Are you limiting what you want to do because of your fears? Are your beliefs about what you deserve stopping you from realizing your dreams?

“If you wanted to drown you could, but you don’t because finally after all this struggle and all these years you simply don’t want to any more, you’ve simply had enough of drowning and you want to live and you want to love”

 

Many people are hindered by their beliefs and inner voices, so i felt this article by Maria Popov and David Whyte’s poem are worth sharing.

My personal experience is that since i first entered adulthood, after some trips and falls, i’ve lived the life of my dreams. Despite ‘skinned knees and elbows’, and ego among other hazards, i’ve never let others’ (including my parents’) advice stop me from doing what i needed to do.

The possibility that i might fail has never stopped me from trying, and most times succeeding, even though most successes weren’t exactly (or sometimes anything) like what i had imagined. They were always more, and added value to my life in wonderful and satisfying ways.   

Not that i haven’t failed at things i’ve tried to do, but every failure opened another door, taking me to a previously unseen pathway where my dreams waited for me. 

I wrote on my website about 25 years ago “Two of my dreams were also realized during this period thanks to the colleagues and mentors who shared their visions with me.” Throughout my life i have had the support and assistance of such colleagues, friends, and mentors; my trust was never betrayed. 

Never be afraid to ask for help if you feel you’re facing a  challenge which scares you. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of strength, maturity, and  emotional intelligence. 

The Truelove: Poet and Philosopher David Whyte on “Reaching Beyond Our Limiting Beliefs About What We Deserve,” by Maria Popov

Few things limit us more profoundly than our own beliefs about what we deserve, and few things liberate us more powerfully than daring to broaden our locus of possibility and self-permission for happiness. The stories we tell ourselves about what we are worthy or unworthy of — from the small luxuries of naps and watermelon to the grandest luxury of a passionate creative calling or a large and possible love — are the stories that shape our lives.

Bruce Lee knew this when he admonished that “you will never get any more out of life than you expect,” James Baldwin knew it when he admonished that “you’ve got to tell the world how to treat you [because] if the world tells you how you are going to be treated, you are in trouble.”

The more vulnerable-making the endeavor, the more reflexive the limitation and the more redemptive the liberation.

That difficult, delicate, triumphal pivot from self-limitation to self-liberation in the most vulnerable-making of human undertakings — love — is what poet and philosopher David Whyte, who thinks deeply about these questions of courage and love, maps out in his stunning poem “The Truelove,” found in his book The Sea in You: Twenty Poems of Requited and Unrequited Love (public library) and read here, by David’s kind assent to my invitation, in his sonorous Irish-tinted English voice, in his singular style of echoing lines to let them reverberate more richly:

And for those who prefer to read their poetry, ……

THE TRUELOVE
by David Whyte

There is a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours,
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand
held out to you this way.

I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world.

Years ago in the Hebrides,
I remember an old man
who walked every morning
on the grey stones
to the shore of baying seals,
who would press his hat
to his chest in the blustering
salt wind and say his prayer
to the turbulent Jesus
hidden in the water,

and I think of the story
of the storm and everyone
waking and seeing
the distant
yet familiar figure
far across the water
calling to them

and how we are all
preparing for that
abrupt waking,
and that calling,
and that moment
we have to say yes,
except it will
not come so grandly
so Biblically
but more subtly
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love

so that when
we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find
everything holds
us, and everything confirms
our courage, and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all this struggle
and all these years
you simply don’t want to
any more
you’ve simply had enough
of drowning
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory
and any darkness
however fluid and however
dangerous to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours.

If you liked David Whyte’s creation, here are some more. https://davidwhyte.com/collections/books-cards-and-audio/products/the-sea-in-you-twenty-poems-of-requited-and-unrequited-love

Thank you for reading my blog post. I hope you enjoyed the experience and the content. Cheers, joseph