I don’t know about you (cough, cough), but to be perfectly honest, if I sat around waiting for the day I actually want to eat kale, exercise, jump my husband, or even write (which is my passion) — I’d be fat, my husband would be bitter, and I never would have created and sold my first TV show. Whaa?
Truly, I’d just be a hostile housewife.
OK, a hostile-r one.
After my husband and I have sex, I snicker that (once again!) my first response to his nudge was “no thanks,” followed secondly by a bevy of weak excuses and guilt that actually lasts way longer than the fun sex itself. Meaning it took away just 15 minutes tops from my Netflix time.
And, even though I know this to be true, each and every time he asks for it, my memory magically fails me.
Woops.
Am I making the case that I’m an idiot?
Sorta.
Let’s just call this particular brand of purposeful idiocy, human. We humans are not the nicest of species, to ourselves or to others. In fact, we’re pretty sneaky. We spend more time pretending we are nice than actually just being nice. More time thinking mean and negative thoughts than speaking them. Judging others. Hell, even judging ourselves for judging others. Bottom line, we’re way more interested in maintaining our comfort level than fighting for our own happiness.
Sneakily, we do a lot of feeling guilty, rather than doing what it takes to actually fulfill our dreams. As long as we feel really, really badly that we didn’t go to the gym, jump our mates, make those phone calls we’re afraid of, or write something (a script, story, business plan, uh, even an email), we’re a decent human. Because we meant well and felt guilty.
Tell the human what prize she wins: uh, action-free right-ness with a side of guilt!
Woo hoo.
But, what if we tightened the leash on our sneak, on our bitch, on our righteous, on our lazy, on our victim? What if we got suspicious of the heads we call home? What if we knew that our heads were not actually the real us? That our head’s main intent was to keep us “safe,” curled up in bed, left alone, right about everything, forgetting to dream, skipping the gym, not liking our mate (psst, if you actually liked him/her, you’d have to shtup ‘em, so wiser to find fault in them and, then, in a twisted way, it’s kinda THEIR fault you don’t have sex anymore, right?). If our head’s intent was to keep us safe, and sadness and/or some extra pounds happened to come with it, oh well, so be it. And, just throwing this out there — doesn’t yummier food come with being sad? Ever wonder how long your sadness would actually last, if it only came with a side of celery?
Ouch.
Our heads certainly hate to be wrong about anything. Who wants to eat celery and be twenty years wrong about ourselves, about our parents, about our siblings, about our bosses, about our mates, about everything that isn’t going as well as us sneaky humans say we want? I mean, if we were THAT wrong, wouldn’t we have to get to work on us?
Uh oh.
What if true happiness and self-esteem comes from knowing you can count on you? That your promises to yourself matter—from eating f-cking kale, to having consistent (and great) sex with your mate, to exercising, to writing, to speaking up and not talking smack to yourself.
It does.
SO maybe it’s time to get your head out of the game?
Whew.
Love,
HG
P.S. For more coaching tips or to work on any area of your life that possibly needs a defibrillator, try our upcoming Design Your Life® Weekend held in partnership with Kripalu this September. You will learn how to dream, deal, and design a life you are wildly proud of.