How To: Turn Your Passion Inward

Chances are that if you are reading this, you are a passionate person! You are engaged on a personal growth path and love many things about your life. However, you are probably one of those people who strive for more most of the time and therefore don’t really notice all that is happening right in your life in the moment. These qualities drive you closer to your dreams every day. But what you may not know is that they deplete you as well. You are working hard at your goals, tending to all of the details in your life all of the time. You are not very good at pressing pause or just saying no if the work at hand furthers you toward your goals. Does this ring true for you or someone you know and love?

So what do you do when your passions start eating away at your most important gift, your energy? Consider the alternative and then consider how you would like to feel right now. Do you want to feel as though all of the details in your life are in order? What can you let go of just for today? What is essential for today, this week, this month, this year? Take some time to break all of this down on paper so you don’t have to hold it all in your head. Take some of the energy you have for your passions – i.e. work, sport, family, friends, loves – and use it to center and ground yourself into how you would like to feel today.

Since today is Valentine’s Day and we tend to emphasize romantic love on this day, turn your passion inward. Give yourself the love you hope to receive from the outside world. Give yourself the gift of time and inward attention. Embrace all of the feelings you are experiencing, including the negatives. Make a mental or physical Valentine for yourself that can become a reminder of your desired mental state. Use this as an intention or a mantra daily. Remember balance is the key to optimum performance so place attention equally on your inner and outer lives.

Love is a fascinating subject to study. The heart exists on all levels and informs the mind moment by moment, like a narrator, about how you feel. When overwhelm, deep sadness or disappointment emerge, we are quick to suffocate the emotion as if it may ruin us. Think again. Feel again too. The pain and discomforts are cues to getting to know the self more deeply. We are not accustomed to taking time to explore these experiences, allowing airtime to some of the darkness that is normal for all humans. Developing a practice for these explorations expands the ability to love. Open to your heart by taking time every day to listen and explore. If you are intrigued, be in touch with me. I will support you to establish and maintain this practice that will lead you to a more balanced life, and ultimately regular peak performances!