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let’s talk passion – and why you need its core
For some weeks now I have been exploring an “edge’’ in my life.
That seemingly precarious ledge you can at times be called to by your heart and soul.
The one which feels uncomfortable and sometimes even too darned dangerous to have to perch your wobbly legs on, and all while you decide if you’ll step off and beyond that ledge…for something else…a whole new world even.
It was Passion who called me to the edge.
And once I got there, it was Passion who removed her mask and revealed all of who she was as a driver in life.
It’s been a bit of a surprise to see what Passion is really all about.
And as Passion and I talk about two life projects that currently have my creative attention and matter a lot to me, I have become clearer about which of them matters the absolute most to me – and why.
It’s explained a lot – and it may explain a lot in your life too.
You see, in Latin the original meaning for passion was “suffering”.
So passion is about a willingness to suffer for what is deeply meaningful to you.
Now, I realise you may think this is negative, or smacks of unnecessary pain.
You may feel it means being a victim, or about self-consciously marrying yourself to challenges in a way that has you showing your martyrdom to the world.
But this meaning of passion I am referring to, is not really any of these things.
The particular meaning of passion I speak of is more about whether you are willing to suffer or get uncomfortable or make a sacrifice for what you love or for what calls you.
Not that you must suffer or make it so painful for yourself, per se. Just…would you bewilling to experience discomfort and even a lot of it, for the thing that matters most to you? Along the way, would you be willing to do all the things for it that you don’t massively want to do?
Passion asks this of us.
See if you’re not willing to do some “wheelin with the squealin” over what matters to you, then chances are that thing isn’t really your passion. Even if you are great at all or part of it, even if others think it’s what you ought to be doing, even if your mind says that it – or all the parts connected to it – is what you have to do.
In other words, if passion were a peach, then the “willingness” to “suffer” would be the hard kernel at the centre of that peach – without which there could be no succulent flesh, and so no joyous experience of those delightful, juicy dribbles trickling down your chin. 
So what is inherent in passion?
- Inherent in passion are those tears that surprise you when you think about that one thing that is so deeply meaningful to you.
The thing that most moves me to tears of joy, love, or pain whenever I think about it, is mother earth and what is happening to her. When I think about the land project I am stepping into and what I would love to create, and what could be at stake on so many levels as I pursue it, I feel the tears prick. No other project of mine elicits quite the same energetic response in me.
- Inherent in passion is the willingness to not only receive the pleasure but also to move through the challenges and hard bits…
…and to do the things you imagine you don’t really want to do or that may not seem like fun! Despite my love for things I have created and am bringing to completion, I see a much greater willingness to endure discomforts for one of my visions and projects in particular. This, coupled with whatI would be willing to get uncomfortable for in that project, illuminates where deep passion is at play.
- Inherent in passion is the willingness to take personal responsibility for what matters deeply to you, such that you will help bring it to – or make it real in – the world.
When you take personal responsibility, you stop only blaming others about the world or about your world – and instead you take charge of what creationyouwill offer into the world, what change youwill bring to it. You’ll forge ahead without knowing if you will ever make it, or even like your creation when you have it; you’ll take action without any guarantees and with a 100% acceptance of all the risks. For me right now, the project that moves me the deepest and which represents the biggest risks and discomforts I am willing to take, is the one that also points me to my passion.
- Inherent in passion is an element of sacrifice – be it that you choose one thing over another, or you choose something beyond just impacting your own personal agenda.
So for example, for me the passion that runs the deepest is the one where I choose not only for me but for we, not from a sense of being a martyr or putting others needs first, but from an implicit understanding that my actions are juiciest for me when they also take “the All of us” – and the future of us – into account.
In other words…
Passion is not simply a question of what you love, or of feeling desire or excitement or enthusiasm, high energy, or only the “thrills” part of adventure.
In fact these qualities can soon fall by the wayside if the necessary kernel at the heart of passion is overlooked or missing.
In truth, the juicy flesh that makes up the body of a peach could not have been birthed without the hard kernel at its core.
And in truth, you’ll only know if a passion is indeed a passion (as per the original meaning of the word) if, at its core, there is the willingness on some or all levels to suffer for it.
That’s the peach worth biting into…and getting a messy chin for
