Siddeeq Shabazz
CFL.ca
My journey from “fear and scarcity” toward “love and abundance” started as an NFL rookie with the Falcons, when I had finally subdued my fears about putting my health into the hands of my older brother I hadn’t spent much time with in the last few years. He was already in Atlanta where he had been spending the past 10 years working on his career as a motivational speaker, lifestyle coach, and personal trainer, and was more excited about getting to make up for those years lost than I was, since the majority of my memories of him involved him beating me and my other siblings up.
When I finally gave it a chance, however, the workouts were great, and even better were the conversations, or really me listening to him for hours. For weeks on end he kept me on my toes with all the tough questions, like “what were my goals,” and “what did I want out of life.” He wouldn’t settle for my answer, “I’m just a simple man. I want to raise my kids well, you know, the white picket fence, etc.” He continued to probe and push, until one day he planted the seed that would set the journey of the rest of my life in motion.
One of those late evenings after a workout where I still had to drive about 45 minutes across Atlanta to get back to my girls, and he was going off, dropping knowledge in my ear, when he hit me with, “Siddeeq, you’re not scared of failure. Like most people, you’re scared of your own greatness!” He said it as plainly as that, so matter-of-factly, that it set there for quite some time. My initial thoughts were “My greatness? What the heck is this guy talking about now?” And with those questions my mind went to work on figuring out what that meant for me for the next few years.
I had known for quite some time that I wasn’t enjoying my life, and even though God had blessed me with a beautiful family and a great career, I was pretty miserable. But like most of us, I was going to continue doing things the same old way and experiencing the same bored, listless emotions as usual, no matter how much it was really bothering me deep down inside.
It’s hard for a lot of us to change, no matter how well we understand that a change will do us good. I was able to find a lot of meaning through a book I read by Dr. David R. Hawkins called “Power vs. Force.” It was here in his “map of consciousness” that my ideas were reinforced that most people don’t change much throughout their lifetime. Hawkins created a scale of the different emotions, perceptions, or attitudes, worldviews and spiritual beliefs on his “map of consciousness”, which helps illustrate numerically the different levels people are operating out of and experiencing their life from with a scale of the amount of energy each level equates to.
Prior to 2006, I was definitely in the lower end of Hawkins scale where you are still forcing things as you operate mostly on a survival mode mentality. It wasn’t until I lost my dream job in the NFL, and was forced to face the realities of life, that I would finally have a breakthrough in my consciousness and start implementing all the lessons of numerous books read, and hours of conversation with my older brother and mentor. This is when I felt I started to grow and experience that “greatness” my brother had mentioned almost two years earlier. Those two years in between were some of the hardest times of my life, but I am so grateful for the lessons I learned, and look forward to sharing them next week. Till then, I wish you the best.
Siddeeq Shabazz is a second-year linebacker with the Edmonton Eskimos. He led the team in defensive tackles as a rookie in 2007. He is also a lifestyle coach for www.yourdayetc.com.
