Flipping through all the “popular” personal development sites and blogs I’ve noticed that they have one thing that I haven’t got, and that’s 3 steps to everything. Simple solutions for complexed challenges which are very intriguing. A kind of Ativan theology.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if there were just 3 steps to happiness, a better relationship and wealth, and if they worked we’d all be in a better place right now. right? We wouldn’t need to keep seeing life coaches, signing up for webinars, workshops and other programs promising fix all solutions to everything from PTSD, to relationships and money problems.
I have to admit I once was intrigued by them as well and would pass them along to friends and family like they were candy. “Here mom read this”, and perhaps some we’re catalysts to something deeper, but after 8 years of editing an online magazine and producing radio in this genre that reached millions, I had enough.
Every single person started to sound exactly the same and I eventually got to the place where I stopped reading and listening. Everyone sounded like the teacher from Charlie Brown “wah wah”. And then as the genre started to become popular, to “trend”, it all got worse. Now everyone and their brother is a life coach, healer, intuitive councilor, new age minister or doctor, or has some unaccredited program (I was registered in one that went under) to certify you to become one.
People jumping from corporate careers in the music industry, public relations and marketing are becoming parrots of the great philosophers of our time, using their “inside” knowledge partnered with their glamourized personas, and Instagram, to “rise to fame”, managing to fool followers, some of the world’s most influential people, and themselves, into believing their contrived system of programs to give you the “easy fix” and keep you coming back.
All the while in the background their lives are stressed out, exhausted and so far from what they’re teaching. They’ve become like puppets being picked up and put down as their publisher’s desire. From hotel room to hotel room, conference to conference, to webinars from their laptops. Doing a great job at “keeping up appearances”, however falling apart behind the scenes (not that there’s anything wrong with falling apart as it all comes together in the end).
But it’s all great book material isn’t it (some of them have written about it). For their next book, the one that their publisher’s been on their heels to produce just weeks after they released their previous. Because you’ve got to produce while you’re popular right? You’ve got to keep your numbers up, or well, you know what happens. You’re not going to make the best seller list, you’re not going to make the top 100, no one is going to follow you and you’ll end up poor (like me) a starving artist. I’d rather starve to death than sell myself. And I feel sorry for them.
I’ve been in this industry so long I’ve watched many of them fall. I’ve been their shoulder to cry on, and a motivating force for authenticity in their lives. They all praise my wisdom, call me a genius, and query as to why I am not more “popular”. Everyone just wants to be seen and heard and is doing whatever they can to do it. I tired of that game so long ago, one day when a little voice whispered “remember The Hare and the Tortoise”, and I remembered “it’s not about the destination it’s about the journey”.
It’s time for yet another shift and it’s going to take a whole lot of courage from people like you and I to make it happen. It may cost you (us) best seller status, industry friends or followers but it’s worth it because you will gain yourself.
Are you with me?
If not that’s ok too, if you’re reading this via my email list there in an unsubscribe option at the bottom, but don’t worry you can come back anytime if you’re ready. I’ll still be here blogging what’s real for me and it may not be simple, and it may not be all sunshine and rainbows but I can assure you it will be real (vivid).
Shift happens, challenges happen, tragedies happen and there is no simple or 3 step process that will fix it because there is nothing to fix. Life is all sorts of experiences and feelings and the best thing for us to do is to be present to them, I know that word again, it seems oversimplified and sometimes dismissive but it’s true.
Be present, “because the only way to it is through it”. You have to do the work. There is no “easy way out”, you’ve got to go within, you’ve got to feel it, to reveal it, to heal it, and it’s tough I know. I’ve been there, I’ve been through so much suffering I once tried to take my own life, because it felt like too much (I resisted the pain cause I thought that’s what strength was), and I’ve had several times in my life after that when I have thought of it again, and it was so easy to reach for the 3 steps (the Ativan) so that it didn’t hurt anymore.
But (My grade 9 English teacher is screaming in my head, “you used but” and I’m saying I’m in control now…but, but, but) it wasn’t until I really started doing the deep inner work, which I resisted over and over again because it just seemed so hard, that I broke down and broke through. I gained an understanding of myself, my suffering and a perception of others that has brought me more peace and understanding than ever before. Even amongst chaos. Not that I don’t feel it, but it’s like working out regularly, your bounce back is on point.
I stopped looking outside and started getting silent and looking within. To uncover the root of my suffering and to begin to do the work. The work I had been avoiding for years, the work that I would push aside in favor of a bag of chips and Heluva Good! Dip, a motivational talk, a 3 step process, or a session of a few affirmations in the mirror. But they we’re all just bypasses and left me bloated with suffering that eventually manifested physically.
“Our bodies are relentless to get our attention all we need to do is listen.”
And even when you think you’ve found it all, you’ve moved through it all, there is more there to look at and that’s ok because this is life. A cloud and a rainbow, an ebb and flow.
Just stay with it. This too shall pass.
And (I just love to start sentences with and, such a rebel…lol) in a nutshell I just want to insure you that. This isn’t the blog if you’re looking for 3 steps and I am not your go to person for fixing, YOU ARE, however what I hope is that through my authenticity you will somehow discover yours, and that perhaps it’s a safe place for us to get real with each other.
I’ll make some mistakes (mostly grammatical cause I can’t afford an editor), so will you, but we will stay with each other in our messiness. Because (I did it again, come get me grammar police) this is life and we’ve got this!
Written by Shayne Traviss
Sometime’s growth involves digging up the dirt and planting anew… After over 20 years of marketing, promoting and producing others Shayne Traviss decided to open a new chapter in his life. If you long to go higher, live a life ‘all in’ join him as he dives in deep sharing his life experiences, travels and inspirations for living a VividLife.
