Caged Birds

"Most human beings live like a bird in a cage whose door is blown away.

Too busy gold-plating the cage to soar to their ultimate possibility"
I am subscribed to Sadhguru's daily quotes and when I received this one, I thanked the Universe for sending it. It was a much needed reminder especially, as I will be making a very significant change in my life in the next few months. A change that had already been in motion but got placed on hold for a year, while the journey of grief and healing took place. As these next months progress, I need to be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking I'm free when in fact, I am still caged.
I have never been one to spend too much time and energy gold-plating my cage, to the chagrin of my husband and probably horror of family and friends. We have bought and sold several properties in the past 20 years and have both earned and lost a lot of money along the way. In fact, I am still paying some of it off. I have never been one to hold onto a property or lifestyle just because I want to live under the illusion that I actually own something (the bank usually owns our homes) or to try and impress others.
Freedom and inner peace have always been much more important then my cage i.e. the house I live in or the lifestyle I would like others to believe I am living. I probably picked up this attitude after 10 years of working in a large bureaucratic system. I saw so many unhappy co-workers coming in day after day to a job they only tolerated because they felt trapped in their mortgages, marriages and lives. Many of them had become middle aged complainers, dealing with health problems and most were overweight. I remember one day walking into one of my administrators office and seeing a picture on display on his office door. The picture was of a man in jail behind bars (with the black and white striped suit). My boss had blown up the picture and made a flyer out of it and at the bottom he had typed "Lifer". Meaning he thought he'd be funny about his decision to stay in a job that felt like jail for the rest of his life. Working in that large bureaucratic system was often referred by us employees as being in "golden handcuffs". The pay, benefits, vacation time, etc...were great but there was no room for creativity and innovation. Feelings of being trapped were often the norm, the work became routine and often led to physical and emotional burn out. Yet, many stayed far too long, too afraid to leave the golden handcuffs, the gold-plated cage.
I did try once between 2012-2013, to do everything I could, to keep our business property and our home, in essence to keep the gold-plated cage I had built over a few years. For almost 2 years, I was highly stressed, not happy and not a very good mom (to kids who really needed me to be one) and definitely not the best wife. In the end I had to give in, fail a lot of people including myself and ultimately filed for bankruptcy. Many lessons were learned that year and the years that followed and the most important one for me, was to avoid at all costs, living in a gold-plated cage and to instead die trying to reach my full potential. Failing miserably and having nothing, in worldly terms, was one of the best lessons of my life. It intensified the preference and desire for true freedom. Freedom to be myself, to tap into my inner power, my creativity and my passions even if it means being middle-aged, divorced and temporarily living in a shared house (nice way of saying renting a room) or renting a small apartment.
And just in case, I am giving the message that I don't care or I am not highly influenced by the "gold", please do not misunderstand me. I do believe that wealth is needed to tap into our unlimited possibilities and full potential. I know there's no potential to tap into when we don't have somewhere to live or money for food. I am all about wealth building but doing it from the inside out. How do you do that you might ask? That's the journey I have been on in these past few years and the content of my second book. Yet to be started of course, as I have yet to achieve true wealth. This shit is real and this shit can be hard sometimes. Which is why the quote above came at a good time for me, it is so easy to fall into focusing on gold-plating our cage while the door is wide open!
In the meantime and as always, join me in the journey of building our inner strength and true wealth.
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