Getting In Your Own Way - Grasshopper

Who’s never gotten in their own way? Nobody you know. In addition to being human, that’s one thing we all have in common.

What does it mean to get in your own way? I’m pretty certain there are more answer to that question than we have time for, but it seems there’s one thing we all do that keeps us steeped in do-do.

“What,” you ask? 

Pretending that we’re not enough.

It begins when we learn addition. No, not math but the process of adding things to ourselves that we believe will make us more acceptable, more whole.

Reminds me of a story from eons ago. 

I was 14 years old and in need of muscles. I was a skinny bag of bones, and in my eyes, it was depriving me of being eligible for the prize: of being accepted and perfected. I would read comic books, mainly about superheroes: Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, and Flash.

In there I would see ads for the “Mike Marvel Muscle Course.” I saved up my allowance and sent away for this answer to my prayer. You didn’t need to lift weights was its claim. I couldn’t wait for it to arrive in the mail. When it did, was I in for a surprise. Aside from doing knee bends, jumping jacks, and pushups, its secret to building big muscles, like the ones seen in the ad, was you had to extend your arms out to the side, like you were being frisked and crumple a full sheet of newspaper in each hand. That was the Mike Marvel secret to building bulging muscles that was kept from the world, until now.

Needless to say, I crumpled more newspaper sheets than the Daily Planet could produce but got no amazing results, other than maybe a better grip.

It took me well into my adult years to get a grip that I was enough. It happened when I learned about subtraction. That’s the process of removing all the things you thought you needed to be whole.

What have you added to yourself over the years to make you look better in the eyes of your peers? The old phrase “keeping up with the Joneses” comes to mind. You eventually notice that those things haven’t worked. What to do?

Start subtracting those things from you. It goes well past physical possessions. It’s attitudes, points, of view, ways of doing things, etc. that aren’t working for you. One-by-one retire those additions and find yourself in the process: a whole you that’s comfortable in your own skin.

Getting out of your own way is a subtraction routine that removes the accumulated mental fat and makes you a lean machine. One that can cast out false gods and make you feel like a King or a Queen

All the best,
John