Inclusive Fitness includes you!
Happy almost summer to you!
This is a photo of an orchid I got to re-bloom when I stopped treating it like it needed special directions that no other plant needs. Every time I admire it, I think about how I was trying to follow the 'orchid rules' and both the orchid and I were not growing. Eventually I repotted it into a group of other plants, big orchid no-no. It immediately started thriving. It budded. It's been blooming for weeks.
I stopped playing by to the orchid 'rules'. It's a plant. Plants wants to live with other plants. It wants to fight for soil and reach for the sun. It wants to feel the roots of other plants looking for water. It wants to be alive in the slow-motion-competitive community of fauna.
Let me ask you a question I often ask my clients about the spin class they think they HAVE to do, the food they CANT eat, the injury they are SURE they have: Is that (perspective) working for you? Are you getting what you want? Is that (state of mind) supporting you? Is it creating results that add to your life? We often get so bogged down in the 'rules' we've imposed and absorbed that we forget to ask if what we are doing is working for us.
That voice that says 'should should should' is so loud. It's also not your only voice. That voice that says 'you can't can't can't' that isn't your only thought. The mean mean voice that says 'you are only this, you are only this, you are only this.' It tries so hard to limit us. It's so frightened of our growth.
Replant yourself. Let your roots touch other roots looking for support. Reach towards the sun. Expand. Bloom and bud and bloom and bud. What would you be? Where would you be? What would you stop doing if it wasn't a should? What would you stop saying to yourself? What's a thing you just really think is THE thing about you - is that really true? You have proof? Catching our internal monologue and questioning it a bit can be a huge shift by a thousand tiny little moments of inquiry. Where are you pretending you are a strange plant with too many directions when really you are just a wild tendril looking to grow?
Please tag me if you feel moved to share your expansion :) I'd love to hear about it.