I was surprised to hear a Dutch client use the word “lurking” to describe her relationship to her own health the other day. Lurking means staying in the background, hanging out on the edge of the boardroom or the dancefloor, holding back from speaking up or getting down, or otherwise standing in the shadows, not ‘ready’ to step into the sun & shed the light on what needs to change. It’s your subconscious’ strategic move to keep in your safe zone, as an observer, not an actor in your life. It’s a brilliant tactic of passive engagement, and so easy and under the radar, you might just fall for the trick & stay stuck. So if you’re guilty of passive engagement – surfing the net, reading the newsletters, grabbing a massage when your body is shouting for real change, taking an herb that’s supposed to be ‘healthy’, constantly gathering info – listen up: lurking will stunt your growth if you’re not transforming information into action! Passive engagement is a serious threat to your ability to improve yourself.
Information is not action. Action is action.
Information can make us *think* we’ve taken action.
- Read a bit about Ayurveda? Check.
- Took a dosha quiz? Check.
- Clicked that link your friend sent you about Ashwagandha? Check.
Have you actually done anything?
“Well…I did for a couple of days – (check!) – but then I got busy & stopped.”
Oh.
Double uncheck.
This may be tough love, kitten, but nobody else is going to tell you: that’s just not good enough to get you feeling your whole self again.
And don’t even try to tell yourself you know what you should do. Talk about sucking the life force out of intention. What a flaccid way of deflating your full potential.
Daily actions over time are the ONLY thing that can move you from where you are now, to where you want to be. I know, I know. I thought it sucked, too. when I first realized that. But the fact is, day-after-day actions are the ONLY thing to get you out of your funk and into your full, vibrant, amazing, can’t-believe-I waited-so-long-to be-this-fabulous-Self.
And the good news? First, the initial actions don’t feel sucky for long. They start to gain a momentum of their own, snowballing until you look back one day and realize you don’t have to think anymore about sitting to meditate or smearing herbal oil on your body. You realize by the time you’ve jumped out of bed (yep, that’s right – you’ve got incredible morning energy now), you’ve already reached for the oil without thinking, and plunked yourself down with your eyes closed…on autopilot. At your 3 o’clock tea break at work, you realize – hey, that’s great! I already did my exercise this morning! Just like brushing your teeth, all the Ayurveda non-negotiables that give you amazing health become automatic & unthinkable, (and therefore easy!).
Because the thing that really sucks is not feeling too groggy to get out of bed and then feeling rushed the rest of the day. What really sucks is you not being at your full capacity to thrive. Because you have a beautiful potential, and you’re sitting on it. You’re a goldmine of generosity, energy, care, enthusiasm, passion, aligned-action. And it’s never going to shine 100% if you are getting tricked into staying stuck on passive engagement if you don’t start with the little actions of self-care that enable you to feel great again.
Fill in the blank: My beautiful potential I’m sitting on is: _________________________
