I’ve always found it funny that self-expression or the expression of any emotion can be deemed ‘too much”.  I mean, I guess it makes sense because we’ve been in a sustained trauma for years now, with no real resolution or solution and we’ve been told that this is “normal” when it is anything but, and to some degree, was avoidable.  Watching people continue to not deal with all of their traumas and issues has created a powder keg situation of emotion, ego, and temper-tantrums in nearly every arena. We mask it by citing business or necessity or believing there isn’t time to deal with it when the truth is we were never taught to process emotion and we are expecting people to operate business as usual when we are dealing with an emotional state.  The expectation to move on without addressing what is happening and what the emotions are that are there.  The sadness and feelings that people have that get repressed and suppressed for the sake of moving on and pretend that everything is ok.  That isn’t handling ANYTHING.

Pretending something didn’t happen may be an effective strategy for some, but it doesn’t work for most things.  The bill always comes due as they say, and even if we are able to push away the feelings in the present, they will eventually come back to us.  They will manifest in other ways like in control dramas or emotional breaking or extreme insecurity or lack of self-worth.  Ignoring the truth for the sake of peace doesn’t create peace in the mind.  We need a break and we need to acknowledge that we need help.  We need to acknowledge that we are human.  I’m no longer interested in performing in order to gain acceptance.  I shouldn’t have to drain my energy to the point of not being able to see straight in order for you to tell me that I’m worth my existence.

Dealing with emotions is tricky when you haven’t been trained in what they really are or to acknowledge them effectively.  I admit that.  It’s also really hard to acknowledge them if you’ve never been allowed to express them or if you’ve ben dismissed when you express them.  I think that’s what started this whole piece for me: the outright dismissal that anything happened.  I’ve been surrounded by a group of people, including in intimate relationships, who feel the best way to move on from something painful (even if they caused it) is to pretend it didn’t happen.  I’m a lover and user of words so that literally doesn’t work for me.  I don’t enjoy harboring resentments or unexpressed anything and I know that the way to move forward effectively is to work through it whether we want to or not.  The truth is, you pretending you didn’t do something that hurt me doesn’t take away the hurt. 

Perhaps it’s that person’s way of coping with their mistakes—a ton of people do this, it is completely normal.  But just because it’s normal doesn’t mean it’s healthy or right.  We are human and we will naturally do things that hurt each other whether we mean to or not, that isn’t the point.  The point is there needs to be a mutual understanding of what happened and an acceptance of how to rebuild the trust in order to move on.  For some people it’s as simple as saying sorry.  For others, it takes time.  We all process emotion differently and we all feel it differently. You don’t get to dictate how someone feels…anything.  And you don’t get to ignore how they feel as a result of something you’ve done.  Sometimes all it takes is admitting we’re wrong—and that hurts the ego more than anything.  And I’m here to say take the hit to the ego because worthy relationships are harder to come by than how you feel about yourself.

The act of finding joy means finding what lights you up from the inside.  It means genuinely being yourself and aligning with that definition of who you are.  Finding and experiencing joy when you’ve previously been a people pleaser to the point of denying your own instincts in favor of what other people like is a different story.  On a personal level I’ve been hitting some really difficult things mentally over the last few weeks.  All of the dissatisfaction and distraction have created a breaking point of sorts where I know I don’t want to feel how I do on a given day. I want to head toward joy.  I want to feel joy—not this anger or confusion or sadness over everything.  That requires a deep knowing of who we are.  I want to reiterate that finding joy is not a selfish act, this is a necessary act.  In order to be of service to the world, we have to fill our cups.

There are people who don’t know how to do this.  They may come across as narcissistic or selfish because they tend to be a bit more focused on themselves than other people.  The truth is, these people are not selfish.  Often they have the biggest hearts because they want to make sure they aren’t disappointing anyone.  Other people’s validation means so much to them that they are constantly focused on how they should behave.  And then, if and when they are given the opportunity to define what they want for themselves, they still look at how it impacts other people and they are more often than not spending most of their time figuring out how their choice is going to affect people down the line.  This happens even when we choose breakfast.  And no, I’m not exaggerating.  Some of us are so trained and traumatized that we believe our actions alone can derail or harm others or even inconvenience them.  Then we think about how that will impact our relationship with them.  We fear loneliness and then create isolation with overthinking.

I want to talk about the psychophysiological component as well in that finding joy can be challenging because people who believe their actions can inconvenience others honestly no longer know what joy feels like.  Any time they’ve gotten close, they’ve been shut down or told it’s wrong so in their brains, and their bodies, that feeling of joy is uncomfortable and they will tend to shy away from it. If you associate your happiness with making someone else miserable (or if you’ve been trained to believe that) you won’t allow that joy into your life.  You will spend your life feeling guilt over happiness and waiting for the other shoe to drop.  It’s a constant state of anxiety.    

How do we do that when we haven’t been in a position to do so or if we’ve been led to believe that self-care is selfish?  How do we learn to trust our instincts again so we can lean toward what feels good?  And how do we do all of that in a society that tells us productivity is key?  On that note, when we look at society’s influence on our decisions, we aren’t even able to differentiate between productivity and activity, and believe me, sometimes it is more productive to take a break and watch some cartoons or to go for a run than it is to continue to fight a computer—or other people.

The answer is: do it anyway.  Other people aren’t going to source your happiness for you, only you can do that.  So take the time you need to get familiar with what that is, what those needs are, and what that feels like.  Those are the feelings you need to cultivate and that is the behavior you are looking for.  And the world needs that now more than ever. I will say it over and over again, a million times, in a million ways (perhaps just to remind myself) that anyone who makes you be something your not or makes you sacrifice your boundaries/happiness in favor of theirs is not your person.  Relationships aren’t about winning over another or making one person bend to the other’s whims.  If your joy is the price of being with someone, even platonically, that price is too high. 

The rest of the answer is to stop what you’re doing and learn to differentiate between what you like and what you are told to like.  Find what makes you feel good.  Does the breeze on your skin make you smile?  Does the smell of a book store send shivers down your spine?  Does cuddling with an animal make you calmer?  Does talking with a friend inspire ideas?  THOSE are all signs of joy.  Find those things and go do that.  Do it over and over again until it feels natural.  Then make that part of who you are and integrate it into your routine and make it your identity.  Then light up the world!

Some days it feels like being with people is a chore.  It feels like nothing we do comes across or our point is missed.  Nothing hits the mark.  Sometimes that miscommunication goes on too long.  We start to internalize and ask what we are doing wrong or what isn’t making sense.  In those moments we almost lose a sense of identity and it’s hard to not take it personally.  We feel like we’ve been a pretzel, bending and folding in every direction to make people understand.  I’ve had many moments like that in my life and sometimes I wonder if we are simply communicating from two different levels.  If we don’t understand each other because we aren’t ready to. 

Truly all we want is to be heard and seen so when someone doesn’t seem to “get” what we are saying, we feel violated or disrespected.  As I’m getting older, it seems like communication has degraded.  We use emojis and symbols and use words that have multiple meanings and we remove all context for them.  I mean, I guess communication has always been that way to some degree.  But we don’t take the time to think out what we mean or even understand/process what we mean before spouting out nonsense.  Plus we all have the expectation that people will understand us simply because we are talking.  Not true.  Most people have the attention span of a gnat these days and they use that to focus on themselves and what they have to say.  We don’t respond, we try to get our point heard.  

The truth is I reached a breaking point with communication the other day.  Words are my life and I try my best to be as clear as possible, especially at work. I had a few weeks in a row where people just didn’t get it.  I couldn’t tell if it was intentional or if they just had too much on their minds but I found myself thinking, “I’m so tired of having to clarify and adjust my speech and my train of thought and make people understand what I’m trying to say.  I am so tired of the struggle to get my point across.  I’m tired of having to go back and reexplain everything all the time, in new ways, in ways.  I mean, my goal is to be clear and concise and to work with people, but I can’t deal with intentional misunderstanding, or reading so deeply into something that they miss the point of what I’m trying to do.”  I fell into victim mode.  My breaking point was actually when I was standing up to take the lead for a group project and my boss didn’t even acknowledge that I was making the effort.

Everyone operates from a different level of understanding based on their experiences.  That I will always make allowances for, but if someone is intentionally misunderstanding or making life difficult, that is a different story.  If we can meet at a certain level, that’s great, but for those who refuse, it can’t always be up to us to lift them up to where they need to be.  And the bottom line is, I think if we are with the right people we don’t have to explain anything.  If communication is that much of a struggle then it may be time to let go.  It may be time to find the place where people DO get it.  Not everyone is for us and not every environment is healthy for who we are.  That is ok.  Avoid the ones who make you feel alone when you’re screaming in a crowded room and focus on the ones who make you feel heard without a word.  THAT’S where you belong.

Today I am grateful for family.  I am grateful to spend time with those who remind me of where I came from and those who know me like no other.  I am grateful for the family I have created, the lives I have been blessed with.  I am grateful to have a structure to be a part of.  I am grateful to see other families and to know there isn’t one right way to do things and that there are places where everyone can be accepted and loved for who they are.

Today I am grateful for self-care.  I am grateful to spend some time trying new forms of self-care.  Reaching out and connecting with people again to be heard and understood.  I am grateful for holding hands with my son and to remember play is essential in life.  To know that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and the things I need to heal in myself I am able to teach him.

Today I am grateful for fun.  Yesterday I got to experience one of the simplest joys I think I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing—flying a kite.  I had never flown a kite in my entire life and to harness the power of the wind and to feel connected to it through that string created an intense moment of centeredness. 

Today I am grateful to be closer to what I need mentally.  90% of the issues we have with mental health and self-worth have to do with the fact that we are always on, always performing to be perceived in a certain way.  We are not meant to operate like that.  Our minds need rest and relaxation and they need to reboot.  Play is ESSENTIAL to the human spirit.  Slowing down enough to stop checking things off the list like we are in some eternal competition to reach the grave with the most boxes filled means just connecting with who we are.  That is the first step to clear up what we need mentally.  We don’t need the clutter and the overwhelm.  We need joy and ease and connection and peace.  All of those things will stop time just as it needs to.

Today I am grateful for trust and knowing that I am heading in the right direction based on my intuition and what is best for myself and my family.  One of the cards I drew this morning was about intuition and the pattern of not following it lately.  We don’t always recognize when we are disconnected because we are so easily distracted that we mistake completing activities as purposeful.  Not that activity isn’t purposeful, but it doesn’t serve a point if it isn’t fulfilling your purpose.  One might argue my point about play isn’t purposeful but I would argue back that in play we learn who we really are.  It is vital.  So in order to get closer to intuition, we need to slow down and really pay attention.  This isn’t a race, it’s an experience.  We get to change that all the time in any way we want to.  We choose our experience.

Happy Easter and wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead

“Go within to find joy before you try to go out to find joy, wherever you decide to go, you will be there,” via thefallbackup.  What a timely follow up to yesterday’s piece.  Last weekend I wrote about having fun again and yesterday we spoke about answering that calling we feel regardless of whether or not we are good at it.  The answers we seek are always within us.  They are always available and present.  We just have to retrain our minds to hear them.  I mistook a lot of my life for doing.  Always in a state of rushing and checking things off the list (even if it wasn’t my list) and keeping other people on track (when it wasn’t my place) and trying to accomplish things (that weren’t my goals).  All for the sake of being liked and perceived as amenable and useful.  All I really wanted was to be accepted.

I feel like joy is the answer to this as well.  We feel joy when we are accepted and if we learn to accept ourselves then we will always have something to be joyful about.  We can provide for ourselves that which we lack. We don’t need permission from anyone and we don’t need to be deemed worthy to experience joy.  We can honor and inherently accept and emit—and BE—joy.  It isn’t something we have to hunt beyond our own mind.  We are the perceivers of what we experience—we are neither the experience itself or what people tell us what we should feel about it.  We are how we feel about it, and that is flexible. 

If we seek stability, that too has to come from within.  And I am going to share something some might not agree with: stability is the ability to find that joy no matter where we are.  it is the ability to keep a level internal base regardless of what’s happening around us.  We can still feel joy in the hard times as well.  We can be grateful for the lesson no matter how we feel about it.  We can always ask ourselves if this is happening to us or if we are being called to step up in a new way.  I had a chat with an employee last week and she has been experiencing a lot of emotional turmoil in her personal life.  I finally told her that none of these things are happening to her, they are all happening around her.  She is actually a calm center for these events and perhaps she is the light for them.  Her job isn’t to take on the feelings for them, rather to support them how she can. That is true for all of us.

There is joy in being who we really are, in authentic expression.  There is joy in loving your life.  Quite frankly, that is almost audacious in this day and age.  Rather than curate what you think looks like joy to others, what happens if you actually do what brings you joy?  Wow.  It’s revolutionary.  I’m not interested in projecting an idea or an image of how I want people to perceive me.  I’m interested in finding what does me the most good and what allows me to be who I am.  From there I want to share that as much as I can because lighting ourselves up and being who we are meant to be is revolutionary.  The more we can awaken people to their power and allow them to find what actually works for them, the easier it will be to make the changes we are actually seeking.

Joy looks like connection and fun and purpose.  That is a new definition of work.  This is a type of work that serves no other purpose than to shift the ideas we’ve existed with forever, the idea that in order to be worthy or have an enjoyable life, we need to feed the system.  I say find that happiness in ourselves and perhaps we can stop operating as machines.  We don’t need more automation and ease or faster production lines.  We need authentic expression and connection that opens the door for a new reality.  We are all aware that things are breaking down and we are also waiting for answer to come to us with a new paradigm.  We are forgetting we have the power and the necessity to create that new paradigm with each other.  We just have to give up the idea of power over people.  That is where joy comes in as well: when we are full and fulfilled, we don’t look for control over others.  We are open.  So allow joy in!  Find yourself and express it wholly.  That is what the world needs.      

“If you feel something calling you to dance or write or paint or sing, please refuse to worry about whether you’re good enough.  Just do it…Offer a gift to the world that no one else can offer: yourself,” Glennon Doyle.  I think we all need a reminder from time to time to stop taking life so seriously.  I’ve been reading a book by a Stoic lately and I struggle with it only because there is a fine line between maintaining logic and cutting out humanity.  In an ideal state of mind we are always rational and understanding and looking at the big picture, but we are humans.  We have a calling in our souls to create and interact that aren’t necessarily explained by logic.  Sometimes we just FEEL.  Perhaps, on a stoic level, that too makes sense.  We have urges and we don’t need to be defined by them—the only difference is the stoic would ask what good it does society.  If there was no overall point, they would say not to do it. I think that misses the point, however. 

Being alive is a gift and we have great capacity to do a great many things with our lives.  It isn’t always our job to figure out what that purpose means.  Our job is to fulfill our purpose and let the universe allow things to fall into place.  As much as we are instruments, we are also of the universe and that means we will feel things.  Logically, that in itself is reason enough to do it.  I’ve lost emotional control countless times in my life.  Energy surges and bubbles over and I’ve realized that energy is excess of the things I’ve been denying in my true nature.  There is something that is trying to come out and when it has been denied for too long, it starts to seep through the edges.  THAT I believe is true of all of us.  We are trained to ignore our instincts because society is afraid of those who know themselves.  They don’t know where we fit in and a mind that doesn’t follow the path is unpredictable. All they can do is plant the seed of doubt and feeling unworthy in those people.

To that, I say re-read Doyle’s quote.  If you feel that calling, do it.  That voice, the one only you can hear, is meant for you for a reason.  You’ve been given a gift to share and that calling is making sure you don’t forget it.  One topic we’ve covered at length in these pieces is being honest and getting to know ourselves.  I believe this quote echoes the importance of that.  So often highly intuitive or feeling people are looked at as selfish or irrational or overly emotional.  I say they are no more selfish than those who try to force the expenditure of energy from others on their personal efforts.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t help each other, I am saying that it is even more selfish to point out someone’s flaws when their behavior doesn’t serve your purpose.  We are meant to fulfill our purpose and we don’t have to justify that to anyone.  Judging good or bad is also irrelevant.  We are all novices at something at some point.

I think the other important message is this: it doesn’t matter if it is good or bad.  The message you have to share through any form of creative or daily communication is going to reach those who it is meant for.  We aren’t all meant for everyone.  It doesn’t work like that.  We will have targeted messages and sometimes our work is how we speak to others.  The quality doesn’t necessarily matter because the people it is meant for will understand.  Please don’t think I advocate for slipshod or shabby work, far from it.  I simply want to encourage people to not allow the beginning stages to be a discouragement from ever getting started.  And no disrespect to the stoics, but there is a degree of emotion in most logos no matter what you say.  Eliminating feeling won’t eliminate the knowing that we are meant for something greater.  Try that logos on.  The more you allow yourself to feel what you’re meant for, the better you will be able to serve your purpose.  So answer the call!

Awakening and honesty are really brutal things.  They don’t have to be, but when you’ve been a people pleaser all your life and have to start looking at your own behavior, it can be quite scary.  I operated under the misconception for most of my life that if you did as you were told then you would get the specific result you’re looking for.  At first, I took it as a you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours type of deal.  Easy peasy, set a goal and finish it.  The reality is, it’s manipulation.  We do what little we can for as much reward because it gets tiring doing things for other people hoping you get what you want.  I’ve also been an achiever most of my life, checking things off the list to get to the next task, to get the next goal, expecting a certain result.  I mean, even playing Super Mario Brothers with my kid, I want to hit every question box and get every coin along the way.  I’m looking for the little wins along the way and not always thinking long term.

I read a passage (another author uncited) that talked about the challenges and getting to the “good stuff.”  Yes, taking the low hanging fruit is satisfying and feels like we’ve accomplished something, but the victory really comes when we get to the other side.  Sometimes we have to give up what is right in front of us in favor of making it to the good stuff a little further on.  Challenges are designed for us to find who we are.  They are designed to elicit the purpose that only we can fulfill.  It’s not a punishment.  And we can’t all be winners at every single thing.  Sometimes we are merely meant to learn the lesson and move on to the bigger picture, the lesson meant for us. 

Life isn’t about always being right or getting what we are owed. It’s about recognizing our place and purpose in this world and doing everything we can to fulfill that role.  That isn’t easy.  Staying the course you know is right for you over the one you are told to take goes against our instincts to stay safe with the group.  But it honors the instincts we have for ourselves.  That is what we need to remember.  That is when things get easier.  That is when we see the path and know what we are doing.  That is when we know what direction to go and that is when it flows.

I mistook life, expecting easy because I did what I was supposed to.  And sometimes that is the hardest habit to break.  We can’t expect anyone or anything to fulfill our demands and expectations.  We have to go with the flow.  The only time we can expect anything is that life will unfold exactly as it is meant to.  There are times when nature works out how we think it will, or when the cards fall the way we think. But not everything operates on a formula.  Sometimes we have to take a chance and go beyond what we’ve always done, get out of the comfort zone and find where growth happens.  Then it’s like a veil is lifted and a whole new world is open to us.  So don’t always look for easy.  Don’t seek out comfort.  Seek out what calls you and go there.  Follow it no matter what it looks like.  We aren’t meant for easy.  We are meant for purpose.

I have an amazing mentor that I am privileged to work with.  I haven’t gotten much traction with this gig and we were talking about it and I rattled through the same list I always do—it never changes—and the truth is it’s a daunting list.  Also true is that there are things on that list that can NOT be stopped.  Things I can’t walk away from.  But a truth I hadn’t considered is ways to shift it for the future.  She planted a seed with one question, “Do you see yourself running reports in the background in three years?”  That was a game changer.  It opened up to the question, “What DO I see myself doing?”  It made me look at some of the things I’m doing and how I can reshape them toward a future I do want.

The answer to the question about running reports is no, I do not see myself doing that in three years.  I’ve been trudging along day by day making ends meet and surviving.  And surviving is a lot of work.  The work I do on a daily basis is rewarding (in the capacity that I can do it) but it isn’t me.  It also doesn’t get me toward what I actually want.  And that is where clarity comes in.  Again, we’ve talked about that a million times.  It’s like the piece I wrote the other day about reconsidering things: sometimes you hear something a million times but it takes hearing it one certain way at the right time for it to click.  This clicked for me.

If we get really honest, we see how much of our day we waste with activity.  When we break it down, we could all be doing something much more productive than what we do.  Yes, I’m even counting when we are at work.  I can’t tell you how many hours a week I spend in meetings that could be resolved with a five minute phone call or arguing for the same thing over and over again with departments that don’t understand.  The truth is I don’t see myself doing that in three years either.  And now, I am ok with that.  I think finding the right question is what mattered.  The last several months I’ve seen communication degrade at work and it is getting harder and harder to get a point across.  People intentionally misunderstanding and wasting time because, at the end of the day, they don’t want to be doing anything either.  So now we have to ask what’s stopping us from doing what we really want to be doing?  How do we get productive over active?

We all have fear and do things that hold us back.  My fear is that I won’t succeed, or that I wasn’t allowed to do the things I really want to do.  How do you make a living doing that?  What right do I have to create something like that and who the hell would want it?  What do I have to offer that is different?  The reality is, the message may be the same as a million other people but it doesn’t matter because there is someone who needs to hear it from you.  YOU can be that click for someone.  Sometimes it isn’t the message itself that needs to be shared, it’s the way the message is shared that matters.  And that’s where our creativity comes in.  We can all figure out a fun way to connect with people. It isn’t about being on trend—it’s about sharing what we know authentically. We’ve talked about figuring out what we want and determining how to close the gap from where we are many times.  Sometimes we have to take our own advice.  Get clear and get going.

I just want to share a quick thought, a quick reminder on ending.  The world moves at an incredible pace and there are times it feels like we are headed directly toward the brink, toward the end of life.  Some people have already said, “F#$* it” and put on their party hats and await the destruction.  Others are trying to hang on for dear life.  Then there are others that remind us of the middle ground.  Destruction and ending mean many things.  The creation of life is destructive.  Cells come together and then divide and multiply until they evolve into a living being.  Creating art is destructive.  Taking the raw materials and putting them together into something new.  Nothing is the same as it was before—it’s a new creation. 

The point is that sometimes while things seem to be falling apart, it really is a clearing of ways.  Destruction doesn’t necessarily mean the end and it certainly doesn’t always mean death.  What it can mean is the end or death of a way of being.  The seedling destroys the seed in order to grow up through the earth and become the plant.  If it stayed in its shell the whole time, it would suffocate.  It has to destroy what it knows and push toward the light in order to fulfill its purpose.  The same can be said of us.  One of my favorite sayings is, “Sometimes when you’re in a dark place, you think you’ve been buried when really you’ve been planted,”  Christine Caine.  Things seem a bit bleak for a lot of people right now—but we are all heading toward something.  The truth is none of us knows what that is right now, but I have faith that we are creating something new.

I don’t feel like this is literally global destruction.  I feel like there are people awakening and planting seeds all over.  I believe that we can come together and reach a collective middle ground, save our homes and ourselves as well as future generations.  That may seem lofty, but the bottom line is, I don’t think we are dying.  I think the way we live is dying.  I think we are re-evaluating a systems approach, especially a system that doesn’t work for everyone.  I think we are seeing more and more that the system does NOT work and what we feel is the fear of not knowing what we would do in its stead.  Every day more and more people are looking for connection and looking for answers about different ways of doing things.  And the beautiful part is that more and more people are succeeding in breaking the pattern.  The most exciting part is that we can witness it—that is sharing of light.

I’m not saying that any of this is easy.  I AM saying that this is something to get excited about.  This is something to appreciate and look forward to.  I know it’s scary, but it is far from over.  We have an opportunity to create something new.  We have an opportunity to make things better.  Over the last three decades, people have been complacent.  We’ve had huge technological advances that have created unrealistic expectations and even laziness among us.  This hasn’t served the purpose of connection, rather creating more discord.  But we can turn that around.  We can change the course and allow the petty things we used to fight over die.  We can let that way go and start something new.  What a gift!

There are times in life when you have a conversation with someone that just wakes you up.  You may have heard something a million times before, but when the time is right, something clicks in your mind.  Maybe it’s also that as we get older we get more comfortable with who we are.  We know what feels right for us and we know what we have to do.  It’s easier to see when something feels off.  In speaking with an employee the other day, I knew something was wrong.  We talked about it and she asked me if I’d ever considered becoming a therapist.  My immediate response was, “Every day.”  Now, several years back, I was working with another gentleman who had some difficulty in our work environment and one of my coworkers asked if I’d ever considered going into social work.  At THAT time, I took offense to it.  The implication seemed to me that I couldn’t do my job.  Hearing this question again and after several years of working on development, it makes sense to me.

Sometimes the revelation doesn’t hit like lightening.  Sometimes it spills out of your mouth in response to a question that caught you off guard.  I’ve often thought of those moments as more natural.  When you don’t have time to feel the emotion or create the thought, the response that comes out tends to be the most honest.  What we do with those moments is another story.  We can choose to ignore them or we can respond with, “That’s interesting.  What does this mean?”  I have often thought about how sad it is that we aren’t taught to follow that inner line of questioning.  If we took the time to answer that more often, we may find ourselves in a different situation.  We may find ourselves closer to our truth. 

In this case, I’ve decided to take the latter question and figure out what this means.  There is a calling in each of us to help in some way.  Some people want to be on the front lines, cleaning up, organizing, fighting.  Some people want to be in the background making sure those who support the front have the tools they need.  Then there are others who want to ensure the human is ok.  There are some of us who want to remind people at all costs of their humanity.  It isn’t about pointing out flaws or weakness.  No.  It is about identifying those pieces of ourselves that need to ignite in order to share our real purpose.  It’s about rediscovering and reconnecting with authentic purpose.  The only way to do that is to be in touch with who we are. 

If someone asks you a question and you find yourself answering in a way that surprises you, that is something to get curious about.  That isn’t something to ignore.  Following the path will get you the answers you need and sometimes that path comes in unexpected ways.  I’ve said it a million times: we are not all cut out for the same thing.  Period.  We have abilities that are meant to be explored and shared and, quite frankly, used as reminders of what is really important.  We are in an amazing age and we have nearly limitless capacity to change the world.  The question is, what do we want it to look like.  In my heart of hearts I can’t believe that anyone truly wants to destroy anything (although destruction is far easier), but we won’t find the real path to a common ground until we remember our humanity.  I’m not naïve enough to believe that everyone will come together in a grand awakening, but I am hopeful enough that words and questions will be enough to start igniting and renewing that curiosity.  Imagine that.