Today I am grateful for accepting my limits.  I will be taking a sabbatical of sorts.  I even had to look up the difference between sabbatical and hiatus—a sabbatical means I have the intention to return and a hiatus implies no guarantee of returning.  I have every intention of coming back and continuing posting but to continue on with any sort of quality, I need to pause for a while to take care of a few other things going on in my life right now.  I am also aware that I need to evaluate the structure, focus, and intention of my work.  I have always intended to use my life as a mirror of sorts to let people know they aren’t alone, that imperfection is normal and should be celebrated, that life doesn’t always go how we thought it would and sometimes that’s the best thing that can happen to us.  I wanted people to see that no matter how hard it got, they could pick up the pieces and start over.  If it wasn’t a clean break and people wanted to make a change, I wanted them to see that small steps work.  I know writing is the path for me but I no longer want to repeat the same mistakes and circular discussions in my head because I’m stuck in the same environment that I have been.  Those patterns have led me to the cycle of feeling like I’ve made some breakthrough/revelation only to fall flat on my face again.  The highs and lows are just no longer sustainable and I need to find the right road for me, the one that helps me navigate a more authentic path. I need to clean up my life, my mindset, and take a break.  I can’t be the mirror I want to be if I’m not becoming the person I want to be and in order to become that person, I can’t keep the old life going during that transition.  I need to stop and then start again.  So that is also something I wanted people to understand—that it’s ok to recognize when we can’t keep going or when something has to change.  I wanted people to understand that living with one foot on each side of the track only divides ourselves in half in the end.  It’s time to pause, evaluate where I’m at, decide the direction, do a little recalibration and centering, and then pick up again.  I will absolutely return because I can’t see my life without writing in it; not writing isn’t my life.  I am a writer.  I am also human and have a sensitive soul and my heart/mind/soul are very tired right now.  I will potentially still share things and different pieces on this journey but for now, I think I have a post or two scheduled for this week and that will be it for a while.  Thank you all and I look forward to returning as the person I have truly always wanted to be.   

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

I’m technically working and living my dream life right now.  I sought to work from home, to have the freedom to do the things I wanted to do as far as taking care of myself, my family, and my own projects.  I sought time freedom in general, the ability to create my own schedule so I could create the life I wanted. I knew there were facets of my life I had to work on—no one is perfect and I’ve more than shared enough about those struggles here (and will continue to share)—and I knew I needed more breathing room to do it.  The life I was living before was unsustainable and I had achieved the level of leadership I wanted with the intention of going higher only to realize that it didn’t feel good and I was quite literally killing myself.  I realized that the leadership I sought in that field was the result of me trying to control the situations around me so I could have the time I wanted.  I ended up buried under other people’s shit and navigating through crap that never should have existed in the first place—so extra work and time away from the things I needed to focus on and then still having to address those things as well.  That level of leadership was all about babysitting and volleying tons of emotion and energy and solving other people’s problems.  There were parts of that I loved, truly, because I did have INCREDIBLE employees but it was apparent on many levels that the ideas I had that would support my way of life would not be supported in that environment.

With that being said, I stepped down from that because an opportunity came my way, and I want to be clear before I go further that I am SO incredibly grateful I made that choice and I wouldn’t change the fact that I did.  I have an amazing boss and a wonderful team surrounding me.  I also want to be clear that (spoiler) I’m aware the issues I’m about to discuss mainly come from my own head and an unfamiliarity and discomfort with uncertainty/lack of clarity.  There’s still something off in this though.  Like, I know that adjusting to a new life is disorienting and I know that I’m irritated with myself because I have to keep adjusting even with all of these things coming my way.  I struggle with doing the work and then it pivots because of conversations that happened without me.  I struggle with being expected to do the work and not having a say in how it gets done but at the same time having all the freedom in the world to choose but not being sure how to execute.  Life is this weird mix of discipline and freedom and you can’t have one without the other but how do you garner discipline in a system with no real rules?  For a task oriented mind I keep throwing tasks on myself and trying to find approval for it.  The more I check off the list the better I feel but the more that comes in.  The mind still has to shift and reprioritize every few minutes of every day and it’s tough and I nearly lost my shit this week because a single project shifted direction 3 separate times even after getting the group to agree. 

In expressing my frustration about that confusion at work, it hit me that it’s that confusion that’s permeated all facets of my life.  Personally, I’m pissed that people were never that open about the struggles of middle age.  Like, they don’t tell you what it’s like to navigate growing children developing their own personalities/identities with aging parents/relatives and reconciling their demons while they face their ailments/regrets whatever it may be.  They don’t tell you where our own lives fit in because, at this age, we too are facing hormonal and emotional shifts, we too are now dealing with our own aging and facing our habits, and asking what we want to do because we can see the clock ticking from both ends.  We too are dealing with the shift in identity as we move from “mom of young children” to “our children are no longer babies” and the people (our parents) we looked up to are going to be leaving us at some point so it’s the feeling of loss, again on both sides of the spectrum.  Our entire lives are shifting and we don’t know where to look to get that stability back because we don’t know what to focus on first.  We know what needs to be done but we don’t know where to get started.  So, for me, great, I opened the door to the life I wanted and I allowed some other shit to flood in (I’m human), but what is the most important thing? I see the things I can do something about and get so PISSED that I do nothing.  The balance already feels so delicate as far as choosing what we want to experience and all the while time is moving and there is nothing that can be done.  We want to do it all but we now realize we can’t and it’s terrifying.

Is this some kind of petty princess story where we’re miserable in getting everything we want?  Not really.  The truth is there are psychological traumas related to huge shifts and open time with no direction.  I’m not necessarily talking idle hands crap, I’m talking more of the fact that there are things we want to engage in but our mind blocks us from moving on any of them because, instead of seeing the beauty in the choices, we feel the overwhelm of trying to do it all.  They say the grass isn’t always greener (that’s true) but they never tell you what it’s like to reconstruct the lawn you have.  It’s still tending to the life you have but tearing it apart for something new and that requires some planning and a lot of clarity so when distraction comes in, or when plans change mid-build, it can really fuck with our heads.  Suddenly we question who we are, what we need, what we’ve done with our lives, what we can do with our time left, and the world feels like it’s spinning too fast with the rug ripped out from under us.  I felt like I was losing my mind (still do) as the pressure has gotten to be too much.  Wanting people to think I was competent, that I wasn’t a flake that I knew what I was doing when all the while they were witnessing me flailing, failing, and falling all over the place—it felt humiliating and frustrating and confusing.  I got angry at the confusion and was told that it isn’t about control. But the truth is, for me, these were legitimately all controllable things so why the hell was this still going off the rails?  It made no sense.

Short answer is I still have no fucking clue why my brain decided to take a nose dive in its function and create the ever-failing scenario.  Now don’t get me wrong, there were real mistakes being made both at work and at home and they pissed me off because I was concerned about making myself look like an ass and not having the chance to do it again—I didn’t want to blow this chance at creating this life I’ve said I wanted for so long.  The longer version is that I’m scared for so many reasons and on some level still don’t’ feel like I’ve earned this life.  I feel like I haven’t done enough but I have so many blessings but they aren’t quite what I was looking for so I feel guilty for it so I over compensate to look a certain way and prove I earned it, prove I know what I’m doing yet I know I’m still going to lose everything anyway so is it even worth it?  Like, we literally all lose everything in the end because we can’t take it with us when we go so is this the right way to live my life anyway.  The choices don’t need to feel that heavy, and after a full on meltdown over the condition of my home/career/life choices along with some wallowing in a drink or two and some pizza and ice cream, I woke up differently.  I realized that I would NEVER tell someone going through this the things that have gone through my head.  I’d give them grace and listen and tell them everything they feel is totally reasonable and understandable and that it hasn’t even been a full year in this change.  That no one is responsible for knowing and being it all and really, the fact that they’re here like this after all that shit is amazing.  So I’m telling myself that now.  I’m going to focus on one thing at a time, drink my water, breathe, and think.  Life is hard and I have no obligation to do it “better” than anyone else.  The laws of humanity apply to all of us.  So in the face of fantastic change, we can accept it is still overwhelming even if we asked for it.  The sea doesn’t stay stormy forever, we just need to stay the course until it smooths out.  We will always find our way.                            

For the last nearly 10 years, I’ve worked in a role that required jumping from task to task quickly and pivoting the work I was doing at a moments notice.  Not just shifting tasks related to the project but in entirely different avenues (ie dealing with a financial clearance case to a marketing crisis to a registration error).  I was in charge of navigating that ship for other people as well—I wrote piece after piece about the expectation to drive 3 boats at once.  I’ve since switched roles and this role is just as ADD inducing although far less invasive and gives me the opportunity to set my own pacing.  I’ve struggled this last week because we’re in the middle of several large projects and there are still missing pieces, missing input, and missing clarity on a few items.  Truthfully, that’s pretty normal with large scale projects.  The issue that is bringing back some trauma is the constant pressure to complete something only to have it dismissed.  Like spending the day planning a meeting, the meeting goes an entirely different direction, spending the remainder of the afternoon correcting and pivoting, then being told it was no big deal we can go with the original plan.  What a waste of energy both from the creative perspective and the unnecessary pressure.  If we’d have gotten all our pieces together before we started moving we wouldn’t be in this situation.  Failure to plan is a plan to fail, isn’t that what they say? So I’ve already been feeling the overwhelm and frustration in that type of environment and that isn’t even counting life.

So I tried to take a bit of break from that and I was listening to a podcast that immediately hit home on the same subject and I realized we NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS MORE.  The sense of panic that things would go away and implode if we don’t have all the pieces together perfectly, the false sense of urgency we place on things that we will somehow miss out if we don’t act now, how we are so fixated on looking perfect, the feeling of fighting to survive if we aren’t perfect: it’s all bullshit.  I talk about mental health because we have been so set up to fail and that set up has made us insane.  This goes beyond mindset for me.  Anyone can have a positive outlook but if we are continually bombarded with outside influence and expectation and false deadlines and false expediency it will totally break us down—and it has broken me down.  Not only are we being told we need to move faster all the time, we are being told we have to do more.  I can’t reiterate enough that we aren’t machines.  We aren’t meant to run 24/7.  We NEED to rest.  We NEED to recharge.  We NEED to take a break away.  The ironic thing is that I’ve always been a stickler for getting things done, like if I said I was going to do it, I would do it.  I’d ask for a deadline and get it done by that time.  But working in an industry that requires constant shifts in focus and sustained attention at the same time coupled with a society that is addicted to 30 second clips and those are interrupted by commercials telling us more shit we should be doing, like this is enough to make someone’s head explode. 

I’m tired of feeling guilty for feeling crazy.  I’m tired of feeling behind the 8 ball because someone got a whim to change things. I’m tired of being confused all the time and trying to make sense of what is actually needed. I’m tired of feeling weak for not being able to bear the mental load required and then having that frustration being brushed off as if toying with someone’s mind is somehow normal. The idea that normal is the shortest attention span in the world that we are supposed to bounce from topic to topic and we’re somehow irrelevant if we can’t keep up is infuriating to me.  We talk about this influx of ADD and we fucking wonder how it’s “such a thing” now and it’s because we did it to ourselves.  We created the issue, we are genuinely suffering for it, and then we’re told it’s our own fault for not being able to navigate through it.  That’s a pretty shitty thing to do to people.  We need to stop crossing boundaries and stop expecting people to be more than they are just to exist.  The mind can break and we put so much pressure on ourselves to be it all do it all show it all and we contradict our own actions and expectations.  Set the norm that the craziness is not normal.  Dial it back, stop taking on too much.  It’s ok to live at a more realistic pace.  One breath, one step at a time. 

I recently took a personality test for work and it told me that my underlying need is to look good.  Not long ago I would have gotten pissed about it.  I mean, I always knew that on some level but it was like I didn’t want anyone else to know.  And then for a quiz on a computer to nail my personality in less than 20 questions…the audacity!  But this time it was more like, “Yep, that’s right”.   On the surface being told I worry about needing to look good is embarrassing and frustrating because, like everyone, there are reasons we operate how we operate.  For me it was never about physical appearance—I mean I liked appearing put together but I never worried about hair/makeup all that much.  I cared VERY deeply about being perceived as knowledgeable, competent, and trustworthy.  I can’t stand it when other people try to make it look like someone is incompetent, especially professionally.  The capability of the mind is hugely important to me, not so much looking pretty.  Perhaps looking in control, yes, but not looking good for the sake of looking good.    

The thing is this: if a computer test could pin down an underlying need so well and so quickly including attributes that were so right on including triggers and why we get that way then it is near certain that people can pick up on it as well.  Which made me realize we all have that signature thing that makes us who we are.  YES I KNOW—I’ve said it before but when it comes to embracing the good and the bad of who we are, that means knowing all facets of what we come across as.  When looking at certain art, houses, styles, clothing designs, hearing specific tones and songs, we know who it is instantly.  Or when we see that certain little figure in the store we know immediately is for that one person.  We get that feeling and we identify with something because that is who we are at our core and those around us know it as well.  Own those facets of our personality because that’s the stuff that needs to come through, that’s the stuff the world is looking for.  Sometimes we’ve called it a brand and behave as if our personality is something for us to manage and shape.  To some degree it is.  We hone those pieces to make them uniquely ours.  We can choose the facets of our underlying needs to address and improve upon and learn more about our innate habits.  We don’t know who we are until we face who we are.

That’s when we find our style.  I incorrectly looked at style as superficial for a long time.  I used to think of it as a fickle thing that changes so constantly it becomes inauthentic.  I thought it pertained to wanting to look a certain way and keeping up with trends that change faster than we can make them up.  The reality is that style encompasses so much more than just how we look.  It’s how we operate and navigate life.  It’s how we see things. It’s the things we do that show how we see things and what we believe in.  Style encompasses what we create and is the fullest expression of who we are.  I want to look good because I want people to know they can trust me because when I succeed we all succeed.  When I’m comfortable in my skin and functioning on all cylinders in my environment, that is when I do my best and being aware of what’s motivating me helps steer the ship.  That’s the same for all of us.  For some of us it takes longer to accept our style or to even find it and that’s ok.  Because when we do, it’s that near Cinderella moment where the shoe fits perfectly.  Wear that shoe well and flaunt it!  

“Give the unexpected until it is expected,” Phil Beaudoin.  I respectfully disagree.  Beaudoin talks about how the only way to keep relevant is to continually raise the bar and, yes, there is merit to that. But to insinuate that our value and relevance only remains if we keep raising the bar, we lose sight of what’s important.  We SHOULD strive to improve and be better but that doesn’t mean the goal becomes how high we can raise the bar.  That’s the difference.  We’ve lost sight of the impact of true, purposeful work.  If we put our focus on continually being better than something—even if it’s our own expectations—we lose sight of doing the work well, with purpose, and with heart.  It’s proven continually that when we remove emotion and focus on results, something still lacks.  We can’t focus on one thing and expect another to thrive. If we focus solely on winning/being better, we won’t be focusing on sustainable growth.  Try blowing up a balloon past its capacity and it explodes and there is no coming back from that.  We have to start over.  Energy flows where attention goes so intention is important.  If we give with the intention of getting back, the universe can tell.  But if we give with the intention of mutual/mass improvement, that stirs the pot differently.

Truth be told, I do like Beaudoin’s sentiment because there’s still the ring of alchemizing and manifestation to it.  When we act as if something is happening, it is more likely to happen so if we create an environment that people aren’t used to, eventually a new precedent is set.  I prefer this in the context of self growth more than the business minded aspect (Beaudoin was referring to business).  If we raise our own bar and practice living in a way conducive to something we’re trying to create, then that becomes a reality.  Things that only seemed possible are now here.  I take issue with the idea that in order for the system to thrive and grow, the people need to feed it at their own expense.  The system is not a thing—it’s a series of actions we set up to support people yet we’ve made it a living entity that only those at the top benefit from.  I’m not saying helping people is devoid of effort, I’m saying helping doesn’t have to hurt one to benefit another.  We set the expectations for ourselves and for how people treat us, so yes, we can go above and beyond what people feel.  I just don’t feel it’s a requirement that equates to worth.

Giving is a privilege, it truly is.  There is no feeling like giving something we can share that helps people or makes them feel special/appreciated/happy.  But we can’t undervalue the little things.  We can’t ignore the importance of presence with others, time spent paying attention to what someone needs, helping people create, hearing someone work through a question/problem.  Giving isn’t meant to be a spectacle proving what we can give.  It’s a quiet act meant to form connection between people.  We don’t need to play this game of one-upping others in order to feel better about ourselves.  That shifts the spotlight away from the need right onto ourselves to showcase what we can do.  And making something unexpected expected sets the wrong precedent in itself because that sets the tone if we don’t go above and beyond it isn’t good enough.  I encourage giving but I encourage intelligent and meaningful giving.  The giving that can’t be bought.  I don’t believe giving with manipulative intent and when we talk about reading the industry and setting the bar, we aren’t bringing our purpose or heart to the room—we’re bringing ego.  Do not mistake that kind of growth with purpose.  Be clear, be generous, be purposeful.  It’s ok to seek growth and gain—just do not mistake wins for fulfillment.  Growth is growth and when we can create something that thrives and sustains, THAT expansion is priceless.

Pivoting only slightly, I want to talk about various challenges we face with cognitive decline including stigmas and fears.  I’m terrified of cognitive decline including dementia and Alzheimer’s as this is something that has affected both sides of my family and is now affecting my father as well.  Having lived with anxiety, depression, ADD, and OCD most of my life, I feel mental illness is one of the cruelest diseases out there because we have a fully functioning and capable system but our OS is out of whack.  The signals are simply not connecting and witnessing those we love, those who had every bit of intelligence and thrived in this world suddenly not be able to connect their thoughts and actions or even their words and actions is heartbreaking.  The same can be said with a functioning mind and a non-functioning body like Parkinson’s or ALS.  I will never understand such a sick fate.  We can say that these diseases should make us aware of the present and to appreciate what we have but I want to talk about how the lives we live now very much impact what happens to our brains down the road.

First and foremost, there is absolutely a genetic component to these diseases so there is, unfortunately, a roll of the dice that we can’t account for in some cases.  No matter what we do, some of us will simply be dealt the hand of cognitive struggles and decline.  But, as I’m older, and now I’ve witnessed multiple family members experience this decline, I’m aware of the patterns and contributing factors we need to consider to mitigate the illness.  I watched my father undergo his preliminary verbal testing and was shocked.  It had less to do with the things he couldn’t remember but I could see the fear in him as he realized how far this has already progressed.  I could see that he fully understood what he was trying to say but he COULD NOT RESPOND.  At least not in the way he wanted to and he apologized every time.  Right off the bat, strength and intelligence have nothing to do with this disease—it is indiscriminate.  But the habits we have determine what we face.  The doctor mentioned the impact of high cholesterol and diabetes on the vascular flow and how that can lead to cases of vascular dementia.  So we can’t sit here and pretend that the society we live in that pushes for partying hard and working harder and suppressing emotions helps with things like mental function.  We may know about stress and the impact that has on the body but long term abuse whether it’s stress related or what we put in our bodies absolutely can destroy us from the inside out.

Diseases of mental decline are a journey no matter how we look at them.  It forces us to look back because our present is unstable and the future is unknown and for both parties, the past becomes the rock because it is known. When times get hard we tend to look back at the past as if it was somehow better than where we’re at now.  We fail to realize that we are where we are because of all the things we’ve done up to this point, the good and the bad.  The things we could have chosen better or done differently or even the things we would have done more of and the time we could have spent with a different focus, those regrets can become rampant when we get locked in the mind by different forms of decline.  It shows us the fragility and power of the mind.  It doesn’t take much to interrupt what we would consider normal function and once that happens, our entire reality shifts.  All of this is to say that we need to be mindful of the mind and all things that impact it.  We need to care for ourselves and those around us and cherish the present with them as much as we can because the truth is we never know when something will shift.  But it doesn’t have to equate to the rug getting pulled out from under us if we take everything step by step.  The mind may be fragile but the spirit is resilient and we are meant to help carry each other through.   That doesn’t mean it’s easy, it just means that this journey isn’t as straightforward as we thought and we can’t take any of it for granted because, real or not, the mind will show us what we think we have.  Embrace the now.    

“You have as much life left as you let yourself live,” unknown.  We need this reminder to stop being our own limiters.  We live a life of contradiction—dream big but we pursue those dreams in the same old way.  If we have different dreams, we have to acknowledge that thinking we will get those dreams in the exact same way is ridiculous.  Different dreams/goals require different pursuits and energy and focus and effort.  We also tell people they can have it all but then tell them what will and won’t work.  Life is what we make it, and the more we let if flow through us, the more we get to experience it.  A few months back I wrote a piece on living the same year for 90 years and calling it living and that is important again here- just because we are alive doesn’t mean we are living.    

As cliché as it sounds, it isn’t always the number of years we have, it’s the life we put in those years.  No one can determine or put a value on what something means to us so we assign that meaning ourselves.  If we live in the shadows and limits of what’s possible, we are living a partial existence.  It’s our job to define what we want and eliminate the should’s and must’s that we put on ourselves because those expectations in themselves limit what could be and blind us to what we’re really feeling.  We get stuck in the idea that we are meant to live as someone else—or for someone else.  I know that’s the trap I put myself in.  I thought it was my job to make others happy doing what they wanted me to.  It was only ever my job to connect and find what I wanted to do. 

Life is a bold adventure and it’s meant to be unique for everyone.  Eliminate the power plays and the things we convince ourselves are important and suddenly what’s actually important reveals itself.  We see what matters.  I’ve witnessed multiple lifetimes/generations of people lament how they weren’t allowed to live/do certain things and I know to them that was a very real experience.  I also know that it’s a total crock.  They lived that way because they were too afraid to do what they wanted for fear of what people thought of them. To this very day they would miss out on what precious time they have and claim victim rather than partake in what they want to do.  The mind can convince us of some incredible things—don’t let it convince us that we’ve had enough when we’re just getting started or that what we really want is someone too far fetched.  Live loud, often, and completely and don’t worry what others say or feel about it.    

Today I am grateful for answers.  The limbo of waiting for confirmation of something you know in your gut but don’t have an official pulse on is maddening.  It’s terrifying ground knowing you’re heading toward something without knowing.  The feeling of needing to prepare for something, seeing the inevitable unfold all while having to function as if all is normal.  Learning a new normal after finally adjusting to the old throws us all for a loop and mourning the loss of the old (or the potential of it) carries a specific kind of pain as well.  The memory of what was and trying to make it easy to let go and the realization of how severe the what IS creates an odd disorientation.  There’s an acceptance because we’ve been preparing for this reality for a while but there’s still denial because there’s constant and consistent glimpses of what we knew.  The truth is I fear some of what I see because I fear the same fate for myself if truth be told.  But there is relief because I know I can start adjusting habits for myself now and I can shift my focus to what needs to be done in my life rather than trying to recapture what is gone.  What’s broken can’t be repaired but we can all learn to work with it.

Today I am grateful for persistence.  I’m not going to lie, I’m tired as all hell.  I’m exhausted more often than not because of the mental gymnastics of trying to figure out what I want to do and how to go about it and how to do ALL of it.  My husband told me the other day that he doesn’t understand how one person can have so many thoughts going through their head and I confirmed it’s not easy.  But I’ve also realized that a lot of it comes down to ambition.  It’s a gift to see so many different paths but it’s hard to decide at times because there are wonderful options everywhere.  But to get through on more than one path means challenges on all sides.  I haven’t always been clear—and I’m still not always clear—on what I want to do or what the ultimate goal is, but I keep pushing forward.  I might try to keep things alive longer than I should but that’s only because I see so many different options but once I know something is gone, I let it go.  I have an acute sense of what it means to keep going and the need to keep pivoting.  There are somethings I wish I had stuck with longer than others and there are things I wish I had tried but I do not regret pushing forward on the things that matter to me, even if there is a degree of madness to it.  Sometimes we have to keep going until we get to the clearing and I know I’ve taken the long way around multiple times.  But I’m here and I’m still able to keep going.

Today I am grateful for a reality check.  I needed some emotional detachment from the things I’ve accumulated in my life.  It’s been a slow process of defining where we are going as a couple and what I need to do as an individual to get there.  I’ve held onto so much for fear of what I “might” need or for if we decide to use it someday—and the lesson is not new, I’ve see things wither away over and over again from lack of use and for the idea that I should just hold onto it.  As I mentioned with persistence above, I can see a lot of different paths but that doesn’t mean I can live all of them.  So there are simply things that need to go.  I never thought it would take that many cycles to purge all the things I need to let go of but it has.  Truthfully I di feel a bit of shame around it because I felt like I could let go of specific times and faces I portrayed as I embraced different parts of my life.  It was also hard to accept it because there are things from my past I’ve held onto that I picked up again and fell right into stride because NOW was the right time for it.  But the reality is I’m tired of clinging and holding and fighting and moving in circles carrying all of this crap.  The reality check is certain things are falling into place and they won’t be cleared away like some game of tetris.  So it’s time to clear what I can now.  I clung to things trying to remember and so I could help others remember as well and all it did was create an unbearable burden that I couldn’t lift on my own regardless.  The thing doesn’t have the memory even if that’s the last remnant or connection I may have to it.  There is a reality that can’t change no matter what we do so holding onto anything is irrelevant.  It’s holding onto pieces of things that simply will never go back to what they were.  That’s too great a burden for anyone to bear and I’ve filled an entire home with multiple lifetimes had and multiple possibilities for lifetimes to come.  It’s time to settle fully into what this lifetime is for me now.   

Today I am grateful for a reality check again.  I fully understand I’m dealing with a hormonal shift in my body again.  Just as I got used to managing what I thought were symptoms related to an overproduction of certain hormones, I see now that my body is coming down.  I also see how that impacted me mentally over the last few months and I know I can’t let that derail the progress I’ve made.  There are things that can help dealing with hormonal changes in the body but this is where my body is at.  I haven’t gotten much help from my physicians as we are all aware of what’s happening but the problem is that my ranges are all “normal” and we know if something is normal on paper then it must be right.  I know my body is far from the norm and I feel the impact of all these things ravaging out of control in my system but I also know that for the last two years I’ve felt better.  I’ve managed to get through some of the hardest times of my life simply with the persistence mentioned above and the clearing.  I can’t let my emotions derail me because it’s when I’m derailed that I let myself crash completely.  So I need to enforce the discipline I had before and simply stick with it.  I do not have the luxury to let myself wallow in anything because I’ve seen and felt what it does to me mentally and physically.  So take control.  DO what I’m supposed to do and all is well.    

Today I am grateful for facing fears.  We received confirmation of what we suspected in regards to a condition with my father as I started to reference in the opening of this piece.  You never know when the last time something is going to feel as it did or when it will be the last time we experience something, period.  The last Christmas we had at my grandmother’s or even the last Thanksgiving we had.  Was this the last time I was able to have a normal conversation with my father?  Is this the last time we’ll be in that house as it was?  But the truth is we were all there together when we found out and it doesn’t feel all that different right now.  There are things we all know are coming and we won’t be able to stop them.  But we’ve already faced what we thought was the worst and we are all still here.  Sometimes it isn’t the thing we’re afraid of—it’s what happens after we deal with it.  It’s the fear we don’t think we CAN deal with it.  Yet often times we see when we look back that we already faced the worst of our fears.  We survived.  Nothing looks the same but we’ve somehow walked through.  Even if we are a bit bruised and battered and tired—we’ve walked through and the fear is long behind us.  We don’t need to carry the weight of the fear because we’ve already done the thing.  All we have to do is keep going.   

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

I’ve always openly shared my struggles with anxiety and I’ve recently found a tool that works for me.  It’s a deceptively simple game where you have to identify the pattern of eliminating the shape to clear the board.  For my chaotic brain, it’s incredibly soothing.  The board itself is pure chaos and it’s so satisfying to bring it back to order.  Yet, like with most things, that simplicity made me realize something greater.  It literally only takes ONE arrow freed to unlock the rest.  Seriously, the board can look like one big tangle with no clear start/end but you find the one piece and they all come undone.  There’s a life lesson there.  We spend so much time looking and searching for answers, trying different things, trying to force different things because we are so set on an outcome that we try to do all the things.  We try to do everything everywhere all at once so to speak.  All we need is that one thing.  The ONE change, the one phone call, the one leap, the one video, the one email, the one dinner, the one shift in perspective to unlock the entire secret/key to our lives.

It made me see that we get anxious BECAUSE we are so set on finding that answer and we feel we are under some sort of time clock that if we don’t figure it out RIGHT NOW we are somehow behind or that we’ve done something wrong.  Some solutions are easy but many of them take time.  We won’t know it works until it works and sometimes the door opens immediately and others it stays closed.  There are even the times the door opens but there’s another door just inside.  We all have a path and there is something to be said for the fact that whatever is meant to cross our path will, if it was meant to happen it will happen.  But there is also something to be said for clarity, patience, and persistence.  Knowing when to keep going, knowing when to rest, knowing when movement is just wasted energy is key.  That key alone can open doors as well.  But I want to encourage everyone to remember that just because things look or feel overly complicated, there is always that one thing that can resolve it.  Don’t give up.  Sit in the overwhelm for a minute, breathe, and look around.  The answer will come, sometimes when we least expect it—and the world opens from there.      

We learn presence when we learn to be happy where we are.  When we are content where we are, creating growth from who we are, we find the that secret sauce that keeps the moment extending on forever.  It’s an infinite now.  We forget what that feels like in a world that is accessible 24/7.  Sure, there are amazing benefits to being able to get what we want when we want it, virtually on demand.  But we have to remember the world isn’t designed to be awake 24/7.  It has an inherent rhythm requiring sleep as much as it requires activity.  Connection spans across that time which is amazing but we aren’t designed to be everything to everyone all the time.  It is enough to be ourselves and to give the energy we can where we can—that minimizes NOTHING of our time here.  It isn’t only the huge actions that have impact.   it doesn’t have to be Earth shattering revolutionary things, it can be as simple as where we are creating growth within ourselves.  Our purpose here is to create growth and evolve so it’s ok to be ok with who we are.  Flowers, animals, nature don’t try to be anything other than what they are.  You’ve never heard a butterfly ask to be a ladybug—no, it goes on its butterfly way and lives its life and it’s beautiful.  We don’t ask it to be anything else, we don’t expect it to be anything else.  It’s ok to be who we are.

We can’t be anything other than who we are anyway and we can’t be anywhere but where we are either.  Sure, we can get to other places but even in that process, we are still with ourselves the whole way and all that time moving from place to place doesn’t disappear.  It doesn’t become insignificant because we weren’t at the end destination.  Living is enough reason to live.  It’s a romantic idea to influence the world and have people see us but it isn’t necessary to create value.  Getting centered and being happy where we are isn’t just some fanciful talk about self-acceptance.  The truth is it’s incredibly empowering when we operate from that level of self-awareness.  That’s when we find our power.  The ability to do what we love is a gift and the ability to share what we love is an even greater privilege.  We only know what that is when we sit with it and learn to develop it.  We can’t be everywhere all at once no matter how many possibilities there are.  If we try to do everything we end up doing nothing.  It used to scare me because that felt like signing up to miss out on life.  But the truth is we live the most when we are familiar with what we are good at and when we take the time to connect with our gifts. 

Learning presence IS learning contentment.  Do not mistake contentment for complacent because there’s a huge difference.  Complacent means taking the dregs of what’s around us and settling into a routine with no direction.  Contentment means understanding the value of where we are and honing and shaping what we have.  It’s when we are content that we see opportunities for growth and how to put them into action.  Contentment is appreciating what we have but creating or making use of the possibilities.  Accepting where we are is the fastest way to see where we can (or where we want) to go.  We can’t live 1,000 paces ahead—we have to take each one of those steps to get to the place where things grow.  There is security and self-assuredness in calling in the energy we expend trying to be a million and one things and saying, “This is who I am and it’s enough.  This is what I can do with who I am and this is what I WANT to do.”  There are still more lessons from our friend the butterfly.  Not only does it fully accept itself and its purpose, it has a greater impact than it can ever know—hence, the Butterfly Effect.  It’s the small things that change the world.  So detach from who we are supposed to be and become who we are.  Find peace with who we are and let the growth begin.