3 Points to Ponder
- Motivations are complicated and more complex than we give them credit for. Why do you do what you do? Have you ever thought about it?
- Inside each of us is a shadow mission. A slight variation of good that can seem fine on the outside, but inside, a less virtuous motivation. Each of us has a tendency towards certain shadows. What is yours? If left unchecked, where do you default?
- Voices have been speaking to us from the moment we were born. Some voices were helpful and some were incredibly hurtful. Many times unknowing to us, the hurtful ones sit in our subconscious, wreaking havoc on our consciousness. Have you ever named out loud those hurtful voices to get them out of the subconscious and into the conscious?
2 Quotes to Share
“As long as you’re chasing the ‘ghosts’ of your past, you can never fully embrace your future.” -Oprah Winfrey
“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” -Dr. Seuss
1 Story of Impact
In 2018, I had the opportunity to spend a day with best-selling author and world-renown speaker, Matthew Kelly. During our time together, he made a statement I still can’t get out of my head. “We are all chasing a ghost. Sometimes you know it and sometimes you don’t. But it’s there and we all need to sit face-to-face with our ghost.” I listened to a great friend describe his early years of being bullied, and how for decades, he sacrificed his family and friends to prove those bullies wrong about what they said about him. He was chasing a ghost. For you see, the ghost is a shadow of yourself. Just enough truth to haunt you, but not enough substance to be real. Yet, we spend years (ok, sometimes lifetimes) chasing this ghost of what some voice says we should be, striving for perfection or never trying out of fear, or healing past hurts in ways that never satisfy. That day in listening to Matthew, I realized I was chasing a ghost of false expectations and I needed to pull up a chair with this narrative in my life. It wasn’t healthy, nor was it helping me become the best version of myself. And after confronting this ghost, it slowly diminished in my life and definitely had less power. What ghost are you chasing? Do you have enough courage to name it today? Maybe it is time to confront it in an honest way.
