Huge confession: for YEARS… yes, DECADES… I lived in financial terror and constantly found myself in “bad news” relationships.
Most of my adult life was lived as a single mom of three kids. Professionally, I REALLY felt beaten down in my career.
It felt impossible to ever really breakthrough to an income level where I could finally feel consistently secure. And to add insult to injury, it seemed like everyone around me was making good money.
To me, it looked like everyone else was taking wonderful vacations and living the idyllic family life.
I felt total shame. And yet at the same time, I was torn.
I was watching people do the things that I would have loved to do, travel to places that I would have loved to travel and do things for their kids that I would have loved to have done. However, I had also seen plenty of people who were doing “everything right” but who quite clearly were feeling anything but happy.
In fact, I went through a long period of my life when I thought that money was the culprit. I believed that all that money was the reason why so many people weren’t happy.
I viewed it as the root of all evil. It was this dangerous commodity that often brought out the worst in folks.
You see, in my mind, there had to be some tangible reason why life felt so hard. Something specific to blame for why so many people found it hard to live a life that they truly loved.
And I was certainly one of those people who seemed to be missing the happiness charm. Big time!
Yep, here I was a graduate from the top prep school in the country, an A student at Georgetown University and yet it felt like I was always struggling. There were even months when I had to ask my own mom for financial help. It was totally humiliating.
Now don’t get me wrong. I tried EVERYTHING to get things to change. (Or so I thought.)
I switched careers. I changed jobs. I even opened my own business. And— yes! — when the relationships proved to have been bad choices, I changed those as well.
The end result was always the same though.
I was frustrated, depressed and definitely STUCK!
And I was POSITIVE that there must be some one piece of information that I was missing. Something that when I discovered it, it would become my “Eureka moment”.
That couldn’t have been further from the truth.
If you have worked with me, you know that I am a solid believer in Esther Hicks’ quote, “You take yourself with you wherever you go.” So trust me, with the mistaken belief that it was something “out there” that I was missing, I was going nowhere fast.
I mean, think about it.
If information, “hacks” or even specific “shiny object” technology can transform bad results into massive success, why can you give the same tool to two different people and see two totally different results?
And for that matter, why is it that some people can hit that massive level of financial success and still discover that it doesn’t translate into being happy?
Because happy and success don’t come from “out there”.
The outer game stuff like money and prestige may often be by-products of authentic happiness and success but the reason that we feel stuck on one long hamster wheel comes back to the quote often credited to Einstein:
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”
The problem is that we don’t equate “doing the same thing” with constantly looking for the answer to happiness and success “out there”. We may be trying different tactics “out there” but we’re still looking exclusively in the same place: “out there”.
Time to ask some new questions such as “have we been looking for love, happiness and success in all the wrong places?”
I certainly had — and I confess that it took a falling boulder that almost ended my daughter Schuyler’s life to help me realize just how far off base I had strayed.
Although I definitely believe that what you do, who you impact, how you spend your days — I.e. your actions — do influence the level of joy and success that you experience in your life, the real secret sauce begins almost entirely in your inner game.
Those who learn to become the sovereign of their own minds, who no longer show up spewing the inner narrative of your own worst enemy… those who find play, pleasure and joy in their daily moments can live a rich and fulfilling life even if they never make Forbes’ list of the world’s most wealthy people.
On the flip side, even the wealthiest among us, the most professionally “successful”, the most “powerful” can live excruciatingly miserable lives if they see the world as a hostile, toxic place with vipers lurking beneath the sheets.
How we experience our inner narrative and whether we learn to become the true sovereign of our own mind really does directly impact how we feel about life —and specifically OUR life — overall.
And learning how to play the inner game to win does take time — and persistence.
But oh… the reward is definitely sweet!
Because you see, as we learn how to play the inner game to win, this “Knowing” almost “magically” begins gradually leading us to a place where we are finally “attracting the right action.”
That, in my humble opinion, is the true definition of the Law of Att’r’action” — The Law of Attracting the Right Action.
So when I look at the little metaphor of each of us having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, I think of it more as a mind that allows any random thought to dominate (the devil) versus the well toned sovereign mind that intentionally and intuitively focuses on the presence of what you truly want (the angel).
All too many of us get stuck and (like me) try “everything” to change it on our own. When the change doesn’t happen quickly enough we start back pedaling and even questioning whether these desires are actually realistic.
We push and push thinking that maybe we can get to the place where we no longer care.
Unfortunately, many of us succeed.
And from this place of not caring, we start to lose touch with our passions. We start feeling like maybe there’s not really anything that excites us or that we love.
We lose motivation. We lose all sense of power and before we know it, we’re feeling like we’re going through life half alive. Isolated and misunderstood.
Alone and unappreciated.
And then…
We start getting bitter, frustrated and resentful.
We look in the mirror and discover that we have become one of those people who sees the world only for its flaws, its imperfections and “ugliness”.
Until that one day when we realize that even though we may have been on this planet for 80+ years, we have never truly figured out how to live.
We have turned our world into a dark abyss.
Well, I for one have zero desire to waste even a moment in that abyss.
And I can thank that crazy boulder for helping me get to a place where I can no longer remember the last time that I had “one of those days”…
Yes, even while spending the last 6 years as the primary caregiver for Schuyler…
Even while launching a new business in my late 50’s during covid.
Even while having to make some hard decisions about a long term relationship.
So, if you are butting up against your own boulders, waking up year after year with the same drama and frustrations, I’m going to encourage you to pause and honestly consider taking an approach that is slightly different.
Is it as quick as moving to a new job?
Nope.
Is it as measurable as adding an additional 50K to your bottom line?
Nope.
But can it completely transform the exhilaration with which you approach each and every day?
Without question.
Yes, EPIC (to me) is the marriage of “Joie de Vivre” and “Carpe Diem”. “Joy of Life” meets “Seize the Day”. “Inner Game” turbo charging your “Outer Game”.
So, if you are serious about living the rest of your life in that small percentage of folks who truly do complete each day feeling fully alive, if you yearn for a future that truly propels and excite you, start committing to mastering all dimensions of the inner game.
Stay bold. Stay tenacious. Stay fearless.
Because the day will come when suddenly you realize that it has been ages since you have had a “bad day” or since your mind constantly replayed the greatest hits of things that upset you.
I know because — yes — after decades of doing the “work”, I am finally living this. And having unimaginable fun in the process!
We don’t always get to control how long we get to play on this amazing planet but we do get to control how epically we live while we are playing here.
So go out there and create a future of epic moments! How well you play this thing called the inner game does matter. And it CAN be learned if you are willing to invest the patience, the self-love and the time.
I’m here to help! Let’s do this!!
Xoxo
Meridith
