What if you lived your other life?

We live in a time of the multiverse. You can create and live in multiple worlds in virtual reality and games. This seems new but the idea of multiple possible lives is not. The film Sliding Doors explored the idea of ‘what if?’ It tells two stories, one is the known story of how a mans life went forward. The other is the alternative story of what could have been if he had taken one simple decision.

What if we went back over the story of our lives and rewrote them?

What if we went back to a decision. A decision to keep it safe, not rock the boat and keep it together. These decisions are usually unconscious consequences of the culture we swim in. My family culture was one of fear. Fear of feelings and the illusion of keeping control. This is not uncommon. It was the sea I swam in. A toxic soup of threat, dread and playing small. No surprise that I met every challenge, every potential change with a determined retreat into invisibility, avoidance and shame. Some people spend their lives clinging onto the life-raft of the familiar to avoid the open, unpredictable sea of change.

What is the sea you come from?

What are the choices you have made?

Where have these decisions taken you?

We all hear the call of our true, wild and authentic selves. At some point, usually coming through situations, changes and other people. Maybe in stories, on TV, in books. Most people try and avoid accepting this ‘call to action’, preferring instead to stay with the known and familiar however toxic and life sapping that may be. The wild, fierce, dangerous and glorious self stays locked away in the shadows. often to avoid ‘upsetting’ others. As life goes on we have to deploy an increasingly elaborate raft of self-numbing strategies to keep the fears at bay. We play small but project our disappointment and disillusionment onto others and make it their fault that we could never get a break.

What if?

What if you went back to one of these moments. Maybe it was when you met that person who could have been the love of your life but you shrank away behind your cloak of invisibility? Maybe it was a business venture that you just felt was too risky and you spent the next twenty years watching your friend achieve financial independence? (This doesn’t just happen in Breaking Bad!) Maybe it was a dream you kept having, to be an actor or a singer but you decided to play it safe and do what was expected?

Now imagine facing one of these moments without fear. What might you have done?

This is not an exercise in regrets.

It is also not an exercise for the privileged few with enough economic or social capital to make choices. However constrained and dark our circumstances we have choices. However small. The choice to resent or forgive, to hit back or love, to turn away or offer a smile.

No, this is about finding possibilities where we had thought there were none.

Look at your life now. Is there a door you would usually not see or avoid because it is not on your internal map?

How could stepping onto this path, this ‘road less travelled’ bring you life, satisfaction and energy? Imagine if…

Could you let go of your fear and reticence (which is only a story anyway) and make one step down this alternative path? What could you do today that would be that first step?