Cultivating Expanded Capacity for Resilience, Resoluteness, and Recommitment

For the last few weeks I have been launching EXPAND, our comprehensive business training program, to a segment of my email list. I kicked it off with a 3-day live event that was an absolute blast and received rave reviews from live and replay attendees alike. But in the days that followed, I came upon a familiar feeling. One that arises pretty much any time that I set a goal.

Apathy.

If I was the Carly of a few years ago, I would start thinking something was wrong. I’d think that maybe I didn’t really want to bring people into this program (that I’ve been developing and refining for the better part of 3 years now and absolutely adore running). Or that I have mindset issues that need to be resolved. Or that obviously since I couldn’t “hold the energy” I was going to fail and nothing good was going to come through.

But this time as the apathy seeped into my being, I was able to greet it with a warm hug. For this is the part of me that is afraid of being hurt or disappointed, and therefore it was doing what it has been taught to do in order to protect me from such “scary” feelings and experiences.

The logic goes: If I completely disengage from the goal and disconnect from my desires, then I won’t be able to feel the pain of disappointment.

It makes sense in theory, but in practice, much like many other self-protective responses, it actually ends up contributing to the exact outcome it is afraid of. Because if I disengage from the goal, then I’m not going to take action to achieve the goal. If I disconnect from my desires, then I won’t be motivated to look for and take hold of opportunity and insight. 

I hugged my apathy tight, and told it I see you. I shared with it that I was grateful for what it was trying to do. And then I asked if it would let me, my adult present day self, take the wheel—maybe it’d like to go play in the field with the butterflies and flowers (my sacred space in my inner world) instead? She ran off with glee (she didn’t want to be carrying the weight of seeing me and this launch succeed).

In todays’ episode of The Sustainable Success Podcast, I’m sharing how I cultivate my capacity to hold tightly (not suffocatingly) onto the things that I actually DO desire to hold onto. Instead of letting them go out of fear of not receiving or experiencing them. Tune in today wherever you listen to podcasts to episode 012. Cultivating Expanded Capacity for Resilience, Resoluteness, and Recommitment.