Time for a Breakthrough
How are you doing with your Word Of The Year (WOTY)?
I’ll be honest; I only finalized mine just last week. It came to me during a meditation. My eyes were closed, and I was trying to quiet my busy mind when a pinhole of light appeared. And then, it became a crack allowing light to filter through.
The word came to me in that instant. Breakthrough.
A breakthrough changes the course of your life going forward, ensuring that things will never again be the same. While the word indicates some kind of sudden realization, it’s more like having reached the tipping point.
I have spent the past 10+ years working on myself, so my journey to a breakthrough has been very incremental. Everything I’ve done till now has led me to its front door.
Do I dare open it?
The Facade
I recently started a coaching course I will share more with you later, but it exposes and labels distinct parts of the ego as various saboteurs. They usually show up in childhood and serve as survival mechanisms.
I’m starting to recognize them and how they derail me regularly. This, too, is part of my breakthrough.
While my saboteurs have led me to where I am (which isn’t at all terrible!), they want to keep me here, playing it safe and staying small. I’m learning to see through their guises and familiar ways so that I can chart a different path for myself.
With their help, I’ve built a safe facade around myself. But that’s all it is. A facade; made of the stories I’ve told myself over the years, the limitations I’ve placed on myself, and the beliefs that had taken hold in my mind as truths.
But they are lies.
The peephole and crack of light showed me there IS something beyond this facade I’d built.
The Reality
I recently came across the following passage which really resonated with me.
"A breakthrough entails facing the absolute reality of my past – and how it is still impacting my present, without judgment and then decide how you want to create your future. Your reality is not just a matter of where you stand today or where you want to be tomorrow. It is made up of everything that has ever happened to you, everyone you have ever met, anything you have ever done, and any feeling you have ever felt – or denied."
Powerful stuff.
So this is my year of facing my absolute reality and not burying my head in the sand or beating myself up over it. It is what it is, and I am where I am. But I am not staying here.
The How
As I mentioned, my breakthrough is incremental so I’m taking small but consistent steps.
Instead of just crossing singular to-do’s off my list (keeping busy on the stuff that doesn’t matter), I am chipping away at the scarier stuff. An honest email here, a difficult conversation there, and a full-on come-to-Jesus confession to trusted souls when I drop the ball on these steps (like today).
And then I quickly jump back to the easy stuff. Balance, Cher! Remember, breakthroughs don’t happen overnight.
If you can relate at all, think you are on the verge of a breakthrough or want to be, ask yourself the following:
What do I want to do with my life?
What’s stopping me?
Are the stories I’ve told myself still serving me?
Have they ever?
I ask myself those questions a lot lately. And if I’m honest in my answers, well, that keeps me going too.
Thanks for giving me the space to share this stuff.
May 2023 be a magical transformation for us both!
Carolyn