In today's episode, we are going to be talking about the risk of being you. More to come on that in a moment. First, let's settle in with the sound of the bells. The risk of being you. This is the title of Chapter Two of my book, Stop Missing Your Life.

Part One of the book is titled Why Presence Isn't Easy. Within that part, there are two chapters. Chapter One, Being Human Is Hard. Chapter Two, The Risk of Being You. Again, these aren't the most positive uplifting sounding chapters, but I wanted to start out from the beginning, acknowledging all the reasons why experiencing the fullness of our lives isn't easy.

Right? It's not so simple as reading a nice article on mindfulness in Time Magazine, or simply making the intention to be present. Being able to experience deep presence and access the, the fullness of our lives, the multitudes within ourselves, the richness that comes with being alive, that takes practice. And it sometimes means experiencing discomfort on the way to where you want to go. And that's why there is a risk to being you, because we don't always know what we're going to have to experience on the journey of becoming more of ourselves and also getting a lot of the things that we want that are most meaningful to us. The story I share at the beginning of Chapter Two is about a woman who came on my five day retreat in upstate New York.

And she wanted more than anything to have more connection in her life, but she also experienced a tremendous amount of trauma in her life. And in her words, she described all of those traumas as creating concrete slabs around her heart. So here she was wanting deep connection with other people, but also feeling an inability to connect. There was a lot of fear around that connection because it was associated with earlier in her life, periods where she wanted that connection and was supposed to get it from some of the people that should have offered it the most, specifically family, but didn't. And so we learn over time how to protect ourselves so we don't get hurt again.

And we might want love and connection more than anything, but the last time we reached out for that or tried to get it, it came with rejection, pain, hurt. So to defend ourselves, what do we do? Maybe put concrete slabs around our heart and it's a great defense mechanism. On the one hand, it keeps us safe, but as most of us have experienced, it's not so easy. We also no longer have access to the things that we often are most looking for. In this case, that connection with other people, which requires a vulnerability, an opening up, a willingness to be seen.

And although I can't go into the full story of how this woman worked through that on the retreat, mainly because as most of you know, I have some legal restrictions where I can't talk about too much of the book. What I can say is that that story is about what was required for her to soften those concrete slabs around her heart and some of the initial discomfort that she had to go through in order for that softening to happen. So, many of us have a sense of who we want to become, or at least a general idea of the person we're trying to grow into. The things that we imagine in our life, the quality of our relationships and the quality of our relationship to ourself, having full access to the range of emotions that we can experience, an openness and honesty with ourselves and even embodying a, what we might consider a quality of authenticity. But a lot of that is hard because we've had a lifetime of experiences that have taught us what is safe to experience and what is not safe.

And the quickest way to explore where this conditioning impacts you and how it has developed over time is to just very clearly think about what are the things you want, what are the things you wish you could experience, have, internally and in the external world. And then when you think about moving in that direction, what sort of pain do you experience? What comes up that feels like some sort of wall to getting there? Whether it's self doubt, literal tension in the body, a sense of fear. Whatever that discomfort is, is the risk of being you that is required to be felt to some extent in order to move to the other side. Now, of course, the book goes much deeper into this. And in fact, the whole book is about developing the inner resources to be able to hold the fullness of who you are.

But for now, what you can explore is just where some of those walls might be. Where does it feel like a risk to being you? And bring some awareness to that so that it's not trapped in your subconscious. That's the first step here. So, thanks for staying with me on this. I know sometimes these topics can be uncomfortable.

So if you feel some activation in your body and your mind just know that that's normal, it's a very natural part of the process of growth. And we get activated for different reasons, but it most often means that some energy is stirring and that's usually a good thing, or at least it excites me. So thanks for your presence. Take care.