“What if there is no problem?”  Via elephant journal. We are trained to seek out the problem at all costs.  We still behave as if our survival depends on it, looking ten steps ahead and conceptualizing every awful thing that may come to pass.  We are no longer in the days where literal survival depends on it, but we equate our social survival with our physical survival.  The importance of our mental health has never been more apparent: we perceive slights and threats in every day conversation and those who don’t agree with us are equated to the “enemy” at this point. 

This question popped up and it really hit home—the problem isn’t the situation, it’s how we look at the situation. Sometimes, even if we know something on the surface, it takes a while for it to sink in viscerally.  There truly aren’t many problems we face on the day to day.  Everything that we come across is the result of our own actions.  Big picture, those things won’t have much of an impact.  What will have an impact, however, is our mindset toward it.  It will have an impact if we aren’t able to see past our own noses, to see that we create our own suffering.

Sometimes we cloud our ability to see the solution because we are so used to having to solve everything.  We are so used to our answers being dependent on what other people tell us or how they see us that we get used to maneuvering around the answer because we are trying to make them see the answer.  What happens when we give the answer and simply let them do as they will with the information?  It no longer remains your issue—because it never was in the first place. 

So when you start to feel the overwhelm or the feelings of inadequacy—or even if something simply doesn’t make sense—then pause.  Take a step back and look at what is going on.  Ask yourself if you’re creating the issue or if you’re responding to what’s happening.  And then dive deeper:  are you responding to what is actually happening or to what you think is going to happen?  Chances are you will see that you’re creating most of the issue. Life is so much simpler than we make it.  Sometimes you just have to trust that there is another way to look at it and go in that direction.  And if that doesn’t work, then choose SOMETHING and see where it takes you.  We can solve it if we keep going—or you will see there is nothing to work out, it simply is.

Today’s short post is a loving reminder that we all get in it from time to time.

It is more than safe to say that things don’t always go how we think they will.  What gets us through is the ability to resist falling into the fear that it won’t ever change.  The only constant in life is change and how we navigate that determines the results we get.  No one ever said it was easy—we aren’t given a manual when we enter this life.  We are all just doing the best we can with what we have.  What I want to share is not getting caught up in what you think you should do—I want you to have enough of a foundation to know what you should do based on who you are and where you’re going based on who you are.  Life can feel like a roller coaster and it’s key to remember that it isn’t about trying to stop it—it’s about navigating the ups and downs and the turns.  Some days you have to hold on tighter than others.  Other days you need to put your hands up and enjoy the ride. 

The universe is a beautiful thing…a funny, twisted beautiful thing.  I have very little doubt that I am exactly where I need to be.  I have no shame in admitting I have no clue where I’m going and I don’t fully understand the big picture, but the signs are VERY clear that I am where I need to be.  I share this because I want you to understand that sometimes things don’t make sense, sometimes we have no clue why things go down the way they do—but it is all for a reason.  In the last week alone I’ve had some synchronicities that I want to share.  These little moments that happen at random times are not so random as I’ve learned.  Again, even if we don’t know the purpose at the time, they are still indicators that we are on the right track.

I was reading Greenlights as I mentioned in my post from a few days ago.  On Wednesday night I picked up the book and the section started talking about McConaughey’s love of wrestling.  In that moment, wrestling started on TV.  I had a moment of, “Wow, that’s funny,” because we NEVER have wrestling on in our house.  Nothing is wrong with it, we just don’t follow the sport.  Regardless, I kept it on because I felt like there might be something I was supposed to get from it—I mean, the entire book is about going with what is in front of us and learning from it so if these events coincided, then it was meant to be, right?  So I watched a bit and saw all of the showmanship and the stage that was set and the story they were trying to tell.  And I saw that sometimes the purpose in life isn’t to have a deep meaning behind it: it’s to share the story.

A while into watching it, I remembered McConaughey had talked about a movie he did that I had never heard of.  I don’t know why it piqued my interest in that moment.  Maybe it was the combination of the wrestling and remembering McConaughey’s description of getting into a character that brought it to the forefront of my mind.  Regardless, I flipped back through the book and found it—Reign of Fire.  I asked my husband if he had ever heard of it and he said no.  He was curious about it as well so he looked it up through the guide and we saw that it was scheduled to be on TV that week.  I mean, maybe I’m wrong about the popularity of the movie, but in that moment, I saw clearly that I was meant to learn and share something.  A somewhat obscure movie from 20 years ago that I had NEVER heard of was scheduled to be on TV a few days after reading about it. 

On Friday, I scrolled through Instagram and someone shared a meme from Legally Blonde.  I thought to myself, “I haven’t seen that in a long time, that was a cute movie!”  Later that night, it was on TV.  I had been getting ready to go to bed and had it on for some background noise but when I saw it, I kept it on.  As silly as it was, the movie does deliver an incredibly profound message in a light way.  There is value in being who you are even if people don’t understand it.  Never change for those around you and challenge yourself enough to know there is something more for you.  Also, sometimes you feel like you know what path you’re supposed to be on and life throws you a curve ball—you adapt.  And then you may find exactly what you needed all along. 

The last story happened on Sunday morning—well, technically Saturday night.  I started a new book, The Archer, by Paulo Coelho.  I’m only a few pages in, but the premise is about state of mind.  So I woke up on Sunday and shared my morning card draw (affirmation decks) and the first thing that popped up was a scene from friends where Ross is talking about Unagi.  I couldn’t remember the episode so I quickly searched “Unagi” and it referenced that same episode.  Ross was trying to iterate the importance of mind set, but he was using the incorrect word—Unagi is a food.  As I read the article, it mentioned the word he was trying to reference: Zanshin.  The article went on to talk about Zanshin refers to the mental aspect necessary before, during, and after an action specifically in Kyudo—the Japanese martial art of ARCHERY.  Yet another instance of not being where we thought we would be but arriving at the answer all the same.  For the record, McConaughey also references archery in his book: he talks about the target drawing the arrow, a perfect metaphor for being true to who we are.

So, as silly as these examples may seem, the power of the message isn’t diminished.  No matter how lost we feel or if we just aren’t “getting it,” if it doesn’t make sense, it eventually will.  We just have to stick with it.  These coincidences are more than merely coincidence—they are guideposts and indicators that we are on the right track.  We just have to have enough confidence in ourselves and belief that all is as it should be.  We need a solid enough foundation to trust that we know the way, or that we will be shown the way as long as we are true to our course.  Aim for the goal and align the action and the results will come, even if it isn’t how we anticipate it.

EDIT: I don’t know if it’s a mid life crisis, but I’ve been hyper sensitive to things around me and feeling off kilter. My mentor reached out to me and she said that I need to really believe in what I’m doing and understand that everything happens for a reason. Nothing ever goes wrong. I woke up to post this and the cards I drew were ALL about giving over and trusting the signs even if we don’t understand them–and when I posted, a similar message popped up. The coincidences are not coincidences: they are signs. Trust. Believe. This isn’t random.

I want to continue on the vein of learning to be self-sufficient and recognizing when it no longer serves, specifically knowing when to walk away in spite of fearing the unknown.  I opened the last piece talking about how we tend to stay where we are because it’s familiar but we hope the circumstances or people involved will change.  I want to attest to how quickly time can pass you by living your life like this.  You repeat each day over and over again, thinking things are getting better until they blow up in your face.  Suddenly you look around you and everything you were fighting for or everything that was familiar no longer feels like it belongs to you anyway.  That is why it’s so important to have a strong sense of self and know our boundaries.  Looking for external validation erases all boundaries and then we feel lost. 

I’ve been giving a lot of consideration to how the mind works and when we need introspection the most.  We often confuse a journey inward with selfishness.  It’s very easy to see from the outside how it would look like someone is narcissistic when they spend their time trying to look or behave a certain way or to garner a certain result from other people.  The truth is, from the outside, the level of mental gymnastics we go through on a daily basis, the constant evaluation of our own actions depending on the situation, and the turmoil we create trying to be what the other person wants is never visible.  And all of that is in the name of trying to be liked or simply accepted.  It isn’t about being selfish or self-absorbed: it’s about simply trying to find our place and thinking our true self won’t be accepted.  We chameleon who we are all day long, not for praise or gain, but to feel worthy.

When you start peeling away the layers in order to see who you really are, people are going to question you, they are going to make you feel like you’re doing something selfish.  Those are the people to avoid like the plague.  These are the people who more than likely gained the most from your lack of boundaries and they get pissed when they no longer have access to you on that level.  Anyone who considers a journey inward selfish is not someone you need in your life.  See, the trip inside forges the connection to self and to the universe where you can bring out your true purpose.  That purpose is a benefit to all so taking the time to focus inward and bring out what you’re looking for is probably the least selfish thing you can do.    

I don’t claim to know all the answers, not by a long shot, but I do hope my stories and examples can awaken that in others.  I hope it gives people the drive to look inside and figure out what makes them tick.  I hope to remove the stigma of self-help and self-discovery as selfish.  I hope to help people re-establish a relationship with themselves that elevates them to the next level and helps them find their path.  I know I’ve spent years locked in my head making no progress because I believed I had to be someone else everywhere I went, I believed I had to be liked in order to get anywhere.  Understanding I’m not for everyone has been the greatest gift I can share because when you put away the opinions of others, you can awaken your purpose. 

Ever notice how we have the tendency to stay where things get pretty yucky?  The familiarity makes it easy so we do what we need to do…but we don’t often look at the cost.  I know I’ve been guilty of hoping that things will turn around and go the way I want them to and of falling in love with the potential over the reality.  That is where most of us tend to get into trouble: we always hope it will get better even if we know that we can’t change a damn thing about those involved.  Free will is a beautiful thing and it is a manipulation of energy if we hope to have others see and behave as we want them to.  The reality is, as painful as it may be, we have to accept people as they are.  At least at that point we know what we are working with. 

The other side of this is for those of us who have struggled with mental health in the aspect of self-acceptance.  We feel the compulsion to have people accept and validate us because we don’t know how to do that on our own.  We weren’t taught those skills of propelling ourselves forward and doing the work for our own benefit: we need the security of people telling us we are ok and doing the right thing.  We want to know that no matter what we do someone will be with us.  So we bend and break and hurt ourselves making that identity acceptable to others so we aren’t alone.  It’s like living multiple lives depending on who the audience is. 

I had a conversation with a friend the other day about the circumstances going on at her job and her decision to leave where she’s been for the last seven years.  She mentioned she had a brief moment of wanting to stay where she was at because she knew the routine and the area and she didn’t want to leave her co-workers in a bind.  We discussed the current state of her role and she mentioned that there was always a bigger picture there but it had failed to launch for the last several years—she has grown tired of waiting for it.  Patterns exist to keep people where they are and she had grown impatient with looking for a future that wouldn’t come because every time they got some traction, something pulled them right back where they were.  I told her it was the same with most things in life and when we see we are getting hurt from continuing the pattern, it is time to go.

I saw a pattern in my own life: constantly running around the mountain telling people how to do things instead of focusing on my own path.  I saw myself staying with people who constantly spread the kerosene while I tried to hold the match away.  And I realized in that moment that I’m the one getting burned.  In those circumstances (which we all face) we have a choice: continue to hold the match and get burned or drop it and walk away.  If we stay, the fire will consume us, too.  We have to trust that at some point we’ve done all we can, and when we are hurting ourselves more than our message is getting through, it is time to walk away.  When we realize the energy doesn’t match ours, it’s time to pivot and go where we belong.  There are certain things we are simply not meant to save.   

It is ok to walk away from things that no longer serve.  There is a time and place to do your part, even if it means a bit of self-sacrifice, but there are lines.  When those boundaries are continually crossed, it’s time to evaluate the situation and decide if it’s enough or if it’s something to push forward with.  Letting go of the familiar can be scary but that is where growth is and if the familiar is causing more harm than good, it’s time to go anyway.  The approval you seek isn’t going to come.  The love you want isn’t going to come in the way you think it will—at least not from that person.  So the advice: drop the match.  Learn to let go when the choice to stay hurts you more than leaving.  It will be well worth the sacrifice because if it comes down to you over them, choose you every time.  You are not responsible for their happiness and comfort, you are responsible for your own.

Today I am grateful for clear communication.  I’ve never hidden the struggles in my life and in my relationships.  When you’re a recovering people pleaser, it takes time to develop enough sense of self to function properly in relationships and to know how to reciprocate.  This morning I had a beautiful conversation with my husband.  A challenging one (quite frankly it’s been a sticking point our entire relationship), but we approached it differently.  We spoke about it and honestly started weighing options.  And then I left it with him.  There are things he needs to do that are his alone to work through, but we communicated well and honestly and it felt good to have that openness.

Today I am grateful to let go of what isn’t mine.  Following the first point, I am glad to stop carrying the weight of what isn’t mine.  I can’t give my husband the answers he is looking for and it isn’t my responsibility to do that.  It’s my job to help him find those pieces he’s looking for, not to create them for him or to cut them from myself.  Our job isn’t to complete each other, it is to find that completeness of who we are and to bring that to the table.  It has taken over two decades together to understand that, but I am grateful.   

Today I’m grateful to learn lessons unexpectedly.  I’ve been rebuilding a ton of Lego sets that got destroyed in our move—and from my son being five and unable to contain his curiosity 😊.  I realized that finding the pieces for these sets is more challenging that I thought it would be, however, they are all there.  I’ve been able to find those tiny pieces amongst thousands of others.  Yes, it has been time consuming and even a little painful, but I’ve found what I was looking for.  And for some reason, that gives me a lot of hope about the bigger picture.  It may seem at times that we will never find what is missing.  But with determination we can always find it.

Today I am grateful to take care of myself.  I’ve needed to take a step back from the last few months and really take perspective on what has been happening.  We’ve been dealing with some unexpected health issues in the family and we’ve had to step up into taking care of our own mess in a new way.  The latter portion isn’t a negative thing by any means, it’s actually quite welcome.  It has brought my husband and I to the same page and now we know that we have choices to make as far as how we move forward.  This is how we know life is our own: the results of our actions are ours alone to deal with.  There is no more avoiding it. 

Today I am grateful for the unspoken understanding…of life.  I wasn’t feeling well for a bit this afternoon and I knew I needed to rest immediately.  As I dozed on the couch, my cat hopped up and laid next to me.  He hasn’t rested with me in a week or so and I had been missing him.  But having that silent support and acknowledgement from my fuzzy beast made me feel really good.  The animals always know when something is off.  I tm ay seem silly, but knowing he was there felt amazing.

Today I am grateful for fun.  It’s Super Bowl time in a few minutes and I am so grateful to simply make some snack food and hang out with my family.  It’s needed.  I’ve had the pedal down full tilt for weeks now and it is nice to literally take an afternoon to do nothing.  Simply rest, relax, have some fun, and enjoy the game.  Being here in this moment, especially feeling better than I was a bit ago, is what is important.  Having fun with those I love is what matters. 

Wising you a wonderful week ahead!

“Ever loved someone so much you would do anything for them?  Yeah, well make that someone yourself and do whatever the hell you want,” Suits.  People will see you doing the work and try to bring you down.  They will see you taking care of yourself and call you selfish.  They will see your actions as self involved and petty.  NONE of that matters.  Those are the people who have no idea the depths you’ve been to in order to repair yourself.  Do not allow yourself to fall into old patterns and try to please your way out of their discomfort.

When it comes to the mental health journey, people will pigeon hole self work and building a foundation as selfish.  The truth is the people working on their mental health have already spent so much time sacrificing who they are for others that they need to learn how to be self-sufficient.  People who have given up their purpose in favor of others or in order to get what they need from others often don’t know what it’s like to create something for themselves.  They don’t even know how to identify themselves to figure out what they want or need.  They are told that doing anything for themselves is wrong.  Taught to deny what they are feeling or what they need in favor of what someone else wants.  Sometimes this happens in really toxic relationships and that can be any relationship…

Learning to be self-sufficient isn’t about cutting other people out (unless they are harmful) or ignoring their needs.  It’s about no longer prioritizing their needs.  If someone demands you constantly give more than you get, that may be a person who needs to go.  In order for us to fulfill our purpose and serve how we are meant to, we need a full cup.  We are so trained to run on empty that it feels awkward to have the surplus (whatever it may be—energy, time etc.) when we are meant to put that to good use.  And it isn’t selfish, it’s necessary. 

I’ve spoken over and over again about the need to know who you are.  Jumping from thing to thing looking for praise is a damn good way to get lost.  Any external validation can be taken away as we know, and when we hang our hat on that type of energy, it goes away as quickly as it comes.  That is why it is so important to have a solid foundation.  When you know who you are with unshakeable faith, you’re able to move differently.  You know what you would do in any scenario.  You don’t need to fatalize or dramatize in your own head, you are able to simply be.  That isn’t selfishness, that is the ability to fulfill your purpose.

Don’t ever love someone more than you love yourself.  Don’t ever allow the outside opinions of people who still need to do the light-work set the tone of indifference or pain or doubt in your mind.  Continue on your path, continue building yourself up so you don’t have to take bricks from other people.  Make yourself so solid that those words, those opinions don’t matter.  Just continue being the light you are and live your life with the utmost purpose you can muster.  Somedays that means just getting out of bed.  Other days it means you can take on the world.  No matter what, that is fine. 

“Never Confuse a single defeat with a final defeat,” F. Scott Fitzgerald.  If we are going to believe that it isn’t too late to go for what we want, then we must understand the process of learning and the role of failure.  We must learn that success isn’t based on consecutive wins.  It’s based on incorporating the lessons we learn from all of our life experiences.  If we were to stop the first time something didn’t go as planned, we would never get anywhere.  The world would be filled with millions of started projects and no completion, no follow through.  The point isn’t to rack up accomplishments, it’s to learn what we can from all of our experiences.

The human mind is resilient and it is also curious.  That curiosity isn’t what makes us stop something.  In fact, it is what keeps us going.  It is our training that makes us believe that if we don’t succeed on the first try that we have to stop.  Even worse, our training makes us believe that we need to be perfect before we even try. That was something that stopped me before I started for a long time. It is our belief that we must be perfect before sharing with the world that holds us back.  We are honestly gifted endless opportunities to start over—we literally are able to decide on something new each moment we are alive.

I want to add that I’m guilty of starting things and not following through.  I’ve had a million excuses from things not being what I thought they were to feeling taken advantage of to literally not having enough hours in the day because I was over committed.  So that was another lesson…only say yes to the things you want to do.  But what I want is to remind people that there is beauty in learning, not in checking off a list.  I wrote a piece about a year ago (maybe longer) about living life as a series of things to be completed.  What happens when you check-list everything?  You die.  So we need to find the value in the things we do otherwise it’s all just activity.  We’ve all felt like part of a machine before and that is no life.  We need lessons and growth and dynamic living and interaction and cooperation and we need to meld it all together into the messy beauty that is living.

As long as we have breath in our bodies, we have the ability to turn things around.  Nothing is final until death and even then, our energy keeps going.  I want to caveat that we often confuse defeat with pain and that is because our success is tied to ego.  We think we can’t show our faces again when the truth is the world needs to see our progress.  We need to normalize the humanity of imperfection and the beauty in creation—which sometimes means going through crap repeatedly until it comes out right.  When we tie pain or whatever other emotion we experience to purpose filled results, that gives us the drive to keep going.  There is nothing that stops us except our own mind.  No may not be a no…it may be a not now.  Or it may be an adapt and try again.  Or it may be this isn’t right, do what is your calling.  So don’t confuse the issue.  The world needs what you have to share no matter how messy it is.  In fact, we may need that more because it is honest.  Share it all.

There is still time for you to be all that you want to be. I’ve lived with a really messed up notion of time for most of my life.  I’ve shared those stories here.  Over the last month we’ve had quite a bit of upheaval between family disputes, health issues, care issues, timing, and work.  The reality is we’ve come face to face with mortality and the time we have left and recognizing that we need to get on track with what is calling to us.  The things we want to do will not do themselves and they will not magically appear in our lives.  We have to get in line with what we are looking for, we have to be who we are meant to be before it is too late.

I’ve put so much pressure on myself over the last few weeks to be me.  To find me.  To do all the things because of the self-imposed turmoil of one person’s opinion.  I’ve been scrambled and I’ve wasted a month of my life running circles around how to resolve this image I’ve created in my head of what I need to do to fix other people’s opinions.  I’m done with that.  Sometimes when we are running and have no end in sight, the best thing we can do is simply stop.  I’m hitting the brakes.  I’m looking at what matters to me and the timing of my life.  Yes, we are dealing with very real issues and concerns, but that doesn’t mean my life is over.  My time is still beginning.  Yes, that does mean what I’ve known, a way of life IS over.  But there is so much more to write.

I’m feeling that call as well.  I’m tired of talking about these changes—they’re beautiful and I’ve taken steps.  But it’s time to let go of everything else.  It’s time to get quiet enough to hear what I need to do in order to fulfill my goals.  I let the thought of someone shitting on my dream stop me before I even go for it.  How messed up is that?  We are meant to live this life.  We have gifts we are meant to express and share and if we hold back for fear of what we think of someone else’s potential opinion, we are depriving our calling an dour nature as well as what we are meant to bring to the world.  There is time.  There is purpose.  It is now.

“Stop worrying about what they are thinking about, what they are talking about. Worry about what you think about you about what you’re saying to yourself what you’re doing with your life.”  BAM.  Again, the serendipity of the universe comes in.  Just as I was talking about being disappointed in myself for choosing work over my son and wondering how to change that habit, this message pops up from Radhi.  I’ve been so preoccupied with proving I could handle my job , that I’m worthy of my job, that I’m good at my job, that I can balance my personal life and my professional life that I didn’t stop to think about what I wanted.  I cared more about the image my boss had of me than what I thought about myself. 

My boss has a really kind heart but she is absolutely driven by business.  She pulls no qualms about hours away from her family and doing what needs to be done.  I struggle with that because I’m not out to impress a community or to attain a certain status in the medical world…I’m there to help people and do my job.  But my life isn’t my work, yet it’s this complicated thing where I know I need the work to support my life.  I know I need to “have it together” in order to sustain where I’m at.  Plus I was trained that you have to do as you’re told, especially what your boss tells you.  I’ve always been conflicted because it never made sense to me.  I started out working extremely hard for this company and trying to get through as much as I could in a day.  Yes, I worked my way up a bit but it didn’t get me anything.  I have always still been under someone.  I’ve always had to worry about what they thought of me in order to get where I wanted to be.

Again. Radhi comes along with the answer.  These aren’t people who will take care of my family for me.  They would replace me in a heartbeat if something happened to me.  Their thoughts are just that: their thoughts.  It has no impact whatsoever on my life.  How I show up for my family, my son, my friends, the work I want to do, THAT is what matters.  How I show up for my life is what matters, not someone else’s idea of how I should show up to work on their dreams.  I have a life to live, and it’s my life.  It isn’t theirs.  Why should their input have any say whatsoever in what you do with your life?  An opinion has no bearing on what actions you take unless you let it.  Don’t give their thoughts weight they don’t deserve. 

I may not be the best advocate for sticking by such a bold statement—I’m human and I let a ton of things get to me.  But I’m aware enough to know I need to work on it.  It may take me some time but I know the direction I need to go in is my own and not what someone tells me.  More specifically, I need to know that direction on my own rather than base it on what I THINK they think.  It doesn’t matter.  How do I feel about me?  How do I see me?  Where do I see me?  What do I see myself doing?  These are the things that make the difference.  How I act on those answers is where the meat is.  Nothing else.  So, regardless of what someone else needs, it is ok, it is necessary to focus on how the exchange will impact you.  Obviously I’m not talking about a life and death situation, I’m talking about those day to day things that we tend to let chip away at us.  They are insignificant until we let them chip every day.  That we can stop.