“As soon as you are born you are given a name, a religion, a nationality, and a race.  You spend the rest of your life defending a fictional identity,” via paradise awakening.  Following up on yesterday’s conversation about dreams and defining our path, I want to take a moment to acknowledge how difficult the work of self-discovery is, particularly in this society.  We are trained to perform and we are told who we are from day one.  The connection with our inner knowing is invalidated from the moment we are born.  We are constantly indoctrinated with what is right and wrong and what we should be doing and what we need to believe in a never ending current of information overload.  How are we able to define who we are if we are given the answer the moment we arrive here?  It gets even more confusing when parts of that identity turn out to be true but the rest don’t align.  And it’s even more painful when we are given an identity that completely isn’t us.  The soul of artists do not jive in a nine to five world.

Now, we are born with the blueprint of what we need to do in this life.  We need some help with the whole survival thing, but we have a pretty good sense of who we are right off the bat.  Just as any toddler and they are happy to share their opinions on the matter as well as their like (or dislike) of the situation.  The defiance of a three year old is pretty damn impressive.  We train that out of them and tell them what is acceptable and what isn’t.  But who the hell are we to decide what is right for other people?  I mean, I completely understand the greater good and doing no harm, I’m not talking about that.  But who said you HAVE to be a doctor?  Who said you HAVE to eat a certain way?  And here I am, captain hypocrite as I tell my son exactly who I want him to be…

That is where we break the cycle.  I mean, aside from teaching our kids not to be jerks and how to stay alive and healthy, they will figure it out.  Actually, most of them have it more figured out than we do.  I’m still holding onto the old generation where manners and self-sacrifice were considered more noble than building something of our own.  Not that those things don’t have their value or place, it’s just that is not where we operate from now.  Now there is emphasis on a deep sense of knowing who we are and breaking the system.  Granted, there has ALWAYS been an undercurrent of that in every generation—those are the trailblazers and often the ones deemed crazy (they really aren’t they are just often ahead of their time) but now the cracks in the system can no longer stay hidden. That starts with no longer hiding ourselves.

We treat identity as a shameful thing, like brown hair is something to hide.  Like, the fact that I like Harry Potter as a responsible adult woman is something to be ashamed of.  And between those two examples, I think we confuse the issue of identity all together.  Identity isn’t one solid thing—we will identify with many things over our lifetimes depending on our experiences.  We are not one thing.  Then we throw in the hierarchy of what is better and the moral dichotomy of right and wrong and we have missed the point of who we are entirely.  The spectrum exists for a reason.  But we so fiercely defend what we tell others we are from some primal survival instinct and the need to be right that we feel we can tell others who to be and what to do with their lives.  We lose sight of the entire range between. 

While we are given a “Who you are” starter pack upon birth, I say the moment you feel that doesn’t align with what you feel inside, start working on what makes you feel good.  Start working on what makes you come alive.  Learn to define yourself—hell, don’t define yourself, just go with what makes sense in the moment.  We spend so much time trying to convince others that what we do is the best that we lose the joy of just being.  We feel like the point is to be right when the point is to just be! Share what you have and that light will spark the fire in others.  We don’t need to be told what to do—we just need to remember who we are.   

“People don’t need to be saved or rescued; People need knowledge of their own power and how to access it,” via paradise awakening.  Oh my friends, another talk about the mind.  Our thoughts are so incredibly powerful.  I let myself be blown in the wind, changing moment to moment and allowing my feelings to respond accordingly.  Throw in the nasty habit of distraction and thoughts moved on hyperdrive so I could barely focus enough to grasp something to get a real gauge on what I was thinking versus what was happening around me.  It was so easy to think it was just the circumstances.   

I developed an unhealthy need to control because I didn’t like the way people made me feel.  I would see a behavior I didn’t agree with and immediately shut down or I would start correcting them and making a case that my opinion was the way to go.  I pushed people away because they did one thing to upset me.  I expected them to do the same to me.  It took me a long time to even realize that I reacted a certain way—my feelings came from me and I had a say in how I felt.  It happened recently with some new people I met.  Someone said something that alerted my asshole meter and I was ready to write them off immediately.  But I’ve been channeling a lot of messages and something said, “Hey, you react like this a lot…is it really everyone around you?”  And my logical brain went, “Huh.  I guess it’s not possible that every person is terrible.  I’m the common link here.” 

Like I tend to do, I started a look back to see what this was really about.  As a child and through young adulthood, I saw the pattern of jumping in and helping, sometimes when I wasn’t asked.  Other times I performed because it felt good to be needed.  People in my peer group as well as some adults recognized my ability to problem solve and they pounced on that.  I never learned to develop healthy boundaries or healthy relationships based on who I was—it was always based on what I could give.  So as I got older, I hardened myself to those around me.  It was protection against being taken advantage of.

This world has little to do with what others think of us.  More often than not we are lost in our own worlds and most people around us are as well.  So while I walked around thinking I had the right idea, fearful people were just using me, the reality is they were just doing what was right for them in the moment.  They rarely had long-term nefarious plans to use me, we were working toward mutual benefit.  More importantly, we needed each other. 

We are all looking to save ourselves and that is where we can really help each other.  We all have strengths and weaknesses and that doesn’t make us better or worse than anyone.  It makes us collaborators.  We can help remind each other of our individual greatness and how we can use our unique gifts to benefit each other.  We aren’t here to rescue, we are here to elevate—and that is something we can all do.    

“You cannot suffer the past or future because they do not exist.  What you are suffering is your memory and your imagination,” via paradise awakening.  The timing of this quote hit perfectly.  Last week held a lot of intense emotion for me as I worked through letting go of my past.  I spoke about it quite a bit which helped me process and navigate where I was coming from. I also had a ton of breakthroughs surrounding my relationship to the past and future—more to come on that.  I romanticized so many memories of times filled with joy and safety and little celebrations of memories of who I was and the people who appreciated me. 

My past felt intoxicating for a long time.  Not only in privilege but in the security of it all.  I know most children relish being a kid, but for me it wasn’t about the things I got—it was about how my time was spent.  There is a weightlessness in the lack of responsibility and a high that comes from unconditional love.  When you have those things together, it’s an oxytocin/serotonin/dopamine overload and I lived that way for a long time.  It was also complicated because that meant sacrificing a lot of what it meant to be a kid.  I grew up quickly in spite of idyllic moments and I think the trauma of what I witnessed made me cling even harder to what I had.  I witnessed addiction, abuse, anger, fights, misguided frustration, martyrdom, and self-sabotage to the point I didn’t know how to create a foundation for myself—I needed the ground that was given.

But as I weeded through 37 years of stuff and saw myself trying to re-create a long gone era, something came over me.  The question, “What am I doing?” blared like a fog horn through my mind.  I started to see that what started as a means to preserve memories had become a sickness, a desperation for something that could not be recreated.  I’ve been living in two worlds.  I looked throughout my new home and saw all of the ancient relics of who I was and I felt choked because there was no more room for the person I am, the person I’m becoming.  It hurt and it overwhelmed me, but I’m glad it happened.  Because the person who I can be is so vastly different and is so much more capable and is absolutely building a stable foundation. 

Now, as it comes to the future, I agree that it is imagination.  HOWEVER.  I am a firm believer that without personal insight and a deep dive into who we are, we will never see where we want to go. The past builds our tool kit but our imagination puts it to work.  Without at least some drive for a tomorrow we lose the meaning in today to a degree.  I mean, I’m guilty of pushing through things and missing the moment because I’m so oriented in what I’m making, but without pushing forward, I would be that girl still searching for days gone by, holding onto her 37 year old blankies.  I mean, to be fair, I had them as recently as this weekend, but it’s an important distinction 😊.  The point is, we have a purpose that requires us to be forward thinking.  That is how we evolve. 

I guess the bottom line is life is a balancing act.  Maybe it’s not about living in the past or the future, but learning to use those lessons to define our actions in the present.  The more experiences we have, the more we learn to let go and how to take in what we need to support ourselves.  Then we can support each other.  I have no judgement toward people who are stuck because I lived in fear for a long time.  I gently encourage you to slowly look at where you are and get really honest about how you got there.  Then get really honest about where your thoughts are coming from.  Once you discern the truth, the present clears up and that paves the way for the future.  The key is to not get caught up in it.

Today I am grateful for healing.  I read a quote the other day about the nervous system being over activated and needing to focus on healing the inflammation in order to recover.  There is a physical reaction to over-stimulation and long-term anxiety.  We truly feel what we think.  For as much research as I have done into the human mind regarding anxiety, I never really considered the body’s reaction to emotion.  In fact, I’ve always looked at the body as kind of an ancillary thing—something that just came along for the ride.  But I have been so overly sensitive lately where any stimulation (sound, touch, scent, etc.) triggers me to the point of madness.  I believe that I’ve lived on a hair pin trigger for so long that inflammation of the nervous system makes complete sense.  I’m trying to focus now on slowing down.

Today I am grateful for my animals.  I’ve been on super alert the last week, dealing with so many stressors and a ton of unknowns, trying to anticipate everyone’s next move all while trying to get my work done.  I’ve also been trying to clean up the house and get things set up how I want them and I have run into so many old memories that I’m reliving and rehashing and the same message is coming up: let it go.  I have felt so raw and over stimulated that my super intuitive animals have picked up on it.  At first I was annoyed because they were constantly under foot, but this morning it hit me: they have been trying to help me.  One of my cats is especially in tune and he has been all over me the last 24 hours in particular.  This morning he just laid next to me purring while I draped over him.  The dog has been especially close as well.  These beautiful creatures know what we are going through.  I am so lucky to have them in my life. 

Today I am grateful for my intuition.  Our neighbors made a lovely offer to go out with them to a public event and we declined, mainly because of my concerns with COVID.  I also just had a really bad feeling, knowing that it wouldn’t be smooth or that it would be overly expensive and I knew there would be too many people there.  We didn’t see them for the rest of the day and when they finally returned, they told us the event was the busiest it has ever been.  I know we missed out on a day of doing something other than working on the house, but I am so glad we didn’t put ourselves in a position of getting sick.  I guess that’s one plus for anxiety 😊

Today I am grateful to become an observer.  I’ve been so deeply engrained in my emotions that I’ve lost sight of others around me.  I have a piece on this coming up, but I know I haven’t been myself and I certainly haven’t shown up for those around me lately.  I’ve spent too much time in my own world, holding so tightly to things long gone and demanding that people meet my expectations that I’m right back in a stranglehold.  It’s time to release the hold and get back to a more global perspective. 

Today I am grateful to choose.  I’ve been living in fear about my life—my relationships to my family, my friends.  My relationship to money.  How I view the past and the future.  How to get clear on what I actually want to do.  I had misread the date on the calendar and I absolutely panicked about some bills and I told myself the same story (that we have to live super tightly from now on) and the anxiety just consumed me.  My inner voice told me to stop and think it through.  And I took a deep breath and saw my error.  And in that moment I saw the unnecessary pain I caused myself and knew I could choose differently.  Gaining emotional control is a huge fight for me but I am so grateful to recognize that I CAN do it.  I don’t need to be an emotional wreck—I can choose better. 

Today I am grateful for reminders that everything is just as it should be.  Carrying stress and worry are never productive.  It’s exhausting and unnecessary work and it makes me feel like crap.  Everything has always worked out, one way or another.  Being present and enjoying the time I have and knowing that I have the ability to care for myself allows me to slow down and enjoy the moment.  To appreciate that I am here and that I am able and capable…of anything.  My timing doesn’t matter—things truly unfold as they should.  Being grateful reminds me of the foundation I’ve built and reminds me that I am truly blessed.  All is well.  Gabby Bernstein says, “The sooner you appreciate where you are, the faster you’ll get to where you want to be.”  So here we are.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

Thinking about ease tonight.  The feeling of allowing and going with the flow.  The feeling of not caring what time it is and diving into inspiration and letting it all come out.  Letting the words, feelings, thoughts flow.  Thinking of the lifestyle I want, defining how I want to spend my time.  Feeling the ultimate freedom of defining what I want my life to look like and taking action towards it.  It’s a feeling of absolute calm.  I used to relish in the excitement of daydreaming and planning and wishing and hoping.  Now I revel in this.  The moment here, in front of me.  The absolute solidity of knowing and taking aligned action toward something that once existed in mind and now forming in front of me, a result of my own efforts. 

I feel a difference in my relationship to time.  It used to be something I feared because I was all too aware of how quickly it passed and how limited it is.  I thought it was something to fill with accomplishments and completed lists, the stresses never-ending.  Thinking it was something to get through.  And then, like a flower opening, the awareness of time really hit me:  we aren’t meant to do it all.  We are meant to do what is for us—and that is enough.  While we have a tendency to define ourselves by what we do, it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality and authenticity. 

I think about the moments I missed trying to fill space because of the incessant need to prove which was an effort to quell my massive anxiety.  The useless motion, doing either what I was told or wishing for something else when all I had to do was act. I had to put down the mask I created, the shield of perfectionism I wore close to the chest.  There is sadness but I know it was nothing more than a defense mechanism.  I did what I had to in order to survive.  I never could have anticipated how long it would take to get out of that state of mind—and I never really understood the weight of what I carried. 

Once I stopped running and filling time, once I started gauging time by personal productivity (doing things I wanted) rather than activity (what people told me to do), I breathed different.  I looked around me and really took stock of what I saw.  While it wasn’t entirely what I wanted, while it was comprised of the bits and pieces of lives I had once envisioned and started then left behind, I saw the life I built clearly.  I saw what my mind and my own two hands were capable of.  For every time I thought “it” was over, I saw how I kept going.  Not only that, but I saw how close I had really come in some ventures.  I could have taken that as a moment of regret because I knew that I could have succeeded in any one of those ventures had I trusted myself.  Instead, I looked at what I had done and admired the life I had created.  I felt safe, not for what was around me, but for the fact that seeing what I once did showed me what I am and would be truly capable of.  It was stuff of a long gone era that used to make me feel safe because they were achievements to show my worth.  I saw the things and for the first time realized I truly didn’t need them.  Safe wasn’t a thing, it was a state I created.  Safe came from me.

I no longer feel compelled to prove.  I feel able to set my boundaries and enter a conversation speaking truthfully about what I need.  My needs aren’t an inconvenience yet they aren’t for anyone to meet. My life is mine and once we take ownership of our lives, there is no turning back.  There is no giving up the time for things we once would have.  There is no settling for something that we have luke-warm interest in.  There is no apology for taking what we need, including the time to recover and heal.  There is joy in ease and flow.  There is value in truth and authenticity and like-minded support.  There is peace.

“I don’t think bigger dreams are necessarily better dreams; Your dreams are there for a reason.  It’s like each of us has an inner compass, this guidance system.  You wouldn’t have this dream in your heart if you didn’t have what it takes to make it real,” Marie Forleo.  I went through a period where I didn’t think anything I did would succeed.  It felt like the things I wanted in life didn’t matter and that I was destined to be a doormat, always helping others get where they wanted to go, and they never returned the favor.  After a series of intense losses and a long period of feeling stuck in place, I started looking at what I created around me.  I saw a hodge podge of things I had already done, projects already started but never finished, a few bits that I tried because others did it, and a small portion of the things I wanted to do but never did.

I spent a lot of days feeling sorry for myself and it took a long time to start doing the work and looking at where these issues were coming from.  I realized that the tasks I had chosen to carry were not mine.  Those things were not my purpose.  Let me tell you as soon as I turned that focus inward and really started questioning what it was that I needed and wanted to do, that is when life took off.  Not that I suddenly had the answers and created everything I wanted in one bound, more that a clarity developed and I learned to discern what was for me and what wasn’t.  The things I really liked and what I didn’t.

I also spent a lot of time believing that what I wanted wasn’t worthy.  I worked for many years in an area where my boss was content to let me deal with the brunt of the work and take all the credit.  I started at such a young age that I didn’t know how to approach or bring attention to the issues and when I went for outside help, I was told that’s just how it is.  My young mind believed it.  I didn’t think there was any room for what I wanted and that I was only there to give up my ideas.  I genuinely believed that the universe would treat me like some Cinderella and when I was worthy, all that I wanted would be bestowed upon me.  After too many prince-less nights, I realized that I had to tell a different story. 

As I spent time with that inner voice and learned to tune into it better, the more I let what wasn’t for me fall away.  I was able to hear what was really mine and what came from the outside.  Soon the voice that told me, “You’ll never be able to do it,” and, “Things only work when they are for other people,” and, “You will never get where you want to go,” turned into something else.  I started hearing, “That isn’t for you,” and, “Your talent is elsewhere,” and “If they can do it, so can you.”  The work turned into a HOW do I get this done instead of I will never be able to do this.  As soon as I shifted, possibilities started opening.  Once I saw those possibilities, I started working on the how. 

Creating the life you want takes practice and it isn’t an overnight thing.  It’s a gradual awakening, where you start to get comfortable with what you’re thinking and feeling and setting the boundaries to create the life you want.  Then the self-confidence and the belief that you can do it comes in.  As Marie said, we all have an inner guidance system.  It’s all mapped out for us, we just have to learn to read our own rather than look at someone else’s.  And the dream doesn’t have to be big—it just has to be ours.  The whole universe opens up when you follow your path. No matter how big or small, you need to put energy into it otherwise you will put energy into someone else’s.  Believe me, if it’s in your head, it’s meant for you.

“When I’m feeling out of alignment, I ask myself what’s trapped inside of me right now that needs to get out?  An emotion?  A hard conversation?  A story? Energy that needs to be released can be annoying AF.  We get to set it free,” Kelly Mosser.  We get to decide how we express the things we feel.  When it comes to something we need to design, to build, or to express, if we feel it, we need to act on it.  It doesn’t matter how big or small, if it is in us and asking for expression, we need to let it out before it destroys us.  Ignoring what we are meant to do (based on what we are feeling) is suffocating.  It’s like holding a fire inside—it eventually burns you or it smothers, leaving ash and debris.

I think we also have the expectation of ourselves that our expression always needs to be the same.  Like, if we feel a certain energy, then we always have to run, or read a book, or yell.  But sometimes that energy requires a different way to be discharged.  Similarly, creativity doesn’t always look the same.  One day I want to write, the next I may need to color, and after that I may need to play a game with my son.  The beauty of getting in alignment is that it changes to elicit the best of us.  When we have a calling, we have to adapt to what is needed, not what we want to do. 

The human mind is varied and adaptable and we get to decide how to feed it.  What we consume, whether it is company, ideas, food, music, or drink, that determines the output.  Simply put, crap in, crap out.  But when we hone our abilities and really sit with who we are, then we learn to discern what is most authentically us.  Then it doesn’t matter if we run a mile one day and build a closet the next.  A really silly example of this is the pressing need to be done.  This morning, I took the dog out and I’m normally a ball of nerves because she is so much stronger than me.  I usually just want her to get done because I’m afraid she will get wound up and hurt me.  But today, I enjoyed watching her run through the yard and marveled at how she took her time to play in between doing her business.  And it hit me that she is enjoying this moment—I can too.  How many moments have I missed because I just wanted to get done? 

During our move, I moved my body in ways I hadn’t in years.  I never thought I had the time, and after a while, I didn’t think I could do that anymore.  But let me tell, you my body adapted, and I know that movement is a key form of discharge for me—as it is for everyone.  I also realize that my compulsive need to organize and complete is a discharge of when I feel out of control.  I see how much work I got done around this house and how quickly and I wish I had done it more slowly.  I mean, granted there are the essentials, but in really setting things up, I wish I had controlled that compulsion better.  I’m happy with things are, but I could have done more with patience over persistence.  Again, how much creativity did I miss by pressing to finish?  The good news is that I recognize that quality in myself now.  It’s not always about finishing, it’s about doing it right.  It’s about recognizing the need of the moment and responding to it, not making rash decisions you intend on keeping your whole life.      

“Not all change leads to improvement, but all improvement requires change,” Dr. Shefali.  I think this is an appropriate follow up to our discussion about living in two worlds as well as the discussion about perfectionism.  This is all about discernment and the ability to determine what is best for us, what is aligned with our beliefs, and where that falls on the greater good.  It’s also about purpose—are we changing for the sake of change or are we changing to move the ball forward? And are we actually willing to do the work we say we will?

Change is rarely easy.  I’ve said many times it involves destruction and loss and the release of what we think we know in order to create the vision.  Sometimes it’s a leap of faith into what we think something could be.  As pack animals, we rely on the herd to tell us when something is good and then we all adopt it, but we also know that there may be something better. Sometimes it means letting things get really crappy at first to understand how to do something different. 

The other truth to this is that we are a distracted, lazy, and impatient culture.  We are always looking to be entertained and looking for the next thing to cross our paths, hoping someone else will grant us what we are looking for.  And that works to fuel the consumer system.  We don’t emphasize the need to do it on our own or the ingenuity and fortitude it requires to sustain our visions.  We admire it when we see people like Bezos and Zuckerberg, and Gates but we instill the fear of acting on that kind of vision.  Our system works best on structure and repetition but the human mind is not a machine.  While we may feel comfortable in routine, that is not what we are designed for.  We are meant to revolutionize and galvanize people so that the system works for us—not so we are cogs in the machine.           

To address the impatience, change rarely happens quickly.  At least most things that are worthwhile don’t happen quickly.  That is the way of nature.  There are seasons for everything, and a natural order and time that we have no say in.  It is up to us to align with that flow.  So when we make moves in our lives and don’t see immediate results, we are often triggered that something isn’t working and we think we have to shift again—and to be fair, sometimes we do have to shift.  But we need to train ourselves that it may not be a shift in the opposite direction, it may just be a little tweak.  There is a general slowness that comes with lasting change—slowness in the arrival of it and a slowness of life once you get to the point where you are comfortable with the new ways.

As the world speeds up, I think we are all feeling the pressure and the disconcerting feeling of being propelled forward in a way that we didn’t sign up for.  There are certain things that we can start questioning the need for—like people looking to colonize other planets and wasting resources getting there when we have very real crises here that can be rectified. We can modify the messages we share with people rather than repeating the drudgery and sadness of the day.  Speak new messages.  We can change the story here and now and it can be an improvement.  But in order to do it, we have to change.   

We create conflict when we know things have to change but we behave in the old ways.  For me, it feels like a tear in my brain because my mind struggles to reconcile the need for new behavior while performing the old ones.  This is something that went through my head the other day while discussing some changes at work, and it hit me like a lightening bolt.  We often discuss the desire and need to change but we don’t do anything about it.  We want to change but we don’t want to do anything differently in our lives.  In a corporate environment, it’s even more challenging to reconcile the two because they expect new behavior but they don’t give you the tools to execute and then punish you for not performing.      

I started looking at what is happening in my personal life as well.  I’m in a beautiful new home and I’m working toward a more self-sufficient lifestyle yet I am still reliant on my job and the current system.  I’m terrified to let go because I’m not able to cut all ties yet and my mind struggles with that because I know in order to be successful with my next steps I have to dive all in, but it isn’t ready to sustain me yet. I struggle because I want to spend time with my son but I also need to keep moving on my own work.  We all do things that contradict each other and it is really difficult to break that habit.

I want to speak about having clear lines and boundaries but this goes deeper than that.  I’m working on focusing more on what I can do for others rather than what will make others like me and that means not always being available for what someone thinks they need me to do.  But when it comes to fueling a new lifestyle, we really do straddle the line—at least I know I do.  We live for a time with one foot in each world, one we know and one full of possibility.  We know change requires the big leap, but we also know there needs to be a level of stability before we take that leap.  Even typing this gives me anxiety because I know I’m not a full example of practicing what I preach and I struggle, thinking it makes me a hypocrite. After all, it was the hypocrisy in the corporate world that triggered me.  Perhaps it just gives us common ground because we all do what we have to do to get where we need to go…

I’ve spoken often of faith and I still whole-heartedly believe that the paths we are meant to take will be fully supported.  When you’re taking aligned action, you can leap and there will always be someone there to catch you.  But I will acknowledge the fear that comes up when we are contrasting two different worlds, one of possibility and one we need to sustain us in the mean time.  I want to know why we live in a world that says every opportunity is available to us but consistently puts blocks in place to keep us on the same path.  We have categorized and placed value on certain things people do and have written off certain ventures as unworthy.  So what choice do people have but to do what everyone else does?  We are social animals, we don’t want to be ostracized but we are also spiritual beings and we know we are meant for more.

My gut is that we are meant to destroy ancient systems and beliefs about how the world works.  It used to take centuries for people to believe things differently, but in this day and age, not only do we know what is possible, we are able to create the means to do it.  Beyond that we have the means to spread the message globally.  All of the inflation and demand and forced scarcity is a tactic to funnel our resources when in reality there is more than enough for everyone.  We are meant to be an example of a different way and we are meant to lay the old beliefs to rest.  We are meant to value people more than the system, we are meant to protect people over the system.  Consumerism is great until there aren’t any people left or until you price them out.  People are long lasting—there will always be a population here.  But we can no longer straddle two worlds.

“You can’t learn anything from being perfect,”  Via Millionaire Mentor.  When you think you’ve perfected the world around you, life stagnates.  We stop looking for the opportunities in the situation because we feel we know the way it will go.  We stop looking for alternative directions because we head down the same path.  We stop looking at what else may be coming our way because we think we have it all.  Now, I’m not saying to stop discerning everything that come at you—there is too much coming too fast in this day and age to allow it all to come into your space—but I am saying don’t close off possibilities in your life to spite yourself.

I’m a recovering perfectionist.  I used to think my obsessive planning eased the stress of anything we were doing because I was prepared for any and every eventuality that may come our way.  I also made sure to tell people how they could do the same thing.  I went through a big, “I told you so,” phase.  If people didn’t want to listen, that was on them.  I can see now ego controlled much of that behavior, but I also had a major issue with people not hearing me before we did something and then expecting me to clean up the mess when things went haywire after I told them which way to go.  Of course I got defensive: you had the audacity to insult or patronize me for what I told you could happen and then come to me with your tail between your legs demanding I do more work to clean up your mistake. 

I wielded my perfectionism like a weapon because I tried to avoid situations where I would be cleaning up after someone’s mistake.  It stressed me out so much I despised hanging out with people.  I drew these things toward me like a magnet and I didn’t want the responsibility of fixing things anymore.  So I stood in my lane and I did what I had to, to keep my sanity.  I took a long look at myself and realized that I physically look like someone easy to take advantage of—and there is nothing I can do about that.  I realized that my insecurity sought out situations where I would be accepted and people loved having someone to take on their crap. So I took on the responsibility to be accepted.  It took a long time to realize it wasn’t necessarily that I had to be responsible for cleaning up after people, I needed to learn to be more discerning in the company I kept.  THAT changed everything.

As soon as I cleared up the crowd around me, the need to control slowly began to dissipate.  I’m a pretty open person and I don’t like seeing people struggle so I still draw other’s problems to me, but now I know how to guide them to clean up their own mess.  More importantly, I know how to focus on my own crap rather than trying to change the world around me.  All those years of dysfunctional relationships and me trying to be the perfect example was time spent running circles when I could have been elevating.  The world doesn’t care if you’re perfect, it cares about your movement.  When you’re trying to create a life for yourself, you need to ask what actions will take you forward and what will keep you in place.  People with like-minded focus, keeping your mind open to options, a willingness to learn will get you where you want to go faster than pretending you have it all figured out.

Brene Brown calls perfection a 20 ton shield.  We may look like we have it all together on the outside, but inside we are terrified, carrying the weight of this disguise and drowning under it.  We think we are protecting ourselves when we are holding the weight that will take us under.  It gives us the excuse to stay where we are, the excuse to not start because we aren’t ready, and the excuse to hide something that could be really great for the world.  So put it down.  Put down your expectations of yourself and others and look at what is.  Then make the move.  You’ll see how easily you move without that shield and you will see a whole new world of possibilities open.  As I said above, the universe doesn’t care if you’re doing it perfectly, it cares about the moves that take you forward.  It cares about the openness to what IS and how that shifts the possibilities to what will be.