Are you a Box Dweller or a Box Destroyer?

I haven’t posted in a while.  Summer and all that can be busy especially when you add kids into the mix.  Love that I can be home with them and not have to worry about asking my “boss” for time off.

Had a conversation with someone this week that got me thinking about life.  They invited me to speak at an event and share my story.  I am sitting in my office thinking about the past the present and the future I started thinking about the boxes I have built in my life.  No not a physical box, but that invisible ones, the boxes that we all have on the inside of us.  You know the one.  We climb into them when we feel threatened or unsure of our situation.  We retreat into the safety of what is familiar, where we have “control” basically what we perceive as safe.  Even if we don't like how it feels in there we at least know it better than the unknown.  They are interesting because most of the time we don’t even realize they are there yet we find ourselves inside them with the lid shut tight. 

The problem I find when I have climbed into one of the boxes, or in some cases tripped into one and didn’t even know it lol, is that it creates a situation where I cannot see opportunity. Typically it's a time in my life that I find myself feeling angry more than normal.  Where I feel like there is no hope of change.  Times where I feel like nothing ever goes right.  What I am realizing about life is those are the times I am in a box.  It's because all I can see are the four walls that surround me.  Of course I can't see anything other than the situation I am in.  Now it is up to me to realize that the answer is there.  That I may be the issue.  Hmmmm that can be a hard one to swallow can't it?  Me the issue?  You the issue in your own life?  No one can lift the lid off that box.  Only me and you.  For example, how often has someone offered help and we turn around and go "That's ok I can handle it"?  Really??? Are you sure? Could that be the solution?  Yet we don't want to "inconvenience" someone else?  What about the times someone has invited you to something and then we say No.  When really it's because we are too afraid to go where we don't know anyone.  What if that is the place you meet the one person who is the answer to that problem you are dealing with?  It happens to all of us.  It does not matter how much success we have had in life.  It happens when we are about to grow and do something we may have never done before.  

So when you are feeling that insecurity, hopelessness, fear, nervousness, anger whatever negative emotion you are dealing with make sure you don't climb or "fall" into a box.  If you are currently in one you are the only one who can lift the lid and peak out.  Some amazing things are in that "unknown" place in life.  It can be scary, but it can also be exhilarating.  Lets all lift the lids together and go and see what life has that we didn't even know was there.