Today I am grateful for play and rest.  I had this revelation the other day that I’ve been pushing too hard at too many things with little focus so I really haven’t yielded any results anywhere.  My body and mind are telling me it’s time to slow down and really figure out what’s going on.  I spent this weekend playing and relaxing and enjoying my time with my family.  I learned another new game, we laughed, we cuddled, we created.  All of that connection came from time together and from listening to what my soul needed.  Time moves so quickly, it doesn’t pay to wait for things to come another day—enjoy now because nothing is promised.  Find joy, find love both for and in our lives.  It makes all the difference as the answers become clear.

Today I am grateful for trying things a new way.  Every relationship struggles and the longer you are together, a little more maintenance is required.  I had a long conversation with my husband the other day about being tired of repeating the same day over and over again.  I expressed I was bored and I wanted to do something creative.  The very next day, some old patterns were brought to light and I realized that some things had been hidden from me.  Things I thought we were on top of turned out to be a bit further behind.  I fully own and admit that I would normally FREAK out and yell and scream and panic.  But this time I made a conscious effort to try it a new way.  If we want different results, we need to do different things.  I’m not sure how it’s going to turn out in the end but I have a feeling the result is going to be different this time around.  And I know for certain I felt better in the moment.  Less stressed.

Today I am grateful for seeing my life come together.  It is far from perfect but I can see the pieces of what I planted years ago coming together.  Things I dreamed of, spaces I envisioned having are coming together and it feels amazing.  Seeing things unfold feels slightly surreal and I still have a ton of anxiety about the future, but I’m working through some new steps and trying to be present.  I’m trying to do the work to find who I am at the core so I can feel more comfortable in my skin.  The closer I get to who I am, the more I see it reflected outside of me as well.  It isn’t a comfortable place, like at all.  But seeing the glimmers of things to come, having hope and faith, all makes it more manageable. 

Today I am grateful for my health and the opportunities to take care of myself.  This one never gets old for me and quite frankly I feel like I should share it every week.  Firstly I am grateful for acquiring an extremely reasonably priced set of weights to challenge my body and care for it in new ways.  Secondly, there is a lot to be grateful for with the body itself. It never ceases to amaze me how wonderful the body is.  Regardless of what it endures, it tries its best to protect itself and come back stronger.  I am grateful to breathe, to feel my heart beating, to know that my organs are functioning.  I love what my body can do and I love learning to feel more at home in my skin.  When it comes to my health, I am so grateful that overall I am very healthy.  I love the practices of nourishing my body and making sure I feel well.  I love listening to my body and listening is KEY.  The body keeps the score indeed and the answers we need lie within it.  I am grateful to hear those answers.

Today I am grateful for the little things that make me happy and leaning toward joy.  I adore hearing my son laugh. I love seeing my husband smile.  I love my entire family and all the people and fuzzy creatures in it. I love my books and my writing.  I love my office and the work I do in here—especially the way the light flows in this beautiful space. I love my little home gym and what I can do with my body.  I love our entertainment space and our family space and my bathroom.  I love helping people find their way.  I love instilling belief in people even when they don’t believe in themselves.  I love finding purpose and helping others find their purpose.  I love to daydream. I love to create.  I love figuring it out.  I love having fun and playing games and singing and dancing and moving my body.  I love communicating and bringing people together.  I love setting a mood and a theme.  I love getting more comfortable with the creative, divine flow in me.  There is so much more.  Taking the time to find what I love has changed me in that I see there is always something beautiful happening.  Joy is an amazing indicator of where we should go.  Trust that instinct every time.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

I’m still working through Schuster’s Glow in the F*cking Dark and I was compelled to discuss a tool she uses—I will call it The Four Whys.  Schuster uses this in terms of identifying rituals that serve us on our road to self-realization/improvement etc.  One of her steps is about finding the why behind the action but I love her steps of taking four whys to really get to the core of it.  We all know the why is what keeps us going but I loved the concept of digging deeper to really identify the root. It was similar to her emotion wheel and learning to find what was really underneath the initial feeling.  I find the psychology behind it fascinating because we are so reactive and so trained that a certain action requires a certain response that the idea of taking the time to identify what we really feel, what we really want and why changes the game.  There are certain emotions you may not really be feeling—something you thought bothered you really doesn’t or something you thought DIDN’T bother you does.  It changes the game when we know what’s really happening.

Regardless, the process of the four whys is simple: ask yourself why as you get a response to the question at least four times.  Schuster’s example is this, “The reason I started journaling was because other people told me it would be beneficial for me.  Why? Because they were worried about me.  Why? Because I was out of control.  Why?  Because I hated myself,” Tara Schuster, Glow in the F*cking Dark.  This technique can be applied to anything: why we do something, why we want something, why we feel something, why we stick with something, why we can’t finish something.  By the time you dig down to four whys, the truth is solid.  And if we want to move forward, we need the truth.  When we know our truth, we know which way to go.  We know the direction and it’s much harder to be deterred.  There is something to be said for that internal guidance system.    

After our discussion on gaslighting, I think building a tool box of ways to strengthen our inner knowing and our ability to trust ourselves is so important.  We are in a society that simultaneously tells us we are wrong for feeling what we do and that we are never wrong for feeling how we do and it has created mass confusion.  It has created a society that points blame rather than seeks the truth or the source of the issue.  The more in touch we are with our whys, the less likely that is to happen.  Our whys not only give us direction they give us foundation.  It’s important to get to that root, it’s important to ask those questions, it’s important to probe, it’s important to have perspective, and it’s important to work together to arrive at a mutual conclusion.  It isn’t about right or wrong, it’s about what’s right for us as individuals and how that contributes to the collective.  

I don’t recall when I wrote the piece on gaslighting but it’s such a relevant term today, I need to revisit this topic.  I’m both blessed and cursed with an amazing long-term memory (LTM)—my short-term (STM) has suffered the last few years and I’m not entirely sure if it it’s hormonal/stress related, if I have too much information up there, or if there is some other issue.  Regardless, I’ve developed a habit of questioning myself and my version of events when it comes to my STM and people around me know it.  I will remember enough detail to give me pause about what really went down, but not enough to be sure that something else didn’t happen if people tell me about it.  Like they can slip in an extra detail or switch the words slightly and I won’t be 100% sure that it wasn’t the case.

I bring this up because I can’t stand gaslighting, intentional misunderstanding of direction, playing dumb, people who try to make you look bad, and not being understood—especially those who intentionally misunderstand.  Don’t get me wrong, I partially understand where this comes from because we live in a society where we would rather assign blame or we’ve been blamed for things that legitimately aren’t our fault and then told it doesn’t matter.  While assigning blame isn’t the end all and be all, I am one of those people who believes that we need to know the source of the issue otherwise we’re just band-aiding.  I’m also one of those people who feels like we shouldn’t have to clean up after others and if it’s our responsibility then we need to step up.  No one likes it, I don’t like it, but we are human and learn from our mistakes.  We need to stop holding mistakes over people’s heads.

I digress.  There is a mental component to gaslighting that we don’t talk about: the actual damage to the person being gaslit.  That person no longer trusts their instincts, their memory, or their confidence and we know lack in those areas creates a person who becomes stuck.  I know because I’ve been stuck in an area that I can’t seem to unwind from nor can I make progress forward.  I’ve explicitly been told one area in particular is on life support when I’ve known that area is the key to opening additional doors, and I’ve been told to focus on an area that has needed help from the beginning but I’ve been given no direction on which way to go and then blamed for mistakes.  That is the definition of gaslighting—and even a little sabotage if that doesn’t sound too dramatic.  Living in that state makes any plan I have for the day irrelevant because the focus will immediately shift as soon as I get in—and that’s another tactic, quickly changing focus on someone or making them pivot their plans consistently enough that their plans become moot—and then asking why we couldn’t move forward.

It is SO important to remember your instincts in those moments.  I recently had a meeting with some upper level leadership and in a pre-meeting debrief was essentially told to only highlight my other areas, not the one that I knew needed focus.  I couldn’t do it—I had felt so defeated going into the meeting that I honestly didn’t care what happened so I ended up spilling a lot of information.  But an amazing thing happened: questions came about that area that I didn’t anticipate.  Hope was given because this leadership understood where I was going and I received confirmation that this area had never been mentioned before.  While it was scary, it was worth it.  In the post-meeting debrief I was told I needed to focus more on the wonderful work I’m doing when I had been told by the same person not 30 minutes prior how terrible things were.  Are you confused?  I sure as heck still am.          

Ultimately what I took away, however, was that had I not listened to my instinct in that meeting, I wouldn’t have gotten the information I needed.  I wouldn’t have showcased what needed to be shared.  I wouldn’t have demonstrated my talent and I wouldn’t have opened a conversation about potential.  We can’t allow people to make us question who we are.  I’m not saying there isn’t a time for debate because none of us knows the answers to it all, I’m not saying there isn’t a time when discussion is warranted.  Discussion, not someone being so critical they undermine you.  That’s the mark of an insecure person and they often disguise it as being helpful.  Always trust your instincts and don’t allow anyone to make you feel less-than because you feel differently. Keep tight to your knowing and trust yourself—you can still be open to input/feedback, but don’t diminish your ability to discern the situation.  

As I’ve gotten older I’ve thought even harder about time.  I’ve thought about where I am and where I want to be and even about where I could or should have been.  When I was younger I never had one of those driving goals around who I am like, “This is what I want to do with the rest of my life.”  So I really didn’t pursue much of anything and I’ve spent a lot of time asking permission.  I’ve spent a lot of time waffling with indecision and fear and insecurity.  I’ve spent a lot of time trying to fix others and to fix myself.  I’ve spent the most time playing it safe, trying to please and appease everyone, to find my worth in my ability to deliver what anyone wanted.  All I wanted to was acceptance, for someone to tell me I was good enough, that they were happy/grateful for my presence.  Not that I wanted them reliant on me, but I wanted them to feel the weight of me, to grant and acknowledge that I had worth—and that was something I nearly never experienced from my peers.

Now that this time thing is constantly running through my head and that it has changed meaning, I realize I know longer have the drive, energy, or desire to keep running around the mountain asking for validation or approval or permission.  I’m not sure I have a clue how to begin the ascent versus the run, but I know I need to.  This may be another one of those pause to gain perspective and take stock things we talked about.  But every instinct in me is screaming that this is no longer it.  That I need to simply be here and figure it out.  And that I need to go against every instinct I have and stop moving.  I need to stop moving and put down the weight of what was never mine to carry.  I need to see, hear, and feel, and navigate every sense to know what the next step is.  This is the time to pause and breathe before taking the next step.  I can’t force action any longer because that’s all it is: activity.

Right in the middle of this ongoing existential crisis, a came across a familiar but long since viewed quote: “All you need is 20 seconds of insane courage for you to change your life,” Benjamin Mee.  It is courageous thing to stop as much as it is to go.  It’s a courageous thing to appreciate the opportunities we have and as courageous to decide to pursue one.  It’s courageous to stop following what you’ve been told and to take action on your own.  No, it isn’t about increasing activity, it’s about taking the right action.  It means stop over-explaining everything.  Get clear, not defensive.  Speak plainly, not in riddles.  Make the choice.  When you stop the running, when you find your peace, you find your place and your time to move forward.  The answers reveal themselves.  Time becomes irrelevant when you live on purpose, with intention.  THAT is where the peace is. Peace isn’t nestled in someone else’s definition of life, it’s in your own.

I’ve known that something has been off for a while with several of my relationships at work but one person has been VERY skilled at making it seem like it’s my fault.  I knew I did nothing wrong.  Information had been kept from me, there were things I didn’t even know I needed to learn because they were never shared, conversations and action were taken behind my back and then brought forward as if they did me a favor, or worse, that I didn’t want to take the responsibility—a responsibility I often didn’t know was mine.  I knew in the end that these things were being held against me and being interpreted as I didn’t want to do my job or that I was incompetent when the reality is that a simple knowledge transfer didn’t happen.  Had we focused on that transfer and level set expectations (or even just set expectations) at the beginning, none of this would be an issue.  So the question raised in my mind, “What purpose would it serve to make me appear this way?  What purpose would it serve for these people to have it seem like they did it all?”  The first thing that came to mind was they want to get rid of me—and that was followed up with a why?

The truth is I’ve never been compliant.  I’ve never been complacent for things that don’t make sense.  I’m the type of person who wants to go in and make it better for everyone.  I’ve never believed that one person should have to sacrifice for someone else to benefit and I sure as hell have never thought that anyone needed to suffer simply to make someone else feel better (IE a customer has a complaint and the staff need to take the abuse for an unreasonable request).  I’ve always believed we need to stand up for ourselves and that we need to do what makes the most sense all around—not just for one party whether the business, the staff, the customer etc.  There is a way to benefit all parties involved.  And quite frankly sometimes there ISN’T.  Sometimes we have to simply follow rules or designs meant to keep people safe or it is meant to keep people equitable.  In general, however, your poor planning doesn’t constitute my emergency so do not expect me to clean up or disrupt my life because you didn’t plan in time.  Also, don’t make me take the time to plan through something you’ve already got set in your mind only to tell me it needs to be different—that’s just obnoxious and rude and a waste of time.

None of those things make me a good employee.  They make me a creative leader who finds ways to get it done and my role is a leader.  I’m impulsive and I move forward quickly (once I make a decision that is) and if we have a goal I’m going to meet it and I will do it in the most expeditious way possible because there needs to be time for creative energy elsewhere.  I’m not going to sit here and find new ways to creatively analyze a workflow for a team that truly doesn’t belong where it’s been held—again, waste of time.  And if you’re not going to tell me how it should be done, then I’m going to figure out a way to get it done with what I know.  Again, I’m not a mind reader, I’m not going to waste time figuring out how you want it if you don’t tell me—communication is key.  So with these pieces in place I realized, they didn’t know how to handle me and it was their attempt at covering their asses in how they thought things needed to appear.

I’m not a perfect person, far from it, but I’m bold and I’m honest to a fault.  I will have the difficult conversation when I know in my heart what’s right regardless of who it’s with.  I don’t give a damn about your title, the title is especially who I want to talk to.  Just because you’re scared to speak with that person doesn’t mean I am.  WE are all human, including that title, so there is no point spinning the wheel about what that person might think or thinking we have to behave a certain way because of their title.  You’ve never had a complete experience of that person and often times what you interpret is that person’s expectations are way off.  Just because you’ve had an experience with that person doesn’t mean my experience has been or will be the same.  In fact my experience of that person is the total opposite so I’m going to approach it differently regardless.  The non-compliance, the boldness, the impulsiveness make me dangerous in this environment.  What I’ve learned from that however is this: do it anyway.  I am who I am and I know that I don’t know it all.  I know I don’t know how other people will react but I do know that in order to find out we need to have the conversation.  My instinct is to share and that has always served me well.  I will not let this situation scare me out of continuing to do that and I want you to know to follow your instinct as well.  

Continuing on with being where we are and honoring our path/timeline, I had a revelation at work the other day.  To put it on context, I’ve been having these feelings of needing to be somewhere else so often that I am literally never settled in my skin—I’m always wanting to be somewhere else and the ADD brain doesn’t help because I’m constantly squirreling off on some other venture in my mind, thinking I need to be doing something other than what I’m doing right now—it makes the moment very hard to appreciate.  Regardless, I had the beautiful citrus revelation the other day and I was trying to continue that presence when I realized I’m trying to live four lives at once.  I have multiple ventures, multiple goals all going at the same time and none of them can move forward because none of them have the attention they require.  An overwhelming wave of sadness/ease came over me as I realized I need to work on calming my mind.

As soon as I had that revelation about calming my mind, the impact of living this way truly hit me.  I thought I’d been proactive at attempting to keep all facets of my life in the air, trying to make a decision about what future me was going to secure and experience.  All I’ve done is continue to run the circles we’ve discussed numerous times here.  It simultaneously hit me that sometimes the thing we are running from is what we need in the moment.  And it’s true—I thought I’d been running from my job because of the conflict it creates in my life and I had stopped looking at what it was teaching me.  Especially with the difficult interpersonal dynamics, all I wanted to do was get away from that space.  It also hit me that there could still be a purpose to being there—it does keep a roof over my head, food in my belly, and provides for my family.   The latter part made me realize that it’s ok to be there.  This is simply where I’m at now, there are opportunities now (although some have been hidden from me), and the things I have to do in the moment may serve me in the end.   

I have a tendency to look for security everywhere I go—I know most people do, but it’s pathological for me.  I need to feel safe and that goes back to not trusting my instincts because I couldn’t trust most of those close to me when I was young and I doubted everything I ever did.  Knowing yourself and trusting your gut and honoring who you are in this moment will definitely help you hone your instincts.  So many people try to talk us out of who we are—or worse they try to gaslight us out of who we are.  It’s so easy to fall into the trap of feeling insane when you deal with these people on a daily basis.  But if we can at least trust we are meant to be where we are, the world slows down just a bit.  Sometimes we need to take our foot off the gas and look around to reorient ourselves and take stock of what’s happening.  It’s enough to be where we are.  We don’t need to be striving or fighting to get where we think we need to be.  We simply need to BE.  There is no shame in calming the mind or taking stock of the present circumstances.  We often think we need to produce our way into the life we want or to prove ourselves into worth.  All we need to do is take care of ourselves and those around us.  Honor our health, our minds, our bodies, our experience and those of those closest to us and it falls into place.  All it takes is being here, not 100 steps ahead.  Where we are is ok.  

Saturday’s post spoke of honoring who we really are by acknowledging our seasons, knowing where we are at in life and accepting that place with ease.  Gabby Bernstein talks about surrender a lot, and if you’ve been reading this work for a while you know that I struggle with the idea of surrender.  I hate the idea of giving up, that I wasn’t able to get it right on my own.  But understanding seasons and seeing how life shifts makes me look at surrender differently.  The seasons change and we can do nothing about it.  We don’t want to do anything about it because we accept it as the natural part of life.  The same is said for us.  We go through the same seasons, the same cycles as anything else.  Surrender can be about going with the flow.  Bernstein states it isn’t about giving up, it’s about giving over.  We would no sooner fight the changing seasons, why do we fight those changes in ourselves?  The sooner we recognize who we are and what we need, the sooner the universe can align and deliver—so give over the need for control and allow your seasons to come.

I admit that surrender can be a lot of work to do it all on our own—and this is where trust comes in.  We have to believe that giving over will be better than standing in our own way.  There comes a point where we have to trust either other people or a higher power to assist us on our way.  We aren’t designed to do things on our own, rather, we are meant to complement each other’s abilities and come together to create something better.  We have to stop controlling every detail because we are controlling our lives into existence rather than allowing them to exist.  Life isn’t about control.  For example, we are fully in Spring now by almost a month and we’ve had 80 degree days already (the past two days in a row), the trees are blooming, and they are calling for snow tonight.  Life is tumultuous at times but we can no sooner change those seasons any sooner than we would change the weather.

The weather moves, nature adapts, we go with it, and the most beautiful thing about it is that it ALWAYS works out.  It doesn’t matter what it is, even in the worst of circumstances, things always work out.  There is resilience in change and there is emergence in change.  Life isn’t stagnant and in order to bring out who we are, there are times we have to ride out the storms.  We have to take where we are at face value—it isn’t about what we feel, it’s about who we are and what’s happening.  When we do that, we see truth and we can make informed decisions, we can see which way to go.  The path becomes clear.  It’s the same with alignment.  When we see the options in front of us, when we give over a plan that doesn’t seem to be working, when we take our hands off the wheel, it can be scary for a bit, but things right themselves.  Trust that there is something there that will get you in the right direction if you let it.  Allow that support, allow what is to unfold, allow the truth and ease to enter.  The rest takes care of itself.     

Today I am grateful for choosing myself.  There have been some odd incidents in the neighborhood lately, people behaving differently than they normally do and saying nothing is wrong.  You ever have one of those moments when someone tells you it’s all fine and you know it’s not?  Yeah…it’s like that.  So my husband and I decided to remove ourselves from the situation.  We’ve said all along that we wouldn’t get involved and we had found ourselves in the middle—so we decided to stop that.  We simply didn’t engage with either party.  It was uncomfortable at first, but then it felt right. I was able to do more of my thing rather than worry about how someone else would interpret my actions.  That’s next level self-reinforcement there.  Always choose yourself.

Today I am grateful for trusting my instincts.  Full transparency and a bit of disclosure, I haven’t taken action yet, but I KNOW something is brewing around me—both at home and at work.  I can’t put my finger on it but I know something is going on with the people around me and there is about to be some sort of announcement/confession.  In that vein, I’ve taken a step back with the emotion and I’ve managed to focus on the work that needs to be done—there is always something that needs to be done.  My instincts have told me to let go of the worry because what’s coming IS coming.  There is no avoiding it so sitting here and putting myself through the misery multiple times serves no point.  My instincts tell me to keep going and that all will unfold soon. 

Today I’m grateful for pivoting a step in my self-care.  I’ve been hyper-fixated on fixing me, on exposing flaws, on doing the work to “Get Better.”  I’ve sought answers everywhere and I’ve ridden this roller coaster of feeling better and feeling worse for ages—it’s making me sick.  So, it hit me that, at this point, I’ve been trying to fix myself for so long that I’m laying on the floor in pieces with no guide on how to get back together.  It’s time to rely on a little bit of trust and faith.  I’ve reached a point there isn’t much else I can DO, I need to ALLOW.  I need to feel safe.  I’ve sought security for a long time and all of those external things I thought would make me feel better have become more things to maintain and care for.  This is different.  I need to find my wings—remember the bird and the branch and know that it isn’t the branch that makes me safe, it’s my ability to fly.  So, here’s to finding what I’ve been looking for: my inner-security. 

Today I am grateful for surprises.  My son had his first play this past week.  Once I got over the fact that my baby is not a baby and he now has speaking lines in plays at school, it hit me how unbelievably talented my kid is.  He’s only 6 and his enthusiasm showed in every song he sang, he remembered every word, he spoke clearly into the microphone, and he danced his little heart out.  Not trying to be a stage mom, but come on!  I was so proud of him.  I asked if he liked being in plays when it was over and he emphatically said, “YES!”  My heart warmed—I acted when I was younger as well.  It hit me again how this child is a perfect mix of my husband and me.  How cool is that? How lucky am I to witness that? 

Today I am grateful for help.  I know that I can’t do it all on my own, and honestly, I’m grateful to realize that I no longer want to do it on my own.  For so long I ended up doing things myself because other people either refused, or it was on a timeline that didn’t work for them, or they didn’t understand what I needed.  This happened a lot at work.  I’ve taken the stance that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink.  I’ve also taken the stance that, as a leader, I can only tell people the same thing so many times before I need to take action that holds them accountable rather than do it for them.  It’s empowering to empower others and it’s liberating to put accountability where it belongs.  That goes for anyone anywhere.

Today I am grateful for family.  I spent some time with my parents this weekend and I am always reminded how fortunate I am to have them.  Times are changing and soon they are going to need me more, and I’m grateful for these moments we can simply share that time WITH each other.  I’m grateful my son is so happy to be with them.  I’m also grateful to see that the steps I’m taking to secure a different future are going to benefit them.  One of my goals is still to repay them and make sure they are taken care of.  Time is precious and getting that time with them matters.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

Just a quick snippet of how aligning with frequency works.  The universe has infinite ways of telling us what we need to do.  It has infinite ways, feelings, frequencies, messages, signals, WHATEVER you want to call it for getting our attention.  I never learned to trust my decision making ability so for ages (probably longer than I would like to admit…or maybe I don’t want to admit I still do it) I would look for outside ways to confirm my choices.  I would do things like ask to see a hawk, or find a certain number, or even have a certain number of red skittles in a bag.  Yes, I’d even consult the Magic 8 ball believing it was some type of sign from the universe.  Quite frankly I’d drive myself crazy looking for the proof that what I wanted was coming.  Even more disheartening, I’d find a positive sign and then it wouldn’t happen. 

In spite of all that, I still held out hope and I still look for signs.  The other day I was eating some candy and was thinking of how I always chose Strawberry as my indicator that good things were coming.  I said to myself, “You’ve really been enjoying citrus lately, maybe you’re not getting what you want because you’re asking for confirmation in a way that doesn’t align with who you are now.  Just because you liked strawberry then doesn’t mean you have to like it that way forever.”  As soon as I opened the candy, I saw it was two lemon flavored pieces.  Now, I’m not sure if what I was thinking about will ever come to fruition, but one part of the thought did: in order to receive what we want we have to be in alignment with the truth of what we desire.  We have to choose who we are and be honest about it.

We spoke of frequency yesterday and we need to know the Universe can’t deliver if we aren’t aligned.  We can’t say we want something and then do something else expecting to get what we said we wanted.  A few months back, I wrote that we can’t say we want to go to Bali and book a ticket to Florida hoping to get to Bali—the universe doesn’t work like that.  This is also a reminder that we aren’t meant to be the same person forever.  We grow and adapt, and I was raised by people who believed that once we made the decision of who we are, that was it, you stuck with your choices.  But life moves forward and we learn and with closer examination of who we are, with allowing who we are to surface, we know that we change.  We are meant to change. What served then doesn’t necessarily serve now, our needs change and the things we like, the person we truly are emerges—and liking citrus over strawberry is a small but prime example.  Be honest about our changes, honor the season we are in, and watch life unfold.

I read a piece discussing the topic that belief is the enemy of knowing.  Essentially the discussion was that there are times you are going to have to believe to see.  The discussion then went into how this means we need to choose our beliefs carefully.  Yesterday we discussed the idea that choosing our frequency, understanding that we are worthy to follow our dreams means shifting perspective and knowing we are able to match the frequency.  This ties in: you have to match the frequency of what you believe.  You will only ever get what you think is possible. 

The problem is we often believe we know already and we are told what to know from day one.  Similarly, we are told what to believe.  We are informed what life is like from our parents and we develop routines with them.  We are sent to school to learn about what has happened from one perspective.  We are even told what to believe spiritually.  We are never trained to listen, to hear what our inner knowing tells us.  Those beliefs shadow what we know.  If we are to change frequency, if we are to believe in something else, we need to know it’s possible.  We need to know we can do it.  The only real belief we need is the belief in ourselves and in our ability to adapt and achieve what we know is possible.

I ended yesterday’s piece talking about stepping into who we are, and this is the same.  If we are to get somewhere new, that means navigating to places no one has been.  It means drawing the map, and that requires a deep connection with who we are, that inner knowing of where we are going.  It isn’t believing it because we see it, it’s believing it because we know it’s possible.  While there are times it seems an insurmountable feat, it is possible to select our thoughts.  Sometimes experience changes the thoughts we have.  Sometimes we have to trust it came to us to be the steward of fulfilling it.  If we can change the frequency of our beliefs, we can change the course of our lives.  All it takes is radical belief that something new can happen for us, and our knowing shifts.