Small stuff? Back away!

March 4th, 2021

Do you ever get caught up in the small stuff? You know when the small stuff keeps you from the big stuff? And you don’t do the Big Vision thing you said you were gonna do? You don’t have the impact you know you can have?

Yeah me too. I hate that.

What if you backed way out and looked at yourself from above? Far out past the self-doubt and the critics and the noise. Past the likes and the comments and the views.

You would be so far out you couldn’t see the small stuff: how viral your post went (or how viral it didn’t go) or how many people stopped their scroll (or didn’t) when they saw you talking on their screen. 

What if you backed way out from the busy. The urgency. The list. The scramble.

From the knot you feel because you need to finish the proposal and what if they don’t hire you? The waking too early because you know you should be more visible and you’re not. The middle of the night panic because wait this isn’t how I thought it would go. 

What if you backed away from all of that? What would you see? There’s light, right? Some of it hot. Some of it bright. Some of it washing away down the creek bed behind your house because the small stuff is not serving you anymore.

I’m not talking disassociation here. I’m not suggesting you leave your body.

You get to stay in your body 100%.

Let’s say when it comes to your body you get to go further in. You go in in in so you feel every sensation. You feel the burning in your heart and the shaking in your belly.

You feel the knot and you say “There. Right there.” You say, “I’m here.” You say “This is my body.” You say, This is the knot I feel in my belly right now.” You say, “I love you.”

And then you go further in with awareness and care. 

You feel every cell waking up.

What if you went so far into that sensation that the story was gone.

The part of your mind saying “I can’t do this” or “What was I thinking anyway?” or “I’m a piece of shit.”

The part of your mind that says “But what if they don’t love me? What if I’m not good enough? What if I’m not like the rest of them? What if they laugh at me?”

The part that’s screaming “What if they love someone else more?” 

You go so far into the sensation of being awake and alive that the story dissolves, falls to the floor and all you hear is a tiny ping as it falls because it is that small. It’s that light.

All the power you gave it was yours and you took it back when you said I love you.

So you said I love you again. And again and again and again. 

So there you are in the sensation of your gorgeous humanity. You’re above and beyond all the small things.

And when it’s time to come back in — because your mother rang the dinner bell and it’s getting dark and you’re ready to put your feet back on the ground anyway and have dinner and be with people you love — you remember you have work to do that matters, you have stories to tell that someone needs to hear.

You have a voice that holds immense truth and power.

You remember you said 2021 was the year you were going to do that Big Vision thing. Suddenly that knot doesn’t feel so tight and the burning in your heart feels more like desire than terror, and the shaking in your belly feels more like joy than fear. 

So you do it. You do the thing you said you were going to do. The Big Vision thing. The one that all the small things was clouding out.

You get on stage and speak. You pick up the pen and write. You start the business. You have the hard conversation. You jump out of the proverbial airplane.

What would it take for you to back away from the small stuff, take the bird’s eye view, and leap?