Showing Up

You cannot fail if you just show up.

Remember what Woody Allen said:

80% of success is just showing up.

Sure, you can not get the result you wanted but you showed up, you went for the ‘thing’, you succeeded.

Life isn’t so serious. We don’t have to have it all figured out. What’s important is being able to know where you’re going and to honor that as best you can.

So how do you do that?

It’s a process of getting closer and closer to the truth that is inside you. You do that by getting out of your head and connecting to your body.

Can you feel that you are alive? Can you feel into the center of your body, and can you let go of the mind for a moment and just feel the presence of this moment?

Being in the body is letting go of your pre-conceived notions about yourself, about the world. It’s about letting go of your “story” and stepping into what’s true for you.

You already know who you are. You already know what you want, what you desire. It’s just that our minds get in the way (and it’s incredibly easy to get caught up in mind)!

What our body and instincts tell us may not always fit with our “story” and our personal stories are likely very old; we’ve likely been telling ourselves the same story for many, many years.

When we decide we’re going to make a shift – from mind into body, from thinking to more being – that is a monumental decision indeed! But might require practice.

That’s ok. Even the tiniest effort to take a moment to stop and pay attention is a gift you give to yourself, a way of honoring ourselves and honoring life itself.

We’re taught, consciously or unconsciously, to be in our heads, to navigate the world with our sensors out, to protect ourselves against the world, and so we hide. We don’t lead with our hearts.

We’re afraid to show up, maybe because we’re afraid of the world and what might happen if we did actually show up in it. Or maybe we’re afraid of ourselves, afraid of our own greatness.

When we are too comfortable with our stories, it can sometimes be easier to remain small than it is to create a new, better story for ourselves because if we do succeed than we really have to start owning it.

Sometimes it’s easier to remain in the shadows.

There’s a line in Shakespeare’s Julius Ceasar that goes something like this:

A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.

When we do not show up in our truth –  when we are unwilling to or unable to – we die a little inside. We feel it because we know we are not living up to our greatness, we are not showing up.

We are all going to die but the courageous live every day and leave nothing to chance. They go after what they want and honor their desires. And even if they fail, they can rest in knowing that they at least showed up.

Take chances. Follow your gut. When you listen to what your body is telling you and you honor that each moment, you cannot fail because you are already succeeding!

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