I can remember being six years old and saying FIVE-HUNDRED “Hail Marys” so I could have a baby.
Well, not exactly so I could have a baby, but so that my mother would have a baby and then, um, just… give it to me. You have to understand: I was tired of my Thumbelina doll’s predictable movements and that giant skin-colored crank on her back was a dead give-away that she wasn’t a real baby.
What kind of stupid toy maker thought I’d fall for that?
My first grade teacher, Mother Gilbert, the scariest nun ever (she ran her classroom of terrified six-year-olds like a drill sergeant on crack), had told us that if we wanted something bad enough we would have to say 500 Hail Marys to get it.
I realize now it took some serious intergalactic guts to ask my mother to have a baby and then just give it to me to play with. (When I did ask, my mother said that my brother and I were “it.” I just smiled and then went for the Hail Marys. I was sure it would work.)
Five. Hundred. I think it took me three days. Or maybe it was three weeks.
And no baby.
I was crushed.
I would later have four babies of my own. (I believe those Hail Marys might’ve worked after all.)
I remind myself of the guts (of intergalactic proportions) I displayed as young as six. And looking back, I see how there were many times when those guts propelled me towards getting what I wanted.
But when I reached my mid forties, something strange happened to my guts.
I found myself starting to waver. I began to doubt myself. [ois skin=”7″]
Then I started making excuses, saying things like, “That’s easier said than done.”
Wait. What? When had I ever let that stop me?
Getting older does a number on us, and if we let it, it will take us down. It will leave us with nothing but regret if we keep believing the lies we tell ourselves.
The venomous excuses we tell ourselves to let us off the hook.
I think that’s when I became aware of the 6-year-old who was still in me. The one that asked me, out of the clear blue sky…
“Remember when we believed we could do anything?”
That one question pretty much sent me to my knees.
Thankfully I’d had enough sense to hire a coach who slapped me around (metaphorically speaking) and showed me how I had turned my back on myself the moment I started to believe “maybe the best years are behind me.”
Whoa!
No wonder I wasn’t going “all in” when I started my own business. I was believing some pretty potent lies about myself and what I was apparently no longer capable of. It wasn’t until I challenged what I thought I knew about myself that I could once again call upon the intergalactic guts of that 6-year-old.
And even now, when I slip into ‘woe-is-me’ mode, she reminds me, with a serious left hook that knocks the sense back in me…
“We can do anything. Still.”
When Self Doubt creeps in, the best thing you can do is call BULLSH!T. Right away. (You’ll recognize Self Doubt by the way it makes you feel small.) To do otherwise is to turn your back on yourself and the things you still yearn for.
Want to get fit again?
Do it.
Want to start your own business?
Do it.
Want to do something you’ve never done before and are worried what “They” will think?
Do it, dammit. “They” are not more important than the dreams you hide inside.
We were girls first, but we are grown-ass women now.
We don’t ever have to ask “if” we can have something or do something. No one is in charge of us anymore. It’s all on you and me to know what we want and then to stand up and go for it.
That is, and always has been, our One True Purpose.
Yes, it’s hard sometimes. But that doesn’t let us off the hook.
Not only can we do hard things, we have the responsibility to do whatever it takes to live out our dreams. It’s no one’s job but ours.
And allowing other people to influence us in ways that keep us quiet and small and make us hide?
Um. Stop it!
WE ARE WOMEN. STAND UP.
This is our time. Let’s live it full throttle.
Lin xo [ois skin=”5″]
