Gifted

Sometimes, the things that come easiest to us become the very things that keep us from discovering what else we’re capable of.

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It’s funny how life keeps shifting, twisting, questioning, and breaking the mold. The more we awaken and become aware, the faster the shifts seem to come.

When you become a conscious observer, activist, teacher, wayshower, awakener, or leader in a field that invites and inspires you, you’re essentially diving into the fire.

No one hoping to lead meaningfully can offer anything truly catalytic from a place of superficiality, inflexibility, or self-proclaimed infallibility. We’re all messy, and if we genuinely wish to help, heal, enlighten, or inspire, the authentic, connected part of us won’t allow us to skate by.

We’ll inevitably have to face our own bullshit and understand and integrate what’s causing the resistance, no matter how long we try to defer or overlook it.

As a child, many things came easily to me. I enjoyed reading before kindergarten and consistently ranked near the top of my classes throughout school without much effort. I was reliable, trustworthy, the good student; the helpful grandson, the responsible sibling, and so on.

Gradually, these traits became a complex problem, an impediment of sorts. Some may accompany an old soul’s path, but others can twist our perception of reality and limit us in unconscious ways.

I’ve never been afraid of hard work. I can bleed and sweat and power through with the best of them. I love learning new things, using my hands to build stuff, creatively solving problems, and applying hard-earned skills… to a point.

The problem with being “gifted” or “a natural” is that we can start shying away from our core goals and lifelong dreams, avoiding real risks and responsibilities because we don’t want to lose our precarious position on the mantle or pedestal.

It’s a bit of a simplification, but for me, it helps explain why we end up fighting these perpetual inner wars. Conflicting values and opposing objectives hide in plain sight, yet we unconsciously put on blinders and keep ourselves occupied elsewhere to avoid pain.

Then we project that dysfunctional perspective onto our friends and family, filtering our experience of reality through it.

We can work ourselves to death for someone else’s business, life challenge, or dream project; lose ourselves in a doomed relationship; sacrifice our time, energy, bodies, and minds for our children rather than striving to live our truth for them, all to compensate for the gaping void of unfulfilled goals and aspirations eating away at us from the inside out.

Classic martyrdom.

But life meets us when and where we’re ready to shift. Change is inevitable, but there’s a difference between getting better at the same patterns and growing through and beyond them. We can become quite proficient at fifty shades of the same problem. We progress when we dare to start on a fresh canvas, but we can also paint over the one we’ve been using forever. That patina, that tapestry of our life so far, matters. But it’s not the whole story. It will always be with us, but needn’t always define us.

If you’re always watching the same kinds of shows and films, reading the same kinds of books, and debating the same issues, worries, and world problems with the same people, ask yourself whether you’re growing or just spinning your wheels. Step off the merry-go-round and let the dizziness subside.

You’re not the same person you were two heartbeats, two summers, or two decades ago. Nor are you simply who a parent, teacher, mentor, priest, ex-lover, spouse, or best friend imagined you to be. You are more. More importantly, you’re enough.

You know what you’re capable of. But you also have no idea what you’re truly capable of.

Elevate. The world needs your courage, daring, authenticity, vulnerability, and the real you.

Sapere aude