Launch into Your Ideal Life

I learned this lesson first and foremost with myself (the way we all learn our big lessons I suppose).

The only way ANYTHING in my life has ever changed is when I was finally able to step outside of myself a bit, and regard my thoughts or actions with a dispassionate eye, and see how those thoughts and actions were contributing to these terrible outcomes, and finally say to myself: "Enough of this bullshit, Gilbert."

Enough of what, exactly?

Well, take your pick.

Enough of the lies you've been telling to yourself, Liz.

Enough of the lies you've been telling to others.

Enough of saying, "I've got this under control!" when all evidence points to the fact that you totally do not have it under control.

Enough of the blame.

Enough of the shame.

Enough of being guided by fear instead of by faith.

Enough of waiting for somebody other than yourself to transform.

Enough of waiting for someone to speak your truth for you.

Enough of waiting to be saved.

Enough of not forgiving.

Enough of saying, "I'm too weak to do this important thing!"

Enough of the patterns of self-abuse, self-destruction, and self-ridicule.

Enough of saying, "But it's not FAIR!"

At some point or another in my life, I've had to call bullshit on myself for all of the above. I get sick of my own bullshit when I become bored, saddened, and angered with the same garbage outcomes happening to me all the time. It sucks, and I get pissed off, and my life becomes unhappy. But at some point, I finally get it. Instead of crying out, "Why does this keep HAPPENING to me?!" I finally say, "Enough, Gilbert. Time to look at what you are doing to create these garbage outcomes in your life. And time to stop doing it."

Then comes the digging, the owning, the honesty, the work.

I can still remember some of the places I was standing, and what I was wearing, and what the sky looked like at these moments of self-revelation.

I can only assume that — going forward — I will have to call bullshit on myself again and again, too...but only if I want to keep growing!

Because I've seen this happen in other people's lives, too — the moment when they finally wake up to their own bullshit. What follows next is always amazing. It's not self-hatred or shame (that was all part of the original bullshit) but LIBERATION. I'm talking about that electrifying moment when someone says, "Enough. I see it all clearly now, and I'm done with that chapter in my life." It's like they step out of an old self and into a new one. They enter into a new level of self-accountability, self-respect, and self-awareness.

It just makes you want to burst into applause.

Because that's where it all begins.

Because what happens next is merely this: a human being ignites into life.

ONWARD,

Elizabeth Gilbert