That Challenge is Your Opportunity

As leaders, we're confronted by challenges on a daily basis.
We're also looking for opportunities.

What if the very opportunity you seek is seeking for you, and it’s showing up as a challenge in your life?

This is not how we’re taught to look at problems and challenges. We're taught to avoid them, stuff them, ignore them, plow through them or overcome them.

Stephanie and Maren discuss a challenge from Maren’s life - her ongoing saga with her landlord - and look at it from a radically different perspective allowing Maren to make space for possibility, which becomes a domino effect in her life. 

If you are tired of fear and angst and constantly feeling the need to control every aspect of what's going on, this week’s podcast is for you! Ready to breathe easier? Tune in.

• 04:32 Letting go of the blame and shame
• 08:44 Trusting the irritation, making space for possibility
• 11:51 Allowing stories to unfold themselves
• 16:43 What you resist persists - going through the doorway

LINKS

18:50 The Great Uplift: 12 Days of Creation

TRANSCRIPT

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Transcript

Maren Oslac: 0:04

In a world where achievements and accolades motivate us to do more and be more, we're often left wondering, is this really it?

Stephanie Allen: 0:12

deep inside, you know, there is more to life, you're ready to leave behind the old push your way through and claim the deeper life that's calling you.

Maren Oslac: 0:20

That's where we excel. We're your hosts, Stephanie Allen and Maren Oslac.

Stephanie Allen: 0:26

And this is the soulful leader podcast,

Maren Oslac: 0:29

sit back and relax as we share the shortcuts we've uncovered to help you make shift happen. Welcome back to this soulful leader podcast. This is Maren and I'm here with Stephanie. And we wanted to talk about doorways today. Yeah, I guess, the doorways in your house. And it's more of like the opportunities in our lives, the doorways that open to us, you know, when God shuts the door opens a window, or she opens a window? Like, where where do we find those opportunities? And do they look different than what society has taught us to actually look for?

Stephanie Allen: 1:20

And even the metaphor of a doorway is that you're changing state, you're moving from one room to the next, or one, you know, inside to outside, and it's crossing a threshold. So you have an opportunity to move to a new state, in the next room, or the next iteration.

Maren Oslac: 1:38

Yeah, I know, for myself, this has been something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, because there's still some drama around my studio from Gosh, it's 10 months ago, now that I shut the doors of the studio. And oftentimes, as we move through life, we think that things are getting in our way. And this is a story that I hear a lot that I could be telling myself around, oh my god, this is still dragging on. It's getting in my way. It's causing me problems, I am losing opportunities because of it. I'm, you know, all of the stories. And, and one, from one perspective, they're true. All of that that's all true, it still is dragging on, it gets in my way. And so I decided, What if I flipped that coin? And thought, what if it's not getting in my way? What if it is my way? I like what if it's my doorway? What if it's my opportunity, because if it keeps going in your life, there's probably a reason that it keeps going in your life. So what is it that it's offering me? What's the gift? What's the doorway? That's going to be more powerful than me shoving it to the side blaming other people getting grumpy about it. All of the stuff that we do, trying to look over here and the other direction, saying I'm supposed to go over there. I'm supposed to be doing this as well. Wait a minute, what if I'm actually supposed to be right here? Looking at what's mine? What is the what's the inner dialogue for me to have? So what I notice is that what upsets me the most around what's going on with my studio is that my landlords feel like they want to control every piece of it and keep making it more and more fear and fear based for my tenant. So I'm right now in between my landlord and my tenants. So I've sub, sublet my space. And what I decided to do was go and look at where, in me, are fear and control coming up? What do I, what's mine to look at there?

Stephanie Allen: 4:12

And this is a great insight. And so sometimes we can take that victim mode, and we turn it into shame. It's like, Oh, why am I not getting this? Or what am I, what am I not looking at, or it must be about me, so we can shame ourselves and stay in that victim mode too. So either outwardly blaming or inwardly shaming. And and I think what you're saying too, is like to really look at what is yours to do, but also from a more empowered place of like, what if this is your way? What if the challenges in your life the difficulties in your life are actually helping you like going over that threshold coming into a new state, or a new being? Who do you want to step into or what is it that is calling you in the next state to allow you to move into a higher order? and And, yeah, I think this is a really great conversation because we tend to get into reaction or rebellion, we've talked about that a lot is, you know, I don't want to, You can't make me, or why bother I'm I'm so, just give up. And you know, and if you feel those two ways that's, that's often the blame and shame part. And so what is the higher way? How do you shift into a new state of being and what did you do Maren to really go in and look at that control and the manipulating within yourself without having to shame yourself for it?

Maren Oslac: 5:35

That's a great question. Because really, I noticed that there were two things that I had to do. And they are directly related to blame and shame. The first thing I needed to do was to, I don't know which one came first, whether it was not, I think it was not blaming myself, like, it wasn't something I did wrong, that, like, if I had done it better, if I had been a better person, if I had stayed on top of things, if I had, if I had, if I had, if I had, right, we do that to ourselves all day long. And we think we're the problem, or that there's a problem at all right? Instead of a gift. So that was one aspect of it is letting go of the blame. What if it was exactly perfect, exactly where I needed to be and everything that I did was at totally 100% perfect and I'm right where I need to be to get this gift and open this door of opportunity? The second one is to stop blaming or shaming the other party of they did this, they did that. They're idiots. They're controlling, they're wanting to teach me a lesson. I don't need that lesson there. This, you know, like, all of the outward stuff of I can justify every single one of those statements I just made. They're all true. The other thing is that what's also true, is that it wouldn't be an issue for me, it wouldn't trigger me at all, if there weren't something inside of me that was feeling the same way. Right? So we attract things as a mirror to ourselves. And, you know, there are some things that, we'll, think of somebody in your life who gets triggered by something that it means nothing to you, right? And you can chuckle at them like, Oh, my God, that's hilarious. You get all worked up. And like, I don't get worked up around that you get worked up around that. If I were not worked up, all right, there's probably not something it's not a doorway for me. Because I am worked up around the fact that they're, they're being controlling, and they want to manipulate me. And it's like, there's something that I get to look at that I have an opportunity to look inside. And I don't know what it looks like, I'm not going to try and put names on it. And it's a moment that I get to be present and go Hmm,

Stephanie Allen: 8:17

so what I'm hearing you say, too, is that there's an underlying story that you're telling yourself that you're not even aware of that is perhaps controlling you or manipulating you and using your energy in a way that once you go and uncover the story, you can re-story, that story to one that lifts you up and out into a whole new paradigm. Yeah.

Maren Oslac: 8:44

And the other piece of that is that I may never actually discover the story. And that's okay. I might, just being present and aware that there is a story may allow me to shift that and find a different story and a new story. And be happily on my way.

Stephanie Allen: 9:07

I think what you're saying, too is that there's so many of us are trying to fix it or find something or like you know, use that do-er energy to uncover something instead of sometimes just being with it and not and not having to know, just being with it and feeling what is, feeling the uncomfortability, I often think of the Rumi poem that talks about, you know, if you know if we're irritated by everything, how would the pearl ever become a pearl without its sand? It's like to allow the irritations to actually polish us to that we don't have to figure out how that's going to happen if we can just stay with it. We can trust the unfolding of that irritation or the difficulty that somewhere in our future, we're going to look back and go oh, that's what that was for.

Maren Oslac: 9:57

I think the the most Important thing is to make space for the possibility. And for me in this it is, if I'm blaming myself, there's no space there. If I'm putting it on them and blaming them, there's no space there either, when I can let go of both of those, and just be like, oh, there's an opportunity for me and sit with that, I've created space for something different. Whether it is, you know, I might actually pull it out and go, Aha, there's the bigger I found it, and be able to, like, do whatever I'm supposed to do with it at that moment. And it may be, you know, three months from now, or six months from now, or six years from now I go, Oh, I never give that give that another thought.

Stephanie Allen: 10:53

And it's called, you know, and I hear

Maren Oslac: 10:55

It's a closed door, what you're saying with that, too, is like, making space, it's

Stephanie Allen: 10:57

it's a closed door, right. So when you can like to feel it, to actually sit with it and feel it. And not open that up and allow that energy to move through you by make a judgement about it one way or right, but just to feel without fixing it, or changing it or judging or giving it a the emotion. And in Chinese medicine, medicine, when there's story that you actually are releasing. And so often, we hold pain or discomfort, it's because energy is not moving, it's not flowing. And so how do it back, hold it back, hold it back, hold it back, and then it blows. And it either implodes on ourselves, or it blows up with those that we love and feel safe around us. So to really feel the uncomfortability, I always say feel it to heal it, you know, and energy in motion is emotion. So to allow that to flow and not make a story. That's the key, as the emotion's flowing out not to make a story, but to allow the stories to unfold themselves and be released from your body in your mind. And that is actually what makes space so often when people say I don't have the capacity, or I don't have the space, it's most often because it's, what is it being stuffed with? old stories, behaviors, thoughts, emotions that we don't want to look at. And we distract ourselves. And so we'll either react, or we will you know, be into resignation, like why bother, and we give up. And we just go into a depression, or different things like that, instead of like really embracing going, Okay, I'm going to feel it as a part of me, not all of me, but to give it a part of me is really angry or sad or afraid or whatever it might be. But to get ourselves permission to feel it.

Maren Oslac: 12:41

I really think that that's key is noticing it as a part of me. It's not all of me, it's not who I am. So when I've done, right now I'm in the middle of looking at what aspect of me or what story is being told inside of me. That's around fear. That's around control. That's like, I'm so fearful that somebody's going to screw me over that I'm going to try and control every aspect of it. Because that's essentially what I'm feeling from my landlords is that they, they want to control every aspect of what's going on. Because they're sure, either I'm going to screw them or somebody's going to screw them. Like, nobody's going to screw you. Like you're taken care of it's okay.

Stephanie Allen: 13:34

And that's what we do inside ourselves, is it we try to control the feeling we try to stuff it, we try to like, oh, no, I'm not going to give them any anger. And I'm not going to show fear. It's like actually to be vulnerable, is actually takes great amount of courage. And that's also what opens up that door to allow the flow to happen. Yeah, it doesn't mean that you have to, you know, project it onto somebody else. But just to sit with it and feel it and be with it.

Maren Oslac: 13:57

And I'm noticing other places now, am I, so I've opened that door and I'm giving it space and I'm like, the question, the quest that I'm on right now is where am I allowing fear and control to run my life? Subconsciously, right, I want to make it conscious because right now it's happening subconsciously. If it weren't, none of this would be going on. Right? This is my opportunity. This is my doorway, this is where I get a chance to go. Okay, so where is it running my life subconsciously? And not, for me, I know, you know, this may work for other people, and I know there are a lot of, you know, gurus out there who talk about roto-rooting, like go in and find it and that's not my way. My way is to be present to it. And not good bad, right wrong, like both are effective. And for me, I'm just being present to where is it that that's going on right now. Where are those stories running my life, running part of my life. And then what are, the other half of that is, what's a different story that I actually want to live into? A happily ever after story, the happily ever after story, the empowering story, the one where I wake up, and I'm full of joy, and no one's trying to screw me. And every, like, everything in the universe is conspiring to support me and do, and you know, like, that's my story.

Stephanie Allen: 15:39

And I like the happily ever after part, because we're standing at the end of our story, looking back, and we go, had I not suffered or had I not had this opportunity, I would not have learned or appreciated or valued or unfolded these gifts or strengths or opportunities. And I think that's a practice in itself is to go to the end and look backwards in time, that's why hindsight is 20/20 they always say, right?

Maren Oslac: 16:03

right,

Stephanie Allen: 16:03

It's like, so go to your happily ever after. So you don't have to figure out what that is. You just say, I'm just gonna go there. I don't know what it is yet. And stand in that place and presence, that possibility to look back at this time and say, you know, if I hadn't gone through that I would not be in this happily ever after place. So what what did I learn? What did I discover? Not about the world, not about wherever that, but what about myself? Like what, like the pearl, right? Like, you know, the sand actually creates the pearl. So you are the pearl and that irritation is actually polishing you for something. So what is that? And what does that mean?

Maren Oslac: 16:43

Yeah, I think that that's so key, because that is the, it's not that I'm trying to stop it. It's not like, Oh, I just want to shut that door, make it go away, and find my happily ever after. I want to go through the doorway. Yeah. I want to, I don't know if I want to say I want to experience the irritation. And like, rather, what you resist persists. Right? So if I keep resisting and saying no, no, no, I don't want to do that. I don't want to look at it, I'm not willing, then it's just going to keep coming back in different ways in my life. So yeah, I want to open that, this is my opportunity. Here's a doorway for me to go, What if I opened myself to it and embrace it? Go through it. Feel it, like you said, feel it to heal it, you know, different way of looking at you know, we're looking for our opportunities, and we're confronted by challenges on a daily basis. And it's just, uh, you know, what I'm finding is, it's just a different way of looking at it than than I was, I was never taught to look at things like this.

Stephanie Allen: 17:54

Yeah. Cuz we're taught to avoid them or stuff them or ignore them or be the positive

Maren Oslac: 17:58

overcome them.

Stephanie Allen: 18:00

Right. Exactly. Instead of saying, What is this difficult this challenge actually teaching me what is it helping me become?

Maren Oslac: 18:11

So I'd love to, for all of you out there who are listening. Tell us some of your stories of you know, as you're looking this week, at some, maybe a challenge that you hadn't necessarily thought of as an opportunity, something that you kind of just wanted to shove off to the side and be like, that's not about me. What if you open to it and said, what if it is about me? So we'd love to hear some of your stories. Remember, you can find us on Facebook and LinkedIn, under the soulful leaders. And if you wanted to watch our little talking heads talking to each other, you can find us on YouTube. And that's also at the soulful leaders. And we only have a couple more weeks until our 12 days of Creation. So if you're not familiar with what that is, go visit our website. Either the soulful leader podcast.com or our new website TSLP.life, which stands for The Soulful Leader Project dot life TSLP.life. We'll see you all next week on the Soulful Leader podcast.

Stephanie Allen: 19:29

And that wraps up another episode of the soulful leader podcast with your hosts, Stephanie Allen

Maren Oslac: 19:35

and Maren Oslac. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to dive deeper, head over to our website at the soulful leader podcast.com.

Stephanie Allen: 19:46

Until next time,