There I stand
at the edge of my life
with stars in my eyes
and fire in my belly.
Who doesn’t long to live a life fueled by passion. It’s high up on the list of desirability for most of us as a positive quality that underpins success, growth and evolution. Passion is the elixir with a double whammy, that has this way of making life juicy for those who possess it in spades while simultaneously making them irresistible to others who want more of it.
Isn’t that how we all start out in life, actively involved with a big yes to almost everything and especially the things that matter most to us. So, why is it that instead of an overflowing fountain, passion is sometimes more of an elusive spring, you know it’s here somewhere but you can’t find it. How do we get our hands on some of this magic potion?
If, like me, you have a few grey hairs from experience and strive wholeheartedly to keep the passion alive in your life, great job! You might also have found yourself wondering if unlimited passion is a thing of youth, simply not meant to last. The layer of cynicism seems to grow its insidious roots with a little more ease over time in spite of our determination to fight it. In place of unbridled enthusiasm and the never say die attitude, there’s resistance towards reaching for our wildest success. We find ourselves playing small, procrastinating or self sabotaging and generally getting in our own way. It’s that uncomfortable place between getting started and giving up on projects that really set our world on fire, while our days are spent on distractions that don’t hold any significant meaning to us. Ouch!
What’s going on ?
The answer lies in our inner barriers which shape the way we respond to obstacles, undesirable outcomes and breakdowns. As Rumi famously wrote, “ Your job is not to seek for love but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it”.
If unbridled passion is a raging fire, disappointment is like a wet blanket that creates smoke and stings your eyes. A pitfall that robs us of passion is inadequately addressing disappointment and frustration. There’s often a sense of shame and personal failure when things go awry. It’s common to either a) cover up the emotion and forge ahead with false bravado or b) act out of the emotion and withdraw from the game. Either way, the unacknowledged emotion colors our reaction and leaves a bad taste. Like extra baggage, undigested disappointments can start to weigh us down and create internal resistance to playing the game wholeheartedly.
Setbacks come with a gift, when we’re able to harvest the learnings and use them to inform our next move. They become the compost that feeds our growth in the form of wisdom and experience. The bigger the setback, the bigger is the opportunity for growth.
How do we recover from setbacks and keep the golden fire of passion burning bright ?
The key is to acknowledge the emotional charge that blocks our natural enthusiasm for progress with compassion. As if you’re there for a dear friend who is in emotional distress. By going through a process of forgiving ourselves for mistakes and failures, instead of trying to forget them, we reclaim the energy that is stuck here.
Once all the emotion has been discharged, we can connect with our wisdom and start to reflect on the situation with fresh eyes. Meeting buried emotions may cause some discomfort, but it’s well worth making the effort for the rejuvenating after effect. There is a renewed vigor for the opportunities ahead. By dissolving the emotional hangovers that block our enthusiasm, we can keep reclaiming the fire of passion in our hearts and enjoy the power of this vibrant energy to propel us towards our dreams.
While it’s natural to begin the projects that are meaningful to us with wonder and curiosity, we may not be automatically equipped to navigate the challenges, obstacles and breakdowns that come with the territory of playing our biggest game in life. To keep the fire going and finish with passion, we need to embrace the active cultivation of these skills. As we shift out of the expectations of ‘perfect’ situations and step into the wisdom of the powerful creator inside ourselves, we begin to access passion for all parts of the journey, including the challenges and setbacks. The situations we might ordinarily resist and perceive as our biggest challenges are also the ones that have the potential for our greatest expansion.
Here’s what we need to stoke the fire of passion in the long term :
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Directing our passion towards a vision that’s authentic and big enough to inspire us.
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Designing specific, measurable and achievable goals that stretch and inspire us without creating pressure.
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Growing the skills to meet and manage our emotional state with grounded openness, both positive and negative, at each step of the journey.
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Cultivating the ability to hold a dispassionate perspective towards the ups and downs on the road to the destination as opportunities for growth.
Although passion is a very much needed fuel to realize the fulfillment of our desires and dreams, it isn’t enough on it’s own to take us all the way. Whatever fires up our imagination also requires us to stretch our comfort zone. For the long haul, we also need to be armed with the wiser, more experienced, big brother/sister of passion – which is dispassion.
Dispassion can step back and see the hard facts without emotion with the big picture in mind. Passion is fully involved and therefore can get carried away. Being passionate doesn’t mean being unreasonable or impractical. Being reasonable doesn’t mean playing small. On the contrary, both qualities are complementary and we need a healthy dose of both to maximize potential. The energy of success goes on to feed the passion for more creation in an ongoing and self perpetuating cycle.
Click here for more details on an exercise that you can use to reclaim your passion.
To find out more about dissolving inner barriers, the creation mindset or working with Monika, go to monikavijh.com
Written by Monika Vijh
Monika Vijh is a transformational coach and facilitator. Her mission is to support individuals and groups to break free from stagnation and embrace the aliveness within them to create a life they love waking up to. Monika grew up in India and trained as an architect. Her life experiences led her to discover the calling for deeper connections. She has two children and lives in the UK at the edge of a forest.
Week 22, June 2021
