The Big Leap
Written and Narrated By: Gay Hendricks
Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
When Life has become one BIG G(ULP)!!!
Have you ever seen that “Everybody Loves Raymond” episode where life is going really well for Raymond, good things are happening, and Raymond is bringing everyone down as he’s spazzing and filled with Dooooom? His wife is trying to get at the heart of the matter, asks him to free-associate with wonderful terms thrown at him, and all he can respond with is dire Dire DIRE concepts. Not until the very last minute of the episode, when he finds out he’s been sent out on assignment, sent to freaking ALASKA no less, does he cheer with relief: Now THAT’S the kinda boondoggle he’s used to! PHEW!!!
I can totally relate, as when good things start happening to me, I start to feel like the shoe above my head is getting bigger ‘n’ bigger, waiting to drop at the exACt moment that I’m content and peaceful. Something good? Might as well do something dumb to sabotage m’self and just get it all over with.
Author Gay Hendricks now tells me that I have an Upper Limit Problem: A big ol’ ULP: Good stuff? Go ULP yourself, my psyche says to me. This audiobook is good for people who have an ULP going on in their lives that they’re now ready to address. We might have an emotional thermostat set, riiiiiight to our comfort zone: We’re productive, our relationships are satisfying, abundance is making itself known: Success Success SUCCESS!
What better time to throw a monkey wrench into the whole thing and ruin SOME area of our lives? And it’s not just for people who are in Zones of Excellence (Hendricks’ terminology), but for people who are self-sabotaging from the ground up. However, if you’ve ever felt happy and then gone and shot your foot, ruining the whole shebang?
This is for YOU!
I know, I know, at the beginning, there’s a tiny bit where you might feel you’re throwing people under the bus as Hendricks asks that we look waaaaay back to find where the negativity, the wording for our ill-treatment of ourselves comes from. A striking story is of a man who has true musical talent, but when asked, harkens back to the day his parents purchased him a grand piano. He’s struck dumb and delightedly begins fingering the keys, playing, and that’s when his mother tells him, “We’d never have been able to afford this piano if your sister hadn’t have died….”
I mean, OUCH!!! And we all, somewhere, got the words, the impressions, that making a dream come true, living a goal, having happiness and abundance were NOT in the cards for us, or more likely for ANYone save the ultra-blessed. Or p’raps we were taught that we’d be outshining others, maybe that we’re desperately flawed in some way, maybe we’d be abandoned or laughed at, or p’raps we’ve just thought: Happiness and success might be too heavy to bear, might require too much heavy lifting.
Hendricks wants to get us past all that and past the Zone of Excellence where things are even keel and happy “enough” and on to our Zone of Genius. We each have unique abilities, special gifts to use to be of service, or to just simply shine on with. Our very own Super Powers that can be explored and utilized and fine-honed. And if we use them, we’re likely to be happy, and we’re encouraged to embrace those abilities and commit to the joy that living our skills and our dreams might bring. So, after that initial bit of throwing people under the bus, we take the information and take ownership of how we use it within our own lives.
Then Hendricks gives practical advice and words to use as we try out mindfulness techniques. Doesn’t matter what religion, if you even have a religion, pretty much every walk of life encourages letting go of baggage and refocusing thought and guiding inner intention. He gives us the Ultimate Success Mantra: "I expand in abundance, success, and love every day and I inspire others around me to do the same." Personally? I TOTALLY have hamsters in my brain, zipping along in their wheels, making my thoughts flutter. I’m a mindfulness hard case. Still, I do so love the wording, and tho’ there are no promises made, it’s SUCH a relief to have the words to refocus the wandering mind on, and isn’t it just better all around to think such positive thoughts rather than, “Dang! Everything is all wrong, and I’ll only feel like trusting life when it throws me a curve…”?
There’s using the Enlightened NO in the service of your Zone of Genius. There’s Einstein Time as opposed to Newtonian Time where WE are where Time comes from rather than always running out of it, being at its beck and call, relaxing into the experiences we’re having in the here and now rather than being ahead of ourselves with how behind we are.
And my favorite is the Renewing and Refining of our Commitment. Cuz it’s danged exhilarating to decide: Huzzah, I’ll do it, and I’m starting NOW… and then life continues to happen, we continue to meet our own road blocks, we continue to require saying Yes to our lives.
I liked this, and Hendricks has a nice avuncular voice. Sometimes he sounds a bit smug, as when he reminds us over and over (And over!) how happy he is and how it’s been, like, 15-20 years since he said Yes to something that didn’t further his goals, that could’ve possibly taken him a step or two outside his Zone of Genius. I mean, yeh yeh yeh, I’m listening to you beCAUSE you’ve been successful using these ideas, and I’m exPECting you to be better than the hoi polloi, we of the unwashed masses. But seriously, does he HAVE to be so pleased with himself?
I know, minor twitchiness on my part, and for the most part, I let all my yearning to kick ‘im in the shins pass. I could see myself in what he said, and while I don’t foresee MAJOR changes coming my way, I’m very much onboard with the positive Ultimate Success Mantra to be used, to crowd out the: Holy COW I’m smiling; the poop’s reeeeeally gonna hit the fan! sorta mentality.
A solid book, esPECially if you find yourself wondering why things turn from gold to crud from one instant to the next. Whether it’s always getting sick after some major excitement has happened, or it’s a careless accident, or it’s finding yourself criticizing your partner juuuuust when things started to get interesting. Or maybe it’s even: I’m wildly successful; now’s the time to start shagging my secretary on the desk at work (I kid you NOT; a successful business dude was doing just that! Gross, huh?). No matter, we all deserve to be happy and to NOT expect a big ol’ shoe to fall upon our heads.
I’m like Raymond, tho’, but I doooo hope to change that. I’d like it to be natural to feel happy and unnatural to smile and feel relief only whenst told I’m gonna be sent to Siberia.
So huzzah for me; maybe there’s hope for me yet!
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