language casual, and you’re talking about universal subjects, there is an element to your work that requires deep self-honesty and most people are not ready or willing to go there yet. The people who I have sent to your website love the concept of it, but they seem to stop at the concept instead of doing the work. For me, I realize that ‘success’ is about connection – unless you already have the capital to do your vision FIRST and then invite people into it, you’re always going to need to connect to create opportunities, and maintain those connections at a comfortable level. I have the same few problems relating to people that always halt my connections, so I recognize that as a lifelong barrier – and I’m still trying to figure it out.
Enjoying the shows! Much love
I’m 37, unemployed because of illness, no kids, no relationship. I want to be happy and really… I need a few friends, a little joy, some hope….but I am treated by others like a leper. You know what I can’t understand? That I never complain to people. But still they treat me like a hot potato. some are “cute” enough to tell me I am simply pathetic but having no “achievements” in my life. I survived a horrendous abuse, I am still alive – that IS a special achievement.
I’ve always been empathetic towards others, but to be honest I have no idea what to do when I am completely ignored (best case scenario), harshly judged (worst case scenario) and simply … abandoned. I like a lot my FB friends, they are great, but I miss having ones in real life… well, as soon as people find out about my situation, they lose interest (maybe they fear I might ask them for help or something?) I don’t think I’m a failure, just people treat me like one. And I have no clue how to break the vicious circle! It’s like a constant revictimization. Once I was “hit” by my abusive bf, now people “punish me” for being unable to be “successful”.
Thanks for all your articles, Nat! They keep me sense my dignity as a human being.
Thank you so much for this blog… It means a lot for me…