# 46 - What Would You Dare to Love About Yourself?

Episode 46

[00:00:00] : Hello, all you good folk. It's Rick Lewis with the follow through Formula Podcast. This is Episode 46. I got a letter from a good friend today, and the letter was a very generous and touching expression of this man who I've known for decades, just sharing where he's at in his life journey and describing his own shifting sense of purpose. He's in his mid seventies and has been running Ah, very successful large business for many, many years and is just moving toward closing that business down and moving into retirement. But my friend is also very, very dedicated to not on Lee his own growth, but to the recognition. And I could even say worship of a higher force and higher principle that he sees at work and at play in all of life. And I'm watching this beautiful process of my friend surrendering into that mawr and Mawr as he prepares for retirement. And he was even using this language in his letter, releasing some of that old identification with being a business person, a producer, a accomplish ER. But in his letter, he was also describing some very early life experiences that were quite traumatic for him, and I don't need to share the details of them, but understandably so that the trauma from these events would feel so enduring. And in his mid seventies, he describes still to this day, waking up in the middle of the night with night terrors from these incidents, and I don't share that with you to be shocking or overly dramatic. It's not a gratuitous sharing to try and get your attention. All I wanted to communicate is this knowledge of how difficulty early life experiences can stay with us for so long and then inform how we engage with our lives as we become adults, especially the mawr. Those early experiences are out of our attention. The more unconscious they are, the MAWR opportunity there is for them to influence the direction of our current lives. So, while becoming aware of those experiences, being able to recall them, put our attention on them and accommodate and accommodate the reality of their occurrence. Actually, the less we are then ruled by them. So I wanted to tell you about that letter because the whole letter led me to the memory oven. Early life experience, nothing like the kind of experience is my friend was describing to me and yet having a similar impact on my life future in terms of its effect on my life expression. So I'll tell you the story. I was in third grade and the school day finished, and I was waiting for my mother to come pick me up from school and after the bell rang and Children started to scatter and walk home or bike home or get picked up by their parents. Slowly, I was left standing in this concrete alcove, this concrete stairway looking out onto the road and waiting for my mother to come, and she was running a bit late. So, as it turned out, I found myself all alone on the school campus. Standing in this stairwell, and with no one around, I started to sing. Now imagine this third grader standing in an empty concrete stairwell and slowly start into a version of The Star Spangled Banner. I began sort of softly at first, and then, as the sound of my voice was echoing off the concrete walls, magnifying its volume and reverberating with what to me felt a tremendous richness and resonance, and I started singing with a fuller and greater voice, filling my lungs up with air and eventually belting out this version off The Star Spangled Banner. I mean, imagine this third grader lost in the Sound and the glory and the majesty of this beautiful, proud song coming out of his own lungs and owning his own proud nous through the sound of his own voice. And as the song went on and I was exploring the depth and the nuances and the sheer volume off the air in my body, being directed through my vocal cords and creating what to me felt like such a glorious sound, it was such a celebration of my own presence. And right in the middle of that two Children, two classmates burst out from around the corner laughing and pointing and began to mock and mimic what I thought I was doing in private, making it clear that they thought what I was doing was the most ridiculous thing they had ever heard. And of course, I immediately stopped and again this experience that we've all had the rush of shame, of withdrawal of our spirit, shrinking toe, a tiny point of inner collapse and inner doubt of our own goodness. So once they had had their fill of making fun of me away, they went giggling to themselves, leaving me there. Shame faced and silent in the stairwell. My mother eventually arrived and I got in the car, and I'm sure I was silent, and she probably asked if I was okay or how was my day. And I think I know I didn't tell her. I covered up that sense of shame and inner confusion about what I was experiencing and how that was received. Now we have a thing as adults that we like to do, which is move on from the past and in our minds. That sounds really good, and in many ways it's a form of thinking that has utility to just move on and let things go, forget about the past and move forward. The only problem with this is that for some things the body itself does not forget. And as we are attempting to move on, the body is crystallized around these memories which are unconsciously informing us off what we must not ever do again. And part of the reason this story seemed so poignant to me as I was thinking about it, is here I am now, 50 some years later, making an offer with my voice nothing but my voice, using the presence of feeling in my body and heir to express something that feels true and valuable in rich and alive, just using my voice. And after all this time, I never really connected to my love off expression through voice and speaking. To generate these podcasts and editing them each day has been an immerse mint in hearing the sound of my own voice and refining my use of it. And just through this project, what I can say now is that I love the sound of my own voice, and I love sharing my inner life through my voice. And I would like you to reflect. Or I would invite you to reflect and consider. Is there anything that you love to produce or create that you have abandoned somewhere along the way because you were criticized or judged or not received in the manner you hoped you would be received whether you love perhaps also to sing or dance or create art? Maybe you paint. Maybe you make furniture. Maybe you fix things. Maybe your whole being comes to life when you repair mechanical objects. Perhaps you have away with animals, and you love nature and animal life. Or you are like a magic ingredient to a garden that makes a garden flourish. Because you just know what to do with plants. Perhaps your love is being with Children or writing. Maybe you know how to coach a sport or you're a healer of the human body of the human spirit. So I'm just suggesting that you have a look and ask yourself, Is there something I've left behind? Is there an essential love talent? Skill that was made known to me early in my life or at any point in your life, in some event or Siris of events or circumstances caused you to lay it down and walk away from that love. And if you have something like that in your life, what would it take for you to pick it up again for you to recover and reclaim your birth right connection to that activity or expression? I truly believe that finding joy in life is often as simple as realigning too often, very ordinary activities. And if you can think of something, make a little space in your life somewhere to explore that again. And this project, this podcast, the follow through formula, is in great measure about that simple act of reclaiming such simple joys. Thank you once again for tuning in. This has been Episode 46 of the follow through Formula Podcast, and I'll be back tomorrow.