Life can feel like a series of high wire trapeze swings. Imagine yourself either hanging on to a trapeze bar swinging along or, for a few moments at a time hurtling through space in between the trapeze bars.
Most of the time we are tightly hanging on to our trapeze-bar-of-the-moment. These are the behaviours that you call ‘me’. This is your identity. It carries you along at a certain steady rate of swing and you have the feeling that you’re in control of your life. You know most of the right questions and even some of the right answers.
But, every now and again as you’re merrily (or not so merrily) swinging along, you look out ahead into the distance, and what do you see? You see another trapeze bar swinging towards you. Another opportunity – may be a shift in your relationship, a change in your business structure or a new direction in your health regime.
This new trapeze bar is empty and you know that this bar is for you.
It is your next step, of growth, of aliveness coming to get you. In your heart of hearts you know that for you to grow, you must release your grip on this present and well-known bar to move on to the new one. It will involve risking your present position, letting go of your identity for a moment and taking a leap of faith.
Each time it happens you hope that you won’t have to grab the new one. Oh, why can’t I just stay the same you may say. But you also know that you are either growing or you are dying and the innate driver within tells you that growth is what you are here for.
No matter how many times you do it, each time, you are filled with apprehension. And that’s OK. That fear of the unknown is all encompassing. Each time you are afraid that you will miss, that you will be consumed by the chasm that exists between the bars. But you do it anyway because somehow, to keep holding on to that old bar is no longer on the list of alternatives.
And so for what seems like an eternity you soar across the dark void of “the past gone, the future is not yet here.” It’s called transformation. You have come to believe that it is the only place where real change occurs. I mean real change, not the pseudo-change that only lasts until the next time your old buttons get pushed.
Your identity is created by your Quadrant preferences and firing off your ‘not me’ behaviours is a an easy way to confront the abyss of the unfamiliar. Every time you do this you create new pathways in your brain and wire yourself for new behaviours in the future.
Today, notice the ‘trapeze bar’ swinging towards you with your name on it and make a resolve to let go of your current limiting behaviour and grasp this new identity with both hands.
