Societal Myths Wreck Lives
The #1 Action Step we all fall short on and how we can do better
There is nothing wrong with a myth as long as we can define the difference between the illusion and reality.
So here’s the thing:
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
There are giant insane myths in our society that literally wreck lives. The Hollywood or Harlequin Romance as an example of love relationships. Promote false ideas of happily ever after with no work or compromise involved.
The idea that if you do what you love it will all go smoothly and success will follow.
I call bullshit on both. Life is perfectly imperfect. Someone once said to me “if you aren’t making mistakes you aren’t trying” his point was not to make more mistakes so much as mistakes are part of the learning process.
Try defining it like this:
it is only a mistake if you keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results that leads to feeling stuck and insane.
When you begin writing being coached in college 101 class or otherwise, one of the most often recommended things is write what you know. The next bit of advice find your niche. What if your experience is broad and deep? How do you build your authority then? Hard work and consistent writing that is what gets your name out there. A tweak here and tweak there, paying attention to response or lack thereof.
Someone once stated to understand if you have found any success remember “you are nobody until you are criticized”.
The point we learn from our failures they are the bedrock that teaches us that which we stand for and also what works and what doesn’t.
As for this mythical idea of romance. Just like the rest of life you are going to mess up in fact if you are really living you are going to fall flat on your face a few times before you get it right.
So many people buy into this idea of the perfect romance (intimate relationship) or this other mythical idea that if you do what you love you can’t help but succeed. Neither is strictly true. You can find great love and romance but you might need to grow, learn, build some skills. You can also do what you love and succeed but it takes work, not sitting back hoping. Both the romance and the success in life take action and follow-through: something we all seem a little shy of. People do not succeed because they are talented, beautiful, or perfect they succeed because they work at it and they Do. Not. Give. Up!
In my life I have succeeded beyond all original recognition and I have also failed so hard that it’s a sheer miracle I got back up to try again.
The truth is there are so many opinions and so much information out there you can pretty much find support for any opinion no matter how odd, reasonable, or extreme.
It is up to you to find your center, find your inner peace and make good choices for you.
The light at the end of the tunnel is if you take action to find your center, to feel peace, those same things will be far more likely to arrive by quantum law as well as purposeful activation of the (RAS) reticular activating system in our brains.
The RAS once purposely activated helps us notice those things we want in our lives and ways of achieving them. This works by keeping the end result in mind and being resourceful to reach our goals. Nothing supersedes hard work, but many things help it along.
There are so many avenues, people, and information to help you succeed in your endeavors. The key is you must be willing to work for it, step out of your comfort zone and try something different. You must be willing to change and grow even when you are hurting, terrified, exhausted, disheartened, and doubtful. Your feet must do the walking before the reward appears.
Example being a good mother coming from my background is a process of painful hard ass work, a scary, vulnerable, beautiful, and absolutely exhausting effort.
Why? I grew up with very little physical, emotional, mental support.
Unless we learn differently, we parent the way we are raised. I grew up in a harsh familial social environment, knowing how hard I have needed to work on myself to become a healthy, mostly happy, successful human being; I have wanted something very different for my children.
I have needed to humble myself, research and learn a tremendous amount, learn better self-regulation tools, ask for help, I have been sleep deprived since my children were born.
It is getting better but here’s the thing when your twins are crying in the middle of the night if you want to be a good mother you must take care of them. Not go to sleep, put on noise blocking headphones, feed them Benadryl, turn up Netflix, etc.
When your children mess a diaper, you must change them right away no matter that you just got out of shower and are desperate for food and clothing.
When your toddlers erupt one, two, and sometimes three at a time screaming at you for not getting what they want, when they want it, which is right now, you cannot scream back no matter what, no matter that you only got two hours sleep and its 5:00 pm and you have only had time to eat once.
When your special needs child cries and fusses for two hours upon awaking non-stop because sensory processing makes the noise and light overwhelming and your year younger twins giggles make him cry harder, your bladder wants to burst, you haven’t had time to even get a drink of water you cannot under any circumstance lose it.
Here is why. You have done the research you know their brains will not process the emotion you show logically. They will internalize everything you do, express it in their thoughts and feelings. They will only know it is the way to behave and be in the world no matter how healthy or unhealthy you the parent are.
You are the example 24/7.
Have I failed and broke down crying, sometimes raised my voice and behaved in ways I am ashamed of: you bet I have.
Every. Single. Time. It taught me where I needed to improve, and I worked on it. Does this excuse my actions, no. Does it make the growth more comfortable, or less painful no. Does it painfully highlight every single thing I did not receive as a child, yes.
Does it slowly and inevitable make me a better parent, yes!
And that last one is worth every ruined shirt, lost meal, sleep deprived day, crying melt down, painful recognition of my own background.
The point I did not become a decent parent by wishing or hoping it into being, I did not get there by asking every else’s opinion, it was by doing and working my ass off to learn, understand and do better.
I have heard many times now “oh your ok the average family only does…etc.”
Here is the thing, I don’t. Care. What. The average family does or does not do. I don’t want average! I want the very best I can create for my beloved children and that means be willing to work, be uncomfortable, grow and learn.
It means I get my heart broke repeatedly with successes and failures.
It means I get to really be loved and be loving with my children in an authentic way that does not deny the struggle or the beauty but recognizes both.
We cannot have the light without the shadow both make up the whole picture. So that number one action step is work and follow-through the work you start even when it feels impossible. Here's why: because feelings come and go but the results will stay if you follow-through on the work.
So whether the dream is your career, motherhood or finding your one and only, the way to get there is hard work and a willingness to keep following through on that work once started.
