Living without excuses

Six years ago when I did the Colors Test for the first time, I struggled with my colors. In the outside world I am often seen as Orange. Internally, I struggle to live in blue and on paper, I turned up green. Gold, as my cupboards will affirm, is way down at the bottom.

Sometime ago, I worked on a project that was very near and dear to my heart. I spent hours, and hours, sorting through information, weighing options, fitting together pieces to create a beautiful and cohesive end product that would speak to the beauty and wonder of the person for whom I was creating this project.

My green allowed me to shut out the world and focus on what I needed to do to create the end product -- and believe me, there was so much information to go through, so many facets of the project to measure and weigh and put in order, I needed my green to help me do it.

And through it all my heart was engaged. This was a project for someone very very dear to me and I wanted it to be perfect.

My orange was just so excited about getting it done, and I was up against a very tight deadline, it kept urging me to say, Enough. It's done. I've given my best.

Even my gold had a say with its interruptions of -- this is not aligned, this doesn't fit, you can do better. My gold helped create the beauty my heart wanted to express.

The problem arose when, immersed in getting it done, I let go of the voice of reason and let my orange tell me it was time to get it out there. Have it seen -- without giving thought to the 'how' of how I was getting it out there. At the time, my green was still busy looking for more information. It wanted to keep working on it because it knew there was a better way to fit it all together, and that wee voice of gold knew it wasn't perfect yet. But orange and blue kept insisting the time for perfect was over and so I pushed green (and gold) aside and gave into my excitement. My blue was just so happy I'd created something so beautiful for this special someone, it wanted everyone to see it too, but for different reasons than the orange. It wanted everyone to know the wonder of the one who was showcased in this project.

My integrity lives in every colour, though my green likes to claim it. My rashness lives in my orange and my heart with its pounding roar drowns out the voice of reason in times of excitement.

I knew there was one piece of this project that I should/could fix. But I didn't have time I told myself. The deadline loomed and I needed to get it finished. And so, I let it go with that one piece unfixed. And then, the one for whom the project was intended saw it and was dismayed by this one piece -- they didn't like it.

My core tape leaped to the rescue. "You shoulda' known better." And my victim's voice leapt to its side. Nobody understands. They're just being ungrateful. You did your best. Don't they know how much effort you put into this? I mean, really. you're only human.

Truth is, I did know better. I did know I needed to fix that one element. But my colours were in conflict and I was not living in that place of harmony where I could feel my way through what I was doing, rather than think my way into, or out of, what needed to be done.

Now, I'm not blaming my colours for what happened. In fact, this lesson isn't about blame, or even my colours. It is about living in my integrity -- regardless of the colours of my feelings, or the depth of my excuses.

When I began this project I had one intention -- to create something that spoke to my awe and love of this person. I wanted to create something that would touch their heart and open their mind to their wonder.

I lost sight of my intention when I let my excitement of what I had created override my intention to do something for another out of love, not ego.

In this instance I made a mistake that was not irrevocable, but it did cause the other person some distress -- which was not my intention -- and I did need to apologize with an open and loving heart, letting go of ego and any of the excuses I concocted to convince myself of my rightness.

It does not serve me well to make excuses, just as it doesn't serve me well to beat myself up for my mistakes. It serves me well to learn from mistakes. To grow from them. To embrace them and honour their teachings by recommitting to living my life with integrity, grace and love.

It is never too late to learn. Never to late to begin again. To apologize and forgive and move into that space where I live in balance. And, it's never too late to accept, life is a learning adventure. Getting the message means, letting go of the victim's voice to move into that place where I live without excuses, whatever colour I'm living.

The question is: Are your excuses holding you back from living your true colours freely, in Love?