“A lotus is beautiful as a lotus, she doesn’t have to become a rose in order to be beautiful,” Tich Naht Hahn.  I just wanted to share a brief reminder that the game of self-improvement is more about unbecoming what we thought we were and embracing who we are.  In order to grasp what makes sense and pick up who we are, we have to let go of what we knew before.  We’ve talked about this many times before, but I think Tich Naht Hahn’s message puts a different spin on it because it emphasizes the importance of being ourselves.  We are meant to shine as we are and in order for us to fully embrace and experience life, we need to be who we are—there is no other way.  If you’re a lotus, you must be a lotus.  The lotus is happy doing lotus things.  The same with a frog and a squirrel.  They both jump but they live in different environments.  The same is true for us.  It does no good to wish we were a rose if we are a lotus.  We fair far better loving and accepting ourselves as we are—that’s when the magic happens.

The beauty of being a unique, individual creature is that we can do things others can’t.  We see the world differently, we see different creative opportunities, we see other alternatives.  We are the only ones who will ever see the world as we see it.  That isn’t to say that we don’t have people who empathize with us or understand, but their experience is not the same.  It doesn’t do well to try and explain a frog experience to a squirrel.  A frog will never climb the tree.  We all have talents and abilities and we are all gifted—It’s what I spoke about in an older piece.  If you judge a fish by its ability to fly of course it will appear a failure. But when you look at it swimming and diving, it’s remarkable.  The way it adapts to its environment—we are all born to our environment no different than any other component of nature.  I’ve always found it fascinating that we have this understanding of all other natural things, but we hold ourselves to a different standard.  We are gifted with sentience, yes, but we need to apply it practically.  We are meant to be who we are.  We are all beautiful and unique as we are—let’s celebrate it.   

“Don’t try to change your willpower, change your environment.  Discipline is really a carefully crafted environment encouraging certain behavior.  It’s not the goals we set up, it’s the cues in our environment.  Growth doesn’t happen by chance, we need an environment of growth,” Dritan Hodo. We have a theme, friends. What’s around us is instrumental in determining our outlook and results in life.  The environment of our lives, those around us, and of our mind.  I love the idea behind this that willpower isn’t necessarily what works to create change or to create momentum toward a goal. Even I tend to fall under the impression that it takes sheer force of will to create a result.  Maintain focus at all times, only do what’s “right”.  But it doesn’t work like that.  It isn’t about power and control in regards to perfecting our behavior, it’s about letting what doesn’t support us fall away.  It’s about removing negative influences and adopting new habits.  The discipline comes into play when it’s about creating a new habit, sticking with it because we know it will yield the result we need.  When we set ourselves up for success, we limit our options to those that will make us successful.

These things don’t happen overnight, not by any means.  Creating new habits and new thoughts takes time.  But that’s also why it’s key to create a space that fosters new patterns and behaviors, those that align with what we hope to be or achieve.  It requires a lot of letting go.  A release of what we know and the understanding that we need to dive into the unknown. Sometimes doing things that are good for us can feel uncomfortable, especially when we haven’t really considered that an option before.  Sometimes we are used to a struggle and we don’t even know.  We choose the behaviors that keep us in struggle because it’s familiar.  The same reason is how we end up choosing environments that keep us in struggle—it’s because we know what to expect of it.  There’s a saying something like we will choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven simply because we know it.  We need to get comfortable learning new things, things that keep us healthy and move us toward our goals.  We always have the choice of our hard: the difficulty of not changing and letting things slip by, or the difficulty of doing the work.  We set up our choices through our actions—creating an environment that supports that makes it easier. 

I have a little reminder, a little mantra for us today: To have a healthy life, I need a healthy mind.  After our last discussion about our environment, I really wanted to dive into the environment of the mind.  I was never taught how to control my thoughts as a kid. I grew up under the assumption that our thoughts were simply our thoughts, coming from some source (never really considered what it was) and we had no say in what went through our minds—it was just something that happened.  If they were negative or sad, then I was negative or sad and that was just how it was.  I hated hearing things like snap out of it because I literally felt no control over what went through my head.  I often distracted myself with work and books so I wouldn’t have to deal with anything up there.  I put myself in such a routine that I would end up doing the same thing daily for days on end, never really considering anything else as an option.  When my mental health really became an issue, that’s when I understood at the basest of levels that I needed to do something about my thoughts. 

Enter years of working through things, trying natural alternatives, trying pharmaceutical alternatives, faking belief in myself, becoming different people (including mirroring those around me), and learning to understand that I was really everyone else but myself.  As I peeled those layers away, I started finding things that I liked and understanding more about who I am and what I want—honoring my talents.  I really began to understand that there is no other way to have a healthy life if our base structure, if the thing that generates our lives (the mind) is negative.  We can’t live in an unhealthy environment and expect ourselves to be healthy—and the main place we live is in our minds.  We need to monitor what goes on in our minds all the time.  I’m not saying to make the mind a fantasy land where we disassociate from reality, I’m saying we need to regulate our thoughts and choose what we allow.  We can allow positive thoughts and disallow negative thoughts.  In order to live a healthy life, we need an overall environment that supports health and that starts with our mind, the thoughts we think.

So when we decide to start on any type of journey to who we are, any type of health journey, we need to begin with the mind.  We need to make sure that we are setting ourselves up for success and that the very place we generate the ideas about what our lives can be is healthy and supportive.  It can be challenging to admit that we need to do a deep dive into who we are, it can be challenging to accept responsibility for what’s around us—but it can be done.  And it needs to be done in order to follow through with anything.  The hardest part is learning patience for ourselves as we navigate new waters so to speak.  Learning to behave differently takes time.  Make sure we know what we are looking for, make sure we are familiar with ourselves and what we hope to do—and always make the first goal of any journey one of creating stability and power within our thought processes.  It will make all the difference in keeping the focus clear.  A healthy life starts with a healthy mind.

Today I am grateful for honesty.  I’ve had to learn to be honest with myself all over again.  For whatever reason, even though nothing in particular was going wrong, I’ve felt off, melancholy, and agitated lately.  I have felt incredibly frustrated and short with myself because I know I have no real reason to feel any of this right now but I can’t seem to shake the feeling.  So what that meant is that I need to take stock of things in my life.  As I started peeling back the layers, there were some truths I needed to face.  There are things I need to accept and understand regarding my closest relationships, about myself, about where the responsibility lies to get where I need to go.  About what I need to do and what I need to accept.  About things I can no longer fight and about things I can no longer pretend exist just because I hope they do.  It hurt like hell.  I know it’s something we all go through at some point if we truly want to progress.  So take it in the moment and understand that it is for the best.

Today I am grateful for answered prayers so to speak.  As I mentioned above, I’m going through a bit of a rough patch.  Even though there isn’t one particular reason, there is enough going on to roughen the edges that it’s causing issues.  There are a ton of things on hold right now (important things like my job), there are unanswered questions, there are a ton of obligations we have (we haven’t had a break since June), and things are just overall chaotic and it’s really unclear what’s coming next or even what to do.  The other day I was pleading for help, to be heard, to know that I was worth something because it felt like nearly everything I did was falling apart—so every failure from my life has been replaying over and over again.  In that moment, a friend reached out.  The person I was looking for support from was non-existent, but this friend reached out. 

Today I am grateful for surrender.  I have a piece coming later this week about the difficulty of dealing with surrender, specifically the interpretation of it—and even how much I detested the word.  But the truth is there comes a point where we have done all we can do, we have fought all we can, we have tried every avenue and the only way we can move forward is to simply stop.  When nothing seems to be working, we have to stop pushing.  If we keep pushing we will break.  I am not an easy person to live with—I’m not always clear, I am antsy, I have high expectations of myself, I am reactive, and my mind never stops so if I tell myself something before knowing all the facts, I have a hard time switching away from that belief.  But when all of that energy has been expended and the results still aren’t coming, it’s time to stop the fight and let go.  It isn’t the greatest feeling but I am grateful because I couldn’t keep pushing as I was.  It’s time to rest and let it be what it is.  That doesn’t mean it won’t be something more, but it is not that now.  So I give my heart and brain permission to rest.

Today I am grateful for redirection.  Along with surrender, I am grateful to turn inward.  I needed to stop controlling those around me, stop controlling their actions and even their thoughts.  The only thing we can ever control is ourselves.  When we think we have it all figured out, we tend to think we can tell others how to operate their lives.  We may have the best intentions, but that doesn’t mean we know what is best for someone else.  The outside seems to be falling apart at times, all we can work on is what’s inward.  Take care of ourselves, still our thoughts enough to hear what we need to do.  Stop making other people do what we want them to or trying to force them to believe what we believe—just take care of yourself.  I have to take care of myself.  Believe in myself. Start with myself.  That is the only thing that’s real, our ability to redirect our focus, to pivot.  We will find the answer.         

Today I am grateful for hope.  I used to think I was a glutton for punishment because I would continue to have hope even after things would fall apart.  I’d continue working on things that I knew wouldn’t work out simply because I hoped they would.  I would push and push, stubbornly hoping it would be something different.  I started to hate hope because I’d always be hopeful and nothing would seem to come of it.  I can’t say much has turned around, but I do have a different understanding of hope.  Even if it hurts, somehow it has kept coming back so hope is persistent.  Hope keeps us moving forward, dragging ourselves toward something others may not be able to see.  As long as we can see it, that’s all that matters, so keeping that hope stoked and alive is important.  It may feel difficult at times, but if we have hope, that’s enough. No matter how small, it is enough.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

They say we are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with—that’s why it’s so important to be more discerning regarding who we let in our circles.  The people and things we keep closest to us and that we interact with the most often tend to rub off on us.  We tend to stick with what we know, with the familiar and the more we wire our neurons to fire the same way repeatedly, the more engrained those thoughts become.  Our entire environment impacts our thoughts and behaviors, and that environment is everything we expose ourselves to, everything we consume, everything we partake in, and the people around us.   Typically those people fall into one of three categories: those who encourage us, distract us or discourage us.  Some of these behaviors may not be overt (although other times they may be).  But if people aren’t supporting or encouraging us, then we need to dive a little deeper and see if they are merely a distraction in our lives or are they a drain on us.  We are creatures of habit and comfort so this isn’t something we ask ourselves often. 

It can be a difficult process to evaluate the relationships around you but it’s necessary—including our relationship to ourselves.  We’ve spoken about keeping our word to ourselves and how that’s key in building trust in our ability to follow through on things.  The people around us will be an influence on that behavior.  As we start to look around us, we start to ask ourselves if our environment (again including all of those things that make up our environment) either help or hinder us.  More specifically, we have to ask if those things around us are helping us or hindering us from reaching our specific goal.  If we say we want something, have we fostered a mindset, a group of people, and the means for that goal to take off?  Or are we in an environment including people who continually don’t follow through or who speak negatively about our own pursuits, or people who distract us from working on our own things?

Once we do this type of analysis on our lives, it’s far easier to see where any inconsistencies may lay in our environment and where we have the opportunity to better align the environment with our goals.  There is a pattern in life about evaluating what we are doing for those who actively want to make something better, or those who constantly have these thoughts running through their minds.  But I will say, creating awareness around who we are and what we do—and if we are honest with ourselves—is an eye opening experience that is often the quickest way to course correct/yield results.  Too often we play the victim, acting as if our circumstances merely happened to us (not to say that CAN’T happen) but more often than not we are responsible for the results we see in our lives—and our thoughts, habits, and patterns determine what we get in life—more specifically how we align/change our thoughts, habits, and patterns.  Choose the environment well and make conscious choices about what we allow in our lives.  

“We all have time, love, and death in common—we all want more time, all we need is love, and we will all die—our greatest days are still ahead of us,” Loren Ridinger.  My company held their annual convention a couple of weeks ago and this was one of the beautiful reminders that came out of it.  Loren boiled life down to these three truths because life is far simpler than we make it.  Life isn’t about the things we get or even what we can get out of it—it’s about what we make of it.  Our time is finite and one day we will all die, this is one resource once spent we can never get back.  Choosing how we spend our time and with who is equally important because those who surround us help show us the truth of our lives.  We see if we are living our truth by the people who surround us.  We all need connection and support and love so we want to be around people who understand us and encourage us to be our best selves.   

Life is a precious thing and we put a lot of weight on it with our expectations.  The truth is all we need to focus on is being ourselves, accepting ourselves, finding love for ourselves first, and spending our time well.  Time well spent will generate greater results than running around all day doing aimless activities.  Jumping from one distraction to another or following what feels good in the moment without thinking of the ultimate goal will lead us down an aimless path.  Take the time to figure out who we are and what we need, what we are here to do, and what will support us on that journey in our life.  If we do that then we will be able to live our lives with less anxiety and fear and certainly no fear of missing out.  If we focus on these things and understand these are the basic needs we all search for, then we can relate to one another better and form the community we need, community that supports our core and foundation.  There is always hope, there is always something coming for us.  Live life well, live life honestly, and we can’t go wrong.

Do you want to win, or do you want to fit in?  I heard this question while working the other day and it has shifted something in me.  I’ve reconciled that not everything is about winning—I spent far too much of my life working to win and to be right.  I fought to be right at every single thing I did because I was so insecure about my outer appearance that I thought I had to prove myself intellectually and ALWAYS be the best to prove my worth.  Even then I wasn’t trying to fit in but I was trying to be the best at the same game everyone else was already playing.  The perspective that shifted for me was also this: Fitting in takes us out of the game because it diminishes who we are.  If we are all playing the same game, then we aren’t bringing anything unique to the table.  When we ask ourselves the question about winning versus fitting in, it takes into account two things: do we want to win at the same game as everyone else and what is our definition of winning. 

For some, winning is simply about being the best.  It’s about rising above everyone or being the big fish in a small pond.  For others, winning is about the personal challenge and brining their best to the game.  For others it’s about playing their own game and success is measured when they achieve their personal goals.  We are all at different stages of the game of life and it’s up to us to figure out how we want to move forward.  I can’t say that there is anything wrong with any particular stage because I’ve been in all of them, some much longer than others.  It’s something we all go through.  But in order to succeed, we need to know very clearly what our definition of success is and what we are aiming for.  What are the benchmarks that determine if we’ve gotten what we are looking for?  In some cases there are advantages to fitting in.  In others we need to stand out.  In either case we need to decide what the goal is. 

My definition of winning is sharing as much information as I can.  I want people to be informed and to be able to make sense of this life.  I want people to take real information and apply it in a way that works for them.  I want people to have the truth and know they are empowered to make decisions that benefit them over the system.  In that regard, I’m not about fitting in.  I’ve worked in a sick system long enough and I’ve gotten nowhere doing exactly as I was told, doing the things I was promised would yield results.  That isn’t a sob story, that is the reality for many people. Now the desire to maintain my autonomy and follow what I know is right for me is greater than my need for fitting in and the same rewards as anyone else.  I’m looking for something more, I’m looking to fulfill a purpose of waking people up to their greatest potential and authority.  I want people to succeed where they need to succeed because when we all fulfill our purpose, we all win. 

“You are not here to teach or even guide, you are here to embody,” Ashmi Pathela.  I like this as a follow up to yesterday’s conversation because this is exactly in line with it.  We aren’t here to purposely show people how to be because that implies we know everything or how people “should” do something.  Rather we are meant to live how we are, on a path and in a way that feels right for us and people who need some inspiration or help along the way can witness our example. We are simply here to show others that there are different ways to do things, ways that align with who we are that don’t necessarily fall in the conventional box.  The purpose of our journey is to live it, it isn’t to repeat someone else’s destiny, or someone’s idea of how it should be done. 

I don’t entirely agree with the opening sentiment that we aren’t here to teach.  I agree with the idea that we aren’t meant to teach exactly what we do or insinuate that our way is the best.  Teaching means different things.  We are meant to use our way as a guide so we are, in fact, teachers.  We are all teachers.  The embodiment of who we are is the lesson to others and that is the point of what we share: the ability to embody who we are and embrace it without fear, shame, or reservation.  We don’t necessarily have to guide people on our path, but we can guide them to follow their own and our journey can be an example.  Regardless of the path we are on we tend to face similar obstacles. Knowing how to navigate those things is useful.

It doesn’t have to be our mission to teach everyone what we are doing and how we do it.  It simply needs to be our mission to live our lives in the greatest alignment with who we are, in the greatest alignment with our purpose, and in the greatest alignment with joy.  Doing those things will shine like a million flashlights in the dark.  Being who we are is a force in itself.  We make that complicated because we are trained to put on a show from the time we are children.  We emphasize fitting in over uniqueness.  I’ve said before there was a time when fitting in literally meant death—but we are beyond that not even if our instincts are still confused.  Learning to live up to our own expectations eliminates that confusion and noise.  It isn’t about putting on a show or making a production of who we are—it’s simply living as we are to the fullest.

“Never underestimate the power of your journey.  You never know who you will inspire in the future.  Keep going,” Brett Portelli.  Everyone has moments of self-doubt or that moment when they’re not even sure if they’re moving forward in their journey.  We tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves and we imagine that unless we are perfect, we can’t be an example to anyone else.  The real examples tend to come from those who learn how to manage their setbacks in a way that doesn’t look like a setback.  It’s from people who overcame the obstacle because they believed they could.  The example also comes from the people who approach their goals with such clear focus and tenacity that nothing sways them from their course.  Nothing disrupts their progress or their focus because they know the result they’re looking for.  When you have someone who is able to do both, they are unstoppable.   

The other example we need to talk about isn’t the grand determination or even the creative problem solving, nor is it the grand leaps of faith (although that is key as well).  No.  It’s the quiet journey of the every day, each small step toward the goal.  The people who relentlessly pursue what they want in spite of not seeing the result.  Once we have that fire lit inside of us, the goal is to keep it stoked so others can see it as well, so the flame can ignite in others as well.  Never believe that what we do is so small that it’s insignificant.  We never know who is watching.  And it isn’t up to us to determine what people gain from watching us.  Yes, we can have an image or an ideal we want to project, but how people interpret that and what lessons they take from us is entirely up to their perception.  We have no control over what people take from their experience of us. 

The reminder here is to not take ourselves out of the game for what we believe we are or aren’t showing.  It’s also important to remember that no matter how long it seems to be taking or how difficult or even how easy the road may seem, someone is watching.  Someone sees.  One of those someone’s may need exactly what we are going through.  We may need to be an inspiration to ourselves and remember that we’ve gotten through things before.  Just because we aren’t seeing immediate gratification or the results we think we want doesn’t mean that someone won’t see it.

Knowledge is not power unless you apply it.  This is something that took me many years to reconcile.  I used to pride myself on the extent of my knowledge thinking it made me powerful.  There are certain benefits to having an extensive knowledge base and quite frankly, as a child, the emphasis was on expanding that base continually.  I watched people around me who seemed to know less progress further and further until it finally hit me that I knew all of this information but I didn’t know how to relate to myself, to others, or even how to apply what I did know.  I could answer an exam or rattle off random information at a party, but practical application, not so much.  The point of knowledge is to use it and discover that practical application.  Knowledge isn’t something to covet or hide away like a museum piece, it is meant to be applied and expanded.  There is no limit, there will never be a point of all-knowing, and passing tests isn’t something that happens in the real world.

If we feel stuck, the question becomes more about discovering the application of what we know—or a different application of what we know.  If we want to advance, we have to learn to look at things differently and we have to learn to do them differently as well.  The saying, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got,” seems appropriate here.  It’s also important to understand the point of power.  The point isn’t to exert power over people—that’s been attempted by limiting access to knowledge for millennia.  The point of power is expansion, and the best way to do that is to share knowledge and see how others apply it, to learn from others.  It’s the same for us as individuals: we aren’t meant to carry it all, we are meant to disperse the load and make it easier for everyone.  Knowledge is also about expansion within ourselves—growth.  When we are able to master ourselves we are able to master information.  We are able to see how things apply to us and we are able to apply them outside as well—but we always start with ourselves.