Latest / Forged In The Dark / The Beautiful Prison
Transcript
- Forged In The Dark: Are you living in a beautiful prison? Have you created a beautiful hell? I can't imagine how you just received that, but there's something here and it's important that we talk about it. Welcome to Forged in the Dark. I'm your host, Jamie. Let's dig in. Now my grandmother was born in 1918 and she lived to be almost 104. She was the sweetest thing. She was the most faithful person I've ever known. and ⁓ she loved Wendy's cheeseburgers ⁓ only but if happened to ever forget the ketchup ⁓ she would never ever it ⁓ Now, my grandmother and I had a very special relationship. As a child, I spent more time with her than any of the other grandchildren. And one thing I I I I guess I want to just throw this out there at the beginning. I I love my grandmother and Today I am using her as a cautionary tale and I love my grandma. Like I I love her. She is still very present in my life. very, very much still present in my experience, even though has since passed. ⁓ Now she was born at a very different time. And getting all the way to a hundred and four, she she would live through ⁓ everything that that over a century held. ⁓ the Spanish flu, the global pandemic, every war, every president. And the early part of my grandmother's life was very hard. Very, very hard. And once she married my grandfather, she she settled into a more comfortable life. Now as a child, when I was spending all of this time with her, she really did rely on me as a confidant. And as a child, I had no idea what she was even saying to me. Like I remembered just blank staring, hearing her words, when ⁓ ⁓ an adult ⁓ ⁓ doing all of the adult things, marriage, kids, ⁓ ⁓ from my grandmother ⁓ of those years before in childhood made so much more sense. ⁓ As an adult, I had such a better insight to who my grandmother was, why she was the way she was. But I don't want to get too too caught up in the story of our relationship and miss the big arch of the story. Because at some point She lived a very comfortable life. She never drove. she didn't have a job. ⁓ And ⁓ again, cannot the amount of faith this woman possessed. She always did her best ⁓ to remain happy. And and ⁓ ⁓ There was a long list of things that she always wanted to do that she never did. She she she never she never got a a classic education, drove a car. ⁓ She was completely ⁓ on on the around her. ⁓ It occurred to me in the last couple of years how much. Of an influence my grandmother actually was on my life. How much more of an influence she was than I ever gave her credit for. Now, I do happen to be one of those people that I don't look like what I've been through. Okay. you know about things because I tell you about them, but but I don't wear all of my stuff on my sleeve. And I I haven't necessarily had an easy life. And at some point in being a stay-at-home mom for 17 years, I created this incredibly beautiful life that I don't want to say it was all fake. I don't want to say it was all a facade, but ultimately it was a beautiful prison that I was trapped in. So my grandmother did it, and I repeated the cycle. And of course this has me thinking of you because this does not have to be your physical location. This does not have to be the space you live in. What area of your life have you put yourself in a box? What area of your life have you created a beautiful prison? What area of your life is this ⁓ how did I say it? This ⁓ beautiful hell? what area of your life? You know, the thing, the thing that's crazy to me is even as the times evolved, like my grandmother was born in 1918. she was alive when women got the right to vote, when women started to drive, when women came into the workplace. But my grandmother never was able to see her opportunity to get into that world. And she had a lovely life. And she had so many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. However, she was never ⁓ able to see where she had opportunity. And ⁓ So these areas of your life that you feel like you're in a prison that that you created, whether you recognize that you created it or not. there is an area. ⁓ Of your life where you are going to be able to see this pattern, whether it is the home you live in, what is that home actually costing you? Is it costing you your relationships? Is it costing you your peace? Is it costing you chasing your goals? It maybe, maybe it's not, maybe your beautiful prison is not where you live. But think about your life right now. And I want to give you a different angle to think of this from. Right, because I think being able to see or feel or sense how this is in your life is really important, and sometimes it's important to take a little bit of a step out. So for some reason, a tarot card is popping into my head, the the the eight of swords, and I'm not super big into tarot, but if you're a t if you are a tarot person, you know the picture on the eight of swords. Swords. There is a blindfolded woman and eight swords around her. She cannot see that all she has to do is step forward, step back to the left or the right, and she's free from the swords. She can't see that all she has to do is take one step. And here's another way to think about it. Think about elephants. A circus elephant is trained from a young age. They put a chain around the ankle, and the chain is attached to something where the elephant can't go anywhere. But later in the elephant's life, the elephant literally has a chain that is tethered to nothing. It's not the post that stops the elephant from moving, it is the actual chain. So maybe take these two examples and put them together. What are you not seeing? What chain are you not seeing? Because I can tell you that it took me most of my life to see that I was reliving my grandma's life. It took me it took me a long time. To not only recognize that I was living her life, but how tragic it is to get to the end of a long, beautiful, blessed life with a long list of regrets. So With so much love to you and to my grandmother, the the the question here becomes: what do you need to do to get out of the swords? What do you need to do to see the chain that has you tethered to nothing? And it all begins with you getting brutally honest with yourself about the the the fact that you may have created a beautiful prison. You may have accidentally created a beautiful hell for yourself. And there was one more point that I wanted to make that just went zoop right out of my head. So, so this is where I'm going to leave, this is where I'm gonna leave it today. But but spend some time with this and think about it. Because even if it's not your physical location, there is an area of your life, is costing you something. What is your beautiful life costing you? ⁓ And I think okay, so there's one last thing that I forgot to throw in there. If your life was ugly, you would be all about picking it apart to figure out what was wrong with it, right? But because it's beautiful, you just automatically assume it's working. ⁓ there's so much more to this story. No, now I'm on fire. I wanna keep going. But but this is where I'll wrap it up for for for the sake of time. The life that you have created, just like the life that you are creating, will cost you something or many things. So, what is it costing you? Because if it's costing you yourself or your peace or your freedom, the question is: what's it actually going to take for me to be so uncomfortable in this beauty that I'm willing to leave it behind for something more beautiful? Okay, that's where I'll leave you today. Until next time. ⁓