Half a Life

If I asked you if you’ve ever been living just half a life, you’d think I wasn’t serious.

How is that even possible?

So let’s get serious!

Think about it again for a minute. Have you ever been present in just half of your life? Have you ever made a choice to be really involved in just a few events, engage with just some people and spend time doing a number of specific tasks only?

Probably not… Well probably not consciously anyway.

Is it challenging to imagine? Yet it’s reality for so many of us.

A clever mind can trade a lot for ease of living, reactions on auto-pilot, a limited number of “priorities” requiring attention and surface–level emotions only. Whatever helps make life “easier”! Because of physical exhaustion it often tricks us into thinking that we are truly living because we are “doing” so much. “Great, I am important” We achieve a sense that we matter and belong by doing.

I have been there and I have done that. We can continue doing, pretending that we cannot hear the voice of our being that reminds us every so often that doing isn’t enough.

What does our half-lived life look like?

We focus on just one main area: often work, maybe family, maybe personal life only
We sacrifice great opportunities waiting for better ones to come (do they ever?)
We leave great people behind (often as casualties)
We don’t make healthy time to be, think, feel, experience, realise, grow…
We don’t step up and face challenges even if it hurts (because it hurts)
We are afraid to be aware, scared to know and get to the core of things (with awareness comes responsibility)
We react fast before we think and use our default responses and behaviours to what’s happening around

What makes the difference?

I do my best to SHOW UP. Look reality straight in the eye, dare greatly (thanks Brene Brown) and be ready for commitment at every stage in all areas.

Is there a recipe for a full fat, juicy life?

There surely is, but I don’t have one for you.

In the same way that the way every coaching client has to answer these questions for themselves, you can too. So…

What is commitment for you?
What does it look like when you fully show up in your own life?
What challenges do you have to face to live life to the fullest?
What answers do you have to ask for?
What honesty do you have to be ready for?
What will you do to be ready?
What will you do to be FULLY present and listen?

You have the key, so come on in. Welcome to your own life. Show up where it’s not easy to be. Think where all you want is to forget. Feel where it’s easier to think. Stay when you feel like leaving.

We never plan to live half a life. It happens every time we choose easy solutions, the usual and default response. Half a life is not experienced fully therefore not fully lived. Before we know it, we make safe choices within the realm of “go to” thoughts and emotions.

Bravery is being ready for it all, knowing that we are fully human when we are ready to “be” not only “do”.

I am willing to drop my story about my comfort zone and be seen. Who needs a comfort zone when I am willing to experience all that life has to offer? Fully ready and aware that it might not be easy at times and it might hurt to get past some of the challenges. Only then can I stand straight and hold my head high in the arena of life.

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; (…) who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

Theodore Roosevelt excerpt from the speech “Citizenship in a Republic”
delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910

Inspired by Brene Brown, Daring Greatly

Author : Joanna Sobczak – Michalowska, PSG