Passion Play: Part 1
Posted on June 6, 2010
In my own life and in working with my clients, passion is a topic that comes up over and over again. It’s something we all yearn for, yet many of us feel alienated from.
Lately I’ve been really curious about passion. (I got so curious that I designed and led a coaching call on the topic last week. More on that in part 2 of this post.) I’ve been wondering where it comes from, what form it takes, and how it works in our lives.
As I got more curious, I started noticing how we view passion on a day-to-day basis.
I noticed that when it comes to passion, we usually see it in relationship to something else.
For example, we talk about things or people or places we’re passionate about.
Or we dream of following our passion so we can get somewhere else.
Or we laugh about it in the context of a cheesy romance novel with heaving bosoms and Fabio on the cover.
My curiosity led me to ask a trusted circle of friends and clients to answer a short survey on PASSION. Here are some highlights:
Question 1: What is the purpose of passion?
Answers:
“A counter-balance to fear – if our passion is greater than fear, one is not stopped”
“Passion inspires us to take action in the direction of our dreams.”
“To fight inertia, to discover new/better ways of doing things, to help one find one’s purpose.”
“Fuel – sparks to get the fire going”
Question 2: Where does passion come from?
Answers:
“Truth”
“Strong emotions, need to express oneself, need to create, make a difference, need for fulfillment”
“I think it’s a thing that starts in the gut but climbs up to the brain.”
“It comes from the gut or from deep in our cells, so I guess ultimately, passion comes from our higher power.”
Question 3: If passion were a physical motion, what would it be?
Answers:
“Swimming. Hip Circles.”
“Swirling”
“Swinging a baseball bat”
“A centrifuge, spinning at high speed separating out the details from the noise or what gets in the way”
“A leap forward”
“Arms making a circle – a symbol of everything coming together and connecting”
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I wonder what it would be like if each of us had a clear sense of our own unique brand of passion and how to tap into it. What would our lives look like if we had easy, unlimited access to our passion?
Now that’s something I’m passionate about!
Stay tuned for part 2 and what I learned in my coaching call.
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Jun 07, 2010
If I may comment, passion is what you get when you allow yourself to be vulnerable to you own self and allow your self to accept the thing that makes you engaged in life.
If you tie passion to success, you are in trouble. Just getting to the acceptance about you is the reward. Attaching energy to your interest is passion. But you can be interested in something and not have a whole lot of energy directed to it and still be a pretty satisfied person.
I always fear in our American culture that we place a lot of truth in passion. If being passionate about something will result in truth or success. It’s a risky and dangerous promise. Sometimes things don’t workout or your get burned and realize your passions change over time.
Sometimes passion can be a good substitute for necessity.
Jun 09, 2010
Thanks for your comment, Hemant. I understand exactly what you mean about tying passion to success. Sometimes the things we have the most passion for are things we aren’t very good at. For me, that’s swimming.
You also raise a good point in that passions evolve and change over time. If we aren’t in touch with that evolution, what does that mean for us and our happiness?