Owning it - "The Magic you are looking for is in the work you're avoiding"...

I like looking up quotes. It is nice to see who wrote what and where it came from. As well as being little wordy gems, that represent "things I really wish I had said", quotes give us an anchor to a thought, or a state of mind - perhaps even a way to live life. Mostly, they are either clever or beautiful or deeply deep. And I think deeply deep down, we all crave a life that is quotable...

Good quotes - the ones that resonate the deepest - engage us the mostest, because the psychology within them connects directly with how our grey matter processes good information and worthy feelings.

Our brains produce alarming levels of dopamine when we read powerful words and phrases that strike a big chord. Our attention is suddenly very focused and - after reading the best of best quotes, we seem to develop a kind of steadfast motivation. All at once, we want to remember them, live by them and 're-quote' them entirely at will.

So the quote in the title of this piece, is one that struck me personally so squarely, I almost had to reach for the Ibuprofen... So here it is again.

"The Magic you are looking for, is in the work you're avoiding"

It seemed so obvious.. and then it started nagging me a bit. Almost to the point of haunting me more than a little bit. A lot bit...

I have always considered myself fairly "strategic" in the pursuit of my goals. Thoughtful; careful. Mixing the right measures of risk and reward, of impulse and caution, with just a whisper of reckless abandon. Yet something in me, on reading these words, made me suspect that I was not really creating the magic, I was waiting for it to find me. The magic I was looking for was right there, in all the work I was dilly-dallying my way around. The conversations I was rehearsing - not having. The nutrition advice I was giving - not following. And all that stuff I was conscious around, but never truly owning a jot of it.

That is perhaps one of the weirdest things about us humans - we are so exceptionally good at avoiding the things that are really good for us. That dodging and all that ducking and diving, is part of a very ironic defence mechanism. A very effective one, actually... The whole avoidance thing, protects us from that which feels genuinely quite terrifying: Success and Happiness.. Double-U, Tee Eff.

So we must at this point - surely - pose the question.. "Why are we so afraid of success and happiness?".. I mean, really? Well, it turns out we need to split up these troublesome twins and look at them in isolation. So here goes that..

Success is fearful for many of us, as it eliminates all our excuses. In other words we can no longer blame other people, or the weather, or bad luck, or the referee. People will "expect" things from us - like continued success, for one. Some among us, are so afraid of success, that we have unwittingly turned into serial self-saboteurs... just when things start looking up... we press the ACME dynamite plunger and detonate the whole kit and caboodle.

Happiness scares us, basically because it means we basically have something to lose. When we are coasting along, just running in neutral, we don't have so much to lose. We can't fall any further. Happiness is vulnerable..

And then Vanessa just reminded me of a third factor in this soup of fear. The concept of "wanting". We are even afraid of wanting things, go figure. Because wanting is also vulnerable.

Wanting is to admit that you don't have. And if we want, then we might do some of the things we need to do, in order to get the things we want.. and if we fail publicly? Everyone will know what we want and watch us not get it..

In other words, the more we want something, the more it would hurt to fail. So... the things we want most become the things we avoid most. We stay in “I could if I wanted to” rather than risk finding out we couldn’t, even when we tried.

Ughh.. I need a lie down.

And maybe that’s the point.

Because most of us don’t need another quote, or another book of quotes, or another perfectly timed, brilliant insight that lands like a gentle, intellectual pat on the head. We can get plenty of those. What we don’t have - or at least what we don’t often give ourselves - is the environment in which we actually do the work.

Because the truth is, the work we avoid rarely gets done in the same place that we learned to avoid it. It doesn’t happen in the same routines, the same conversations, the same quiet negotiations we’ve been having with ourselves for years. “Tomorrow.” “Next week.” “When things calm down.”

But things don’t always calm down.

We don’t suddenly become different people because we read something deep or really clever. We become different people when we step into something that asks something of us - gently, but undeniably. And that’s the part we tend to cleverly sidestep. Not because we’re lazy, or incapable, or lacking in basic willpower… but because doing the work requires us to be seen. To try. To risk not getting it right. To want something enough to show up for it.

And that’s uncomfortable. Deeply uncomfortable.

So we circle it. We think about it. We talk about it. We quote it. But we don’t quite step into it.

And perhaps that is where something like Soulstice begins. Not as a solution. Not as a promise of transformation wrapped up in a nice ribbon or a neat bow. But as a space.

A different environment. One where the noise is just less, the pace is slower, and the avoidance becomes a little harder to maintain - not through pressure, but through presence.

Because when you step out of your usual world, and into a space where others are doing the same… something shifts.

The conversations become more honest. The questions become harder to ignore.And the work you’ve been avoiding… gently comes into view.

Not all at once. But enough.