As I am in my early 60s, it makes sense that I would see clients at least up to my age and sometimes a little older. I am very inspired when someone who is well-seasoned in life comes to see me to make a major shift in how he/she sees things and manages his/her life.
I watch my mother at 86 change sometimes daily. She has one of those indomitable spirits–I’m sure this is where I got, if not the phrase, at least the meaning of something I say quite often, “I will not be daunted!” My mom is so willing to look at things in new ways, take in new ideas, be flexible. And she is also really good at knowing what does and doesn’t work for her–and once she sees that, she sticks to it! An admirable quality.
One of the great things about working with a range of ages of clients is that I can share knowledge with a woman in her 30s to help her see what may lie ahead if she doesn’t change how she is seeing herself today. This particular period is giving me many opportunities to look at authenticity–how we see ourselves, how closely we are willing or not to listen to our inner voices and act from there. How much we all can fall into patterns of pleasing others, protecting others, trying to stay safe by altering our own words and behavior to gain that safety.
I’m here to tell you: It just doesn’t work. It is a false sense of safety to accommodate others in order to protect ourselves. That doesn’t mean walking around with entitlement and arrogance and a “me-first, me-only” attitude. It means suppressing that inner voice, spirit, that is telling us what works and what doesn’t work. It means feeling warning signals in our bodies and ignoring them. It means holding back and committing the “sin” of omission–not saying what we really think or feel so we don’t “lose” business, or “lose” favor, or “lose” a loved one.
Studying with John Demartini for the last 12 years has given me a great deal of awareness, and one of the most important understandings that is now unshakable in me: there is NEVER a loss without a gain. Not possible. Can’t happen.
So when I hold back and don’t speak my truth to avoid a “loss” then I am simply ignoring the truth that the sense of loss would simultaneously have its corresponding gain. When John says “Love is the synthesis and synchronicity of complementary opposites,” that is what he means. If by speaking my truth in a meeting, I lose the support of a person in the room–I absolutely know that I immediately gain the support of someone else (whether they are actually in the room, or somewhere in my energy field).
I am also convinced of something else: right decisions bring abundance. The more I live from the inside out, from my own authenticity, I see the expression of that in an awareness and experience of greater abundance in my life. Not just financial, but also in the abundance of shared love, warmth, opportunities, ideas, ways to engage in life fully that might have been there all along, but I couldn’t see them.
This is because acting from a place of protection–trying to act in a way that keeps me safe–puts others and their ideas ahead of me and what I truly would love in my life. I am acting from what I want from others, not from what I recognize and love within myself. Here is another truth I am convinced of: when I want something from someone, I can’t see who they really are! I can only see whether they do or don’t give me what I want. (I may have to write another whole piece on that one.)
So–what is it never too late to change? Our ability to go inside and really listen, really pay attention to our inner voice, our truth, that inspired place that knows what to do. It doesn’t matter if you are 8 or 80, going there brings its just reward.