❤️🔥🕊️WHY LOVE
Rewriting Your Story Through Integration
Dear Why Team member,
I hope this week’s message finds you well, feeling loved, and loving.
The ‘Why’ is Love.
It’s because we love each other that we help each other. We were born to be loved and to love.
However, those who have received little or no love, is it any wonder why they haven’t the love to give? Can one easily serve from an empty cup?
Hurt people hurt people.
But healed people heal people.
As children, the need to feel safe; to know we’re loved, is paramount. I once read that every Disney movie except for one is an abandonment story. The adults around us are doing their best with what they’ve got. And often what they have can be very little - so we develop ways to cope, to survive, often burying the sweet, vulnerable, trusting child, to be tough enough for the world, tough enough to survive.
I will be 62 years of age come June 2nd and this new decade of life has already been the absolute best. We don’t know what we don’t know - and there is so much to learn, to understand.
“Until the unconscious is made conscious it will rule our life, and we will call it fate.”
- Carl Jung
The great work I’ve discovered is to live more fully integrated. All of me integrated, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It is so easy to compartmentalize - but this can leave us disconnected from important parts of ourselves.
Soon after my parents divorced when I was 11 years old, I changed my given name from Stephan to Steve. I intuited that I needed a stronger self to cope with all that was happening in my life. It was at this time that I began a 33-year estrangement from my father. Steve stepped up to fill the void, to take care of Stephan. Unfortunately, in my effort to protect Stephan, I locked away all the good Stephan had to avoid feeling the pain he suffered.
We all have a story. To live our best life ever, we need only examine our story and ask ‘why?’. This can be the most difficult work we ever do - and I highly recommend a mentor, a coach, a therapist - to assist you. We cannot see the picture so clearly when we’re in the frame. Until we face what’s in our face, it will obstruct our view, blocking our ability to see the possibilities. The gold is absolutely beneath the dragons we face. While the truth might end our life as we ‘know it’, that is the part of our life we want to end.
To revive and thrive in ‘25, go deep, examine your life like never before. There are wounds to heal, that need your attention. It’s worth it enough for yourself, and it’s worth it even more for everyone you love. Be the game changer.
The unexamined life is not worth living” -Socrates
Which I read as the examined life is more worth living. We have met the enemy, and he is us. We intuitively know that the person who stands most in our way is ourselves. We need only consider addictions - self medications of all sorts. That which we take to an extreme is to numb us - the question is to ask ‘why’ are we numbing ourselves?
To find the Holy Grail, the knights of the round table were instructed to enter the forest where it appeared darkest to them. Armor up, grab your sword, and face the shadow, to be free of any lies that are limiting you. The year you take full responsibility for absolutely everything will be the year you live your best life ever. Our ability to respond is 100% our response ability. Flip the script of your life to get a new perspective. Did it happen to you or for you? If what happened is particularly horrific, how can you work it into good? How can you use your experience to help another cope with a similar journey. To know we are not alone is at the core of the power of group therapy. You are not alone. And you can give to your young self today what the adults did not give you. We need not numb, but rather feel deeply, love, and receive love deeply.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” - Lao Tzu
What step can you take right now in the direction of your whole healed self?
“We cannot change our destination over night, but we can change our direction overnight.” - Jim Rohn
Consider taking a step toward that dark part of the forest: that wants to be seen and acknowledged in the shadow. It is said that most overachievers are not running to something, but rather away from something. That was certainly the case for me. I came to believe my father was a loser. And I had worldly evidence, he lost his wife and his kids.
My fear of being a loser drove me to work harder and longer than anyone. I had a distinct competitive advantage, I either became something, or I was nothing. It was life or death for me - I was either first or I was last. Only after burning out again and again, never being filled, where I most needed fulfillment, by money and success that I finally reached a dead end. It is sad how far we can go down the wrong road thinking we’ve gone too far to turn back. Fortunately. I got help - and it saved my life. I shifted from selling to serving. It was glorious to discover how serving is its own reward. A reward we receive the moment we do it. I began to give what I wanted most and discovered I must have it if I can give it :-)
What an incredible journey we have all had - yet our best life is ahead of us, not behind us.
“Always make your future bigger than your past.” - Dan Sullivan (Strategic Coach)
You have just begun. All that has happened has been preparation for now. Receive love like never before to be more of a source of that which we all want most; to be seen, to be loved. Let’s make that curse into a blessing, deepening our ability to love those who need it most.
Let us be victors and not victims. We can begin again today!
Our BEST DAY EVER!!
Make it a great week!
Steve Luckenbach