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Bullshit or Growth?
Heather Maio • September 20, 2021
Almost all the time, the answer is: Get out of your own way...
What is worse? Being aware of our bullshit or being unaware? Knowing we are fucking our life up or believing the majority of our problems to be outside of ourselves and our control?
I have my answer. I am curious about yours.
Truthfully, I've found both to be exhausting. If you are aware, you know when you are fucking up and sliding into detrimental habits. You know when you are off your game and letting destructive practices guide your life and choices.
And when you are not aware- well, that sucks too- because you are doing all of the above but under the delusion that either
A: everything is fine, and you are just living your life
or
B: everything is fucked you have no control over your life.
If you haven't guessed it, I am a fan of being aware of our bullshit. I will gladly take the knowledge that I am the one fucking up my life over the bullshit and incorrect belief that life is largely out of my control.
Awareness of your bullshit is a blessing – because with that awareness comes an awareness of your potential and all the shit holding you back from achieving it.
Whenever I talk here, on my podcast, or in any post, I am always speaking to some version of myself. Maybe it is Heather the fuckup, the one who felt powerless and incapable of change – the one who spent her nights watching Real Housewives, her weekends drinking, and her days chasing her own tail. Sometimes it is the Heather of the future – I cannot wait to meet her, and I am doing everything I can right now to make her proud.
Because of that, I am almost always talking to this Heather, the one in the present. The one in the middle – who feels largely above her past bullshit but also somehow still tethered to it. Tethered to the IDEA of who she used to be, because she knows to some people – my past is all they know. And I am not that person anymore.
Stepping out of who you were to become someone new is the bravest thing you can do – because it often means walking away from everything that keeps you comfortable.
Coincidentally those things are normally everything that is also keeping you stuck.
The behaviors we turn to that allow us to numb rather than feel. The stories we buy into that keep us believing we are somehow not strong enough, determined enough, or whatever bullshit we tell ourselves when we look into the mirror.
I am writing this with frustration. I have difficulty seeing people stuck in bullshit now, mainly because I stayed cemented in mine for the better part of my adult life.
There was always a reason not to try. A reason to say no. A reason to stay small. I allowed fear of the unknown – mainly fear of failure – to run my life.
I was the person who was always telling myself no.
What a fucked up way to live. Constantly telling yourself that you were incapable. Constantly fighting for your unworthiness.
I can't be around that now. I don't claim to be a psychic – but my ability to sniff out bullshit is unmatched. I can spot an excuse from a mile away. Tied to that – I see potential clearly and brightly. I see everything buried deep inside that is begging to come out… if only we could get out of our own way.
I can't. I don't have time. I don't have money. I will feel stupid. I have never done that before. I will look dumb. Everyone will be looking at me. Everyone will be judging me. I will fail. I will falter...
All the lies we tell ourselves to keep ourselves small. Stuck in our bullshit. I've heard them all, and, at points of my life, I have said them all. I catch myself saying them still - the words falling out of my mouth out of a habit that has been in place since I was 16.
A habit of not trying.
At what point do we stop it. At what point do we look in the mirror and say, I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE! (???)
As Elizabeth Gilbert said,
no great life transformation happens without one first becoming sick of their own bullshit.
Aiming to keep ourselves comfortable is like letting a child carry around a pacifier until they are seven. What kept us comforted is often what is keeping us stuck.
The fear of missing out is keeping so many of us trapped.
We are so conditioned to say yes to old experiences while cutting ourselves off from new ones.
How many times have you experienced the same hangover? Saying every time you were done… no more of this shit. You are too old, you know better… Only to do it again next week.
And I am not only talking about drinking. The guilt hangover that comes from gossiping. From skipping the gym. From turning to food to numb our emotions instead of being brave enough to feel them.
The hangover that comes from every time you sell yourself short – knowing deep down you are capable of more – but terrified to find out what that more looks like.
Because you know – meeting that version of yourself requires shedding so much of who you are right now.
I am a tangle of emotions today – almost none of them are mine. I am harboring them for others; I am a keeper of excuses, goals come and find me – they tell me their big dreams. I allow myself to become overcome with joy over all the good they promise. I see their potential, and it inspires me more than I could begin to explain here. But then life happens, things become hard, situations arise, inevitably roadblocks are found… and I get left with an unbroken promise of those goals again.
I know the discomfort that comes with examing your bullshit. I know what it is like to pull apart the proverbial closets that contain our baggage, the mess it creates, the stories we must untangle and piece apart to discover what is ours and what was simply picked up along the way.
It sucks.
It is messy.
It is arduous.
And it's fucking glorious.
Looking yourself in the mirror, fully taking ownership of where you are right now, removing the blame from everyone else, and owning your role in your story is the most freeing thing you will ever do.
Every full moon, I take an opportunity to examine my bullshit. To make a list of all the things I am doing that are keeping me stuck. After years of this practice, you would think the list would be dwindling… but alas, here I am – still writing.
I don't think this work will ever be done. The difference between now and when I started is that I am ok with it. I know I am not a project to be finished. No one is.
I would like to say we are all doing our best, but I do not believe that to be the case. Some of us aren't. We are allowing our bullshit to run our lives. We are ok with being the victim of our circumstances rather than the creator of them.
I don't want to be filled with excuses anymore. I want to be filled with dreams. Dreams so big I tell no one for fear they would think I was crazy (and because I can't have anyone's limited scarcity minded energy coming into my field of manifestation… not today Debbie downer, not today).
All that to say- look at your bullshit. Look at your excuses. And then – the scariest of them all –
look at your potential.
Imagine all the amazing things you could do if you got out of your own way.
Then ask yourself: What am I fighting for? My bullshit?
Or my growth?