He had me by the ear. Pinching. Hard. My poor little ear scrunched up in his calloused hand.
He was marching me toward the house.
“Madame… Madame” he called out for my mother.
My ear in his hand, the rest of my body straining to keep up with his pace lest my ear be torn right off the side of my head.
He was furious.
He’d found me in a corner of the garden digging fast and furious.
The hole I’d created was already several feet deep. Little did he know that this was just the beginning. The very tip of the iceberg of what I had planned.
I was digging to the castle.
And oh my, the treasures I was going to find there. I knew it—with every fiber of my being.
I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it really wouldn’t be such a hard thing to dig a tunnel the couple of miles to the St Germain en Laye castle that rose up on the hill a little distance from my house.
I was 7.
Full of wonder.
Full of plans.
Full of excitement.
Poulos (the gnarly gardener who had me by the ear—whom I adored by the way) was surely at least 97.
Poulos and Valentine were something out of Hogwarts. They were some kind of cross between Hagrid and Professor Sprout. They came with the house my parents rented outside of Paris and that I called home for 4 years. Poulos and Valentine had their own magical corner of it where frogs and snails reigned supreme.
But at this particular moment as I was dragged along, Poulos was anything but my hero.
I was seething.
He was seething.
We were seething.
Poulos was many things but flexible of character he was not.
There were the way things should be done and there were the ways that things should most assuredly NOT be done—and most especially as said things pertained to the garden of which he was king.
7 year old girls digging large holes in said garden, even though it was a very private corner in the woods of that garden that no one ever wandered (except myself and apparently Poulos) fell firmly and loudly into the second category.
We all have this less than savory side of Poulos in our lives.
For a moment if we’re lucky. Well I guess really, not at all would be lucky.
For a season if we’re not so lucky.
And as lousy as these kinds of Poulos moments are in your life and mine the really toxic energy is the trail they leave behind.
Enough Poulos moments—or Mother Superior or plain old mother or father or brother or teacher—and they begin to rearrange the very chemistry of our brain.
Before long we have an internal, looming larger than life, nay sayer who has us by the ear dragging us squarely back within the bounds of how it should be because that’s how’s it’s always been.
And along with “how it should be because that’s how it’s always been” comes an increasingly placid, uninteresting, boring, watered down life.
We weren’t meant to color in the lines; to play by all the rules.
When you hold ourselves back and overly “rule” yourself you lose the creative sparks that light your life up with quintessentially delicious uniqueness.
Seth Godin talks about this in marketing terms in his book the Purple Cow.
You’re a purple cow.
An orange cow.
A psychedelic green, polka dotted yellow cow.
The point is your happiness lies in your being YOU—an ever expanding, joy seeking, creative, soulful being.
So the question for you and me becomes how do we get those Poulos voices out of our heads and replace them with cheerleading pixies for our uniquely authentic delicious selves?
1. We get super aware. We start noticing those Poulos voices. You can tell when they’re around because really they do leave you feeling like you’ve had your ears pulled. Notice your energy.
2. We set the intention that we’re going to support that hole digging to the castle self of ours and we’re going to support her in spades! First of course, you have to find her. But the trick to finding anything is thinking about it. Getting curious about her. And eventually, sooner probably than later, you’ll start to catch glimpses of her.
3. Support the hell out of her! Don’t judge her projects. Don’t evaluate her. Don’t score her artistic projects. Just let her be. Make space for her. Laugh with her. Listen to her dreams with wonder. Let yourself be awed by her. She’s amazing, I promise you. And the more you let her be and accept her as she is the more she’s going to wow you that wonderful chartreuse cow that she is. And the more she wows and delights you, the more she’s allowed to be a major player in your life, the more happiness and joy and all those wonderful feelings you’re going to feel.
So really, the only question is where is your purple cow and what’s she up to? What would you love to do? Leave me a comment and let me know. There’s no such thing as too outrageous.
