in and your talk finished in the top two of the day, and given what you study, you were the dark horse
going in.”
Here’s the bottom line:
If we want to live and love with our whole hearts, and if we want to engage with the world from a place of worthiness, we have to talk about the things that get in the way—especially shame, fear, and vulnerability.In Jungian circles, shame is often referred to as the swampland of the soul. I’m not suggesting that
we wade out into the swamp and set up camp. I’ve done that and I can tell you that the swampland of
the soul is an important place to visit, but you would not want to live there.
What I’m proposing is that we learn how to wade through it. We need to see that standing on the
shore and catastrophisizing about what could happen if we talked honestly about our fears is actually
more painful than grabbing the hand of a trusted companion and crossing the swamp. And, most
important, we need to learn why constantly trying to maintain our footing on the shifting shore as we
gaze across to the other side of the swamp—where our worthiness waits for us—is much harder work
than trudging across.
“How-to” is a seductive shortcut, and I understand that. Why cross the swamp if you can just bypass
it?
But here’s the dilemma: Why is “how-to” so alluring when, truthfully, we already know “how to”
yet we’re still standing in the same place longing for more joy, connection, and meaning?
Most everyone reading this book knows how to eat healthy. I can tell you the Weight Watcher points
for every food in the grocery store. I can recite the South Beach Phase I grocery shopping list and the
glycemic index like they’re the Pledge of Allegiance. We know how to eat healthy.
We also know how to make good choices with our money. We know how to take care of our
emotional needs. We know all of this, yet ...
We are the most obese, medicated, addicted, and in-debt Americans EVER.Why? We have more access to information, more books, and more good science—why are we
struggling like never before?
Because we don’t talk about the things that get in the way of doing what we know is best for us, our
children, our families, our organizations, and our communities.
I can know everything there is to know about eating healthy, but if it’s one of those days when Ellen
is struggling with a school project and Charlie’s home sick from school and I’m trying to make a
writing deadline and Homeland Security increased the threat level and our grass is dying and my
jeans don’t fit and the economy is tanking and the Internet is down and we’re out of poop bags for the
dog—forget it! All I want to do is snuff out the sizzling anxiety with a pumpkin muffin, a bag of
chips, and chocolate.
We don’t talk about what keeps us eating until we’re sick, busy beyond human scale, desperate to
numb and take the edge off, and full of so much anxiety and self-doubt that we can’t act on what we
know is best for us. We don’t talk about the hustle for worthiness that’s become such a part of our
lives that we don’t even realize that we’re dancing.
When I’m having one of those days that I just described, some of the anxiety is just a part of living,
but there are days when most of my anxiety grows out of the expectations I put on myself. I want
Ellen’s project to be amazing. I want to take care of Charlie without worrying about my own
deadlines. I want to show the world how great I am at balancing my family and career. I want our yard
to look beautiful. I want people to see us picking up our dog’s poop in biodegradable bags and think,
My God! They are such outstanding citizens. There are days when I can fight the urge to be everything
to everyone, and there are days when it gets the best of me.