Who is setting your agenda?
Disney’s Donald Duck, devil and angel depicts the never ending struggle as to, whose voice, you listen to!
A few years ago I was introduced to a course called “The Artists Way” by Julia Cameron. A chapter, which really jumped out at me was… ‘Recovering A Sense of Identity’. In it, I was introduced to Crazymakers & Poisonous Playmates and realized how many of these I had in my life. I want to encourage you to consider who’s setting your agenda and who may be inhibiting you from stepping into your truest authentic self!
Let me put some context around these two notions… Crazymakers are the kind of people who can take over your whole life. To fixer-uppers / people pleasers, they are irresistible and there are a lot of fixer-uppers / people pleasers around. Crazymakers are often charismatic, charming, highly inventive, and powerfully persuasive with a tendency to create storms around them.
Reflecting on this I realized my natural bent to the role of fixer-upper in many people’s lives. I looked down at the names I had put next to the Crazymakers in my life… I was surprised and could see the trap I had fallen into. It actually helped me see who I was allowing to set my agenda! I wasn’t getting anything done that I set out to do, due to the distractions I had invited into my world.
Poisonous Playmates are those, in our world, that are still blocked in some way shape or form, and are stuck there but don’t see it. Blocked friends/family/colleagues may find your healing process disturbing, they may suggest “you’ve changed, become selfish or different.” (These are red-alert words. They are attempts to leverage us back into our old ways for the sake of someone else’s comfort, not necessarily our own.) Blocked friends / colleagues may feel abandoned or rejected, and try to guilt-trip us into giving up our new healthy habits! They complain when we don’t laugh at the jokes we used to anymore.
Now I suspect many of you at this moment are having some level of internal dialogue going on. Being aware of your internal narrative will help you become attuned to what/whom you are listening too. Your self-talk is the most powerful voice and the one we tend to listen to most of all even more so than God’s voice! As you engage in conversation with someone you are generally hearing about 300 words a minute when it’s slow and intentional, yet your level of self-talk is estimated at around 1200 words a min SOOOOooooo it’s no wonder our self-talk is the most powerful voice we hear…
God, thankfully, is outside of those parameters, it is not quantity it’s quality. He will speak when invited; I believe it’s all about relationship with God, making it a practice to invite Him into our day, not just at devotional time but in everything we do, He is so powerful and extremely life giving! He can speak one word and it can have significant impact… Between the three voices we each have a lot to contend with.
Take some time today to consider whom you are allowing to set your agenda. If you need help unpacking this or even establishing some healthy boundaries around those that are may be sucking the life from you then get in touch for your free 20min consult and consider if mentoring may be for you to move forward and get unstuck!
