Today was a rough day at work.  We are caught in an in-between with our transition right now and directions aren’t very clear so when it comes to assignments, people are hesitant to take the lead and they are hesitant to define expectations which, in a business, you need.  My boss and I saw the terms of an assignment differently—I took it more literally and high level assuming we needed to align with what was decided where she felt we were still in the deciding phase and wanted to get nitty-gritty with things.  I walked away feeling like I was ill-equipped for the role because I couldn’t see it how she did—it wasn’t anything she did, it was just me seeing another example of how I wasn’t interpreting things well.  My confusion was high and I wasn’t thinking clearly.  I thought over the last few weeks where I didn’t understand or my experience wasn’t allowing me to see things how everyone else did. 

Right as these shame-spiral, frustrating thoughts went through my head, an internal voice, louder than any I’ve heard before said, “Yes you are, this isn’t it.”  I no longer have interest in guessing games and trying to figure out what people need when it comes to role expectations and needs.  We are all adults and I no longer have interest in determining what you need from me.  If you give me an assignment, I will gladly try to work it out, but I will not be held accountable for lack of specific direction. With that being said, the voice made sense to me.  I’m not an un-intelligent woman.  I’ve been in healthcare for 20 years, and as time has gone on, there is an increasing push toward interpreting sub-text.  Healthcare is a pretty black and white thing when it comes to what needs to be done—I don’t want to read between the lines any more and then be held accountable for something I may naturally miss.  Again, not seeing the sub-text doesn’t make me un-intelligent.  It means that we are lacking something in communication.

I know we all have moments of self-doubt and insecurity—that is human nature.  But when you work in an environment where they intentionally leave out information or they start conversations half-way through a point, it starts to feel like you’ve become a target.  For a long time I’ve worn a shield because I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of those jabs.  And the truth is, now I’m tired of carrying the shield.  I don’t want to go into work feeling like I’m behind, or missing something because details were left out.  I realized this means I have a decision to make. There comes a point when you have to do what is right for you.

I can either readjust and play the game differently, or I can put down the shield and get really honest about what works and what doesn’t work in my life.  In order to do the work authentically, I can’t spend my days on the defense.  I need to be able to make some moves and feel like we’re making ground.  And in the corporate world, sometimes it doesn’t work that way.  After all the rules are set up in favor of the business.  Regardless of what industry you’re in, the point remains the same (life remains the same): you have to decide what you’re willing to tolerate and what you are truly looking to accomplish. A bad day, week, month, or year doesn’t make you incompetent.  Sometimes it means that there are forces you’re working against and you need to decide what you want to spend your energy on.  Lack of understanding doesn’t make you stupid when you aren’t given the rules.  Keep your chin up and keep going.

“I’m in constant motion of becoming.  Becoming Strong.  Becoming Fit.  Becoming just.  Becoming Resilient.  Becoming Bulletproof.  What are you in the process of becoming?” Evy Poumpouras.  I’m in the process of un-becoming.  That has to come first.  The destruction of what I thought I was, of who I thought I was, of what I thought I wanted, of what I was “supposed” to be/want, of what previously made me happy.  Letting go of the weight of what was, that is where it all begins.  I’m looking at everything I was and the steps I’ve taken as I’m at a pivotal point in my life.  There is no longer a safety net and there is no longer keeping one hand on each rail.  It’s time to jump.

So in order to become something, I have to let go of something else.  That is natural.  And what do I want to become after this?  I don’t know.  I might sit in the soup of my cocoon for a while and try to figure it out.  Or I might let it tell me what to do.  I feel like I’ve been directing the ship for too long.  I’ve been too many things to too many people and, as hyper aware as I have been of my feelings, I haven’t been aware enough of my identity.  I mistook what I felt for who I was. 

I talk a lot about evolution and conscious change because I believe it and I know we can do it.  I’ve witnessed hundreds of people transform themselves.  So I can undertake my transformation without fear.  It’s time.  Becoming strong seems like a good place to start.  Strong enough to release what I really want to say to those around me.  Strong enough to live the life I want.  Strong enough to hold boundaries.  Strong enough to let go.  Strong enough to accept whatever comes or goes in my life.  Letting go of the bullshit story is where it starts.  I’m in the process of becoming legendary.  Even if it’s in my own life…I will make an impact.

Sometimes the most powerful revolutions start small.  They start with a breath, maybe a tear or two, then a single step forward.  They start with listening to the knowing we all have inside of us.  Look at what you’ve done.  Be proud.  Love yourself and acknowledge what you’ve done to get here.  Whether you’ve had the way paved for you and are breaking out of the safety of that path or you’ve had to break down the barriers by hand, you’re taking a chance on your life. Decide you don’t want to stay where you are any longer and put yourself in motion.  No, it doesn’t have to be a certain way to show the world you’re doing something—it just has to be something to change your world.

After what feels like months of gripping the world by my fingertips, I feel a release.  I’ve been creating expectations again and trying to design a life I thought others wanted to see.  And I can’t do that.  I’m ready to be the shore for myself.  I’m ready to be my own refuge.  I’m ready to uncomplicate this.  I know how cathartic tears are, a well placed word.  I feel it in my veins and I see the signs again.  I believe them again.  I’m ready for peace and joy, and fun.  I’m really read to see the joy of what IS.  I am releasing my expectations because, looking at my life lived so far, it was beautiful.  JUST AS IT WAS.  Had I let go of the constraints I put in place, my demands, I would have seen it sooner.  But I need it now.

We are all so tired.  On a personal level…me.  My parents.  My soul.  My family.  My heart.  My body.  My mind.  On a global level…EVERYONE about EVERYTHING.  Tired of proving, of looking a certain way.  And now I’m older, the real edges are showing.  The fringes of mortality are growing and showing, both for myself and for those I love.  The security I so desperately sought slowly falling through my fingers like sand.  And everything we’ve strived for is all illusion.  I’m ready for reality.

Atticus said, “The hardest step is to blindly trust in who we are.”  And that says everything about where I’m at.  I’ve mentioned before about straddling two worlds and there is no time left for that.  It is time to choose, and to go.  Just as I’ve preached, and as I truly believe.  Blindly trusting ourselves, no matter how terrifying is one of the most loving things we can do.  Love is a great teacher, but we aren’t taught to love ourselves.  I vow to stop looking at myself as a burden.  I am emotional but I love as big as any other emotion.  So I’m learning to be in this moment.  As I am.  Accept. Accept. Accept. 

I’ve been fighting a cold the last week—a generous gift from my toddler.  I’ve had to go into work (masked and protected, wielding sanitizer and cough syrup) because one of my departments only has one person and she’s been off.  So…I’ve been feeling pretty beat.  My hours weren’t really forgiving to begin with so extra responsibility in this moment wore me down faster than normal.  I did have the opportunity to work from home for an afternoon but my energy just wasn’t there.  But perform I did.  I did the work and exhausted myself. I took time away from my healing for someone else’s pleasure. 

I took a business meeting for myself hoping it may lead me somewhere and the woman told me I looked good.  She said, “I wouldn’t even think you’re sick until you coughed.”  She meant nothing malicious by it, but it really got me thinking about how we value appearance and our expectation on performance.  I may have looked fine, but I had put in a 14 hour day by the time I spoke with her and I was exhausted.  My appearance meant nothing—I KNOW what I felt.  How we misinterpret the innocuous.  Like sustaining that type of work all while being sick is some badge of honor.  Now, I won’t get too martyr-ish because I know we’re talking about a cold here, but the point remains the same.  We expect people to perform unless they are on death’s door.  I shouldn’t have to prove how sick I am with how I look. 

I know we talk about not judging at first glance all the time but we have to recondition the human mind.  Fast judgement is a primal instinct and it keeps us safe, letting us know what is harmful or not with a quick look.  We still try to preserve our safety by appearing healthy and strong even when we are not and we still judge people by their appearance.  The point is you never know what someone is going through.  My piddly cold won’t impact the world, but if something that small can be misjudged, then we need to examine what we do to each other on a daily basis.

We look for equilibrium, the known, the regular and we trust our basic instincts to tell us what is what—that we won’t change.  But I encourage people to take a step back and pause before you say anything really.  This isn’t about being offensive or soft, it’s about the fact that we have to retrain ourselves because we are quite simply wrong more often than not.  It’s not a criticism, it’s a fact that we need to accept.  And I’m learning acceptance, acceptance, acceptance.  So…maybe I should accept that we are judgey.  Ah, it’s a vicious cycle.  But the point remains—try to not jump the gun and leave space for people.  We are all going through something. 

Today I am infinitely grateful for peace.  After a lifetime of roller-coastering between feeling like I got this and feeling like the world is ending, I’m not naïve enough to believe that I’m through with the ups and downs.  That is the natural course of things.  But today, the changing of the season, the beauty of life, being in the moment, seeing life as something that isn’t heavy felt freeing in a way I’ve experienced only a few times.  Being myself, witnessing myself, including myself in where I was felt amazing.  Honoring what I wanted to do in the moment highlighted the connection I’ve been yearning for—what I need more of.  The weight lifted.  And the fear of enjoying the good while it’s here evaporated.  That is life.  It’s all around us.  And it’s up to us to engage.

Today I am grateful for witnessing life.  My niece’s family came over today and we watched the boys play.  Spending time with family and seeing the unconditional love of youth, the fearlessness to be who they are, the unrestrained looking for joy (and the unguarded audacity to experience it) snapped me into reality.  Life is about presence and there is nothing like seeing little ones to remind us what that means.  They feel, they express, they move on and they repeat.  There is no dwelling.  All of the concern I see in my child comes from me.  That is nothing more than learned behavior.  Seeing him today in all of his four-year-oldness made me realize I don’t want to pass this burden on to him.  It’s time for me to learn a few lessons from him. 

Today I am grateful to put the attention outside.  I’ve lived my life thinking that I had to bear the burden of my concerns, my mindset all on my own and I’ve seen over and over again how reaching out to others helps in those times.  Not that I don’t do that, but more often than not the underlying fear of not having my needs met takes over and I don’t always reach out as I should.  But I put a stop to that.  I have a few friends who are also going through some challenging times and I stopped my bullshit and reached out.  I checked on them and make sure THEY were ok.  I reached out to family as well and took the attention outside of myself.  That funk we put ourselves in is something we can get out of.

Today I’m grateful for remembering power.  I’ve gotten myself to a crossroads many times before and I’ve turned around.  I’ve repeated patterns and complained about not getting results.  Life doesn’t work that way.  I preach it all the time but I have this fear of following what I know is right for me.  That goes back to the security and safety I’ve been looking for.  There are no guarantees in life and there is no way to know that even playing it safe will be safe.  Jim Carrey said, “You can fail at doing what you don’t like so you might as well go after what you love.”  So now I can look at what I need to do differently.  It’s on me. 

Today I’m grateful for reminders to do things one at a time. I saw a video today about a guy’s friends asking him where he had been and they were saying that he doesn’t go out much anymore.  He replied that he was taking care of himself.  I realized that I’d rather disappear and come back a better version of who I am rather than disappearing and not addressing what makes me this fragile mess.  I’m stronger than that.  So I think it’s time to simply prioritize.  I can want to do all the things that get me where I’m envisioning—and I CAN do them.  But in order to do that successfully, it has to be one step at a time.  Then build from there.  That’s how life works: build the foundation and then build ON the foundation. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

After a lot of deep thought after the post about light and my fears related to time, I realized how much healing I have left to do.  I started listening to what I was hearing instead of letting it run rampant and I heard myself saying, “I don’t want to be stuck like this anymore.”  The universe replied, “You don’t have to be.”  “But I don’t know how to heal, this keeps happening.”  And the universe said, “Put it down.”  I have the choice to keep defining myself as the girl looking to be perfect and the girl who won’t make it on her own, the girl who needs others to lift her up to succeed.  Or I can put down what I’ve been fearing, and step into my power.

Friday was my dad’s birthday and he is one of the ones I feel is trying to “run out the clock.”  He is tired and he is disappointed in his life.  He is resigned that it’s over for him.  That isn’t the truth, but that is his mindset.  And I fear losing him because that is my DAD.  Not that I don’t have infinite love for my mother, but she is resilient in a different way.  My father is not.  Saturday was my grandmother’s birthday.  And I see how much I am like she was.  The youngest in the family, always striving to prove, needing to be perfect in order to get attention, also having those who love us hate us for that, feeling so lonely and isolated.  Trying to find safety, so needing to control everything. And that is the wound that I need to heal.

It isn’t about letting go of time and being flippant with responsibility, but it is about recognizing that we only have power over ourselves and that we can redirect as needed.  It’s redefining the relationship with time and understanding that while time is short, we have enough.  We are here on a bigger plan than our own and we need to make the most of what we have.  It is all part of something greater than ourselves.  When the fear is healed, that is when presence comes in.  And when presence comes in, that is when life happens.  It isn’t about controlling actions and perceptions, it’s about channeling our own behaviors.  It’s about being firmly grounded in reality.            

“It’s about the light.  It’s always about the light…I feel time passing with the shifting of light patterns.  I stayed at the Newsroom Café 14 years partly, I think, because you don’t feel time passing there.  The early darkening though.  I feel it.  Sometimes I panic and grab a table corner or doorway as if to stop the passing of it.  Time.  Because what if I don’t get where I need to before it’s too late.  Before it’s dark?  Before I’m old(er)?  Before I’m dead.  Before someone else gets there first?,” Jennifer Pastiloff.   As I spoke about time yesterday, I came across this one that I saved.  It so perfectly encapsulates what I feel about time, feeling it pass and slip through my fingers, simultaneously intangible but SO palpable.  I think a lot about my childhood and, in spite of the traumas, how safe I felt.  Why I stayed with my parents for so long and why I cling to them so desperately.   I can see the way the light looks when it hits the lawn, or when it enters a room and I am instantly transported back to those moments.  And then I get so fearful and heavy because those moments are gone and what if I am never safe again?

Life moves forward regardless of where we are stuck mentally.  And I’ve been living with my foot on the brakes, trying to stop life from moving forward because I’m afraid of losing what can’t be brought back.  I feel like those I love the most, the ones I have relied on the most are at the point in their lives where they are trying to run out the clock and I have no control over that.  We have no control over when the clock runs out, period.  No amount of control or stomping our feet will ever stop it.  And that complicates things when you have trauma because the trauma sticks you at a point and the world keeps moving on around you.  You see it moving, you know you’re getting older too, but you aren’t moving with it and then you panic that you need to catch up but you don’t have the skills and you’re afraid you don’t have enough time to learn.

So we talk about presence and trying to stay in the moment, because this is all we have.  Right now.  This is the time we are gifted and this is the time we have to work with.  To make the most of it, we need to be with it.  But how can we be with it when we are still agonizing over things long since passed or things that have us filled with so much insecurity that we don’t know how to feel who we are?  It is a struggle to get through those moments, every day.  Throw in working for someone else and we start to see that how we spend our time isn’t really working and that queues up the fear of wasted time again.

The rest of Pastiloff’s quote talks about her realizing and reconciling that she is right on time.  Rationally, I can get behind that, but emotionally, the fear is still there.  Fear of missing out, fear of not doing it right, fear of losing everything I love.  Again, things we have no control over.  I have a few brief respites when I’m brought back down to Earth with gratitude and acceptance.  I have a lot to be grateful for.  I am tired, but my work, my soul, my heart, my body have gotten me here.  And this is the definition of surrender.  We have done what we can with what we know, we continue to look for the signs, but we have to accept that what is, is meant to be.     

The truth is all we can do is our best.  Yes, there are tons of scary unknowns but we can’t let fears, rational or otherwise, dictate the course of our lives.  We have no say in how other people live their lives either.  We all have to do our best and allow everyone else to do the same.  We make the most of the time we have here, because in a sick way, the fleeting nature of it is part of what makes this life so precious.  We are only as stuck as we make ourselves.  We can decide at any time that we can put down the weight and the pressure of our past, the weight of the shields we all create, and pick up our own lives.  Light doesn’t change the life we are in right now.  We can redefine the trigger, and find the beauty in each moment.

“Think of yourself as dead.  You have lived your life.  Now take what’s left and live it properly,” Marcus Aurelius.  I sit with my thoughts and they spin so often I can’t tell what is mine and what isn’t.  I think of my relationship with time and I often see how much time I’ve wasted, either waiting for the right moment, or needing someone to be with me before I moved, or feeling guilty about the things I really want in my life, or being angry that things weren’t going as I planned, and feeling like it had to go a certain way in order for it to be right.  The time I spent trying to make other people adapt to me when I could have walked away or just held my ground regardless. 

I understood very deeply at a young age that time passes quickly and that once it’s gone, it was gone.  I was acutely aware of the moments we have that will not come back and that life was meant to be appreciated.  I was also misguided in how to appreciate life.  I was taught that we respect life by doing what we are told.  How much we let slip through our fingers when we don’t appreciate what we are given and instead lament what we are told is the standard.  I never understand why we still adhere to the basal standards of a medieval society where we still try to collaborate and coerce with those well known and those with the money still have the power.  What would we have if we took away the money?  Don’t misunderstand, I love money and it is a great tool—but it is a tool and should never replace our real gifts.  I digress.

So, for someone like me who wrapped emotion into lost time, this unsettled me initially.  The more I thought about it, the more it started to make sense.  When Aurelius speaks of thinking of yourself as dead, he is asking you to release yourself from time that is gone and can’t be brought back.  He is asking that you let it lie where it is.  You can mourn it, yes, but let it go.  All we have is right now because there is no guarantee of what is in front of us.  And there is no going back to what is done.  We can always start over.  It isn’t always pleasant to begin again, but we have that option if needed and we shouldn’t take that for granted.  I’ve learned that part of reconciling the past is being grateful for it.  If you are still standing today, that means you made it and there are so many who can not say the same. 

Each day is a gift and we have the opportunity to make the most of it.  Life may not go as you plan it, but if you learn to work with it, then it goes much smoother.  Living properly means living in alignment with who we are and that is different for everyone.  Adventure and purpose are different for everyone.  So find what that means to you and go do it.  Don’t wait, don’t lament, just embrace and go do.  While the precarious and fragile nature of time and life in general may be enough for some to play it cautiously, it is also an opportunity to take every chance that comes your way.  Connect with what is really important and do it.  Live your life.

“You feel unsettled because you know you are meant for more,” via dailyspiritflow.  A delicious follow up to hearing the whispers and seeing signs around us.  When I slowed down and tried to hear what all of my confusion and lethargy and anger was trying to tell me, the phrases that continually popped into my head were, “You’ve got to be doing more of what you love” and, “You’ve got to take better care of yourself” and, “You’re stronger than you think.”  I’ve been allowing myself to get roped into some old patterns of behavior that no longer serve me and that are no longer indicative of who I am.  The words my husband said about me a few weeks ago pushed me over the edge in a new way and I’ve felt helpless because SO many things seem to be going to the wayside no matter how hard I try.

I don’t know about you, but when I deal with anxiety, sometimes I get these weird surges of absolute confidence followed by absolute insecurity.  It’s like the universe is testing how much I really believe in myself or how much I really want something.  It’s a sign that the confidence I think I feel isn’t quite as solid as I would like it to be, but it’s also a sign of where I need to go.  We are meant to fulfill our purposes and when we are walking around like zombies, repeating the same thing day after day, our souls begin to cry and send us messages.  Maybe those repeated failures at work in spite of doing exactly what’s right, or constantly being told it’s not the right time, is the message that you’re meant to go where things flow.

I’ve been examining the patterns of the people I attract in my life and I’ve recognized that I don’t fit in with a lot of them.  I know I have a helping nature, but the people I attract are either the martyrs who do it all to prove how much they do, or the victims who don’t want to do anything.  I’m neither of those things.  I fall in the middle.  I know when there is work to be done but I am not noble enough to do it on my own.  I also believe that if there is a particular goal, our actions need to be aligned toward that.  I was of the mind that it was easier to do everything on my own rather than try to make people do what was right—and that made me a martyr.  So it gets frustrating being surrounded by the people who need to do more to soothe their souls and those who don’t want to do any of the work and I get left holding the stick in either case.  And that is not what I am meant to be.

The anxiety I’ve been feeling as well as the emotions have been guiding me toward the person I need to be.  Life has been putting me in some uncomfortable situations to remind me of what I can get through and to expose more of who I am.  I used to feel like life had some sort of “punishment incentive” where everyone just feels miserable to some degree.  That is so depressing.  And life is what you make of it, so if you want more, then you need to do more.  It isn’t a punishment, it’s a matter of drive and knowing you need to get to the next level.  When the daily routine becomes intolerable, we have to look at what the issue really is.  More often than not, we need to look at the next steps in our lives.

Our souls speak to us and that is how we remember who we are.  While it may not be a conventional voice (see yesterday’s discussion on signs), there are shouts and whispers everywhere.  We know what we want, we feel what we are capable of, and we are trained to push that aside for the “norm.”  We aren’t meant for the norm, my friends.  What the norm was 100 years ago isn’t the norm today so why are we still trying to fit ourselves in the boxes that didn’t work for the era they were designed in?  We know we are meant for more and it isn’t supposed to be the small percentage that succeed and break out—we are all meant for our own forms of greatness.  When things no longer work, even if those were things you wanted at one time, it is ok.  It is a step in your evolution.  It is time to expand and greet the “more” in your life.  Follow what your inner knowing is telling you—it is always spot on.    

“There is a voice that doesn’t use words.  Listen.”  Via paradise awakening.  When we talk about voices that don’t use words, there is something internal but there are signs all around us as well.  Nature speaks to us, numbers speak to us, a person we’re thinking about reaches out.  We have to learn to speak that language. 

For about a month, I’ve been disconnected from everything around me.  I’ve been in my head a lot and I’ve been emotional.  I lost touch with recognizing what I was really going after.  I lost touch with what was really me.  And I will fully acknowledge I was off my rocker.  I was putting my spin on everything and not really seeing or hearing the message for what it was.  I’ve been working really hard to come back down and see and feel again.  The piece I wrote yesterday touched on my plans to get back in touch with myself again, and that is what I was talking about.  I needed time to reconnect and see the signs again.

We are given signs when we need to pay attention to the signs as well.  We will keep thinking about something, or we will get a feeling.  Our body will crave something or want us to move in a certain way.  Things repeat, we see them over and over again until we can’t ignore them again.  We are meant to follow those signs and to trust our instincts about what they mean.  Those are our reminders that we are connected to nature and we are spiritual.  We need to hear the answers within and around us. 

Our society tends to move at such a fast pace that we completely ignore what’s around us and even what’s within us.  We make our lives more about keeping up instead of listening to our instincts.  We are trained to do as we are told and that the messages we receive are meaningless.  This is your reminder that we are part of nature, we are born from the universe, and we are VERY much connected to the Earth around us whether we like to admit it or not.  It is our responsibility to remember who we are and let go of what we are told to be and that means hearing those voices and believing them.

One of my teachers used to tell us that our bodies will give us signs long before something happens and it will start with an ache and then progress to getting hit by a 2X4 until we acknowledge it—don’t wait to be taken down.  It can also start with confusion, and being overly emotional—I mean, I have no idea 😉—and we need to decipher what it is we really need.  I may joke about it now, but this last month has been draining on a new level, but it is a good reminder that anything that makes us feel off is a sign to pause and figure out what is really going on.  I got in my own way for a long time, let my ego stop me, let my fears get to me, and I realize that it was just nature telling me that I needed to do something differently.  What whispers are you hearing?