“Pay attention to whom your energy increases and decreases around because that’s the universe giving you a hint of who you should embrace or stray from,” Via law of essence.  This is a tricky one.  Our society sends constantly conflicting messages about our interactions with people and how we should treat them as well as how we should react.  Ironically, even with some set of social guidance, we all tend to go against what we were trained to do anyway…meaning if we are told to be nice and to accept people, we still struggle to be open enough to different viewpoints.  This applies to everything from social injustice and watching it happen to voicing our opinions when we should keep quiet.  It’s all about energy and how we decide to use it.  What arguments we engage in as well as where we work and who we spend our downtime with.  How we spend our time says a great deal about the person we’ve decided to become as well as the results we get.

Now we throw in people pleasing.  I’ve spoken quite extensively on the fact that I grew up with the belief that I should sacrifice my own interests or opportunities in the hope that people would do the same for me.  In the plainest sense, it is a sweet belief.  One founded on the ideal that people will help each other and will do the right thing, that people are fundamentally good.  While that may hold true, what kind of person does that behavior really attract?  It attracts opportunists and people who have no respect for boundaries.  When you have no boundaries, people will jump at the opportunity to get what they want from you.  Even if it’s them prioritizing their wants over your needs.  To that point, protect your energy.  If it’s ever a choice between getting what you need versus what someone else wants, you win every time—and that is not selfish.

As social animals, we want to be accepted and we tend to mold ourselves to the crowd in order to get that acceptance.  But all interactions are an energy exchange and if we aren’t being honest, then we can end up spending our time doing things that aren’t in our best interest, or simply, that aren’t founded in who we are.  Don’t get me wrong, we need social interaction, but it needs to be genuine and it needs to serve a purpose.  As what your purpose is.  I will always caveat that with the fact that we need to give people a chance to show their true colors and we should never judge a book by its cover.  That doesn’t negate that we have a say in what we accept in our lives or the behavior we accept from ourselves.  Sometimes we have to create the line clearly and stick with it even if it goes against the group. 

With that being said, we also have to take the time to define who we are and who we want to be.  There are times your social group or your work group is genuinely perfectly fine but you hear a different calling.  You know you no longer belong because you’re meant for something different.  This can be the most difficult position to be in.  I mean, it’s pretty clear if you’re hanging out with people stuck in a dysfunctional or negative pattern with no desire to change that you won’t get anywhere.  But when there are highly functioning people who support you, but your ideas and ideals start to veer off a bit, what do you do?  You need to make a decision.

A quote attributed to Jim Rohn says, “You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with.”  I actually have another piece I wrote about that a while ago.  When it comes to making decisions about the life you want, you have to look at the company you keep as an indicator of where you will go.  It’s all a choice. When you are with someone who makes you feel good, is it a reciprocation of energy or is it a high?  Do the people you spend time with motivate you or deplete you?  There is nothing wrong with protecting your energy and deciding you want to do something different.  There is nothing wrong with changing the company you keep if you are not motivated or excited after being with people.  While we can’t rely on people to fulfill our energy, we can expect to reciprocate energy.  We get what we give and vice versa.  We always know in our guts what is right for us so listen.  How we feel is the best indicator of what we need.  Pay attention and guide yourself.

“Absolutely everything that has happened to you in your life, has happened for a reason…and everything is a lesson and it’s part of your story.  You can see that everything is a dot on the roadmap that has led you to this exact moment.  Standing here in this moment, you are standing on another dot and this is part of the map leading you where you are meant to go,” Mel Robbins.  What a perfect follow up to our discussion on change.  This deals a bit more with regret and the inability to change what has happened.  I’ve paralyzed myself with regret before.  A meeting didn’t go as planned, I flubbed a decision, or I snapped at my kid would put me in a state of self-loathing.  Clearly I was incompetent if I couldn’t manage to handle these simple things, right? Wrong.

This behavior was pervasive for me.  I could detail EVERY embarrassing moment of my life all the way through to….well, today.  I know we are all hard on ourselves, but I could not get over certain things I had done.  None of them were life-altering mistakes, but they were enough that I took a personal hit.  I would let that stop me from moving forward or I would spend a profuse amount of time apologizing and improving to never do it again.  Hell, I would find myself randomly thinking about awkward social moments from my high school days and how I should have played it out.  I even remember incidents as a child—like five years old—that still make me cringe.  I am a fully grown adult, I have a successful career, a side gig I love, a fabulous husband, an amazing kid, and I am by all means incredibly fortunate—so why the hell would these random thoughts creep up?  I wish I knew…

What I do know is that sitting with those thoughts served nothing.  I can’t change the past (nor do I really want to), the moments are so long gone I highly doubt anyone remembers them, and the toxicity of holding onto them was only holding me back.  In the process of self-forgiveness/improvement/evolution, we have to recognize that we are not who we were when we made those mistakes and that everything changes.  Those events taught us something, but we are not there anymore.  We spend so much time clinging to irrelevant crap that we miss the next step in front of us.  Don’t get so blinded by what was that you lose sight of what may come—I’ve said it before, I will say it a million times again.  Don’t lose sight of what may come.   

We can’t take away what we’ve done but we have the ability to make peace with it.  We have the ability to integrate it and make it part of who we are and we have the ability to redefine who we are because of or in spite of what happens.  It is all happening for us, not to us.  I used to hate that.  I mean, how can everything make sense when there are horrible things happening?  But it hit me: if you’re witnessing something awful, if you’re experiencing something awful, you are the one meant to bring attention to it.  You are meant to share that story.  And if you’re celebrating and things are wonderful, you’re meant to share that too.  The human experience is complicated, frustrating, exhausting at times, and even terrifying.  But it is also beautiful, precious, simple, and exhilarating.  Make the choice on how you want to see it.  Even if this is a tough moment, keep looking for the next dot.

Today I am grateful for family.  We spent the entire day Saturday doing family stuff.  It felt absolutely amazing.  I am so privileged to be able to get out and enjoy nature with my husband and son and I am so grateful to enjoy time with my siblings and parents.  This world feels so harsh sometimes…and we all need little reminders of the gentleness that exists.  We have to make room for it, whether it is getting out on the water or making an incredible homemade dinner.  I cherish my time with my family.  I wouldn’t be where I am without them and I am so happy to create something that will make everyone comfortable in the future.

Today I am grateful for positive influences in my life.  I spent a lot of time looking at other people and feeling left out, like I had done something wrong to no be able to acquire what they had or to be where they are.  I started doing some real internal work and evaluated where that mindset was coming from.  Then I started shifting what I allowed into my world.  I wanted authenticity, I wanted honesty, I wanted progress, and I wanted purpose and I cut out what wasn’t that.  Changing what (and who) you surround yourself with changes everything.

To add to that, today I am grateful for humility.  I found myself in a small spiral of comparison-itis where I went down the trap of looking at an old friend’s feed and finding myself really jealous.  In that moment, I saw this person and realized she had done nearly everything I wanted to do with my life—and still want to do.  Everything from going to Paris and London to creating lasting relationships with people, to having kids with her friends, to accepting her life exactly as it was.  Now, I’ve known this woman for a long time and she is NOT one to share a highlight real.  I’ve seen her work her way through demons and constantly get crapped on and stand up on the other side.  What she shares is simply what has happened, and while I don’t begrudge her anything (honestly I don’t—like I said I’ve see her through her darkest days), I found myself wallowing that it hasn’t happened to me.  But I stopped myself.  I have an amazing life and I am so fortunate and her successes don’t minimize mine.  My time will come.  We are just on a different path.    

Today I am grateful to recognize limits.  I have been pushing a lot lately because I know I can do more and I’ve recognized where I’m lazy.  Lazy is not a limit, and that is a key distinction.  I’m talking about when I’ve been actively making an effort where I’m able and where I need to and stepping up when called.  I’ve been in that mode for a while and I think I’ve fixated on one area while needing to expand on others.  I’ve been pushing myself to keep up with my side work—which needs to be done—but I have been worn out and struggling to complete it. I’m tired.  Not that I want to quit, but I know pushing when I’m in that state will not create productive material or be a productive use of time.  So I’m happy to recognize limits in that when I’m striving to create a more creative life, I need to be able to transition when things aren’t working.

Today I am grateful to move my body.  I’m not a young kid anymore and sometimes it’s easy to ignore the passage of time when you’ve been with the same person for two decades.  We’ve changed energy, yes, but we feed off of each other.  That’s how we’ve made it work for so long.  Regardless, I felt myself getting physically lazy from being mentally drained, and I knew I had to get off my butt and do something.  Plus I knew I needed to do something different to clear that mental fog.  As fate would have it, I found my old roller blades.  I had been debating buying roller skates to try something completely new, but the timing saw that I got what I needed.  I haven’t roller bladed in over 20 years but I was able to get right back up and into it.  Not gracefully or anything, but you know, I didn’t die…small victories 😊.  It felt so good.

Today I am grateful to try something new.  We’ve been in the new house for a few months and we’ve spoken with our neighbors, but I’ve kept my guard up.  This morning, a lovely calm settled over us after a storm, and the sun came out.  We all just happened to go outside within a few minutes of each other and we stood talking and sharing stories.  It felt like a different kind of welcome.  It was the first time I’ve allowed myself to be seen with this group and it felt really nice.  Honestly, it felt like the beginning of something we can do for a long time and I am grateful to find a new support system.

Today I am grateful to be.  I am truly happy where I am.  The urge I have to keep pushing forward is not a matter of glossing over where I’m at, it’s an excitement for what I know is possible.  There was a point I never thought I would even get here.  And I am so grateful for the steps that brought me here.  I feel like I have the foundation for the next steps in my life, and I don’t take that for granted.  I am grateful to fulfill my purpose.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead. 

“When it’s clear that everything will never be the same again, make the choice to hear that voice, and do the next right thing,” Frozen 2.  As humans we search for meaning and comfort and security.  For so many of us, security is knowing what will happen next.  The truth is, there is NO WAY to know what will come our way.  Even the best laid plans can fail or take a detour.  Life is not linear and planning for every possible eventuality is exhausting.  Trust me, I’ve lived it.  Things happen that you never see coming.  Things happen out of your time frame.  You can plan for something and it never happens or it happens years down the road.  In those cases, it still hits you from left field because you weren’t expecting it when it comes. 

Life is dynamic and it is meant to be that way.  The very nature of nature is dynamic and hardly anything ever stays the same.  I’ve said it before, but we are not trees.  And in reality, even trees change their colors, lose their leaves, and start again.  Life moves whether we are prepared for it or not.  Learning to trust that each move is meant to happen is really scary.  When we have a plan we feel will work and it goes wonky, it’s easy to fall into the “why me” or “poor me” mindset.  It’s hard to find the lesson when we were attached to an outcome or when we truly believed something was meant to go a certain way. 

The beautiful thing about the ebb and flow of life is the absolute ride it is.  Whatever we don’t understand in the moment will always reveal itself as making sense at some point.  When things look like they’re about to take a turn, my advice is simple: LEAN IN.  Every human on this planet has moments where things are never the same.  Some are gradual where we evolve and it may appear nothing is happening but we slowly realize that we are not who we were before.  Others are immediate and we are thrust into it with no warning.  Some of these things we prepare for (like having a child or getting a new job) and others we know are coming but we don’t know when (something breaks or there’s a death).  No matter what it is, we are not the same and we always have a choice.

I’ve spoken many times about evolution and the purpose of change and the choices we have when we are faced with any type of situation that requires us to get outside of the box.  Whether we have control of the situation or not is irrelevant—we always have control of how we respond.  We are not alone when our worlds shift.  That is the only constant we can expect: that things will change.  I’ve spent a lifetime trying to recreate or hold onto my past, a past I idolatrized to my own detriment.  I’ve carried the weight of things and times long gone by in hopes that I could get that feeling again.  Wishing for things to be the same does nothing but keep us out of our present alignment and prevents us from achieving our goals or fulfilling our purpose.   

So when you face these moments, be brave enough to accept what is happening.  Acknowledge that where you’re going is not where you’ve been, admit that what is happening isn’t working, accept that something different needs to be done.  Don’t let the fact that something is different deter you from the possibilities it may bring.  Don’t let fear stop you from opening up to something great, something that may be exactly what you need.  Just get out of your own way and take the next right step.  Remember, when things look like they’re falling apart, they may actually be falling together.

I listened to a talk from Tom Bilyeu Lewis Howes where they discussed the definition of meek.  This really struck me because I’ve always looked at meek as a doormat, end of story.  Bilyeu and Howes took a different interpretation of it—even though Bilyeu initially agreed with my interpretation.  Now, to preface this, we often feel like we need to put on a tough persona so people don’t take advantage of us.  We are also fed messages about honey attracting more flies than vinegar.  So we deal with some pretty mixed messages as a whole.  During the conversation, Howes interpreted meek as somebody who has the beast inside but can keep it controlled and quoted a Chines proverb that says, “It’s better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.”  That floored me.

Being meek has nothing to do with being stepped on.  It has everything to do with keeping that rage inside under control and choosing how you express yourself.  You tread cautiously but you are aware and you take the time to evaluate before you respond.  Meek isn’t a doormat—meek is a self-composed rock star.  The saying, “Do no harm but take no shit,” comes to mind (attributed to Moira Fowley-Doyle).  There are limits with meek because the meek know what is best for them and they abstain or partake as appropriate. Meek is pretty bad ass, to be honest.

I think the reason this conversation struck me as so important right now is because the ENTIRE world is in turmoil in some way or another.  We are being misled and misguided on a daily basis and it is so challenging to make heads or tails of what is really going on.  We are trained to buy into fear and then buy a coffee and then buy a seat or shut up as we watch the world burn around us.  It is time to drastically change this story.  The best way to do that is to start redefining things in your life, including how you define words or any preconceived notions you may have.  Once you can see the world through new eyes, it never looks the same.

If we learn to slow down and really evaluate what is actually happening over what we are told is happening, we may just be able to hear each other enough to come to some sort of solution.  We have to learn to control what is inside of us and to stop interpreting other people’s opinions as a threat.  Then we need to put our egos aside and understand that our ego is not telling the truth and it doesn’t have our best interest at heart.  The ego is only designed to make us look good and will serve no purpose in a real discussion about making things better.  Coming together is so important and unifying over a common goal is the best way to do that.  I’m not saying all will be rainbows and sunshine, but I am saying that we can stand to learn some patience and trust and to shut our mouths for a minute.

I’ve always been a strong willed person and I completely messed that up for a long time.  I thought the point of being strong willed was to be right.  I see now that I am strong enough to help those who can’t help themselves and I am not afraid to fight for the underdog.  We have all been blessed with common sense and it is high time that we all start using it again.  Take care of each other.  All of the rest is nonsense.  So when it comes to being meek, I am all about tending what is mine in order to teach others to care for theirs.  I am all about keeping myself in control to see the truth, to hear other sides, and to learn.  I may not be perfect at it, but I am working on it.  So, I’m cool with being meek.  I’m cool with sharing my message and letting people figure it out.  I’m not worried because this isn’t about power.  It’s about the long game—and whether you like it or not, we are all playing.

I’m listening to Mel Robbins discuss working with the universe and how we put things into motion in our lives.  When we start behaving and acting in a way authentically aligned with who we are, responding to the call of our soul, the universe responds.  We get signs and feedback and clues to our next steps and often, we are shown signs that what we have chosen for ourselves is right. I can absolutely say with 100% certainty that this is true.  I’ve made some radical changes in the last few months and I have had to take a long look at my behavior.  Seeing what I need to do and taking action on it has been the key in making the shifts I wanted, happen.  For example, I know I’ve needed to strengthen my resolve and trust my leadership abilities and, as timing would have it, the universe gave me an opportunity. 

I’ve been dealing with an incredibly emotional and difficult situation at work.  I felt quite lost because I KNEW what I did was right and I knew that I handled myself well but I still had to work my way through a challenge to my abilities as well as my character.  This wasn’t an emotional issue for me as far as “right” or “wrong,” it was emotional because I knew it was right and I was questioning the follow through.  I also knew I had to go through this to learn how to stand my ground with people I normally wouldn’t challenge (my boss and human resources and an angry employee).  And as soon as I did and backed myself up, everything fell into place.  The situation resolved itself, I learned I could trust myself, and I learned I could handle myself well.        

I learned a few lessons as well.  When it comes to manifesting, I need some work in the honesty department—clarity too.  I’ve been practicing but these are areas that make manifesting all the easier.   For the work situation, I wasn’t entirely honest when it came to how things were handled.  My boss made the comment, “I hope you feel supported.”  I told her, “It’s not that I don’t feel supported, I don’t feel safe.”  The truth was quite simple—I didn’t feel safe because I didn’t feel entirely supported.  Now, I’ve mentioned this before so I’ll say it again: I genuinely feel like my boss is the kind of person where she sees the potential and she wants me to step up.  I don’t feel she’s being malicious.  But in this case, there was a clear line that needed to be upheld and we were working in some pretty grey territory.  I knew I had her support on a personal level—no doubt.  But on a professional level, I could see she felt nervous to take a stand.  So, I’ve learned that I could have been more honest in what I needed.  I’ve also learned that I am able to express fact without emotion tied to it.  And when things run their course, they are done.      

Moving forward, I feel slightly hypocritical.  The work example is just one of what is going on, but the truth now is that I feel so incredibly blessed and I know I am ready to level up in many ways….but I know there are some steps I need to take now and I am terrified to take them.  Not because I fear lack of support—but because I fear that I will do so well and I won’t be able to maintain it.  I still lack the confidence to maintain what I start.  And that is where clarity comes in.  When you are creating a new life for yourself, you CAN NOT be vague.  It does not work.  Today’s message from Robbins’ talk hit me at exactly the right time: if you are going to create something and you are getting the signs that it is right, you need to run with it.  And who would I be if I didn’t follow my own advice and trust that it is right?  The point is simple: pay attention and take the chances given to us.  They are all part of what we asked for.  Believe they are for you because I can guarantee they are.

A quick note on love and maybe a little bit about time 😊.  My husband, son, and I went and spent some time with my Aunt and Uncle on Friday night.  We haven’t seen them for a while and we just did a quick trip because they’re cleaning up and trying to move things on and out of their house.  As I watched my son run around their yard, the same yard I used to run around on visits as a child, I started thinking about how everything changes.  Well, really, it feels like it’s all the same and then one day you wake up and it’s all different.  But we are given such an amazing gift to have this life.  The passing of time isn’t something to lament—it is a reminder to make the most of what we have.

We let so much time pass between us, either as a natural factor of life or because of stupid stuff, and then we blink and nothing is as it was.  It’s amazing how we can go about our lives and often forget what is right in front of us.  My family has gone through a lot of transition this year, moving, changing business locations, closing businesses, entering retirement, the loss of my baby, us buying a new house, my son entering school soon—it all gets so overwhelming.  But it is also a very real reminder how absolutely precious this time is.  I’ve listened to my parents argue and complain about each other for years and after visiting with my aunt and uncle, it hit me: this is all going to end someday.  Whether we like it or not, whether we are frustrated in our present circumstances or not, this is all going to end.  Stop being so miserable.  Enjoy what we have.

I’m no angel in that behavior and I’ve often allowed stupid things to get the best of me so I’ve fought with my husband when I should have let things go, I’ve snapped at my kid, I’ve become frustrated at work.  And as I see my family aging around me, I realize I’m aging too.  The opportunities I had and the experiences I had that felt like yesterday are truly in the past.  So taking the time to enjoy and share what we have now is key.  Fighting over stupid stuff is absolutely pointless.  Feeling any discontent in your day is pointless.  Make room for joy.  We have the ability to love and we are given so many opportunities to express it.  And seeing how short this trip on Earth really is, we should take that opportunity as often as we can.  Time is special, invaluable—use it to the best of your ability while you have it and never take this life for granted. 

“Never beg for a seat when you can build your own table,” Bashar Kataou.  This is a great follow up to our last discussion on illusion and waking up to our power.  There is a fine line when it comes to ego.  We need to recognize what we are capable of but it needs to come from a place of authentic connection and purpose.  If it comes from a place of proving worth or hiding who we really are, then we have missed the point which is that we have power to do good for all, not just ourselves.  Now, with that being said, when we let go of the illusion that we need to protect a broken system and start waking up to our power, you learn very quickly just how much we can rely on ourselves and what we are capable of building. 

We undervalue ourselves—and we are trained to do so.  We are also trained to undervalue others because we believe protecting ego is a priority.  We are trained to make snap decisions and judge people on what they look like rather than their character.  We seek to be right over doing what is right.  And then when our confidence gets so low, we seek validation from those who have no impact on our lives, trying to prove our worth.  My friends, that is an inside job and no amount of material or praise from anyone outside is going to make us believe we are good enough.  When you let someone else set the bar in your life there is always something else to go for—that marker gets moved further and further away. 

When we claim our power, we immediately create a place of our own.  It may not be as big or “impressive” as we think we need, but that power is REAL.  When we stop the cycle, the game of proving and turn inward to hear what our truth is, we no longer need what society tells us we do.  We learn to see.  There is such a thin veil over reality that we all pretend doesn’t exist, and when we choose to live without it, we can’t go back.  We stop hating ourselves for what we are not and start loving ourselves for who we are.  And then, we can stop attacking others or labeling others based on our insecurities and we can stop trying to be right or blaming others for where we are.  We reclaim our power.

We start seeing that the life we are told to live is just a morsel of what we could have.  Now, I don’t pretend that giving up our securities in favor of going it alone is easy.  And I honestly don’t recommend going it alone.  I want you all to see that there are real options.  Things we can build with our own hands, a life we can create that feels right for us.  A life that is meaningful and joyful and purposeful and yes, collaborative and mutually beneficial for all.  When we unleash our gifts, the entire world does better.  And no, I do not pretend that taking the leap automatically means the world we know will improve.  We have to be willing to accept responsibility for what happens, whether good or bad.  But there is nothing greater than learning to take those steps and aligning with who we are.

So, the balancing act may feel overwhelming at first.  We need to recognize enough of our power to motivate us to move forward, but we have to be humble enough to have a purpose.  The bottom line is don’t ever give anyone the ability to determine your worth or set the bar in your life.  Don’t ever let someone tell you where you do and don’t belong.  And if you’re going to have to prove your worth to fit in anywhere, ask if that’s where you really want to be.  We are divine creatures able to commune and co-create our worlds-if someone doesn’t want you in theirs, then let them be.  Create your own world and don’t let what’s on the outside influence what you know is right for you.  Truthfully, we have been begging to sit at a table when we could have built our own.  Don’t let the world’s inability to see your worth make you doubt yourself.  Step up and live your life, and when you shine so bright they will wonder how they ever missed your light.    

“People don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed, and the greatest illusion is that mankind has limitations,” via law of void.  Part two on telling the truth.  I wanted to follow up the discussion on truth with a slightly more specific outlook.  Aside from our emotional misperception of truth, there is an internalized misperception as well.  Yes, it’s easier to defend our ego than our platform/views, but that is because we have misguided ideas about what needs defending.  We uphold outdated paradigms to keep people in line thinking that is what’s best because it worked 100 years ago.  But what was appropriate 100 years ago is no longer appropriate today.  We are no longer in survival mode, even if it’s protecting the survival of a system. We have to let go of the illusion that any of what’s happening today is ok, that the system works.  

As we awaken a new world and slowly (ever so slowly) recognize the real root of our anxiety, discontent, and anger, we know what once was no longer serves. That root is the fact that we are living a life not aligned with our purpose.  We hear what we need to do but we are trained to ignore it.  We’ve been told for centuries that we need to play it safe and that if we follow a prescribed pattern/plan that we will be taken care of.  We’ve been kept in a box because what we truly feel is suppressed at all times, we never learn to fully label or explain what we think/feel, and we have a desire for something tangible that we are told we can’t have as they dangle the carrot of entertainment and distraction in front of us. 

There are real rumblings inside of all of us that guide us exactly where we need to be and will tell us exactly what we think/feel if we listen to it.  But that requires suppressing the false instincts we were fed from infancy.  It requires letting go of the idea that this system serves and protects the people and learning to trust your instincts.  It requires believing that what you have inside is powerful enough to carry you.  We are never taught to believe that we are limitless because we are much harder to control when we have control of ourselves.  We spend a great deal of time creating an image for people: looking a certain way, dressing a certain way, speaking a certain way, trying to obtain certain things to get status.  We live in a world of sleight of hand—and we all feel it. 

The truth is, yes that illusion and performative behavior is taught, but we do feel safe there.  We have a say in what the world gets to see and that gives us a sense of control.  That is why it’s so easy to become righteously angered when our coffee order is wrong; we tie more meaning to what we look like than to what we feel.  But as we go through life, there comes a point where EVERYONE hears that voice inside that says, “This isn’t me—this is a lie.”  And then we start flailing about trying to cling to an identity because, if we’re not who we devoted this time to creating, then who are we? Ego is what we cling to but our hearts get louder and louder until they can no longer be silenced.

We have infinite possibilities in this world and every one of them is an opportunity to release a gift that we are meant to share with the world.  Nostalgia or, “It’s the way we’ve always done it,” is a pretty poor reason to continue something that is harmful to ourselves and others.  We convince ourselves it works because we are afraid of what is on the other side.  We are afraid of the learning curve and what happens when we operate differently.  It’s out of our comfort zone and the safety of the “known” we’ve created.  The truth is, it’s all a show, an illusion.  We can spend a lot of years miserable doing something we know doesn’t work for us or we can take the chance to make what we know is right, work.  And yes, that does require letting go of the image we cling to.  There is an entire universe of possibility awaiting us—we just have to let go.

Today I am grateful for pure, unadulterated, joy.  I watched my son go to his friend’s house alone for the first time ever (the friend’s parents were there).  He’s been with me every day since the pandemic started and he was only 3 when that happened, so letting him go was a huge step for me.  I feel this pang of anxiety and fear as I watch the little person he is becoming.  It is quite clear he is no longer my “little boy” to tell what to do (within reason of course).  His fierceness and independence are unmatched and I am so proud that he managed to play with his friends and he came home when he needed to.  After he got home, he was so thrilled that he got to play with his friends and I know without a doubt that he needs more freedom.  He needs to have fun and let loose.  It has been a really tough couple of years holding him back from the things he wants to do because of the pandemic, but he has spent nearly half of his life in this.  I am so grateful that he was able to have a few minutes of real fun with his friends.

Today I am grateful for the progress I’ve made with recognizing my habits and calling myself on my bullshit.  We all tell ourselves lies and we rarely hold ourselves accountable.  I have worked incredibly hard to get better at that because I KNOW that unless I am able to confront those demons and do the work I need to do, I won’t get anywhere.  Resilience and tenacity will take you further than talking about something ever will.  And if we know what we have to do, then we HAVE TO DO IT.  I have allowed myself some slack because the amount of work I’ve gone through this year and the physical issues leading up to losing my baby.  I felt like I needed more time to prepare and move on.  The universe is telling me to strap in because it is time.  There are no more excuses.  Everything happens for a reason so I need to stop coddling myself.  I have toughened up, but it is time to do more.  

Today I am grateful to be who I am meant to be.  I’ve always had a funny thing with time.  If I think too long or too hard about the passage of time, I put myself into a state of anxiety and I quickly spiral into morbid depression.  I’ve been thinking a lot about that over the last few weeks as I’ve been going through my things and getting rid of what no longer serves and then all over again as I find things at my parent’s or even my uncle’s that they are cleaning up.  It is such a trip to see the things of so many years ago.  I remember how I held my family on a pedestal when I was younger, and as we go through these things, it’s apparent they didn’t know what they were doing either.  We are all just winging it.  I’m not meant to repeat what they did—I’m meant to take it to the next level.  Staying in the past will not move any of us forward.  I’m here to make my own way.  I honor what we had together, the memories, and I am grateful to move on.

Today I am grateful for clarity in my life.  As I’ve begun to make peace with the past and letting things go, I’m accepting who I am outside of what I was told to be.  I am happy to go for the things I want and I am lessening the shame in creating the life I want.  It is the first time in my life I’m accepting exactly what I want.  There never was any shame, that was all in my head.  The guilt, too.  There is no reason to feel guilty for what makes you happy.  There is no reason to feel shame in who we are.  The more we accept the pieces of ourselves, the easier it is to let go of what we are not.  Taking the first step in the direction of my “am-ness” has been the most freeing experience in my life.  All of the self-help has been amazing, but action is where you feel it.  It’s like living life in high def.   

Today I am grateful to feel a sense of peace.  Practicing emotional control is never easy and this last week has put that resolve to the test in numerous ways.  When I get myself in a state of agitation, it is really hard to see anything for what it is.  I make mistakes, I react, and things don’t get done.  There truly are things beyond our control and I tend to struggle with that.  I like it when things make sense.  But I’ve realized how heavy that burden is.  Some things simply are what they are and we have to move on.  Peace doesn’t come from controlling the situation.  Peace comes from accepting what it is (whatever it may be) and letting go.  I have put down the obligations that were never mine to bear in the first place.  Things that don’t need my opinion or my action don’t need my words, time, or attention.  Things that require my energy come first, everything else is put away.  And it feels good.  Put down what you no longer need to carry.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.