Where’s Your Box?
Is This Your Box?
Talking to my husband the other day, I told him I envision a room full of tables and around each table women and girls, mothers and daughters, aunts and nieces, grandmothers and granddaughter. And I am presenting on stage.
Your Power
“Do you remember a time?” I ask. “When you felt powerful? When you felt like you could do anything, be anything and no one could stop you?”
“Do you know, you still can?”
“Sure, we’ve gotten older, our skin is not so pliable, our bodies not as flexible, but our minds, our minds are still young and that power within us is still there. We just have to find new ways to work with these bodies that have aged or changed in some capacity.
Your Box
“So, this is what I want you to do. I want you to sit up straight in your chairs, look straight ahead and close your eyes. Now imagine a box, just an ordinary box, it can big, really big, or as small as you are. But every box has two things in common, they are square like a cube and they close at the top.
“Now you can decorate your box anyway you’d like inside your mind, but what I want you to do is imagine that that box is your life and you are living inside that box. Everything you do, every thought you have and every dream you dream for your life must fit inside that box.
Your Life
“No. No. No. These aren’t my rules. They’re yours. Unless you’re living a life where dreams can and do come true, you are currently living inside a box. And you’re life will never change.
“Do you know why? Because you don’t want your life to change. You like your box, you like your walls and how familiar they feel. And that’s fine, if you’re happy and content and you never want your life to change. But, if you’re not happy and you’re living to please someone else. It’s up to you to change.
“I won’t lie to you, going outside your box is scary and unfamiliar. It takes courage to move outside what’s familiar. It also takes faith.
Your Choice
“Sure, faith in God, faith in your higher power, but also faith in yourself. You have to believe you can do it, and you have to believe you deserve it. Once you get past that voice inside you that says, “You can’t do this. You’re too dumb. or you’re too weak, or dreams, especially yours, will never come true. Or, maybe, it’s just because you’re too busy taking care of everyone else and it’s selfish for you to think about what you want.
“But, I have to tell you. You deserve to be happy as much as everyone else. Now mommas and grandmothers and aunts and sisters and daughters and everyone else look across the table at the person you came here with tonight. I want you to say, “You’re allowed to take care of yourself. You’re allowed to be good to yourself. Your allowed to love yourself. And then, I want you to tell the other person, you don’t have to live in a box. Together we can tear down those walls.
“Well done, Ladies. So, now I want you to take that piece of paper on the table in front of you and I want you to write a number one. Beside that number one I want you to write something you can do today to start breaking free of your box.
Taking That First Step
It can be as simple or as complex as you want. But, if you are really serious about getting out of that box, I want you to start off with something you can do, really do, today. Because if you can accomplish one goal today, tomorrow you work on number two.
“Baby steps, Ladies. Mothers, do you remember when your child was a baby. Do he or she start walking overnight? Probably not, can they walk now? Do you get what I’m saying?
“Every goal starts with a dream and every dream is accomplish by you taking that first step and then your second step and your third and so on. So, Ladies, let’s start getting you out of that box!”
