November 26, 2023 • 13 mins
Ever had that looming feeling of fear dictating your actions? Ever felt trapped, making decisions based on avoiding what you've seen others endure? Well, you're not alone. I dive into this paradigm, inspired by a revealing tale from a mentor whose life was overshadowed by her mother's breast cancer diagnosis. Her story sheds light on how fear can inadvertently shape our life choices and prevent us from embracing our own journey.
But fear is not the be-all and end-all. Join me as we break down its influence and encourage you to explore, and possibly challenge, the impact of fear on your life choices. Are these choices taking you down someone else's path? Or are they leading you to your own unique journey? We'll explore how to weed out these fears and cultivate a sense of peace and compassion. And don’t worry, I’m with you every step of the way, offering thought-inspiring journal prompts to help in this process. This episode is not just a conversation, but an invitation to embrace your journey, no matter how uncharted it might be. So let’s champion the courage to live our own lives, shall we?
More info: https://www.thejourneyblueprint.com/
Contact: Julie@thejourneyblueprint.com
Read the book: https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Blueprint-Following-Heros-Control/dp/0692132562/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to this podcast episode.
I'm so glad you're here on thisjourney with me as I learn and
grow and share the things Icurrently understand, things
that change and refine andexpand as time goes on.
I've been thinking a lot abouta phrase that came to mind a few
(00:24):
months ago.
I've wanted to write about itfor a while now and haven't, so
I'm taking advantage of this newpalette to actually dive into
it.
In fact, as I've reallypondered it, I think there are
three different podcasts in here, so we'll make this a short
series.
We'll call this series Liveyour Journey.
Emphasis on your.
(00:45):
This first episode of the seriesis going to focus on one way
that we avoid living our ownjourneys.
Now, to quickly set the stage,you have your own unique journey
that you are on right now.
No one in the world has hadyour journey from the beginning
of time to the end of time,meaning that no one can live
your journey but you.
(01:06):
However, as human beings, thereare some natural tendencies
that come up and that canultimately distract us from
living the journey that we're on, and it's those natural
tendencies that I want to talkabout for the next few episodes.
So today I want to start bysharing a story from one of my
mentors in my yoga therapyprogram.
My mentor told the story a fewdifferent times in a few
(01:28):
different contexts, but for somereason one day it really struck
me.
She spoke about how, when shewas younger, her mother received
a breast cancer diagnosis andthis diagnosis and the
subsequent treatment had a hugeeffect on her family and her
personally, causing a lot offear.
And she noticed as she gotolder that she was keenly aware
(01:49):
of any possible indication thatshe might also have breast
cancer, the impact that it mighthave on her own family and on
her kids, and it caused a greatdeal of stress in her life.
And that stress impacted herrelationships and impacted her
choices and impacted herhappiness.
And then one day somethingreally important occurred to her
(02:10):
she didn't have breast cancer,as she told it.
She paused and said wait aminute, I don't have breast
cancer.
It was such a simple revelation, but it was so crucial to her.
She was not her mom, she didnot have breast cancer.
It wasn't her story.
(02:31):
In fact, as she began to movethrough the process of going
with these emotions and thisexperience, that kind of became
a mantra for her that's not mystory, and she got really clear
about what was her story andwhat wasn't her story.
When I heard this for perhapsthe third time, it struck me
(02:52):
that what she was saying wasthat breast cancer was not part
of her journey.
Right here and right now shewas living her life and making
choices in an attempt to avoidliving her mother's journey.
But her mother's journey wasn'ther journey.
She had her own journey, and atleast for now, that didn't
(03:14):
include breast cancer.
And then I started to realizehow often we as humans, out of
fear, more often than not, makechoices that we think will allow
us to avoid the journeys thatwe've seen others go through,
the painful experiences that wesee others have that frighten us
, that we don't think we couldhandle.
(03:36):
So perhaps our parents gotdivorced, so we live our life
trying to avoid divorce.
Or our dad lost his job when wewere little and that made
things really hard, so we live alife trying to avoid losing a
job.
Or our neighbor's kid is beingbullied at school, so we try to
live a life that avoids our kidsbeing bullied.
(03:57):
And all of this soundsperfectly reasonable on the
surface.
Of course we don't want tosuffer.
We don't want anyone that welove to suffer and, to be clear,
I am not advocating pursuingsuffering in any way, because we
will have plenty of it on ourown without even trying.
The deeper problem of living ourlives this way is that we're
(04:19):
living our lives based onbasically two premises First,
that those things are going tobe part of our journey unless we
do something about it andsecond, that we could do
something about it to avoid itif it were part of our journey.
So let's tackle both of thesepremises to see why they're
problematic.
First, unless something wasalready a part of our journey or
(04:41):
is currently a part of ourjourney, we really have no idea
whether or not it will be in thefuture.
Again, this is with one or twoexceptions.
Death and taxes come to mind.
While there are clearly peoplewho deal with illness, diagnoses
, job loss, divorce, bullying,etc.
There are also a lot of peoplewho don't.
(05:02):
There are plenty of familieswhere one member had cancer but
others didn't.
Plenty of families where dadnever lost a job.
Plenty of families wheredivorce doesn't happen.
Plenty of kids who aren'tbullied at school.
Do we know why those things door don't happen Rarely, even
(05:23):
when we think we know there arealways factors in play that we
don't see or we don't understand.
So the danger comes when welive our lives trying to avoid a
circumstance because it scaresus that might happen in the
future, instead of living thejourney.
That is right here, right now,because that means, if we're
(05:45):
focusing on avoiding thosethings, there are learning
opportunities, there are chancesto heal and let go, there are
ways that we can help othersthat are going unheeded because
we're focused on someone else'sjourney.
Now to the second point.
Sometimes we get it in ourminds that if we just do the
(06:06):
right things and the word rightis most definitely in quotes
that somehow we can avoiddifficult situations in our
lives.
And this is not to say that ourchoices don't have an impact on
our journeys.
Of course they do.
But when it comes to makingchoices in order to avoid
difficulty or heartache, thereare very few guarantees.
As always, there are somethings that we can directly
(06:30):
connect between action andoutcome.
If I never drink alcohol, Iwill never become an alcoholic.
If I never engage in apotentially addictive behavior,
I will never become addicted tothat behavior.
There are some direct cause andeffect relationships in this
world, but there are so manymore that are not.
Some people who drink alcoholdon't become alcoholics.
(06:54):
Some people who go out withoutsunscreen don't get skin cancer.
Some people engage in riskybehavior for years without
experiencing a directconsequence.
I know people and you probablydo too who lived healthy
lifestyles but developed cancer.
I know people who worked hardand did their jobs every day but
(07:16):
still got laid off.
I know people and I saw them asa teacher who did nothing to
provoke it but were stillbullied.
Sometimes, it doesn't matterwhat we do, experiences come
into our lives.
Now it's important to rememberas we talk about this that,
(07:37):
while some aspects of journeysdo seem to be divinely directed,
many of our experiences comebecause we are human beings
living in number one, a physicalworld, and number two, a world
where people get to make choices, and whether through our
choices or the choices of others, or through the complexities of
(07:58):
living in the bodies and theworld that we do, experiences
come that aren't actuallypunishments or statements of our
worthiness.
The journey didn't cause it, itdidn't make that circumstance
happen.
Sometimes things just happen.
Sometimes we stub our toe orforget to make a payment or get
in a car accident, just becausethat is life.
(08:21):
The intelligence behindjourneys doesn't have to make
these things happen.
The laws of the universe arealready in play.
What the journey can do withthese types of experiences is to
take them and hold them and usin a way that sees us better on
the other side, that helps us tofind meaning in the midst of
(08:42):
difficulty, that opens up ourability to have compassion and
forgiveness, if we let it.
But notice I didn't say meaningin this difficulty, because I
think we can drive ourselvescrazy trying to figure out what
it is about this specificexperience.
What specific lesson am Isupposed to learn from diabetes
(09:04):
or struggling in school or amiscarriage?
Again, those may be things thatentered our experience that are
not directed or targeted, andso often we won't understand the
lessons around thoseexperiences until much later.
But learning to find meaning indifficulty, how do I handle
(09:24):
things that are hard?
What does my mind do when Ifeel overwhelmed or uncertain?
How do I treat people when I'mstressed?
How can I take better care ofmyself when I'm struggling?
Those types of learnings andthey're powerful and they can
carry forward into futurejourneys.
So let me put this on apersonal level.
(09:47):
A close family member of minereceived a breast cancer
diagnosis a few years ago, andshe handled it with courage,
through the many changes andtreatments and losses, and is,
at the time of this recording,cancer-free.
And it's easy for me to takethat experience because she's
family and become obsessed withtrying to avoid her experience.
(10:09):
So I started asking questionswhat was she doing when it
happened?
What lifestyle habits should Iavoid?
What did she eat that Monday?
Et cetera, et cetera.
Right In the end, though, noneof that can even be tied
directly to her cancer diagnosis.
So doing those things may ormay not have an impact.
(10:30):
At this moment I don't havecancer and even if I do end up
with my own cancer diagnosis, itwill be mine, not hers.
My experience will not be herexperience.
My solutions may not be hersolutions.
So even if that does happen, Istill can't live my life
(10:52):
according to her diagnosis.
What I can do is honor andrespect the way that she handled
her journey with cancer andhope to handle my own journeys,
whatever they may entail, withopenness.
That's really what we can dowith the journeys of others not
necessarily do or not do whatthey did or didn't do, but
(11:14):
instead honor that.
It's a journey.
Honor the struggle, honor theways that they engage with the
difficulty.
Those are the lessons that wecan take into our journeys and I
guess, in the end, what I'mhoping that we can all get out
of this is it might be worthsome time to pause and see if
(11:34):
the things that we're doing inour life are a direct response
to our journey or if we'relooking at other people's
journeys and allowing fear ofthose experiences to influence
our lives so much that we stopliving our own.
This journey that you are onmatters.
The journeys that other peopleare on matter, and the more I
(11:57):
come to see and understand thatthey both matter equally in
their own spheres, the more Ican have compassion, the more I
can find peace, the more I canappreciate not only my journey
but the larger process thatknows me, that knows them and
can help us all in the ways thatwe need most.
(12:18):
So I invite you to take sometime to look at what you're
doing, particularly those thingsthat may feel urgent or fear
based even though that's hard toaccept sometimes and see if
that is blocking your ability tolive your journey and look at
what the implications might be.
What could you maybe considerdoing differently.
(12:39):
You can find a link to somejournal prompts in the
description of the episode ifthat appeals to you.
This is your journey, our lifeis a journey and it's time to
start living like it.
Thanks for listening.
See you next time.
Welcome everyone to this podcast episode.
I'm so glad you're here on thisjourney with me as I learn and
grow and share the things Icurrently understand, things
that change and refine andexpand as time goes on.
I've been thinking a lot abouta phrase that came to mind a few
(00:24):
months ago.
I've wanted to write about itfor a while now and haven't, so
I'm taking advantage of this newpalette to actually dive into
it.
In fact, as I've reallypondered it, I think there are
three different podcasts in here, so we'll make this a short
series.
We'll call this series Liveyour Journey.
Emphasis on your.
(00:45):
This first episode of the seriesis going to focus on one way
that we avoid living our ownjourneys.
Now, to quickly set the stage,you have your own unique journey
that you are on right now.
No one in the world has hadyour journey from the beginning
of time to the end of time,meaning that no one can live
your journey but you.
(01:06):
However, as human beings, thereare some natural tendencies
that come up and that canultimately distract us from
living the journey that we're on, and it's those natural
tendencies that I want to talkabout for the next few episodes.
So today I want to start bysharing a story from one of my
mentors in my yoga therapyprogram.
My mentor told the story a fewdifferent times in a few
(01:28):
different contexts, but for somereason one day it really struck
me.
She spoke about how, when shewas younger, her mother received
a breast cancer diagnosis andthis diagnosis and the
subsequent treatment had a hugeeffect on her family and her
personally, causing a lot offear.
And she noticed as she gotolder that she was keenly aware
(01:49):
of any possible indication thatshe might also have breast
cancer, the impact that it mighthave on her own family and on
her kids, and it caused a greatdeal of stress in her life.
And that stress impacted herrelationships and impacted her
choices and impacted herhappiness.
And then one day somethingreally important occurred to her
(02:10):
she didn't have breast cancer,as she told it.
She paused and said wait aminute, I don't have breast
cancer.
It was such a simple revelation, but it was so crucial to her.
She was not her mom, she didnot have breast cancer.
It wasn't her story.
(02:31):
In fact, as she began to movethrough the process of going
with these emotions and thisexperience, that kind of became
a mantra for her that's not mystory, and she got really clear
about what was her story andwhat wasn't her story.
When I heard this for perhapsthe third time, it struck me
(02:52):
that what she was saying wasthat breast cancer was not part
of her journey.
Right here and right now shewas living her life and making
choices in an attempt to avoidliving her mother's journey.
But her mother's journey wasn'ther journey.
She had her own journey, and atleast for now, that didn't
(03:14):
include breast cancer.
And then I started to realizehow often we as humans, out of
fear, more often than not, makechoices that we think will allow
us to avoid the journeys thatwe've seen others go through,
the painful experiences that wesee others have that frighten us
, that we don't think we couldhandle.
(03:36):
So perhaps our parents gotdivorced, so we live our life
trying to avoid divorce.
Or our dad lost his job when wewere little and that made
things really hard, so we live alife trying to avoid losing a
job.
Or our neighbor's kid is beingbullied at school, so we try to
live a life that avoids our kidsbeing bullied.
(03:57):
And all of this soundsperfectly reasonable on the
surface.
Of course we don't want tosuffer.
We don't want anyone that welove to suffer and, to be clear,
I am not advocating pursuingsuffering in any way, because we
will have plenty of it on ourown without even trying.
The deeper problem of living ourlives this way is that we're
(04:19):
living our lives based onbasically two premises First,
that those things are going tobe part of our journey unless we
do something about it andsecond, that we could do
something about it to avoid itif it were part of our journey.
So let's tackle both of thesepremises to see why they're
problematic.
First, unless something wasalready a part of our journey or
(04:41):
is currently a part of ourjourney, we really have no idea
whether or not it will be in thefuture.
Again, this is with one or twoexceptions.
Death and taxes come to mind.
While there are clearly peoplewho deal with illness, diagnoses
, job loss, divorce, bullying,etc.
There are also a lot of peoplewho don't.
(05:02):
There are plenty of familieswhere one member had cancer but
others didn't.
Plenty of families where dadnever lost a job.
Plenty of families wheredivorce doesn't happen.
Plenty of kids who aren'tbullied at school.
Do we know why those things door don't happen Rarely, even
(05:23):
when we think we know there arealways factors in play that we
don't see or we don't understand.
So the danger comes when welive our lives trying to avoid a
circumstance because it scaresus that might happen in the
future, instead of living thejourney.
That is right here, right now,because that means, if we're
(05:45):
focusing on avoiding thosethings, there are learning
opportunities, there are chancesto heal and let go, there are
ways that we can help othersthat are going unheeded because
we're focused on someone else'sjourney.
Now to the second point.
Sometimes we get it in ourminds that if we just do the
(06:06):
right things and the word rightis most definitely in quotes
that somehow we can avoiddifficult situations in our
lives.
And this is not to say that ourchoices don't have an impact on
our journeys.
Of course they do.
But when it comes to makingchoices in order to avoid
difficulty or heartache, thereare very few guarantees.
As always, there are somethings that we can directly
(06:30):
connect between action andoutcome.
If I never drink alcohol, Iwill never become an alcoholic.
If I never engage in apotentially addictive behavior,
I will never become addicted tothat behavior.
There are some direct cause andeffect relationships in this
world, but there are so manymore that are not.
Some people who drink alcoholdon't become alcoholics.
(06:54):
Some people who go out withoutsunscreen don't get skin cancer.
Some people engage in riskybehavior for years without
experiencing a directconsequence.
I know people and you probablydo too who lived healthy
lifestyles but developed cancer.
I know people who worked hardand did their jobs every day but
(07:16):
still got laid off.
I know people and I saw them asa teacher who did nothing to
provoke it but were stillbullied.
Sometimes, it doesn't matterwhat we do, experiences come
into our lives.
Now it's important to rememberas we talk about this that,
(07:37):
while some aspects of journeysdo seem to be divinely directed,
many of our experiences comebecause we are human beings
living in number one, a physicalworld, and number two, a world
where people get to make choices, and whether through our
choices or the choices of others, or through the complexities of
(07:58):
living in the bodies and theworld that we do, experiences
come that aren't actuallypunishments or statements of our
worthiness.
The journey didn't cause it, itdidn't make that circumstance
happen.
Sometimes things just happen.
Sometimes we stub our toe orforget to make a payment or get
in a car accident, just becausethat is life.
(08:21):
The intelligence behindjourneys doesn't have to make
these things happen.
The laws of the universe arealready in play.
What the journey can do withthese types of experiences is to
take them and hold them and usin a way that sees us better on
the other side, that helps us tofind meaning in the midst of
(08:42):
difficulty, that opens up ourability to have compassion and
forgiveness, if we let it.
But notice I didn't say meaningin this difficulty, because I
think we can drive ourselvescrazy trying to figure out what
it is about this specificexperience.
What specific lesson am Isupposed to learn from diabetes
(09:04):
or struggling in school or amiscarriage?
Again, those may be things thatentered our experience that are
not directed or targeted, andso often we won't understand the
lessons around thoseexperiences until much later.
But learning to find meaning indifficulty, how do I handle
(09:24):
things that are hard?
What does my mind do when Ifeel overwhelmed or uncertain?
How do I treat people when I'mstressed?
How can I take better care ofmyself when I'm struggling?
Those types of learnings andthey're powerful and they can
carry forward into futurejourneys.
So let me put this on apersonal level.
(09:47):
A close family member of minereceived a breast cancer
diagnosis a few years ago, andshe handled it with courage,
through the many changes andtreatments and losses, and is,
at the time of this recording,cancer-free.
And it's easy for me to takethat experience because she's
family and become obsessed withtrying to avoid her experience.
(10:09):
So I started asking questionswhat was she doing when it
happened?
What lifestyle habits should Iavoid?
What did she eat that Monday?
Et cetera, et cetera.
Right In the end, though, noneof that can even be tied
directly to her cancer diagnosis.
So doing those things may ormay not have an impact.
(10:30):
At this moment I don't havecancer and even if I do end up
with my own cancer diagnosis, itwill be mine, not hers.
My experience will not be herexperience.
My solutions may not be hersolutions.
So even if that does happen, Istill can't live my life
(10:52):
according to her diagnosis.
What I can do is honor andrespect the way that she handled
her journey with cancer andhope to handle my own journeys,
whatever they may entail, withopenness.
That's really what we can dowith the journeys of others not
necessarily do or not do whatthey did or didn't do, but
(11:14):
instead honor that.
It's a journey.
Honor the struggle, honor theways that they engage with the
difficulty.
Those are the lessons that wecan take into our journeys and I
guess, in the end, what I'mhoping that we can all get out
of this is it might be worthsome time to pause and see if
(11:34):
the things that we're doing inour life are a direct response
to our journey or if we'relooking at other people's
journeys and allowing fear ofthose experiences to influence
our lives so much that we stopliving our own.
This journey that you are onmatters.
The journeys that other peopleare on matter, and the more I
(11:57):
come to see and understand thatthey both matter equally in
their own spheres, the more Ican have compassion, the more I
can find peace, the more I canappreciate not only my journey
but the larger process thatknows me, that knows them and
can help us all in the ways thatwe need most.
(12:18):
So I invite you to take sometime to look at what you're
doing, particularly those thingsthat may feel urgent or fear
based even though that's hard toaccept sometimes and see if
that is blocking your ability tolive your journey and look at
what the implications might be.
What could you maybe considerdoing differently.
(12:39):
You can find a link to somejournal prompts in the
description of the episode ifthat appeals to you.
This is your journey, our lifeis a journey and it's time to
start living like it.
Thanks for listening.
See you next time.
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