“Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t slow down every once in a while, you could miss it,” Ferris Bueller, in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (John Hughes).  I couldn’t sleep.  Thoughts swirled in my head that had no business popping in my mind.  I was as wired at 1am as I normally am at 3pm.  Worry, anxiety, fear—all the things I’ve been trying to crush came around to crush me.  As the thoughts of debt, failure, past mistakes, future worries, and death and every other macabre form of twisted torture trod the familiar ruts in my brain, this quote from Ferris Bueller popped in my head.  I heard it earlier in the week during a meditation and I wanted to do a piece on it regardless, but this seemed the right time.  We spoke yesterday about no one saving us, how we have to take the keys to our own kingdom.  How often do we slow down enough to understand what we need?  How often do we follow through on it?  How often do we sabotage our dreams by repeating the same thing over and over again?

Living an intentional life of purpose requires awareness.  It requires a willingness to look at ourselves with honesty.  It requires knowing whether our actions do or do not align with our intentions—and being honest enough to change those actions if they don’t align.  This means slowing down to see what we are doing.  Slowing down to understand what we are truly thinking and feeling.  There are some patterns so engrained we do things without thought, and slowing down enough to recognize them feels so unnatural.  So why were those thoughts running a marathon through my brain at 1am?  Because I haven’t been acting in alignment with my purpose, not entirely.  I’ve lived with a foot in both worlds, just on the edges of both.  I know what I feel I need to do and time is moving quicker than I want to admit.  I’ve already missed so much—the sacrifice of doing what I’m told at all costs.  I can’t do that anymore.

Let this go to show a few things: 1. Even with over a year of extensive work toward a goal, things still may not fall into place. 2. Even focusing on negative self-talk and working on negative thought patterns consistently for a year, negative thoughts can still intrude.  3.  Desire will never win over action—desire needs to be coupled with action.  4.  Fear is a liar, it’s rude, it’s intrusive, and it will show up when you least expect it, when you think you’ve accomplished something.  5.  Just because life moves fast doesn’t mean you can’t move forward from where you are right now with a new outlook, a new plan, and a new focus.  It takes work, but you can slow down your thoughts enough to keep you grounded right here so you know what to do, so you see the truth of the thing.  6. Thoughts create our reality.  Make it a good reality.   

“Nobody is ever going to save you-you need to do that on your own,” Rob Dyrdek.  I used to love the idea of a princess—a Disney princess.  When I was a kid, I loved Cinderella because, while her life was unfair, she got the best in the end of that story.  When I got a little older, I loved Belle.  She knew who she was and knew what she wanted and she fought for those she loved—plus she had the ability to see the good no matter what things seemed.  Her belief in others also brought her the good in the end.  I used to disregard the fact that they went through a ton of shit—I just liked that it always seemed worth it in the end.  Life comes with a lot of harsh truths, the least of which is that none of us are princesses and sometimes things don’t turn out in the end. 

That isn’t to say there isn’t merit in believing fantasy, but it’s more important to remember the truth: we all have power in our lives to change the outcome of where we are.  We are able to choose to become our own hero.  I wrote yesterday about how sometimes we need to see the best in every situation.  I want to add that sometimes we need to choose to do something different in the situation.  We need to see our patterns and know what’s causing the issue in our lives.  No one is going to come through a reward us with the keys to the kingdom.  Sometimes we have to make a new door.  Sometimes we have to make our own kingdom.

Taking the keys to our own kingdom means accepting things about yourself.  Knowing what you’re good at, what you like, what feels good, knowing and understanding your purpose and knowing how to fulfill it.  It means acknowledging what fits.  I’ve tried all my life to be palatable, and with the amount of practice I’ve had over the years, I’ve become quite good at it.  I don’t want that to be my superpower.  I don’t want to survive or make a name by being the chameleon, the one that changes to fit with whomever she’s with.  I don’t want to die having never really lived MY life.  I’m no longer interested in what looks good or sounds good to others.  I’m interested in finishing this healing and stepping into the next phase.

Decades pass in a blink.  I woke up and over two decades of my life are gone and I don’t remember much about them.  My son is six, no one has come to save me, and there are still moments it feels like I’m stuck on repeat.  We waste so much time.  Time on social media, time with TV, time fighting, time stressing, time hiding who we are.  Time is the most valuable asset and resource we have and we squander it as if it’s a renewable thing.  Everyone has a moment where they get to decide what comes next.  Move forward as is and stop complaining about it.  Or.  Move forward into the unknown and make the leap into what feels right.  Nobody is going to save us.  Make the choice. 

Following up on last week speaking of magic and remembering what we can do, I have some steps that I take to bring me back to that.  Owning our lives isn’t about forcing things to go our way.  It’s not about getting our way at all—it’s about honoring and sharing our gifts.  It’s about knowing those gifts, knowing our purpose and acting on it.  It’s not about controlling others, it’s about controlling the facets of our lives within our control and knowing how to emotionally navigate the rest.  That comes with recognizing the issue when we are in tight situations, when we feel like we have no way out.  When we are so preoccupied with the problem that there are options available we don’t even see.

Whether it’s a physical thing, a person, or our environment, we have a choice to either fix it, fix the way we respond to it, move around it, or move on from it.  We always have a choice.  We also have a choice when the issue is how we view the problem or how we feel about it, and it’s the same choice, fix it, fix our response, move around it, or move on. While those might not seem like great options, or we are so attached to the outcome they don’t seem possible, those are at least better than sitting stuck with the issue.  If we refuse to see our part in the solution, we refuse to see that we cause our own blocks in moving forward.  Sometimes we are the problem, but, as Marie Forleo says, if I’m the problem, I’m also the solution.  I am the blockage and the solution all in one. 

I’m the first to admit it took me forever to recognize where I caused my own pain.  It was so much easier to put it on an external source, and I had many external sources of pain, we all do.  I still don’t like to admit that life is 10% what happens and 90% how you respond to it.  I mean, there are days when we are simply dealt a shitty hand and the anvil falls on us.  It’s a lot easier to play a King than a Joker that shouldn’t have even been in the deck, and damn it, when you’re crushed, you can’t walk with broken legs.  In those situations, we are out of the game before it even starts.  So if you’re 10% has everything you need, the 90% feels a whole lot better and it’s clearer how to respond.  When it’s a rough hand, that 10% feels pretty empty.  Now, I’m not saying even the worst isn’t for a reason because it all shapes us, but I’m saying it’s a tough game to play if you don’t have the right stuff so to speak.

What I settled on understanding was that I can shift my perspective and ask different questions—instead of “why me?” it can be “what lesson?”.  I also learned that in shifting that mindset, we understand that our minds control how we see things, and we are able to control what goes through our minds.  It isn’t about stopping the “bad” things, it’s about finding the “good” if we need to label it.  So while I think the 90/10 percentage is inaccurate, there IS merit in how we view a situation.  Clarity is what drives the action, so if we can see through the muck of a crappy situation, we can better find the answer.  Really it’s more about not muddying the waters than it is saying bad is good.  So if we can see our part in it, if we can shift our thoughts, we can find the answer as well.  The magic is still within us.       

Today I am grateful for forgiveness.  This week seems to have been filled with a lot of backstepping and it feels like I lost a lot of ground in regards to personal development.  I engaged in behaviors I know aren’t conducive to growth like fear, envy, anger, jealousy, over-spending, over-eating.  I am grateful for one thing: those old behaviors felt wrong the entire time.  I mean they physically felt icky, heavy, and made me feel like crap.  I’m grateful for that because it means that I’m aware the old patterns don’t serve, they aren’t right for me anymore.  So I’m working on forgiving myself and moving forward.  Forgiveness is new for me because I’d normally be angry with myself, chastise the behavior, and wallow in regret.  I want to heal the part of me that needed to engage in the behavior in the first place and I’m grateful for that opportunity.

Today I’m grateful for KNOWING.  Along with working on root causes, I’m grateful to get in touch with my KNOWING when it comes to my needs.  I’ve known for a long time that I have to take next steps and I’ve felt off the whole time, like things still weren’t clear about the goal.  The way to make that better is to rely on intuition.  Intuition can be as small as gut feelings telling us something is off or it can be as blatant as having to refuse an opportunity or invitation that doesn’t align.  To get to that level we need to have complete clarity.  Clarity about who we are.  Clarity on our intuition.  And we need to act from those places of knowing constantly and without shame or regret. 

Today I am grateful for new beginnings.  Along with forgiveness and knowing comes new beginnings.  We are so fortunate to have the opportunity for new beginnings over and over again, multiple times a day if needed.  I’m even grateful that I’ve been grateful for new beginnings before.  Life isn’t permanent.  We can change and redirect course any time.  Sometimes we need a pivot in order to get where we want to be.  Take that chance.  Try something new.  Try something that feels better.  Even if it’s unknown and we only have an inkling that it might work, try it.  You never know where it will take you.     

Today I am grateful and proud of myself for sticking with my limits.  We had to go to the pet store today for fish food and, naturally, we started roaming looking at different animals.  A beautiful chinchilla played in his enclosure and I felt this immediate rush of needing to bring him home.  We used to rescue chinchillas so they’ve always held a spot in our hearts.  My husband felt the same impulse to bring him home and, of course, my son was so excited.  As we calculated the price of the things we needed to get, I reminded myself that this was a whim.  We have goals for this year and spending that kind of money on an impulse purchase that lasts over a decade isn’t the way to get there.  We came home without a new addition to the family, and as sad as it was to turn down the little guy, it was the right thing to do.   

Today I am grateful for a much needed moment of flow.  Chaos will never stop around us so we have to control and regulate the environment within us.  I mentioned above that I’ve felt like I was backstepping this week, engaging in negative behaviors and thought patterns.  I put myself into such a deep panic attack the other evening that I couldn’t fall asleep until after 3AM and I woke up at 6:30AM.  Throughout the course of the day, I noticed my thoughts slowing—perhaps due to tiredness or just the overwhelm I put on myself.  And I realized I had to give over.  I don’t want to fight my life.  I don’t want to argue for things to be a certain way.  I don’t have the energy for it any longer.  I’m between the places where the new is coming in and the old is what creates security.  How we spend our energy is entirely up to us and I’d rather go with the current than against it.

Today I am grateful to recognize need.  I’ve been pushing myself too much lately.  It’s been a whole lot of too much.  Too much consumption, anger, arguing, demanding, spreading myself too thin, whining, feeling alone, confusion. All of these things would have irritated me to no end previously, and I would have taken it out on myself.  I took a moment to ask where all of this is coming from.  How did I find myself right back where I started? There was a need still left to fulfill.  I don’t want to go into too much detail on this one, it’s a fresh wound so to speak, but the need to be heard and seen is still high on my list.  I’m not finding the appropriate outlet to honor those needs and it’s catching up with me.  So instead of being angry and frustrated, I just need to hear what I really need.  In that way all of the negative self-soothing techniques I picked up over the years don’t serve here.  I’m ready.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

My friends, magic is real.  I thoroughly believe this, and I am human, so I also thoroughly forget this nearly every day when I dive into my current routine.  I still seek that distraction and sometimes fear the inner voice that tells me the right way to go—that’s the voice we talked about yesterday.  I consider it a real privilege every time I’m able to find that magic again, and my goal for this year is to spend as much time in that state as possible.  We are all divine creators and we are absolutely meant to live in magic because that is a gift from elsewhere that we are meant to share with as many people as possible.  So, how do we find this magic?  We follow our instinct and hone our gifts as much as possible.  We find our own zone where leading edge of challenge meets ability.  This space is where we take our gifts and put them to use for the greater good. We are made to serve so how can we use our innate gifts for the world?  The Japanese call this Ikigai, the French call it the raison d’etre: it’s where talent and passion meet to produce our purpose that we share with the world.

When we get to use our gifts in that way daily, we feel something happen.  Time moves differently.  Suddenly we’ve skipped ahead several hours and our work is done, or we managed to complete a multitude of tasks in a short timeframe.  We look at the result and KNOW how amazing it is simply by feeling the energy off of it.  We are able to take that energy and channel it into production.  We shift entirely from consuming to producing, the inspiration continually flowing in and the product flowing out.  We use our machine-like ability to create magic.  I’m not talking about a drive to push forward, I’m talking about connecting with the universe and our results are somehow intrinsically a result of us but not entirely from us.  We all have this ability, and the longer we spend satisfying our purpose, the more comfortable we are with recognizing what that purpose is, with knowing who we are, and knowing how to use our ability to help.  We aren’t all meant to be doctors or lawyers.  Some of us are meant to inspire and guide and help those in finding their way.

When we do the work we are meant to do, it’s never really work.  When we are with the people who truly understand us, it is never time wasted.  When we are creating joy and in touch with the inner light of what sparks the imagination, it is never solely fantasy.  When we share the gift of who we are, energy isn’t squandered.  No, when it comes to the concept of right work, right company, right purpose, right intention, nothing is wasted.  We are in touch with the limitless supply of energy from the universe and we feel it directly in who we are.  This is the sweet spot where we remember time is an illusion, a construct we’ve placed on us to limit the scope and range of our expression.  Admittedly, it’s challenging to remove that construct, but it isn’t impossible.  Plus it’s incredibly addictive to be in that sweet spot, we are just told it’s selfish or isn’t realistic.  Remember how good it feels to align purpose and action and you know what I’m talking about.  Forget what people tell you to do or who to be and simply be yourself.

There are no limits in the space of magic.  Anything is possible, and we are meant to create—we are all born alchemists in this realm.  We are meant to take the raw material of guidance, gift, talent, and knowledge and transform it into something useful for society.  The flow, the sweet spot where we are driven to use that talent and information for good as well as feeling good is where it happens.  We spend so much time yelling at fish because they cannot fly that the fish forget how effortlessly they glide under water.  A fish will learn to hate itself for who it is because of who they are not if it doesn’t remember who it is.  So, if you are meant to fly, fly.  If you are a swimmer, swim.  Neither method of moving is better than the other, each is its own type of magic.  Instead of lamenting what we cannot do, celebrate the magic of what we CAN do.  Find your sweet spot and you find your magic. 

A nice follow up to following steps 😊.  Last year I wrote a piece talking about knowing who we are.  Millennia before the distraction of at-your-fingertips technology, in-home entertainment, or mechanized transportation to take us far from where we live, conversation reigned supreme.  A major topic of discussion was “Knowing Thyself.”  While the massive amount of work to know who we are was simplified into two words, it captures the simple essence of how important the focus was in knowing who we are, knowing our worth, and knowing what our contribution would be to society.  The one caveat I haven’t seen much work on is the brain’s inability to comprehend a negative: we know who we are not often before we know who we are.  After a while society used this to it’s advantage, especially for the gain of the state.  It’s easier to convince people who they are than it is to teach them to KNOW who they are.  It’s also more profitable to keep them in line, following the same path than it is to let them express themselves.

The very human desire to feel acceptance takes precedence to honing our ability to trust instinct.  It’s a survival trait that we’ve never lost.  Fitting in with the crowd poses physical safety benefits that going it alone blatantly ignores, so we are trained to go with the crowd, be with the group and follow their patterns before we learn to understand our own.  I don’t disparage this because, even now, even if survival isn’t predicated on the herd, there IS marked advantage to helping each other and contributing to the whole.  But we have forgotten that we can vary what contributes to the whole.  Survival looks different now than it did back then and it means something different.  We aren’t fighting for our lives in terms of hunter/predator but we are fighting to find our place and express who we are.  There has been a shift toward self-awareness and expression that there wasn’t room for previously.

Knowing who we are today means understanding and validating the emotion behind the action.  Instead of using fear to create herd mentality to protect, we’ve been manipulated with herd mentality about “lack” and needing to acquire material.  No one needs an 85 inch TV to live.  I man, they’re nice, but it’s not life or death.  We’ve mistaken convenience for necessity and bought into distraction instead of working on our gifts.  Our gifts can change the world, they can light a new path, and they can alter the existence of those who come after us.  This takes “Know Thyself” to an entirely new level.  We don’t have to fight for survival at this time, thank the universe/source/God.  We have been tasked with progressing and preserving humanity.  That means understanding our place in evolution and how to apply what we know.  That means feeling our way to the truth.

It’s easy to ignore instinct—we are trained to shrug it off.  Even if we know that going with the crowd feels wrong, we tend to follow suit because it means we can avoid the loneliness of solitude.  But when we take the time to feel our way to what is right in our hearts, we learn over time that the people who are meant for us won’t leave us.  They will embrace the ideas we share and we can learn from each other.  We can learn to live in a new way.  Percentage wise, relatively few people understand how fortunate we truly are in this day and age.  It’s so easy to whine and complain about what we don’t have that we lose sight of the privilege we’ve been born into.  Learning to dive into what you’re feeling, even if it means trusting your instinct on who you are NOT, it’s a step toward learning who you ARE.  We often feel something is off before we recognize what’s right: another gift leftover from survival.  We can use that to our advantage.  We can learn to lessen our distraction time (phones/devices/gossip, whatever it may be) bit by bit until we are comfortable hearing that intuition again.  Before you expect an epiphany of lights and magic to shine on you, learn to listen to the quiet voice of, “Go this way,” Once you hear that, you’ll quickly learn you’re on the right path to knowing who you are.

During meditation the other day, the narrator talked about building trust in ourselves and who we are.  He said, “Identify the smallest step you can take to get moving.  Just do one.”  Over the last few days we have discussed taking steps to align with our true selves and be seen as we really are.  We talked about worth, communication, authenticity, alignment, integrity, and intentional action.  Most of us live our lives on repeat because we are familiar with the routine.  Becoming someone else requires doing something else and that’s where we get stuck.  We aren’t familiar with how this new version of us would act or what they would choose or say in a situation.  In order to learn those things, we have to take the first step.  Not the whole staircase, but one step at a time.  This is when we talk about the smallest thing you can do to get moving. 

Through therapy, I’ve begun to recognize the deep fears that I have.  Loss, wasted time, losing success, not being able to maintain success, and not being heard.  I love creativity, my writing, singing, cooking, working out, playing with my son, enjoying time with friends, learning new ways of being.  But what am I doing?  I overcommit to things that don’t interest me.  I don’t spend enough time working on what I love.  I allow myself to be distracted by things that don’t really matter.  I worry about how people will view me.  I worry that I won’t appear responsible.  I worry that people don’t see me as capable or as an authority in what I say.  I don’t start, I plan and plan until it’s too late. 

So this week, in the spirit of being aligned and learning to trust our highest selves, in the spirit of connecting with that self-worth, in the spirt of authenticity and honoring self-worth, I have found the first smallest step I can take: using my time as I see fit.  As it happens, my son had a weird schedule on Monday and I wouldn’t be able to get him where he needs to be on time, so I took the day off.  I didn’t offer to work from home, I used a day of the plentiful time I have available and said I will not be available to my 9-5.  I don’t need permission to live the life I want to.  I just need to do it.  I have big plans for that day, things aligned with what I want to do, the bigger picture.  No, I know my world won’t be drastically different in one day, but it WILL lay the foundation of what I need to do.  I’m pretty sure it will clarify the next steps. 

Sometimes we spend too much time giving away our energy, hoping it will come back or that someone will reciprocate.  Whether it’s at work or with friends, hoping for a promotion or that we get some time together to do something fun, our lives are often at the mercy of other people’s actions.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  Sometimes we just need to remember what we have and reclaim what is ours.  In my case, I have a lot of time off available that I haven’t been able to use, so I’m taking a day of it.  End of story.  I could choose to sit on the couch all day and do nothing, or I can focus my energy and take a stab at the life I want.  Try it on for a day and get a little taste of what I’ve said I want to do all along.  I don’t want to waste any more time hoping success will find me, it’s time to create success.

Tabitha Brown calls that our freedom walk.  The honoring of who we really are.  Once we know who we really are, nothing can stop us. There is nothing that can stop the light from shining on our true identity once we experience it.  Things will continue to feel out of alignment or simply feel wrong.  Follow our truth and that allows us to stand in our integrity.  Success comes when our passion meets our skill and we share that gift.  The more we practice what we preach, the more we do what we say, the more we keep our contract to ourselves, the easier it is to see the next step.  For me, it’s a day off.  Tomorrow, who knows. 

I don’t want to pretend that keeping in alignment is easy.  Our daily lives consist of habits YEARS upon years in the making.  Our neural pathways become entrenched with the same data we’ve entered for years and that is the pattern it KNOWS.  As smart as our super-computer brains are, they tend to follow the path of least resistance, so if we put bad habits in, we will get bad habits out.  I digress.  When we recognize those “bad” habits or simply something we want to change, we need to know a couple of things: 1. It will take constant effort to remember the action we are learning, and it will require focus, and we will forget over and over again until we form those new neural pathways.  2. When we change ourselves, we are changing our lives as well as those around us.  When we see ourselves differently, people see us differently as well.  It’s not a labeled thing in terms of good or bad, but it’s something that deters people from sticking to their word and they fall off the wagon so to speak.

This side of maintaining integrity is the fact that others will view you as too much.  Not that we can control how people view us, but when people label us as “different than we used to be” or can’t seem to relate any longer, it feels lonely and that’s when old habits slip back in.  Think about those who inspired you to change: there was a power, a magnetic draw to SOMETHING about them.  People who live by their word and follow through operate differently than the majority.  They are in touch with themselves in a way others aren’t and it shows, it radiates off of them.  They have a goal and they intend to see it through, no excuses, and some don’t know how to interpret that.  Integrity, honesty, vulnerability for holding ourselves accountable can be seen as threatening to others because those people aren’t in that space yet.  I’m talking about the space of accountability for actions and being ready to level up.

Criticism is usually a bit challenging to swallow even on a good day.  We all know those people who blush at any praise as much as they do when they’re frustrated.  When our actions are criticized we internalize it as some reflection of our identity.  When our identity is noted as “different” or “changing” it’s easy to feel isolated and want to join the crowd.  Don’t do it.  While it’s initially uncomfortable to stand on our own, to stand in who we are and be seen, it feels much better than having to go with the crowd.  Like anything, it takes practice.  Those around you who note these changes will adapt.  And if you are too much for some, you are just right for others. At the end of the day, what matters is if you are right for yourself.  What feels right to you?  Do you know who you are and are you ready to let that person out? 

It’s never really about being too much or too little, it’s about how your authentic self makes others feel.  Not everyone is comfortable letting their light shine, and if yours gets a little too bright then it starts showing the shadows other people try to hide.  Some simply aren’t ready for that to be seen or to address it.  Shine anyway.  Let your gifts out and share them with the world.  Feel good about who you are and know the world needs more of that light.  There can never be too much light on a spiritual plane, and whether we like to admit it or not, we are spiritual creatures.  We need each other, we need connection.  What better way to connect than with our true selves?  That’s not too much, it never can be.  So shine on, friends.  Share that light.