Maybe you’ve heard about wholeness.
Maybe you’ve heard that “to heal” is to make whole.
And maybe it all sounds nice and you *think* it is a good idea,
but it’s a harder thing to actually touch, so wholeness and healing remain this elusive thing
that you’re told, over and over, is right under your nose.
I feel that’s a theme in a lot of the work I do – the discovery of things that are right under people’s noses.
Whether it be their talent as an artist, their gifts as an entrepreneur, their strength as a leader, their ability to make a lot more money, their grace that allows them to uplift others just by their presence, their ability to create exactly what they’ve been dreaming of, their loveability…or whether it be their wholeness.
If you are one of those people who know, intellectually, what wholeness means and yet, you still struggle to feel it, to really deeply believe that you are whole, I wish you could’ve been in on a conversation we had on our Art School group coaching call this week. I want to share a part of it here, though, as the next best thing.
The discussion started when someone courageously shared, “It’s difficult to believe I’m whole” when there is so much evidence outside of me pointing to the fact that I’m “not there yet.”
So, we explored what happens when you think wholeness is reached by obtaining something outside of you.
You feel empty, despairing, even desperate when you think this thought.
So you look for ways to fill this emptiness,
but the thing is — you can’t because
there was never a void.
But if you don’t believe there was never a void, you keep on frantically trying to fill a void
that’s not even there,
and has never been there.
The end result is that you are so fixated on your unsatisfactory, unsuccessful efforts to fill a void that is impossible to fill–
because it doesn’t even exist! —
that you never notice the “elusive” truth right under your nose–
there is no void.
You can never be successful filling a void that doesn’t exist, but if you’re so entranced by your struggle and scramble and obsession
to fill the illusory void
you never notice your wholeness,
and you will never, ever, achieve that feeling of success you are so desperately searching for,
the success of filling a void.
Persist in this illusory pursuit and wholeness always remains elusive, you are forever left with a feeling of
“I’m not there yet.”
It’s like running west to catch the sunrise.
One time several years ago, when I was saddened with my own unsuccessful attempt to feel whole by filling an hole that didn’t exist,
when the success that I experienced never felt like enough, or the right kind–
I prayed.
And that’s when I heard,
“Everything you want is on the other side of a blink. Everything you want is on the other side of a thought.”
I wasn’t even entirely sure what that meant at that time.
But now I know–
The only thing keeping me from wholeness was THE THOUGHT that I am not whole.
Release that thought – and there was everything I ever was and will ever be.
I still need to remind myself of this now and then. To drop the thought and turn to catch the glorious sunrise,
no chasing required.
***
Now, I title this (longish) newsletter Wholeness AND Success because I want you to know about the REST of our conversation in The Art School this week, too.
Because a lot of people (I was one of them and my clients usually are to begin with) are afraid that if we really embrace wholeness, then we’ll lose our drive, our desire to create and to grow.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
When you embrace your wholeness, your innate and inalienable lovability and completeness, you are then so much more free and you have so much more fuel to pour on the fire you’re stoking for your dreams.
Conversations in The Art School this week also included discussion regarding winning Grammy’s, showing up as world-class performers, incredible progress made on creative and career projects, painting at Art Basel, showing up on bigger stages, bigger platforms, in bigger ways, making the art that REALLY wants to be made, delivering the healing in the healthcare industry that REALLY wants to be delivered, taking big leaps, celebrating all the extraordinary success that’s already been accomplished, raising beautiful, loving children and families, nurturing relationships, 10X’ing returns on investments, stepping into leadership roles in companies and communities, and other huge breakthroughs on career, financial, personal developmentfamily and relationship fronts.
These conversations were not in addition to or IN SPITE of the deep dive conversations into wholeness this week, but this radical progress was made possible BECAUSE of those revelations.
What if the person you’ve always wanted to be is there – you don’t even have to work to believe in her.
You just have to let go of the thought that you aren’t her.
Thank you for reading, friends! I hope you have a beautiful weekend. I wanted to share some photos from mine below. Everything – the light, the air, the trees, the fields, the sky- seems to have gold running through it this time of year. So beautiful!
With love,
Leah
Recent Comments