Off It

What would it be like if you could get off your point of view about something and totally shift your perspective, seeing what's happening with a new set of eyes?

Tonight, I got "on it" for longer than it normally takes me - making myself wrong with the whole internal "shoulda coulda woulda" conversation and mentally beating myself up for a few minutes of not doing what I knew to do. Formerly, this kind of breakdown would be something I couldn't live with; I'd always strived for a degree of excellence in everything I knew I did well, and if I knew I couldn't make the grade in any endeavor, I'd inevitably give up and turn my attention to something else I knew I could really excel at. Take sports, for instance - I knew I couldn't hit, catch, or volley a ball to save my life, so I totally gave that up and turned my attention to other things I was "better" at. Or Math, which I thought I could never figure out. And thus I did really well in English, the creative arts, History, debate, Biology, languages, extra-curriculars...everything else. Looking back, it was all a compensation - a cover-up - for the stuff I'd failed at, for everything else I wasn't good enough to do.

But that was all inside a lie I'd convinced myself to believe. I wasn't a total failure at sports - I excelled in swimming, soccer, social dance (heck, ballroom dancing is some kind of sport nowadays). And later on was at the top of my scuba diving class (psi computations and all, so I couldn't be a total numbskull at Math). Come to think of it, I had high marks in Statistics and Geometry, so I couldn't really play dumb in the mathematical arena.

So it was all really an internal conversation I had with myself about what I wasn't "good enough" at. Today was a prime conversation about the "games" I thought I'd never win. I dilly-dallied for a couple of weeks about coming up with a business plan/financial structure for the publishing arm of the media company I'm a part of. My excuse was that my experience with publishing was purely creative and editorial and I had no clue about how the business and marketing aspect of it was about. Yet, presented with a whole new "game" - creative outsourcing - a revolutionary new idea my team had been toying with the last several months, I got totally pumped up about coming up with the very same requirement of a business plan in only three days. After all, it was a game I'd never played before (no internal conversations of how "cumbersome" or unprofitable such an operation would be). And I know I can get in all on paper in a few hours . (Or request an expert to do it. Thanks, Lex!)

Those internal, invalidating, disempowering conversations can really limit possibility. After those 30 agonizing minutes of castigating and emotionally throttling myself for being "less than excellent," I got off my point of view that I was "bad and wrong" and actually got back into who I was as a possibility and what I was committed to. And a beautiful, miraculous space emerged - something I would not have been present to if I'd insistently stuck to my perspective. Results-wise, the numbers went off the charts, despite (or perhaps because of?) the breakdown.

Getting off hard-and-fast points of view can mean an alteration of the quality of one's life. Giving up the view that your mother is unsupportive and hypercritical and taking the perspective of love and concern can actually transform your listening of the seemingly hurtful "that was nothing!" to the genuine intent of "that was nothing, compared to what I know you can do!" Giving up your point of view of a loved one, who you once perceived as a loser who doesn't appreciate you, leads to the realization that he's actually hungry for your love and acts out to get your love and attention. Giving up your point of view that someone is being harsh, unreasonable and pushy in getting you to do what you ought to do, all of a sudden has you get how much they love you and how they only want the best for you, and what they really want is for you to see how much further you can expand and how much better you can be (even if you can't see it for yourself).

I've been "getting off it" lately with some amount of velocity, and I'm thankful for not having to stew and gripe for long periods of time. When I'm "off it," the world stops being about ME - and I get present to what's really possible. I get present to grace - the miracle of every moment that I am alive, and the miracle of every person around me. Who knows, I might actually volley a ball, with some success, or solve a complicated Math equation off-the-bat, any time soon!