Work Life Play with Aaron McHugh
Dropping the Rock
Friends, I released ten new podcast episodes to celebrate my Decade Anniversary of Work Life Play. I'm proud to share these little gems with you. I know they will help you live more fully in your adventure, explore a well-lived life and find more meaning in your daily experience.
A decade ago
I began podcasting in 2012 with borrowed equipment, no training, with a simple idea "I wanted to explore."
I experimented with one tiny step, then the next. Back then, there was no map to How to Podcast. With trust and boldness, I booked my first two guests before I knew how to record or publish an episode. I should have shared this with my guests. Ha!
Compelled to explore beyond the map of my life experiences, expand my mind and heart, and curate stories of good humans. That's as far as I knew. With hindsight's wisdom, I borrow Parker Palmer's explanation for "Why did you do it?" "This is something I can't NOT do, for reasons I'm unable to explain to anyone else and don't fully understand myself, but that are nonetheless compelling."
You're listening to a decade of exploration. The fruits are beyond just inspiration, but transformation for myself and many of you. Enjoy, experiment, and keep going. It's worth it.
-Aaron
Episode: Dropping the rock
I've been thinking. I am thinking about dropping rocks, not seeing clearly, and being led.
By rock, I mean being stuck in the past, beholden to an old story no longer serving you, an old unresolved grievance costing you joy today.
My son and I were in Barcelona, Spain, waiting in line to explore La Sagrada Familia one-of-a-kind temple.
I'd just been grumbling, a well-rehearsed old-narrative regret I'd carried for nearly three decades. I'm sure I'd bored him ten times before. Here's how it went, "I regret never taking that study abroad summer course in Guadalajara, Mexico, before mom and I married. I wish… I can't believe it… If only I had…"
The story I was telling him there, on the threshold of one of the world's most holy and sacred spaces, was how different my life would have looked without this life-altering mistake that "I blew it-this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." The punchline was always about how I would have traveled internationally, learned a second language, and become a more sophisticated world citizen.
Anecdotally Holden, shared with me about their recovery community's Drop the Rock meeting format.
Bring your rocks in with you. Drop the rocks you're carrying. Leave empty-handed. Lighter.
Standing in line, my heavy rock became apparent to me.
What a load of crap I'd talked myself into.
Not seeing clearly
The saying goes, "We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are." Now Fifty years old, I'd retold this regret story so many times that it'd become unnoticeable, outside my field of vision. It was the interpretive lens, the way I saw and witnessed my life.
Here I was standing in Barcelona, Spain, (international travel) with my son (deeply connected in the relationship), practicing duo-lingo Spanish (learning a foreign language), working abroad professionally, returning from a week in the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains (a more sophisticated world citizen HA!).
HERE I AM! I couldn't see any of that. I'd convinced myself my regretful decision thirty years prior would forever suppress my future.
I dropped the rock. I let go of the regret and the life-less interpretation of my youthful choice. I'm radically allowing the voice of Love to heal me on the inside, unlocking more freedom.
Listen to the stories you're telling yourself on repeat. Drop the rock. See clearly. Allow the eyes of your heart to be enlightened to see clearly-to see ALL of Reality. Remind your soul we're being led. God's with us. Thru us and in us.
You can do this.
Keep going-
Aaron