ride along with you and exemplify the power of the consciousness-raising steps and techniques in each chapter.
Amina
On the outside, people see Amina as someone full of love and inspiration. She is everyone’s go-to girl and mentor. She’s always making time to care for and support her friends and family. Amina is also an avid social media scroller, constantly posting religious scriptures into her IG stories to motivate her growing number of followers. No one would think she has a deep internal struggle with believing the motivational mantras that she shares with others. Yet, Amina finds herself shying away from the bold dreams and revelations she’s received about her calling. Some of her inaction comes from online distractions and her habit of secretly competing with those on her Facebook timeline. Another part of her stagnation stems from the experience of being judged when she shared her hopes and dreams with family. Their judgement planted the seeds of doubt that turned into a forest full of trees by the time Amina turned 30. Perhaps one of the most detrimental seeds that grew was a practice of self-deception; she was secretly living one way, (in a lesser version of herself) and telling herself and others something different (putting on the mentor role for the outside world). Amina didn’t want her family to think she was “doing too much” or “trying to live a big life,” so she let the seeds grow. Her weight also grew along with the seeds from the use of food to suppress the nudges from her inner divinity, whispering the call to live as the highest version of herself. The more she ignored the whispers to live out those bold dreams, the more her weight became a see-saw of losing and gaining pounds.
Over time, Amina’s belief in herself became so low, that her only comfort came from food and being a mentor to others. Mentorship allowed her to deflect the focus from herself and show up as the self-sacrificing servant to others. Food was the one and only thing that made her feel full; it didn’t judge her, and she always felt good when she was around it. But Amina can’t even think about living any of her dreams to their full potential because the number on the scale has diminished her inner light. Because she got a high from mentoring people, Amina was able to convince herself that she could bypass digging deeper to understand how she ended up living as a lower version of herself. If she focused on others, she wouldn't have to explore the deeper reasons for her weight fluctuations, fears of judgment, and feelings about living from a place of doubt. Since Amina didn’t want anyone to see her sweat, she intensified her inspiration of others so people wouldn’t figure out her personal struggles. Now approaching 35, she’s tired of lacking internal peace, battling with her weight, and secretly feeling like an imposter. She’s ready to get unstuck. Amina woke up one day and decided, it’s time to let the real me out. This was her inner dialogue:
“I want to let out the part of me that’s dying to adopt a lifelong healthy lifestyle so I can live out my dreams as the highest version of self, the part of me that has a lot to offer the world but can’t because of my health concerns, the part of me that wants to prove to everyone that looks down on me because I’m overweight, that I can do it. I need to prove to myself that I can tackle this weight, that I can be who I want to be and live from the same light that I give to others. I am tired of the ups and downs. I want the stability of living as an authentic version of myself that is committed to a healthy lifestyle.”
Grace
Grace is the friend and colleague you call when you need to think of something new. She is a closet creative who would never use that word to describe herself, despite the natural talent propelling her career. With each move she made across the country, she collected more and more accolades and bolstered her reputation as a powerful woman for innovation. While Grace loved moving around to launch new initiatives, she often struggled with accepting her gifts, a struggle that dates back to her childhood when kids called her the “teacher’s pet” because she won many of the class contests. As she aged in her career, similar echoes came from her colleagues who often loved her to her face, but felt threatened by her talent. For every achievement, she dealt with the growing distance between her and her friends. This caused an internal conflict with her ability to fully accept the power of her gift. In Grace’s words,
“I speak the new ideas and catchy phrases that I hear from my spirit and it sticks with people. Those words lead my supporters to believe that I can heal, design, and sell to any audience. I can’t help who I am. It comes naturally to me.”
As her career progressed, Grace grew more interested in using her skills to serve her inner purpose: using her words to be a change agent. She realized the positive impact that words had on her, from those spoken by her mentors, to those by her favorite authors who guided her through life’s transitions. She started to feel a tug to share her lessons learned and innovation strategies in a blog. However, she doubted that people would read her work because she was not a trained journalist or an established writer. Besides, she felt like she didn’t fit the “creative mold,” with no quirky style, cute thick-rimmed glasses, or familiarity with social media. Still, Grace’s friend encouraged her to take the baby step and create a blog. As serendipity would have it, at the end of several meetings, colleagues also began to ask Grace, “did you ever think about writing a book?” Many of them told her “you’ve been in the game too long, and it is time to share your secret sauce with others.” Even in the midst of their encouragement, it was hard for Grace to silence the voices from the childhood taunts and old co-workers’ gossip.
A year ago, Grace managed to bypass the sea of doubts and fears to start a blog that helps entrepreneurs pitch new ideas to clients. However, she continued to let the doubts keep her bound to the worries of what others would say and stopped short of calling herself a writer. The revenue generated from her blog and freelance coaching almost superseded the salary of her day job. She still struggles to admit that she loves her blogging and coaching business more than her day job. As more clients ask her, “when are you going to write the book and call yourself an entrepreneur,” she brushes them off with, “I’m not a writer, I do this on the side.” Grace feels stuck between what she wants to do and what others will say about what she does. Feeling unsettled about her next steps and the growing whispers from her inner voice to be true to her calling of using her words to be a change agent, Grace knew it was time to get unstuck. She was tired of being controlled by everyone’s voice but her own, saying one thing and doing another. She knows that if she gets underneath her own block, it will deepen her blogging and freelance work with clients. She has so much to say to the world and is ready to let it out. If she can only get past the sea of doubts...
Now it’s your turn
You’ve met your passengers, so now introduce yourself. Take a few moments to write and reflect on your story using these prompts:
1 What is one area in your life where you feel stuck? You will apply the 4-step consciousness-raising process to this area at the end of each chapter.
2 What would success or positive change in this area mean to you? Achieving this goal will allow you to manifest the highest version of yourself.
Ultimately, the tug-of-war is about the power of choice
The motivation for this book came from being surrounded by many Aminas and Graces, very talented people on the outside who looked like they had everything all together, yet internally struggled with the crippling effects of fear and doubt. Like you and many others, they grappled with stepping into the highest version of themselves to let the real me out. Remember this: you are not alone. Keep this in mind when fear tries to eat away at your courage to stay on this journey.
Fear wants you to continue using your power and choice to erect inauthentic versions of yourself. Somewhere along life’s journey, we developed these self-protective mechanisms to feel safe when we received messages that being our real selves was not enough. Famous Harvard psychologists Bob Kegan and Lisa Lahey described this process as developing an immune system to protect oneself from perceived harm. The-tug-of-war in your spirit seeks to take your self-protective systems