What keeps you asleep at the wheel?
Sep 11th, 2008 by spaceagesage
- Do you feel asleep at the wheel?
- Is life more mundane than motivational?
- Do you long for something else, but aren’t sure what?
- Does the energy you give out never seem to return?
- Are you feeling like a cog, automaton, or puppet?
Well, I’ve been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, and wore it out.
A time comes when we realize our lives aren’t what we want. We look back and see we’ve been on a train track going in one direction — usually a track laid by someone else. We are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. For some, like me, this comes during your 4th decade on the planet. Some call it middle-age crisis; I call it wake-up time.
At my current age of 48, I don’t want to buy another t-shirt and wear it out. I want change. Of course I want it right now, but, ha, life is not that way. Near-death experiences often work as a catalyst, but it’s neither wise nor sane to willingly choose that direction.
So what’s a person to do? How do you stop being one way and go another? I first had to realize that I was playing the VICTIM. It’s not a wonderful thing to realize about yourself, but there it was anyway.
I realized I was a victim of at least five things:
1) Voices from the past
Growing up as a tomboy and a bit of a liberal thinker in rural, conservative Oklahoma, I always felt uncomfortable with my sense of self. When you don’t fit in, people let you know in subtle and direct ways that tear at your confidence. Words become wounds. As an adult, I can choose to let these words continue to harm me or not.
2) Negative spin zone
Being the devil’s advocate on any issue always seemed like fun. I learned early to let my Inner Critic be my mouth piece. I saw it as being realistic, not negative. Just recently, I realized how defeatist, demoralizing, and destructive it is to my psyche and dream fulfillment. As a 40-something woman, I’m working on saying Yes to more things and opening up to possibilities first.
3) Blaming others
I hate this in me, and I’m not fond of it in others either. It is the ultimate “I am victim; hear me whine” way of living. When we put the responsibility on others for our problems, we give them control. I find I don’t like giving that control away anymore.
4) Sleep state
Remember the zeal of high school graduation, or college, or anytime you felt thrust into the world as a new person ready to shape yourself and the world to the betterment of both? Ahhh, the good ol’ days. Where did that go? I became too caught up in what success should be instead and found myself being transformed instead of creating transformation. All my initial passion and creativity went into making a living instead of living. Awakening allows me to see the world and myself anew.
5) Vision quenching
Somewhere along the way, I let my dreams be sidetracked, my joys lessened, my passion eaten up by workdays, my hopes dashed, and my gumption replaced by the daily hassles of life. I did some amazing stuff I my life, but even those things were more done than lived. I was a victim of my own dutifulness. Now I want to live and flow from a place of joy, passion, creativity, love, and laughter.
How do you wake up to a powerful, new self?
Like most things, it takes commitment, a moment of resolve that says the old stuff just isn’t going to rule any longer. It takes saying, “I want to be fully in charge of my life, no longer led by the nose with poor me thoughts.” In my About Blog page, at the bottom, you will see a series of books you might like to help you get started. A recent read and activity for becoming more alive, integrated, and whole is talked about here.
Everyone takes a different path. The first step is often the biggest. Move in a better, more fulfilling direction with as much self-nurturance as possible, because, as those on this path can tell you, it can get a little crazy now and again, but as Neo learned in the movie The Matrix, it sure beats being the human battery. More on this in an upcoming post.
How asleep or awake do you think you are? What changes that for you?
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I think it does having something to do with being in the 4th decade of your life. As a younger woman, I always admired my girlfriends who were in their 40s who just stopped ‘buying in’ to a lot of crap. They became confident, beautiful, and spoke their minds. Then something happened to me when I crossed that 40 mark. I realized I had led half my life, for the most part, pleasing others and attempting to be the peace keeper. Heck! I potentially only have another 40 years to go, and I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE IT NO MORE! Of course, that attitude needs to be accompanied with grace and wisdom. Without that you fit the expression ‘Releasing your inner bitch’. I much prefer to believe that I have ‘Released my innner goddess’.
Hi, Urban Panther —
I love the way you expressed all that. And yes, one must choose what gets “released.” I don’t know if it’s a sense of mortality as you look ahead or just so much accumulated experience that brings this introspection about, but I sure don’t want to waste it!
Well, not enough sleep from chasing 2 high energy boys around can make me want to be asleep at the wheel.
On a different note, I must be one of those exeptions. That I discovered before my 30’s I was headed in a direction I didn’t want. Oh, yes, I want it now too. But setting up goals for myself and sticking to them is a good way for me to see it happening. Take, for example, my new business. I have laid out a 5 year plan. (it will go further out later, I’m sure) In that plan I have started out simple, so that the goals are reachable. I hope that I will be able to acheive goals ahead of time, but if for some reason I can’t, I will at least reach them within the original time frame I set out. My enthusiasm for it has had ups and downs already, but it’s still there.
For me, the small steps of achieving little goals along the way to a big one seems to be the best.
And I think it’s ok to sometimes ‘ release the inner bitch’ cause sometimes she has some pretty good things to say.. 🙂
Hi, doesitcomewithgravy —
Anger does have its place — you will see that in the Artist’s Way at Work when you read it. Good stuff there. Way to go on the biz plan! Wow.