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Refusal Of The Call · Unlocking The Paradigm Portal

• 0:00
  Hello everybody, welcome back to unlocking the Paradigm Portal.
• 0:03
  My name is Sarah. So we are jumping back into the
• 0:06
  hero's journey and a quick recap of where we are.
• 0:09
  We did the ordinary world Week 1, The life that fits like a
• 0:13
  shoe that is now a half a size too small.
• 0:15
  And then there's the call to adventure.
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  That moment that something taps you on the shoulder and says
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  there's more and you know it. So you would assume, obviously
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  having received the call, that the hero answers immediately.
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  Nope, absolutely not. The hero does what every single
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  one of us does when life offers us exactly what we've been
• 0:34
  asking for. The hero says no.
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  So today, stage 3, the refusal of the call, It's in every movie
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  you've ever loved, and yours looks nothing like it does in
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  the movies. And honestly, your refusal might
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  be the most honest thing about you, if you're able to see it.
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  So in the movies, the refusal is a scene, as in singular it has a
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  beginning, a middle, and a conveniently short end.
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  So Luke Skywalker gets invited to learn the ways of the Force
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  and rescue a Princess. Objectively the best offer
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  anyone on that dust farm has ever received.
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  And what does he say? I can't.
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  I've got responsibilities. The harvest.
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  The freaking harvest, Luke. Dude, the Galaxy is calling and
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  you're worried about space crops?
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  What the heck? And then we go into my personal
• 1:25
  favorite Lord of the Rings. Frodo tries to hand the ring to
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  literally anyone else in the room and he says I'm not made
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  for perilous quests. Seriously.
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  And then Neo, I just thought of this 1 today as I was working on
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  this The Matrix. Neo is offered the truth about
• 1:42
  reality itself. And what does he pick initially?
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  His cubicle. And notice how the movies
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  resolve it. The refusal gets overridden by
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  catastrophe. Luke says no and comes home to
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  the farm burning like the story torches the ordinary world.
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  So the hero has nothing left to refuse.
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  And screenwriters call it raising the stakes.
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  But it takes about four minutes of screen time. 4 minutes.
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  Just hold on to that number, because we're about to talk
• 2:10
  about how long the refusal takes in real life, and it is not 4
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  minutes. So here's the thing about your
• 2:17
  refusal. In your real life.
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  It doesn't look like refusal. So nobody stands in their
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  kitchen and dramatically declares, no, I should not
• 2:27
  become who I meant to be. Wouldn't that be easier because
• 2:30
  at least it's honest. But real refusal is quieter and
• 2:34
  it's sneakier. And so let me show you how it
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  looks in real life. So refusal dresses up as
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  busyness. Things like, I'd love to, but my
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  schedule is just crazy right now.
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  Every schedule, every moment on it, every week, every month
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  mysteriously is just crazy. The calendar, if you think about
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  it, is the most socially acceptable no ever invented.
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  And refusal also disguises itself as preparation.
• 3:03
  And you know this person, or you might be this person, God knows,
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  I have struggled with this one. One more certification, one more
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  course, a little more research, a little more preparation.
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  And those of us who have struggled with this, we've been
• 3:17
  doing this crap for years. And at some point preparation
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  stops being preparation and becomes a very studious hiding
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  place. So refusal also pretends that
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  it's about the timing. Things like when the kids are
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  older, when things settle down after the holidays.
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  Which holidays? It's unclear.
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  All of them. It could be any of them.
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  Someday is where callings go to wait, and some of them wait an
• 3:43
  entire lifetime. And other times refusal pretends
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  to be realism. So this, this one's the most
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  respectable of all, to be honest.
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  It's things that come up like be practical.
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  People like me don't do things like that, or it's too late,
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  it's too risky, it's too expensive, whatever it is for
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  you. And it sounds like wisdom.
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  And sometimes it even quotes your bank account.
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  But listen closely and you can hear the fear underneath, doing
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  a very good impression of an accountant.
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  And in the movies, the refusal lasts 1 scene.
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  But in real life, the refusal can last decades.
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  Hell, it can last your entire life.
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  You can build that entire life inside the refusal, and you can
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  build a decent one, even a respectable 1.
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  And it's still a half a size too small.
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  Now here's where I break ranks with every motivational poster
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  ever printed. I'm not going to tell you the
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  refusal is weakness and I'm not going to yell feel the fear and
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  do it anyway. Though I have used that
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  reference of feeling the fear and moving with it.
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  But here's the truth. The refusal is information.
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  And if you know me, you know I say everything is just data
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  collection so you don't refuse small things.
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  Nobody agonizes for 10 years over whether to try a new
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  grocery store. The size of your refusal is a
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  direct measurement of the size of what's calling you.
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  Big no means big stakes. Your resistance isn't blocking
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  the treasure, it's standing directly on top of it, pointing
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  down. And the refusal isn't coming
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  from your mind either, which is why you can't logic your way
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  through it. You've tried.
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  I guarantee you've tried. You've probably made the pros
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  and cons list and the pros won. You still didn't move because
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  the no doesn't live in your reasoning.
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  It lives in your body. It's the chest that tightens
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  when you almost say it out loud, the throat that closes around
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  the announcement, the sudden overwhelming need to clean the
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  entire house the moment you sit down to begin.
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  Now, that's not laziness. That's a nervous system that
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  learned somewhere along the line that being visible is dangerous,
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  that wanting big means losing big, that safety lives inside
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  the fence. So your body isn't sabotaging
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  the call. It's protecting you from
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  something it remembers, even if you don't.
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  So the move isn't to bulldoze the refusal.
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  Bodo bulldoze refusals, come back with reinforcements.
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  The move is to get curious about it, to sit with the no, and to
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  ask it what it's guarding, because the refusal, honored and
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  heard, will eventually tell you exactly what it needs in order
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  to open the gate. Refusals don't dissolve from
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  pressure, they dissolve from safety.
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  So one more thing, and I'd it's one that I'd tattoo somewhere
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  visible if I felt like getting more tattoos.
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  In the movies. The stakes get raised once farms
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  burn, hero leaves next act. Life is more patient than that
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  and more persistent. Life escalates, so first the
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  call comes as a whisper, a restlessness, maybe a Daydream
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  that keeps coming back. It's easy to ignore, so we do
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  it. Then it comes as a tap.
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  The job gets a little grayer. The Sunday nights get a little
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  heavier. Something that used to fit
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  starts kind of pinching in. Then a knock, then a pounding.
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  And for some of us, ask me how I know, it eventually arrives as a
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  brick through the window. The health event, I've had
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  multiple of those. The collapse, I've had multiple
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  of those. The loss that rearranges
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  everything, I've had multiple of those.
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  The moment the ordinary world burns down on its own without
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  your permission because you wouldn't leave voluntarily.
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  I refer to this as the shift or be shifted.
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  And if you don't shift when the call comes in, eventually, if
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  you keep refusing it, you're going to get kicked off that
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  ledge. So I'm not saying this to scare
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  you. I'm saying it because there's
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  mercy and knowing it, you get to choose which volume you answer.
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  The whisper and the brick are the same message, just one of
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  them costs a lot less. So the refusal is universal.
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  It's in every story because it's in every body.
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  Yours doesn't look like a movie scene.
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  It looks like busyness, preparation, timing, realism.
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  It isn't weakness, it's a bodyguard pointing at the
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  treasure. And the call doesn't give up, it
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  just gets louder. So your homework, if you're
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  brave, name 1 refusal just to yourself.
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  Finish this sentence. I've been saying no to dot dot
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  dot insert your answer. And then, and this is the
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  important part, don't do anything about it yet.
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  Just notice where you feel the no in your body.
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  That's the doorway. And that's where we're going to
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  go next. So next episode is the mentor.
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  What happens when the no finally cracks and why?
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  Your mentor, whoever it is or whatever it is that shows up,
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  probably won't have a beard and a staff, though.
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  How cool would that be? Like if Gandalf showed up on my
• 9:03
  my my front steps, I would probably lose my mind in
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  excitement. That would be awesome.
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  But alas, that may most likely not happen.
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  So until next time, come home to your body.
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  It's been keeping the light on. Listen to it.
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  It knows far more than your mind does.
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  So have a wonderful day and I will be back next time.