Self Storage - a metaphor worth exploring…

We’ve all driven by those ever so familiar bright orange or blue roll-up doors, lined up in straight rows, door after door after door... locked, secure, and safe from the elements.  Seems there’s ample ‘self storage’ at the ready.  As I was driving by a self-storage facility the other day it occurred to me - what a poignant metaphor for what we all tend to do with various aspects of our lives!  Are there aspects of your life you keep within the confines of ‘self storage?’  Hidden, closed off, locked away, ‘safe’ from the elements of your everyday life and the lives of those around you?  What’s there?  Maybe you’re not even sure anymore, you stored it away so long ago you’ve forgotten.  Or maybe you know exactly what’s there, in great detail.

1. What are the costs associated with your ‘self’ storage?
2. How much energy and effort does it take to keep the door down, locked and secure?
3. What are you hiding?
4. What are you afraid of?

The most powerful lock on most self storage is fear.  Fear of rejection.  Fear of judgement.  Fear of failure.  Fear of not ‘fitting in.’  Believe it or not, even fear of success.  And so what?  What if some of these fears came true?  What would you learn about yourself, and about your relationship with others who don’t ‘approve’ or ‘accept’ the whole of you?  What does it tell you about those who do approve and accept?

Here’s a powerful question I encourage you to explore... What are you making more important than your own authentic self expression?

Not ready to open that door up all the way; maybe you have more than you care to share all at once and you’d rather open up a little at a time?  No worries.  But let me ask you to simply imagine...

1. What’s possible for you?
2. What’s possible for others and your relationships with them?
3. What will ‘open up’ in your life when you share more of you with the world?
4. What would your life look like, feel like, BE like if you abandoned all ‘self’ storage and simply rolled up the door and put all of YOU out there?

Do a little work with the questions and ideas we’ve explored so far.  Next week I’ll pick up on this notion of self storage and give you a personal example of where I’ve unlocked parts of my own self storage.

Until then - here’s to you, all of you, 100%!

Todd

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