In another show of synchronicity, I came across this today: “People tend to feel stuck and stifled when they’re not expressing the fullness of who they really are,” Marie Forleo.  I’d like to add that people also feel lost when they aren’t expressing who they really are.  So maybe the anger I’ve been feeling really wasn’t anger—it was feeling stifled.  It feels like you’re always looking for something, like what you have isn’t complete.  So you look for external validation or external things to make you feel better.  We are trained to ignore everything inside of us that tells us who we are—the answers are all there just waiting for us to acknowledge them.  But we tell ourselves, we tell our children repeatedly, “You want X, you should be Y, you can’t be happy without Z, It’s supposed to be A,” and that is the mindset that we perpetuate.  Then we get older and we look around and we feel a certain emptiness.  It’s the emptiness that comes from time passed that we wish we had spent better than we did.  It’s the missed opportunity or the frustration that what we were supposed to do didn’t bring us what we want.

When it comes to our likes and dislikes and how our brains function, we are different.  I’m not talking on the biological level where we are essentially the same thing (except for maybe the combination of hormones and other triggers we have).  I’m talking about the parts of us that make us who we are.  THAT is where we are different.  It doesn’t stand to reason that the same path is going to make every person happy.  It isn’t statistically possible for everyone to enjoy the same thing.  So why do we continue to push the belief that we need the same things to be happy?  We need to teach introspection and how to get in touch with those pieces of ourselves that we are told to ignore.  We need to stop raising robots and accept that we are raising humans.  Perfectly flawed, thinking, breathing beings who are capable of anything if we get them out of the box.

I’ve said before that the box is what kills us but we forget that we created the box ourselves.  That means we can destroy it as well.  It’s a matter of getting past the fear of what life looks like when you realize you want something different.  It’s getting past the internal conversation between heart and brain that says, “Hey this really feels good,” “No, that won’t get you what you should have.” “Oh, you’re right, that must not be for me.”  REPEAT. 

Destroying the box can look like leaving work on time every day.  It can look like turning off the TV (or not even turning it on) so you can read.  It can look like going for a run.  It can look like signing up for that class you wanted to take.  It can look like anything that answers that little voice in your head that tells you to go for it.  The only reason we started telling people what to do is so it would serve the purpose of fulfilling the system.  There was a time that was mutually beneficial (you know, after the industrial revolution and the implementation of fair hours—haha).  But the longer that went on, the more we evolved, the more connected we became to the world, we started to wake up and realize we were looking for more.  That we needed more.  

We are blessed to be given internal cues that tell us what is for us.  THAT is what we need to sit with.  That is what we need to learn to listen to.  That is what we have to stop fearing in ourselves and others.  There was a time when different meant dangerous but we are not there anymore.  With a little shift in perspective, those differences become advantageous.  I’m reading a book by Mark Manson and he states that we aren’t all special at everything but we can be special at something.  Those are the things we need to learn to focus on.  It isn’t about being the best at everything because that makes us mediocre and miserable.  It’s about diving into the things that drive us and make us whole. 

I had a great example of this:  I saw my boss interacting with a customer the other day and it hit me: she is SO good at her job.  She loves her work and she knows what she is doing—because she loves it and invested the time in it.  I found myself thinking, “Wow, that’s what it looks like to love what you do.”  And I realized, I don’t want to be her (not that I don’t like what I do—and not that she isn’t incredible) but I want to have that feeling of loving what I do.  I want that passion.  I want to feel joy in the work I do where it doesn’t feel like work.  The best part of that: we can ALL have that feeling.  Not that everything wouldn’t look incredibly different and not that it wouldn’t take a lot of work to shift that perspective, but it’s doable.  In fact, that is what the world is crying for now—passionate people who are awake who can bring something new to the table.  I know I’m in. 

I’ve been struggling with a LOT of anger lately.  Not just frustration and annoyance but outright rage at nearly everyone and everything around me.  I feel like I can’t stand anything that is in my life right now.  I try to express a lot of gratitude for my life because I have so much to be grateful for.  Even when I’m in the middle of one of my fits, I keep that awareness.  I’m struggling to express the gratitude outside of my anger.  And I’ve been in this position before, probably a couple thousand times.  This is the test.  When life continues to throw adversity at you, in different ways all at the same time, can we still show up for the blessings we have?  I have failed to keep that in the forefront of my mind.  I feel like I despise the life I have built and I HATE that feeling.   

As fate/coincidence/timing would have it I’m reading a book about integrity by Martha Beck and she says that we often feel like this when we aren’t living our truths.  These feelings creep up when we aren’t living in our integrity.  Beck also states that we feel like this when we are trying to appease our cultural expectations or live up to our cultural training rather than living what we know is right for us.  Trying to appease anything outside of ourselves means we aren’t in our integrity.

I haven’t been honoring who I am lately.  Perhaps because I’m still working to find who I am on many levels.  Perhaps it’s because whenever I get to this point, the point where I need to push past all fears and let go of everything I’ve built, I freeze.  It’s the fear of the unknown.  I have the vision of what I want but I still struggle believing I can achieve it.  Then I waste time getting angry over how things are in my life and I lose traction on what I need to do.  I’ve been on repeat for 20 years and I can’t stand it.

I have allowed myself to achieve what I thought would bring me happiness: a stable-ish job, a house, a child, a husband, animals.  And the truth is, none of it looks how I want it to but I know I chose it all.  I feel like I agreed to half of what I wanted just so I could say I accomplished those things.  I never put in any thought to what I wanted.  And Beck is correct—we can’t get where we want when we are fulfilling someone else’s expectations or when we are in distraction.  I give into distraction all the time.  Always looking for the next thing.  I’m exhausted.  I’m always moving but getting nowhere.

So this anger is the teacher.  It is the opportunity to really examine who I am and get to the root of the stories I repeat without knowing and the start of the stories I really want to tell.  What am I angry about?  Is it the loss or is it the dishonesty?  Is it what has happened to me or is it the failed expectations of what I thought I would have?  We are only entitled to the things we are willing to create and work for.  And beyond that, what things are really important for survival?  This anger is life telling me to get back into my integrity and everything will be answered.  We all go through tough times with emotions we aren’t sure we can manage. Sometimes it isn’t about the emotion, it’s about learning to recognize what really needs to be addressed.      

Bonus points if you know where the title came from 😊

“The biggest mistake I ever made was waiting for the outside world to make me feel good instead of feeling good, thus creating the outside,” via the law of presence.  Another one I’m totally guilty of.  I bought books, toys, THINGS to the point where I couldn’t fit anything else in my house.  And I felt completely empty.  There was literally always something more to want—and that is the game, isn’t it?  We are taught to consume to feel better whether it is material, work, money, drugs, sex.  Anything to distract from where we really are and what we really need.

I don’t think I truly understood going inside and the depths of who I am until I hit the bottom a few weeks ago.  I had built up this idea of what I thought I wanted and what I thought I needed it to look like and even how I thought I needed to get there.  I thought I was saving the universe time by taking it all on my shoulders and hashing out a plan to follow on my own.  But I never stopped to ask if that was the plan I was supposed to follow.  It wasn’t until all of that fell away and I found myself in a situation where I couldn’t see beyond the hour in front of me that I realized none of the crap matters.  It all goes away in the end.  There is no baggage we can bring with us once it’s all over.

I’ve struggled with faith for a long time and that essentially boils down to a struggle with trust as well.  I was exposed to a lot of loss and a lot of transition early in life.  I was also exposed to a lot of situations that I had to figure out on my own (not that I was unique in that) where I had an expectation of what it was and any preparation I made was rendered moot because the situation turned out completely different than anticipated.  For some people, this is great exposure to learn to go with it.  They learn early on that things change in life and they learn to go within and find what is stable within themselves.  I was never taught that. 

For me those changes at an early age gave me crippling anxiety and the need to cling to the familiarity of any situation.  This isn’t to say I had an unstable home, far from it, but I was certainly not given tools to cope with change.  Having older siblings, I believe my parents overestimated my ability to change.  They forgot I was a few years behind them and hadn’t experienced all the shifts that they had.  I have always sought stability when, in reality, I was trying to find safety.  I just wanted to KNOW.  It wasn’t until many years later that I finally understood that there is no knowing in this world.  It’s learning to be adaptable, not creating the illusion of control that is really necessary.  We find comfort in routines and patterns but that isn’t what we are meant to do.     

I started to feel uncomfortable in my routines and it was cleverly disguised as anger at first.  I’d get annoyed at everything from the alarm clock to getting dressed, to the drive into work, to the drive home, to having to make dinner.  I would go through the actions every day but I hated it.  It hit me that when the routine isn’t working it’s time to change things up.  I am grateful to be “stable” enough to realize that there is never going to be one thing that will ever take away the fact that everything changes.  I’m glad to be comfortable enough in my life to start letting go of the idea that I need comfort all the time.  That can no longer be the goal because there is no growth in that.  The goal has to be growth.

The only way we grow is by doing things outside of our comfort zone.  By answering the voice that says, “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?”  And it isn’t in one THING that’s going to make you feel better—it’s actions that lead you to who you are that will make you feel better.  Understanding happiness is an inside job is key.  No one can give it to you because it isn’t a thing.  It’s a state of mind that you have to create yourself.  That is something that will look different to everyone—and that is ok.  Find yourself in letting go of the armor you’ve built around your life.  It’s on the inside, hidden behind the façade you’ve created.  You know what you need.  

“Say no when yes is a lie,” Brooke Castillo.  Following up on the discussion about focusing on your life and how things become clear, I felt this quote fit in perfectly for a quick discussion.  I feel this is the first step in learning how to change your focus.  Start asking yourself what feels good.  If it doesn’t resonate then it’s ok to say no.  If you say yes and feel like it isn’t genuine then say no.  It doesn’t matter if you feel obligated for any reason—if it isn’t for you and if it doesn’t work for you then say no.

For socially anxious people it can be challenging because you are always focusing on what other people may think and what their reaction is going to be.  But the art of connecting with your authenticity is a far better guide than whatever anyone tells you.  And no matter what, it is absolutely ok to say no when you need to. 

I think it’s important to understand that it doesn’t have to be big things, either.  If someone comes into your office while you’re in the middle of something and they’re asking for help with something, or if they just want to chat and you don’t have time, explaining you don’t have time is a form of saying no.  Saying yes to giving energy and time you don’t have is a lie because you don’t have the energy to give.  And that is FINE.  We aren’t meant to be on all the time and we aren’t designed to give all the time—we have to fill our own cups as well.

It’s also important to know the opposite of the quote as well—we need to learn to say yes to what is important to us.  If it seems like an opportunity we want to take then say YES.  Don’t hesitate.  Take the opportunity when it presents itself and don’t worry if it isn’t what was expected.  If it feels right and it crosses your path, it was meant to be.  It is for you.  Hint: anything that doesn’t feel right is probably not in alignment with your goals.

The ability to say yes or no largely depends on how in tune we are with our personal barometer of what we are trying to achieve.  The more self-awareness we have, the easier it is to distinguish what we actually want, and THAT is what makes all the difference in the world.  Being in tune with what really matters is our guide to knowing what is a lie and what isn’t.  It’s up to us to remain truthful to ourselves.        

This past Saturday was a rough one with my son.  We are putting new flooring down in the living and dining room, and it is such a small area that most of the first floor is a wreck.  It’s a small enough space that we are trying to get it done really quickly, but it’s detailed work so it’s time consuming.  My kid has no patience for anything—not that any four year old does—and we struggled with his tantrums all day.  They weren’t his normal type of tantrums, they were the rare explosive, full on losing his mind type of tantrum that he saves for special occasions.  My husband nor I were equipped to deal with this today since we are trying to get a  major project done and we were put in our place.

My kid didn’t care what we were doing or why.  He just knew he wanted more attention and he wanted to go outside and he wanted nothing to do with the work we had to get done.  He’s four, it makes total sense—he didn’t really do anything out of the ordinary except for the level of sass he let out.   Since the loss of my pregnancy, I have been very cognizant of my son’s needs and I have been really good about my temper.  I lost my mind and didn’t know how to get back.  I love my son, I am grateful for my son, but I couldn’t even distinguish him in my rage. 

Losing my temper with him made me question whether I’m a fit mother and I felt like a terrible person.  We are so fortunate, I know I shouldn’t let the little crap bother me—but it does in a really big way.  And I don’t want to be like that anymore.  I want to be that person who goes with it but I still find myself highly irritable and agitated when things aren’t the norm for me.  I know that was part of my I was so short tempered with my boy.  My brain couldn’t handle the overwhelm of a major project and a toddler’s constant wheedling.  That doesn’t make me a bad mom or a bad person—it makes me human.

Yes, I regret yelling at him. I don’t want to destroy his love of exploration and his curiosity.  I do NOT regret setting a boundary with him because he is coddled and spoiled as an only child.  I think we all struggle finding the middle ground from time to time and Saturday was that day where the ground felt like it was falling out from beneath me.  I’m trying to give myself lee way for the stress of the last few months on top of the overwhelm with work and life in general.  I’m also trying to hold myself accountable for sticking with the person I want to be—not the habits I’ve adopted to deal with discomfort amidst change. 

We are all learning every day.  Whether it is a house project or something at work or in any of our relationships, we all have things to learn.  We are also complicated humans so we reserve the right to change who we are at any time.  That is ok.  There is space for an identity that doesn’t fit in a single box.  We are allowed to be this AND that.  We are allowed to make our own boxes or to destroy them all together.  When it comes to parenting, that game changes on a daily basis.  I love my child and one bad day doesn’t make me a failure.  It means I’m learning.

Today I am grateful for boundaries.  I set some important boundaries with my husband today.  We have a bad habit of taking on more than we can chew and then trying to back out of it.  I told him that it’s time to purge and get rid of the things that no longer serve us or our goals, and it is time to stop sabotaging ourselves by hiding behind material things.  We created a cycle of wanting to achieve a goal and then spending time preparing and buying things to get there and then letting it fizzle out.  It isn’t about having stuff, it’s about what you do.  I transitioned us to goal setting and following through.  It also involves being honest and recognizing our limits before we overwhelm ourselves.

Today I am grateful for the boundaries I set for myself as well.  I understand that more isn’t always better—sometimes you need to take on just what you can do whether it is realizing you can’t replace the floor in the living room on your own or you only need one burrito at lunch, sticking within your doesn’t make you less than—it makes you healthy.  It doesn’t mean you’re a failure, it means you know what you can commit to and still manage to do it well while taking care of yourself.    

Today I am grateful for a do-over.  We had a rough Saturday (more to come on that this week) and I was not proud of how I behaved.  I am grateful to wake up today and know that I am able to do better than I did.  I am grateful to try again and to approach a challenging situation from a place of love.  

Today I am grateful to remember love.  Continuing on second chances, I had to remember who I want to be.  I don’t want to be an angry kill-joy obsessed with perfection.  I want to enjoy life and I want to bring love and a sense of joy to the every day.  I am lucky to have the people in my life that I do and I would rather enjoy the time with them as they are than lament the time I have with them wishing they were someone else living up to my expectations.  I am blessed to have the support I do and I do not take that for granted.

Today I am grateful for authenticity.  Every day I’m working to say yes to who I am and no to who I no longer want to be—to say no to the things that don’t work for me any longer.  I’ve been on edge the last week but I have also never felt more empowered.  Living the live I want has involved taking massive responsibility and accountability for the way things are.  I’ve been sitting with some tough truths about decisions I’ve made that have gotten me where I am today.  There are parts of me that I am still working on but I’m seeing how even the “darker” portions serve a purpose.  I am not meant to play small.

Today I am grateful for action.  This has actually been a theme for me the last few weeks and it really does feel good.  I used to approach my day with the things I “have” to do—and waking up with that mentality immediately creates a sense of obligation for the day.  I’m now grateful to look at the day as the things I want to do or the things I get to do.  That little change in mindset makes it all doable.

Today I am grateful for clarity.  Living with anxiety is truly difficult because most days get clouded by overwhelm with all the things I’ve taken on or with the sense of obligation that I mentioned above.  I’m learning that having a true sense of clarity, a plan for the day based on goals you want to achieve (for that day only) makes it a lot easier to accomplish things.  It takes away the sense of burden in the day to day and replaces it with a sense of peace.  I can’t master everything, but I am able to take on what I’ve set up for myself.

Today I am grateful for feeling whole again.  I’ve felt so lost the last few weeks.  Incomplete and unsure of what to do.  I felt halfway between the lost child and the wounded woman and everywhere between the two.  On Saturday I felt completely useless.  Nothing had gone how I thought it would and I questioned my capabilities on everything from my career to motherhood to being a wife to whether or not I was able to finish projects around the house.  Today I woke up and took a walk with the dog.  I hydrated and fed all the animals.  I watered my plants.  Then I sat down and got to work.  I took my son out while my husband worked on the house.  We ate lunch together today and sat out on the deck in the sun for about 25 minutes.  Then we napped.  The simple action of getting to the store and completing the tasks we needed was so reaffirming to me because I haven’t been able to do anything on my own for the last few weeks.  It was nice to feel like I could function again and that I could accomplish something.  Recharging after lunch made me feel like there is so much life left.  I am still here.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead

Crazy how everything suddenly gets better once you focus on your life.  Once you let go of the bullshit and all the crap you tell yourself the rest becomes clear.  It’s a fine line where we have to do what is right for us but we also need to recognize that our actions have impact.  The key is understanding that our actions are meant to impact others and they are meant to be in service of others.  But it isn’t our obligation to do what others tell us.  Our responsibility is identifying our strong points and sharing that with others.  We aren’t meant to subvert or be subservient to others.  The world has a wealth of resources, more than enough for all of us.  We are meant to fulfill ourselves to help others.

It all falls into place when we focus on what is right for us rather than what we are told is right—or what we think is right.  There is no obligation to what we are told to do.  The only obligation we have is to fulfill our purpose.  We are simultaneously so engrained with the need to create a unique identity for ourselves and to fit in all the while doing “what we are supposed to” that we are set up for failure when it comes to recognizing what we want. 

I have spent most of my life following the prescribed path.  It wasn’t until I thought I wouldn’t have another chance to do what I wanted to do that I understood what I needed to focus on.  It was then I understood what I actually wanted.  I also felt the hope of being able to take action on what I wanted.  I have been trained in the selfishness of making decisions for myself when they weren’t what other people wanted.  When I started taking action on the things that meant something to me, I was surprised how good it felt.  It was one of the least selfish things I had done.  I felt like I was able to do what I needed to do and I still had time for others.

The truth is we are fed the bullshit about how selfish it is to do what we want to do because it doesn’t serve the system we have been feeding into for centuries.  If we don’t feed the system we aren’t good consumers or participants.  People don’t know what to do with us when we are on our own.  The system, whatever it may be, whatever it may evolve into, does not serve the people—so who is really there for us?  I will make damn sure to take care of myself first because I know that I need to be at my best to do my best.  I know I need to believe I can get where I’m going and I know that I am supported by something other than the people telling me to stay in the box.  It’s all there.  Just shift your focus. 

“You act like you don’t know the way.  Like it isn’t etched into your veins, like every breath isn’t wind in your sail, like every heartbeat isn’t the sound of your own two feet walking on the path that leads you home.” Kristen Hubbard.  It’s easier to pretend we don’t know what our own soul is telling us than it is to listen and hear the difficult parts of what it’s telling us.  Our souls know what we are here to do.  What we are wanting to do.  All we have to do is listen, but we give into the distractions we’ve created because it’s easy.  Going inside is painful and it’s scary.  Going inside means the possibility of seeing something in yourself that isn’t the same as everyone else.  It’s recognizing that you’re needs are different and your goals are different. 

We are born with the imprint of what we need to do.  I feel my calling every day and every time I have to push it aside for what “needs” to be done, I feel weak.  It’s when I’m doing what I love and I’m fully enveloped in it that I feel the most empowered.  Free.  We all seek freedom but disguise it as needing money or material things.  We seek experiences but make it seem like we need to have something to validate it.  The experience of life is enough—that is what we are really here for. 

I’m not sure when it started, the need to hide ourselves and our wants.  I feel like, on some levels, it’s a primal instinct to avoid separation from the crowd.  I also feel like it’s an old indoctrination that we still follow because once we learned to harness some of the power of the natural world, we tried to harness the power of man to serve the few.  We started training people about loyalty and instilling fear in them that if they didn’t do as they were told they were going to die and go to a hell that only the select few could see.  A few people learned about power and getting people to do as they wanted so they created a duality here in the physical plane and then created a duality in an afterlife no human could know about.  We just never stopped that structure. 

As more people feel this restlessness building inside, we are questioning the lives we have built.  More and more people are venturing out into things that spark their curiosity and finding what brings them joy.  For the most part, not one of those things is a THING.  We develop our instincts again and learn to follow our own intuition. We remember that it was in us all along, the ability to create a life we want.  We remember that we are able to do things we are called to do, not that we were obligated to do in service to other people.  I want to add a side note that I do believe people need direction and guidance—they do not need their lives dictated to them.  And that is where listening to the voice inside pays off.  That is where we find who we are.

We have created an existential crisis on some levels with the availability of goods and resources.  We’ve lost the meaning of work that has meaning because we’ve made the goal acquiring money.  And anyone who is on this path knows that isn’t what we are really looking for.  We are seeking the freedom to live our lives as we see fit. If we are honest with ourselves and stop pretending we don’t know what we need we will get that freedom.  There is no crisis when you answer your intuition.  When we are in our integrity and do what we are meant to do all becomes clear.

“We are the alchemists of our own bodies.  You can change your own chemistry just by breathing, cold exposure, and mindset.” Wil Hof. After not being able to properly take care of my body for almost eight weeks, I couldn’t agree more.  Additionally, my mind went through some really dark things and it’s impressive the level of perceived control we let external circumstances (and sometimes internal) take control.  I had to pull myself up every day and remind myself that I had a reason to exist.  And I see how intricately the body is tied to the mind. 

I’m making it a point to bring health to my body and to appreciate what my body does.  It can always endure more than we think and if our minds are aligned with a purpose, we can go even further than that.  I struggle with slowing my mind so I am making sure to start each day with gratitude and pulling some cards to sent the intention for the day and to connect with myself.  I have every intention of being around for my child and I am in awe of how the body can come back from anything.  We truly have a purpose that we are meant to fulfill.

I love the idea of being an alchemist of our bodies because it reminds us that there really isn’t anything we need externally that isn’t provided for us.  Food, water, air, and with some ingenuity, we have the materials for clothing and shelter—they are all readily available. We can let go of the idea that we have to be a certain way because all we have to be is integrated in nature. Our bodies don’t NEED a television to survive.  They don’t require $500 shoes.  We don’t need a Bentley to get to work.  We will live without gold and diamonds.  But we require the elements nature has given us and we require human interaction.

We have more power than we think we do as long as we take the time to connect.  I’ve been examining my need to control and the things that make me angry as well as my fears and what I want to do.  I realized how often I have been feeling bad and that I have a really negative mindset.  And I realized I didn’t want to feel like that anymore—and that I was doing it to myself.  Every day.  All the time. 

I choose to learn to work with my mind and slow down enough to hear what I really need.  To change my mindset to connect with source first.  I choose to let go of the things that make me angry because it isn’t getting me anywhere.  I choose to let go of distraction and to focus on what is really important.  I choose to connect with my body and to treat it well so I can be here for my son.  With practice every day I will get closer to the goals that matter.  And as I have been taking steps toward that, as I have peeled back the layers of what has made me feel like crap, I have felt better. It starts with recognizing what we don’t want and leaning toward how we want to feel.  Then take the steps to get there.  I may not ready to run a marathon yet, but tonight, I can take a bath. 😊          

“It passes, until then, it teaches,” Vienna Pharaon.  Buddhism speaks of the circular nature of lessons.  We will face the same lesson over and over again until we learn the lesson.  And sometimes it’s like an onion where we may integrate the first part of the lesson but a while later, even after we think we’ve resolved the issue, it shows up again.  We are constantly learning in this life.  I think about how many times I’ve rushed through my day.  How angry I’ve gotten on the drive into work because people weren’t driving how I wanted them to.  How I’ve wanted to be home while I’m at work.  The common thread there is not wanting to be where I am.  I started to realize that I was wishing my life away.  I was spending more time hating what I was doing than I was building what I wanted to do.  All of that was serving to teach me to be patient and to take the chance to do something I really wanted to.  It was teaching me not to waste my time.

I spent so many years wallowing in things that were long passed.  I created a horrible track for myself going over every mistake I made, repeating everything that had been done to me, every negative experience I had ever been through.  At one point it clicked that I was looking for the negative in every situation.  I relished being the victim.  Being the victim meant I was perpetually innocent and there was nothing I could do in life to make my situation better.  Any lack of success was not a result of my actions so I couldn’t be held responsible for any failure.  I could wrap myself in a little cocoon and stay safe while someone else did the work.  And then I realized that I didn’t want to do that anymore.  Yes, failure sucked but I could keep going because I wanted to achieve something more than I wanted to be the victim.

This isn’t to say that I didn’t have my fair share of really tough experiences—who doesn’t?  But I finally understood that I had some say in how I looked at those experiences.  Being the victim wasn’t getting me anywhere, and I really wanted to get somewhere.  I also had to learn that not all experiences were for me.  I wasn’t meant to be the best at everything.  I was meant to be the best at what was meant for me.  It took a lot to understand that I really had a lot more say than I thought I did.  Just because I wasn’t able to make people drive how I wanted them to, I did have the power to go a different route or to play games with my son to make it easier.  That made me realize that I could change pretty much anything in my life. 

I’m still practicing this because I’m stretching my “intuition legs” so to speak.  I’m learning to follow the signs and to trust the universe.  I’m no longer saying no to what is meant for me.  I’m learning to have faith that if something happens that it was meant to be, and yes, even with imperfection good things can still happen.  Sometimes we build up what we fear and what we think will happen so much that we lose sight of what really is. 

The other lesson is that sometimes we have to give in and allow the lesson to reveal itself.  Even if there are multiple levels to it, the sooner we acknowledge what is happening, the sooner we can integrate and move forward.  My control issues were phenomenal to the point where I couldn’t stand the simplest interruption to my plans.  Had I simply allowed and learned earlier, I know I wouldn’t have faced three quarters of the issues I did.  Letting go and trusting in order to learn is another one I faced over and over until I stopped controlling every facet of my life.  Sometimes we see it, sometimes we need to hear it a thousand times.  Either way, the choice is ours.