self sabotage

Let’s be serious here. Since I know we all have a saboteur, this is a really important question to ponder. You’ll get what I mean in a minute.

Who is that person that derails you? Your harshest critic personified? Not necessarily just that voice in your head, but an insecurity that has taken on real flesh and blood to become your saboteur?

Danielle La Porte admitted on a recent podcast with Brene Brown, that in the past, her’s was the Silicon Valley dude sitting in the front row of a talk she’s giving. He’s wearing a $700 hoodie, not giving a rat’s ass about who she is or what she’s saying. “He thinks I’m too woo-woo, too flakey. I can see him and I can tell he can’t wait for me to shut up so he can get the hell outta there.”
Off. The. Rails.
Saboteur 1
Danielle  0

Brene’s saboteur was any academic colleague.
With twenty-something years in academia, she can spot her nemesis in a hot second: Arms crossed with the prerequisite scowl. Academics want hard facts. They want words, no pictures. They don’t trust anything heartfelt as ‘fact’ and vulnerability, Brene’s wheelhouse, is well, it’s better left to Super Soul Sunday — don’t call it hard research.
Big shame happens in that space (another Brene Brown specialty).
Off. The. Rails.
Saboteur 1
Brene      0

Stand-up comedians can tell you exactly where the ONE person who wasn’t laughing was sitting.

Actors on stage have literally stopped the show to confront the guy who’s on his cell phone.

When I’m in the middle of telling a story or reading something I’ve written, and the listener yawns or sees something shiny and changes the subject—that sabotages me — every time.
Clearly I’m a bore! I lament to myself. I take it personally. It can be a stranger or my best friend. It is often my husband — It was ALWAYS my Dad.

We all feel like we’re being judged and not only that — their reaction confirms that somehow — we’re not enough.

Brene Brown had a great suggestion. She says to her critic, “Hey, you can look at me however you want. You can judge me all day long. I know you and I know your story. Everybody has a story that would break your heart.” She goes on, “Even the Silicon Valley dude. They armor it up. What I’ve learned is to never take on a job or a project JUST to win over this critic, this saboteur.”

Amen sister.

That, you guys, is the takeaway. Well, one of them anyway.
Don’t waste one moment of your precious life trying to win over the saboteur.

You ARE good enough. Better than good enough, you’re the best YOU on the planet!

Don’t read your reviews, even on Yelp, especially on Yelp, and DO NOT listen to the haters.
Haters gonna hate.

I want to hear from YOU but I don’t want any comments unless they’re nice and by-the-way, I saw you yawning.
Carry on,
xox

If you like writers, and who doesn’t, you can check out the Beautiful Writers Podcasts on iTunes, they’re awesome!
http://beautifulwriterspodcast.com

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us.  Between the two stands Resistance”
~Steven Pressfield “The War of Art.” 

“The War of Art” is one of my all-time favorite books on creation, life, love and well… what else is there?

In my humble opinion, it should be a textbook in every school, on every hotel nightstand, next to the Bible, and reduced to liquid form and added to the water supply.

Beyond what the title implies, this book is not strictly written for artists and writers.

As you’ll glean from the list below, Resistance isn’t particular about which endeavors it sabotages. The only thing they have in common is our desire to become fully realized. Whether that be through artistic pursuits, the Paleo diet, Fab Ab Boot camp, that non-profit you want to start or marrying Skipper.

Up until Steven set us straight, we thought we were all just dumbass, procrastinating losers.

Nope, that’s just Resistance talking smack and taking the wheel, leaving us eating its dust and only dreaming about our unlived lives.
It will always stand in the way of our growth.
It’s a law; like gravity. That explains sooooooooooo much.

Assbite.

But…what I know for SURE….Resistance only has the power WE give it. 

“The following is a list, in no particular order, of those activities that most commonly elicit Resistance:

1) The pursuit of any calling in writing, painting, music, film, dance, or any creative art, however marginal or unconventional.

2) The launching of any entrepreneurial venture or enterprise, for profit or otherwise.

3) Any diet or health regimen.

4) Any program of spiritual advancement.

5) Any activity whose aim is tighter abdominals.

6) Any course or program designed to overcome an unwholesome habit or addiction.

7) Education of every kind.

8) Any act of political, moral, or ethical courage, including the decision to change for the better some unworthy pattern of thought or conduct in ourselves.

9) The undertaking of any enterprise or endeavor whose aim is to help others.

10) Any act that entails commitment of the heart. The decision to get married, to have a child, to weather a rocky patch in a relationship.

11) The taking of any principled stand in the face of adversity.

In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity. Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower.

Any of these will elicit Resistance.

Excerpt From: Steven Pressfield & Shawn Coyne. “The War of Art.” Visionary Press, 2012. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

I’d LOVE it if you’d tell me:
What beautiful thing has Resistance been talking you out of doing?
Do you agree that we have two lives, the one we live and the unlived life?

MuchO loveO
Xox

Let’s be serious here. I think this is a really important question to ponder since I know we all have one. You’ll get what I mean in a minute.

Who is that person that derails you? Your harshest critic personified. Not necessarily just that voice in your head, but an insecurity that has taken on real flesh and blood to become your saboteur.

Danielle La Porte admitted on a recent podcast with Brene Brown, that in the past hers was the Silicon Valley dude who’s sitting in the front row of a talk she’s giving, wearing a $700 hoodie, not giving a rat’s ass about who she is or what she’s saying. “He thinks I’m too woo-woo, too flakey. I can see him and I can tell he can’t wait for me to shut up so he can get the hell outta there.”
Off. The. Rails.
Saboteur 1
Danielle  0

Brene’s saboteur was any academic colleague.
With twenty-something years in academia, she can spot her nemesis in a hot second: Arms crossed with the prerequisite scowl. Academics want hard facts. They want words, no pictures. They don’t trust anything heartfelt as ‘fact’ and vulnerability, Brene’s wheelhouse, is well, it’s better left to Super Soul Sunday — don’t call it hard research.
Big shame happens in that space (another Brene Brown specialty).
Off. The. Rails.
Saboteur 1
Brene      0

Stand-up comedians can tell you exactly where the ONE person who wasn’t laughing was sitting.

Actors on stage have literally stopped the show to confront the guy who’s on his cell phone.

When I’m in the middle of telling or reading a story I’ve written and the listener yawns or sees something shiny and changes the subject, that sabotages me — every time.
Clearly I’m a bore’ I lament to myself. I take it personally. It can be a stranger or my best friend. It is often my husband — It was ALWAYS my Dad.

We all feel like we’re being judged and not only that — their reaction confirms that somehow — we’re not enough.

Brene Brown had a great suggestion. She says to her critic, “Hey, you can look at me however you want. You can judge me all day long. I know you and I know your story. Everybody has a story that would break your heart,” she goes on, “Even the Silicon Valley dude. And then they armor it up. What I’ve learned is to never take on a job or a project JUST to win over this critic, this saboteur.”

Amen sister.

That, my tribe, is the takeaway. Well, one of them anyway.
Don’t waste one moment of your precious life trying to win over the saboteur.

You ARE good enough. Better than good enough, you’re the best YOU on the planet!

Don’t read your reviews, even on Yelp, especially on Yelp, and DO NOT listen to the haters.
Haters gonna hate.

I want to hear from YOU but I don’t want any comments unless they’re nice and by-the-way, I saw you yawning.
Carry on,
xox

If you like writers, and who doesn’t, Check out the Beautiful Writers Podcasts on iTunes, they’re awesome.

This is an article by Steven Pressfield. He is the author of “The War of Art”, which is on my list above, of the books I adore! If you write, or paint, or do anything creative in your life, his book is
Invaluable! I’m not kidding. This article will give you a taste of Steven’s take on Resistance, and how it will do anything to sabotage us from bringing our gifts into the world.
Enjoy and Happy Saturday!

How Resistance Proves the Existence of God
By: Steven Pressfield | Feb 12, 2014 01:52 am
Consider James Rhodes, whose April 26, 2013 article in the Guardian UK I stole for last week’s post:

I didn’t play the piano for 10 years. A decade of slow death by greed working in the City, chasing something that never existed in the first place (security, self-worth, Don Draper albeit a few inches shorter and a few women fewer). And only when the pain of not doing it got greater than the imagined pain of doing it did I somehow find the balls to pursue what I really wanted and had been obsessed by since the age of seven—to be a concert pianist.

Concert pianist James Rhodes, back by popular demand

That’s Resistance. That’s the definition of Resistance. Mr. Rhodes at that point was mired in a shadow career. He was operating as an amateur. Suddenly some force seizes him. He turns pro:
Admittedly I went a little extreme—no income for five years, six hours a day of intense practice, monthly four-day long lessons with a brilliant and psychopathic teacher in Verona, a hunger for something that was so necessary it cost me my marriage, nine months in a mental hospital, most of my dignity and about 35lbs in weight. And the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is not perhaps the Disney ending I’d envisaged as I lay in bed aged 10 listening to Horowitz devouring Rachmaninov at Carnegie Hall.

I love Mr. Rhodes’ testament not just because he’s my kinda guy, because he’s nuts, because he laid it all on the line, etc. etc. But because his story—and yours and mine—proves there is a God.
First given:
Resistance is a universal phenomenon of the human psyche. Everyone experiences it. (Trust me, I know from the thousands of e-mails I’ve gotten on the subject.)
Second given:
Resistance’s sole object is to prevent you and me from becoming concert pianists, writing bestselling novels, founding the follow-on to Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.
In other words, Resistance’s purpose is to prevent good from entering the world.
Ergo:
Resistance is the devil.
Ergo:
If there is a devil, there must be a God.
Was all that work at the piano worth it, Mr. Rhodes?

And yet. The indescribable reward of taking a bunch of ink on paper from the shelf at Chappell of Bond Street. Tubing it home, setting the score, pencil, coffee and ashtray on the piano and emerging a few days, weeks or months later able to perform something that some mad, genius, lunatic of a composer 300 years ago heard in his head while out of his mind with grief or love or syphilis. A piece of music that will always baffle the greatest minds in the world, that simply cannot be made sense of, that is still living and floating in the ether and will do so for yet more centuries to come. That is extraordinary. And I did that. I do it, to my continual astonishment, all the time.

James Rhodes beat the devil. There’s no other way to express it. Something kept him going, just like something kept Rachmaninov going, and something keeps you and me going.
The Muse? The superconscious?
What name would you put to it?

My life involves endless hours of repetitive and frustrating practising, lonely hotel rooms, dodgy pianos, aggressively bitchy reviews, isolation, confusing airline reward programmes, physiotherapy, stretches of nervous boredom (counting ceiling tiles backstage as the house slowly fills up) punctuated by short moments of extreme pressure (playing 120,000 notes from memory in the right order with the right fingers, the right sound, the right pedalling while chatting about the composers and pieces and knowing there are critics, recording devices, my mum, the ghosts of the past, all there watching), and perhaps most crushingly, the realisation that I will never, ever give the perfect recital. It can only ever, with luck, hard work and a hefty dose of self-forgiveness, be “good enough.”

That’s a pro. That’s a man who’s in the trenches, fighting the war every day. That is a man, an artist, whose inner and outer worlds are suffused with grace and beauty and honor and courage—and who by his music and his personal example pass those qualities on to you and me.

So please, critics, spare me the “God is dead” manifesto. Not even the guys who thought that shit up believed it. They were battling Resistance every day, and they were receiving inspiration from the goddess.
I refuse to believe that we humans are alone and bereft in a meaningless cosmos. If we were, there would be no such phenomenon as Resistance. What possible purpose could Resistance serve in a universe devoid of meaning?
Hell exists, yes. But heaven does too.

James Rhodes is my hero because he found himself between the two and he chose the loftier and the nobler.

I salute you, sir. May we all find the grace and strength to follow your example.
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