HEADCOUNT... the power of a shift in perspective

Skeletons in the closet? I've got heads on the library shelf!

A change of perspective has been revealed to me recently in a brighter light then usual . The thought accidentally entered my awareness as I was absentmindedly observing my hairdressing doll heads lined up on my library shelf. This is it:

you can turn 'skeletons in the closet' into 'headcount'

Of course I do not want to inspire violence and murder, it is just a figure of speech borrowed from video games and adventure stories, an image that is supposed to appeal to the archetypal warrior within, the one we identify with when reading or watching one of those epic tales of good vs evil or playing a video game like Assassin's Creed or Prince of Persia. So... don't go out and start hacking and slashing folks, stay chill.

So...where was I? Ah right, so this is what occurred to me:

all of the experiences you don't feel proud of or excited about, wrong choices, regrets, ventures failed turned into nothing, dull phases of life, relationship disasters...how about this :

because you did all that and all that happened to you, you are now equipped with a set of skills and knowledge uniquely yours that gives you a singular expertise and strength on how to deal with anything you are about to face .

A consequence of that is that all your shortcomings are simply boundary lines around the 'essence of you' that outline beautifully the shape of your actual original powerful identity .

Your flaws are the outline of your strengths

Flaws, shortcomings, things that bother you, are often personal calls to adventure, things that manifest to yourself as in need of being addressed. They can be seen as vehicles baring a message from your unconscious about your personal gifts and purpose in this life. Direction signs telling you THIS WAY or NOT THIS WAY.

When Designers for example work on a project, the first thing they do is to ruthlessly eliminate options. They immediately try to outline very clearly all the limitations that are to be applied to the final product so that everyone can see what this product is not.

By adding limitation after limitation they actually define the identity of what they are working on and making it what it is supposed to be, which ultimately it is exactly what makes it valuable.

You are like a product of Design and your limitations are a fundamental part of you, that if you didn't have you'd be something else. Now you might want to be something else but the question is what awesome thing is it that you already are and you are not seeing it?

You might scratch a window if you try to polish it with a hammer, but when it comes to sticking nails into a wall no cloth can do it like a hammer can...in fact no cloth can do it. Everyone knows a hammer's not a cloth!

The hammer isn't soft of flexible or foldable, but THAT IS WHY it is absolutely perfect for smashing walls and planting nails.

A cup is an empty piece of hard material, but that is the reason we find it useful to hold drinking liquid in it. The flaw is the point! It's emptiness is its gift. What it lacks brings forth what it has.

We are what we are because we are not what we are not!

Instead of focusing constantly on what we are not and trying to make up for it, in order maybe to conform to a misguided ideal we formed in our head for some reason, we could turn around and notice what we ARE and realize that our personal unique power is exactly there!

What you lack IS what you have, what you are not IS what you are. You never finished school...but you are the owner of your own business at 22. You can't fix a leaking sink...but when you speak on a stage, people are spellbound.

No light, no shadows.

When you try to accomplish something, you will collect some failures on the way. If you try to illuminate a room that is actually used and lived, the objects in the room will cast shadows. Often shadows have glorious shapes and hide gems. You might not like your shadows, but then you'd have to turn your light off to make them disappear, and what good would that be?

Gary Vee for example said he spent a lot of time on social networks that failed, did business choices that led to loss of money, pursued interests that made him no profit or derailed him from something that was working very well for him into something apparently less ideal .

He says that it is EXACTLY because, not in spite, of all those instances, that later on he was able to understand how to build what he is building now and fucking CRUSH IT!!!

You are the hero. Make it headcount

We have plenty of skeletons in our closets and this time that we are going through (2020 Covid 19 Pandemic lock down) is potentially the right time for that closet to burst open and flood us with bones. But WHAT IF we magically could change the lens we use to look at those closets and suddenly we had the refreshing feeling that all those skeletons are heads instead?

Heads on the walls or on the library shelf. Trophies. Heads of enemies we defeated in our HERO JOURNEY over the past years (imaginary of course, we don't want no murder case on our consciences). Skeletons of dragons we have slain in the active process of carving our identity, even if by accident...

In doing so we actually created ourselves the way we are now,and we did it ACTIVELY, albeit unconsciously, on a foundation of heroism.

Given the number of those skeletons we hold in there, if we flipped them, we would probably find that we have an impressive headcount!

No matter you had no choice in the matter before, you can have a choice now

No hero ever wants to be thrown out of their cozy lair into an uncomfortable, damp and dark forest of adventures, but when they learn to see themselves as the hero of their story, instead of a spectator of unfortunate events, that is when they own their flaws and turn shit around like a french omelette and save the day entering the Legend.

The power of internalized perspective is phenomenal, and this time of lock down where we are strongly limited in our normal life experience, offers a unique opportunity that might never happen again .

An opportunity for reflection, reconnection with our true selves, with our friends and family, with our values, to see the difference between the life we normally lead and a slower alternative pace and EDUCATE OURSELVES so we can come out of this refreshed instead of crashed !!

Hope y'all doing good. Do me a favor: Stay sexy... and count your blexy... or should I say, count your heads .

Kajo