it starts within

We cannot pull people who are entrenched in the resistance, and living small, out of where they are and who they’re being. It’s not up to you or me to change anybody else. It’ll all an inside job. (The call is coming from inside the house! 👻☎)

For example, if you are trying to fulfill your dreams, grow as a person, and be led by your values, courage, and your most wholehearted, best-imagined life, but you have friends or family who aren’t doing that or even aware of that path or possibility necessarily — who seem like they have blinders on and who only ever mention problems, obstacles, or limitations, who don’t seem like they’re living at their fullest joy capacity, who are playing it safe instead of strong and brave — it’s not something you can change for them.

When I look back on all the lessons I’ve needed to learn so far in my life, I don’t believe I learned any single one of them through someone shouting at me or even coming along and telling me where they thought I was going wrong or what I could do better. If I wasn’t already open, cultivating awareness, and ready to work on my areas of opportunity.

Sometimes we — people in general — aren’t ready to hear advice. Sometimes no matter how constructive the criticism, it won’t land. The openness must come first. When we are ready and willing to get curious and consider change, then we can begin to notice and pick up on opportunity. Then we can listen and really hear.

This is really a self-guided journey that starts from within. I think anyone walking the path realizes this. Even now, the lessons I’m needing to learn and sticking points I’m growing through, they’re all things I have to engage with on a personal, experiential level. This work isn’t something someone “farther ahead than you” on the path can just come along, plug in the answers, give you the solution, or tell you what to do, and then, like a sprinkle of fairy dust, *you’ve got it!*

We can have mentors and comradeship along the way that is extremely valuable and beneficial, and we can come alongside others and be that support and inspiration, too…

But ultimately, you have to make the choice. You have to show up and do the work, and the same goes for everyone else around you.

So maybe our best bet isn’t to try to yell loudly enough to get the attention of people who are still stuck in their limiting perspectives or are blind to their own growth potential and dreams… they will be ready eventually and will take the resources and support around them at that point; or they won’t, and that’s up to them.

Our best bet might be to tap into those things for ourselves, live them out authentically, and then create the work we’re meant to create, for the people it’s meant to find, being ready to engage with whoever it finds who is already on the path, no matter how newly they’re beginning or how far along they are. In this way, simply your act of living — the indisputable evidence in who you’re being — can serve as a shimmering nugget of gold that may inspire someone else along.

But when they aren’t ready, they aren’t ready. Maybe they’re at a different spot in the processing of their own personal growth. Maybe they need more time or a different approach. Maybe it’s not a journey they’re interested in or willing to take in the first place, and all of this is up to them.

It’s up to each of us.