Transcriber: Singrid A. Queiroga Reviewer: Hiroko Kawano
What if?
What if you woke up feeling energized and went to bed feeling content?
What if the words "busy," "overwhelmed," and "exhausted"
were no longer socially acceptable badges of honor?
What if you felt like you were actually living
and not just surviving your human experience?
I am here today to tell you and show you
why your dreams, your desires, and your soul-aches
are the exact thing this world needs from you,
and why, by doing this,
you will feel more in control of how you live, work, play, and parent.
December 21st, 2013,
I was just like every other woman, probably, in this room:
ambitious, overworked, exhausted, and overwhelmed.
And I was doing what I was taught.
Hustle.
More pain, more gain.
And if you want to be successful in any area of your life,
it's got to be hard.
This was me.
At the time, our boys were one, four, and nine,
and my fourth baby was my business.
I wasn't pregnant here, guys:
this is stage 4 cancer.
I had sporadic tumors growing all over my abdomen.
And I wanted to make a joke about the smile on my face
because I'm like,
"Why would I be smiling in this photo?"
But I think it kind of goes to show what we think as women
of like "put on a happy face," right?
So I remember this moment in the hospital
when I actually went to emerg,
and through a CT and blood work, they told me that I had cancer.
And I remember walking out of the hospital that night,
and it was raining, which was very odd because it was four days before Christmas,
and I looked up, and I said,
"I'm finally listening. You have my attention."
I didn't know what or who I was talking to,
but I knew they were waiting for me,
and I finally listened.
I asked Tina if I could put this slide,
and she said yes.
We need to talk about balance, so thank you, Tina.
We need to talk about balance
because this is this notion that there is such a thing,
and it is BS.
Because balance equals perfection, and perfection is messy,
and life is messy.
So it's almost like this,
this construct from the ego going like this impossible standard.
And then you start to get this limiting belief inside of you
of like "I am not enough."
And you walk out into your life, "I am not enough."
Because I'm trying to get to this place of perfection.
And I hear it from women all the time:
"I want balance."
And I'm like, "It doesn't exist."
But there is something else you do want.
"All dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them" -
Walt Disney.
But we have to be courageous enough to go after our dreams,
to go after our desires,
to ask ourselves
what is that little ache inside of me,
what is that little voice that's constantly there,
trying to get my attention?
It's scary.
My health crisis taught me what it means to live a sustainable life.
I no longer had to go go go go go.
I was actually starting to look at people that I looked up to,
and I'm like, "You've got issues!
And I don't want to live that lifestyle any more."
I wanted to feel differently in my life.
So now I realized
the purpose of discomfort is to teach us that something is off.
We are out of alignment in our life,
right?
Pain, disease, overwhelm.
It's like life saying,
"Knock, knock, knock. Hello!
Pay attention to me."
So the interesting part about that
is the opposite is ease, joy, and contentment.
And typically, when they're feeling that ease, joy and contentment,
what are they saying?
"Something's wrong. This is too easy."
No. That is the purpose of life.
It is supposed to feel easy.
So, I remember when I was sitting there in recovery -
and that's a whole other topic -
I had to start asking myself, "What is it that I want?"
I had lots of time with my thoughts and my feelings,
and so I got a pen and a paper out,
and I wrote, "I want. I crave. I desire."
What do I want?
I want some hair; I want my hair to grow back.
I want to feel really, really good.
I just want to go for a walk without scheduled time.
I want to go for a coffee date with that old friend.
I desire to do a TEDx one day.
I desire to write a book.
I desire to travel the world with my family.
I desire to spend more time with my family.
I desire to feel alive.
"Knowing" - I love Danielle LaPorte.
She's actually from this area, I believe.
"Knowing how you actually want to feel
is the most potent form of clarity that you can have."
And what I love about her philosophy is it's not what you want.
It's the feeling behind it.
Why do we want that house?
Why do we want that car?
Why do we actually want more money?
It's the emotion behind it.
So then I had to start asking myself,
what is it?
What is it that I want to feel on a daily basis?
And my core desired feelings, as Danielle LaPorte would say,
were connected, alive, and strong.
But I felt complete opposite of that in the moment.
So I had to start asking myself -
so an example.
Okay, I'm yelling at my kids, and I want to feel connected.
So how can I, in this moment,
when I just want to say a few things that I'm going to regret
and I feel that volcano bubbling up inside of me,
how can I feel more connected to my children,
these human beings that I love so much?
What thoughts can I think, what words can I use
that come from a connected place?
These were the questions I had to start asking myself.
I'm out of alignment in my life, so how can I?
[Unlearning]
I had to unlearn everything
of who society thought I needed to be
as a woman, as a wife, as a business owner, and as a parent.
So now when I read those parenting books,
I just throw them away and go, "That is not the truth.
I don't want that, this impossible standard."
So the interesting part is
while I was doing research for this talk and the women that I work with,
I've noticed a process that I am bringing people through.
So, of course, I needed to use it on myself first.
So take any area of your life -
it could be your health, a relationship, money, time, energy, career -
and kind of gauge where you are at.
You could be in survival mode, momentum, a thriving state, or creative abundance.
Well, when life gives you lemons, you make really good lemonade,
and maybe you could throw a little vodka or something in there.
But what I had to do was realize that when life gave me lemons,
I wasn't even on this chart anymore.
Because my health was in such a crisis phase,
I had this belief that I don't have time for myself.
I had aches; I had pains.
I knew something was up for a really, really long time,
but I said, "I don't have time. I don't have time."
I wasn't even putting myself on my own to-do list anymore.
So because my health was in survival state,
I went back into crisis,
and that's what that little red dot is.
Slowly, one day at a time,
one thought at a time,
one moment at a time,
I had to start giving myself permission to want what I want.
So when I went back into my endless journals -
and you can ask my husband how many are around the house.
He probably cracks them open and goes,
"I don't know what this woman is thinking,
but I'm just going to close that up and put it away."
I want, I crave, I desire.
It was one thing to know what I wanted and what I craved and what I desired
in my life, in my marriage, in parenting, in my health, and my career.
It was another thing to act on it.
And you want to know
the really gross, weird, screwed up thought that I have,
and I know I'm not alone,
because a few of you have said this to me before.
Cancer gave me permission.
I was like, "Oh, I can check that box off.
I have now suffered enough.
I have reached the optimal level of suffering.
Yay!
I can go to the next level now.
I no longer need to suffer in my life.
How messed up is that?
And I just literally gave myself permission,
even though I was lying there, recovering from stage four,
knowing that there is no stage five -
don't know if I'm going to make it alive or not -
gave myself permission that I'm not doing this anymore.
This is easy.
How far would you expect a car to travel on an empty tank of gas?
Just curious.
Life is a journey.
What's the first thing you do when you decide to go on a road trip?
Check the gas gauge.
How far can I get?
And you're probably being a little proactive
and pull into a gas station and fill up,
and then you're on your way.
Why do we not do this in our lives?
Why do we expect our whole life,
and we never look at our bodies, our minds, and our soul
and ask ourselves, "How full is my tank?"
Why are we willing to do this to a car and not our own life journey?
And we will last much longer than our cars, by the way.
We have to remember that you are energy.
Your thoughts are energy,
your words are energy,
your actions are energy,
and your beliefs are energy.
How you show up is energy.
It's a resource,
and we can create more of it in our lives.
Steven Pressfield.
He's become my new BFF
because I'm in the process of writing a book,
and The War of Art
and this danged resistance that constantly shows up as human beings
when we decide we want to follow those soul aches.
"Most of us have two lives:
the life we live and the unlived life within us.
Between the two stands resistance."
Who in this room has ever felt resistance?
Yeah.
All you others, you're liars, or you're not living!
(Laughter)
What I decide to do now is when I'm looking at my list -
I want, I crave, I desire -
I circle the top three things that are scaring me the most,
and I turn in that direction, and I go for it,
which is why I almost puked backstage.
(Laughter)
[What if...]
I didn't eat this morning, couldn't have coffee,
said I would have coffee after this, so I'm going to Timmies.
(Laughter)
What if, guys?
Close your eyes for a second.
What if -
you truly felt like you were living
and not just surviving your human experience?
Thank you.
(Applause)