Everyday Bliss For Women In Leadership

My last entry got me to thinking about the journey it took to get me to where I am now. For a long time, I was a free spirit who couldn’t hurry fast enough to get done with the necessities of life - cleaning, cooking and other chores - so I could get on with "what’s important", in my career and creative projects. Then came a broken back, paralysis and a long period where I was looked after by my then-husband and couldn’t pull my own pants up, let alone do any chores. My main chore was simply surviving the painful recovery.

Then, just when I was getting well enough to enjoy life again, came an even longer period where I needed to look after my own parents in their final years, still in recovery myself. Cooking, cleaning, picking up my Mom when she fell, cleaning up after her when she lost control of her bodily functions and dealing with the myriad problems that attended she and my Dad in the last years of their lives - mostly alone and with little help until the very end. Messy, exhausting, thankless work. It nearly flattened me, as it does countless caregivers the world over. After that, I never wanted to do anything as boring as clean house again! I wanted my creative free spirit days back and I was darned if I would be shackled to pots, pans, brushes or cleanser. I got to feeling like I deserved to be cut a heck of a big break, but the break never came. Then I got to feeling like life was against me and the hand I’d been dealt was bitterly unfair. I rebelled, went a little crazy after my Mom died and lived the life of Reilly for a spell. Everybody’s got to rebel a little in such circumstances. But, there are limits, even to reasonable rebellion…

Like all humans I am a pleasure-seeker. And like many who have come through disaster, disability, death and divorce, I fought tooth and nail against going back to regular everyday duties in favor of having "time off" because I felt I deserved it. Since I was entirely mired in how crappy my life was then, any time I couldn’t get something I felt I "deserved", it made me feel even more miserable, unlucky, downtrodden and unsuccessful. The more I bemoaned how awful my life was, the worse it became. The penny finally dropped though, my life got better without my help, then became even more beautiful with my full participation and consciousness at work. Gosh, I wish I’d known this stuff when I was twenty.

I am intrigued by how much that one concept: "I deserve" has ruined people’s lives. Many of the most miserable people walking the earth have a tremendous sense of entitlement that keeps them that way. Have you ever noticed how much feelings of being unlucky or being "always the one who loses" feeds upon itself and creates more bad situations? This is a basic Law of Attraction and at the core of Quantum Flow Bioenergetics philosophy: What you give A.I.R. to - Attention, Intention and Repetition - will grow and replicate itself in your life.

If you endorse "being unlucky", you’ll only attract more misfortune. If you give attention to, intend to be and repeat over and over that you’re the most fortunate person you know, you’ll attract increasing amounts of luck, good fortune and abundance. As I trod the long, hard road to physical and mental recovery, I gained a great appreciation for the simple things in life, like the satisfaction of a well-polished teakettle, the loving butt of a kitten’s head against my hand, the beauty of a lush, mature herb garden that I had grown, fed, watered and weeded myself.

What do you feel very passionately that you "deserve"? Does that get in the way of living your life? Of being happy? Of feeling fulfilled?

Something to think on…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 7th, 2005 at 9:42 am and is filed under Coaching Tips, Cultural Evolution, Current Affairs, Day In The Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.