
GO OUT AND PLAY (An Un-Seeing Exercise)
I just stumbled over a quote from the amazing Maya Angelou that resonates with me enormously, especially during this time of lockdowns and disconnection:
“Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that,
the quicker we will be able to treat life as art.”
The lady knew. To become fully human, we have to go out and play. Then we need to come back inside and tell each other our stories.
Poet laureate, mother, dancer, sex worker, best-selling author, daughter, singer, street car conductor, sister, political activist, actress, film maker, scholar, and wife, Angelou embraced and emphatically owned her life. She learned her lessons and she used them to help the rest of us learn and accept our own.
Angelou imbued the experiences of her life with meaning to such a degree that she became a beloved internationally-known icon and a lasting, powerful voice for heartfulness and connection.
Even now, she remains as a testament that our identity, our sense of self, is made up of the stories we tell ourselves and each other.
As a result of her accomplishments the lady received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Her words shine on even after her death in 2014.
The following YouTube video, “The Evolution of Maya Angelou” was published in 2019 by Now This Entertainment. It gives a short overview of the long and multi-faceted life of one who embraced all that Life had to offer, turning it all into a magnificent poem.
A NUTS-AND-BOLTS GUIDE TO SELF RE-INVENTION
I came across a book, PERSONALITY ISN’T PERMAMENT: Break Free From Self-Limiting Beliefs and Rewrite Your Story by Benjamin Hardy, PhD. It was published in 2020. It will probably have a place on my bookshelf for a while.
In the book, the good doctor, best-selling author and blogger starts from the premise that every personality test ever devised is basically B.S.
Things like the Color Code, the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator, the DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness) assessment, the Enneagram, the Winslow Personality test, the NEO (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness) Personality Inventory and the HEXACO (Honesty, Humility, Emotionality, eXtroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to experience) personality framework as well as all the off-the-cuff personality quizzes in magazines and online apps that say they can tell you who you are lie, he says. Period.
He does have a point. Most personality quiz things and assessment tools are flawed, but people do like to play with them. Sometimes they use these quizzes (or the quizzes and assessment tools are used by other people) to make decisions that can affect their lives adversely.
The personality quiz fetish got so bad that in 2019 Facebook had to ban the things from the platform…after 87 million people had given away their personal information in exchange for answers to a personality quiz.
Every personality quiz that ever was, according to Hardy, is based on a cognitive bias (a systemic error in thinking) held by schools of psychology that “places a great deal of emphasis and value on the past.”
At one point Hardy tells us, “This is how successful people live: They become who they want to be by orienting their life toward their goals, not as a repeat of the past; by acting bravely as their future selves, not by perpetuating who they formerly were.”
As promised, Hardy tells us how — replete with assorted exercises and head games as well as role models galore. His musings are summarized and categorized in the chapter headings:
- Transform your trauma. (CAVEAT ALERT: This book is not a substitute for good psychotherapy if you are suffering from post-traumatic stress or other extreme anxiety or mental health issues. It seems to me to be mostly about “little-t” traumas.)
- Shift your story. (There’s some really good stuff about how to play with your stories and create your own meanings.)
- Enhance your subconscious. (These are mostly common-sense things about taking care of yourself.)
- Redesign your environment. (These, too, are pretty standard stuff about building a support system and an environment that helps you stay focused on your desired outcomes and making your goals become real.)
It’s all put together in one place as a system and way of doing things, and it at least gets you to look at what you’re doing from a perspective that might help you break away from the limiting beliefs and thought patterns that keep you spinning in circles.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once pointed out that, “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” (Hardy even uses the quote in his book.)
Angelou’s stance seemed to start from seeing all of the experiences of her life as gifts. The lessons she gained were ones that she could use to enhance her sense of the worthiness of her own self and to help us see her (and ourselves) in that way too.
Angelou danced directly and honestly with Life-Its-Own-Self and with the rest of us as well. And maybe that is the real difference.
CAULDRON
You are sitting in the middle
Of the cauldron now.
The perfume of your sacrifice
Rising all around you,
Reaching up towards Heaven
As you ripen, as you mellow,
Giving up the old,
Letting go, letting be.
Others crowd around you
Wanting, needing, demanding juicy bits,
Scraping, bowing flatteringly,
Trying to get you to notice
That they are there waiting
For you to pick them up and carry them.
After all, you are so very strong
And they need you, don’t you know?
But Heaven’s there, up above
That cauldron where you sit,
Marinating in the juices of the world.
It opens wide to swallow you up,
If you’ll just release this need you have
For being needed, being noticed.
There will be no thunder if you turn aside.
There will be no hallelujah chorus if you don’t.
The only thing that happens is,
Eventually, once you’ve steeped
As much as you can stand,
You’ll climb back out and wander
Down the eternal road again,
Maybe doubling back or maybe going on,
Dancing or drooping, weighed-down or floating.
The ripe scent of you wafts upward,
Tickling the nostrils of the ancients.
You are being helped,
Even though it feels
As though all that has been
Is in disarray and disorder.
It means little…
Only that what is flying apart now
Will join again in splendid new arrangements.
Press on….
By Netta Kanoho
Header photo credit: “Adventure shoes” by Ardelean Samuel via Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]
……
SOME OTHER POSTS TO CONSIDER:
(Click on each of the post titles below and see where it takes you…)
- TRAIN YOURSELF TO CLIMB OUT OF THAT BOX
- PUT SOME SOUL IN YOUR GAME
- CHECK YOUR FILTERS: Roadmaps and Story
……
Thanks for your visit. I’d appreciate it if you would drop a note or comment below and tell me your thoughts.
12 thoughts on “GO OUT AND PLAY (An Un-Seeing Exercise)”
I have never thought about it in the way of where the thing I want could take me and am just now realizing that what I want could change a whole lot in the life I now live. It could effect many things. . . .many people around you.
Like you said, we are so small in this universe.
This page really makes you think about your prayers, your life and how the things you pray for will affect you. Very interesting.
What an insightful comment, Helen! Thanks for the visit and for sharing your thoughts.
You are right, you know. In order to get the outcomes you desire, very often you have to make room for it among the rest of the life you are living already. It is always a good thing to consider where your wants can take you.
It’s why, I think, I prefer Maya Angelou’s way of walking in the world. If everything is a gift and all of it must be honored and appreciated and savored, then the space you inhabit gets larger and deeper and wider to accommodate it all.
I like that a lot.
Please do come again.
Hello there! This is a really great article and I definitely agree with most of it!
It’s really true that in order to truly grow and to gain a vast amount of experiences to share with others, one must really go out and not be fearful.
I remember when I was younger (during high school time) I lived with my parents and they had a lot of expectations from me. They were kind of like my limiting factor in how I grew.
It wasn’t until around college time that because of life’s circumstances, they had to move roughly 2,000 miles away from me and I was left alone in the state of California. (I was stuck there due to school and work).
At first it was a “little” traumatic experience, but you know, those were actually the years that I gained the most growth by working towards a goal and had a plethora of valuable experiences to share that I would never want to replace.
Thanks for sharing this article.
Mike, thanks for the visit and for sharing your story. It is a truth that when the circumstances around you change, you have a grand opportunity to grow and to have your own adventures. That’s the coolest thing about change.
Please do come again.
Good Morning Netta
Wow! I love your piece. You know life has an uncanny way of showing you where your path truly is. The more you reject or neglect to listen, the more the universe will show you the best path.
Change is a part of life, as life never stands still, I also know change can be hard for people to accept. If you do not accept change, you equally reject life. To be at peace, exactly where you are, you must completely accept life.
Beautiful read Netta, enjoy your day or evening wherever you may be.
Shelley
Thanks for your visit and for sharing your thoughts, Shelley. I do agree with you, ya know….
Please do come again.
I really am amazed by the overall article. It’s very concise, descriptive and informative. So true about the opening caption statement: “Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art.”
With poetry, I’m amazed at how words flow and feed off of next words or phrases. Poets in general just knew how to write. I’m glad I got to experience this page. I did not go through the remainder of your posts however, but this one in particular is given a 4 of 5 thumbs up from this guy!
Jeremy, thank you for your visits and for the thumbs-ups (is that even a thing?).
Please do come again.
I have referred to several of Maya Angelou’s quotes in my website articles to inspire and encourage my readers about life’s challenges. Indeed, we may face a lot of difficulties and complain that life isn’t fair but that does not mean we should give up. Instead, we should use them as a living testament of how we were able to overcome them.
We all have our stories to tell and some may choose to share them through poetry while others do it by writing in their autobiography.
I haven’t heard of Dr. Benjamin Hardy but I got intrigued by what he wrote in his book PERSONALITY ISN’T PERMANENT: Break Free From Self-Limiting Beliefs and Rewrite Your Story. I will go check it out; thank you for sharing, Netta.
Thanks for your visit and for sharing your comments, Alice. Hope you like the book.
Please do come again.
I subscribe to a newsletter on financial matters and how our mind-set on money can affect our relationship with money. In a recent email, I was challenged with the question of “what self-limiting beliefs do you have”? It’s made me realise that we often set limits of what we are capable of, on ourselves.
Rather throw away the self doubts and at least have a go, specially at new things. So it is interesting how it ties in with the book Break Free from Self-limiting beliefs by Benjamin Hardy. I’ll certainly be getting a copy of his book.
I love the way Maya Angelou encourages us to embrace life, and live it to the full. Here’s to life, and live every precious minute to the maximum.
I’m really pleased this post resonates with you, LineCowley.
Please do come again.