Sometimes the universe has unexpected ways of showing us what’s important and the areas we need to focus on.  We go out somewhere and suddenly we have a particular feeling but we ignore it and then it turns out the instinct was correct.  Or, we tend to get so focused on ourselves because we are so used to having to take care of everything and make all decisions and then we see we really need to move our focus outside of ourselves.  Or we find ourselves exhausted doing the things we used to do and we see that it’s because those are the things we no longer need to focus on, they don’t excite us the same way, or they don’t serve their purpose.  I’ve had a few humbling experiences over the last month, many gratifying experiences, and many things that I’m grateful humbled me.  I always took pride in being independent and getting things done on my own—and it has been valuable.  But I’ve had a few experiences lately that have made me shift focus and some that made me realize that independence has made me hyper focused on me.  With that, I’ve realized I need to change my goals.

We were in the middle of decorating the house for Christmas the other day and my husband and I were both struggling with lights—him exterior and me interior.  He realized that he needed to buy new ones because there was no saving what he had left.  My immediate thought was panic about spending money and also frustration because I only had so much time to finish the house and I wanted to get it done.  I agreed to go to the store with him after a lot of pushing because I knew my anxiety was triggered.  We went to the store and we spent a good amount of time going through the lights and I spent that entire visit focused on the money and trying to find the best deal.  We ended up with a decent compromise and drove home but I told him not to settle for something he didn’t want.  We each went back to our respective projects and after about 20 minutes, I heard him losing it again—there was a 5 foot section of light out in the middle of this 133 foot reel.  I realized then that he should have followed his instincts and I should have just relaxed and let him do his thing.  We ended up back at the store and having to go to another one.  So the process of fearing spending made us waste even more time.  The lesson is to let go of fear and trust instincts.

The next lesson is about relationships and realizing that I need to do better.  I’ve been struggling with getting gifts for the last few people on my list and while visiting some friends during their holiday set up, she shared some of the stuff she got this year.  I was blown away by how personal and detail oriented the gifts were.  This is someone I love to pieces but struggle with jealousy because she is incredibly confident, super smart, and very generous.  I saw the difference in what she did versus what I had and felt ashamed because I felt my focus was on how everything looked and checking off a list.  Seeing that difference in motivation, I understood I need to become a better listener/person and better at recognizing people and their needs.  While my friend can be high maintenance or even seem self-focused at all times, it was clear in her gift giving that she pays a lot of attention to the details of someone’s life and really learns who they are and what they like—she knows how to get to the personal part of someone and making them feel special, heard, and seen. 

I had a few revelations at that as well because my friend is always crystal clear on her needs and she isn’t afraid to ask for them no matter what.  She doesn’t worry about what others think or if it’s inconvenient to them (not in a rude way)— she knows how to recognize her needs and I think that allows her to understand other people’s needs as well.  She then takes the time to try and fulfill them to the best of her ability.  We were both really candid about our anxiety and she shared she doesn’t open up much to others.  I think her anxiety makes her extra alert to others because she is so keen on her feelings as well.  I tend to collapse into my fear—she refocuses her fear.  It makes her as impatient as I am, but she is highly aware and detail oriented.  Plus she makes different choices in how she spends her time.  She has the time to focus like that because she doesn’t commute every day, she doesn’t go to the store to do her shopping and she doesn’t have to cook or do laundry.  That leaves a lot of time to pay attention to others.  There is no judgement in that from me, but it does help level-set.  It guides me to how I want to be and where I need to shift my attention and my energy.  The goals are really about identifying what we need so we can identify the needs in others—not so we can look a certain way.  I’m grateful to be humbled and I’m grateful to have friends who show me other ways.  Now I have ways to see how I can fulfill my purpose without fearing who I am.  I can just be.

Today I am grateful for love.  My husband and I have been together over 22 years at this point. We’ve been through every up and down imaginable and we have made it together.  We’ve had friendships come and go, we’ve gotten incredibly close to people only to find out they weren’t who they said they were or that we simply weren’t on the same page.  Over the last couple of years, we are fortunate to have found what seems to be the right groove/group for us.  There is so much to be said for the safety that comes with having a core group of people around you that you can rely on and that you can support in return.  There is something to be said for the connection that comes from the rawness of who we are as we are.  Yes, it’s vulnerable and it can feel scary especially when you haven’t had many people you can trust like that, but when it finds you, it is the safest feeling in the world.  No matter what my husband and I have been through together, it’s nice to have outside support as well.  That type of love and care is a rare thing in this world and it isn’t something I take for granted.  Being seen and accepted only helps us all flourish and I am grateful to have people who help us do just that.

Today I am grateful for beauty and magic.  We had dinner with friends last night and it was an amazing experience.  As you can tell from my first section above, there was a ton of love in the air.  But beyond that, the atmosphere itself was pure magic.  Our friend is in love with Christmas—and I mean, in LOVE with Christmas.  The entire house is decked out in some of the most beautiful Christmas decorations I have ever seen.  I counted roughly 18 trees (all differently themed) decorated to the 10’s (totally surpassed the 9’s 😊), the garland, the lights, the nutcrackers, the entire ambiance was complete magic.  The time, effort, and care that went into preparing that house is unmatched—the joy and love of it was palpable.  It was literally breathtaking and an amazing reminder of the magic humans can create when they do what they love.  It was a privilege to witness it in person and a wonderful way to start the holiday festivities—good food, good friends, and a beautiful set up.      

Today I am grateful for understanding my faults.  I feel like I’ve received a reality check this week.  I spent so much time berating myself for things I’ve done in the past that I haven’t addressed where I’m at now.  I have this idea of who I want to be and what I want to do but I don’t take action because there is clearly something in me that refuses to let go of the past.  I continually tell myself this story of how unworthy I am and how I have to prove myself or that I can’t do things because I’ve been held back by others.  There is truth to that story (a lot of truth unfortunately) but it isn’t what’s happening now.  I’ve been so stuck in protecting an image that I haven’t addressed what I can do now.  I’ve often wrestled with ego because I have this weird relationship with myself where I’m simultaneously ashamed of who I am and demand love/attention/respect.  I’ve been reminded beautifully that in those moments, I have to direct my attention to someone else.  This isn’t to say I’m a narcissist or that I never pay attention to others, but my emotions and needs aren’t always at the forefront.  I have to trust that my needs will be met as well and that if I have the ability to help others, that needs to be the focus. Putting aside ego is a beautiful thing.  It strips away any “should” we have in relation to what we think it should be and forces us to address the moment.

Today I am grateful for personal responsibility and accountability.  With the exercises of putting aside ego, I’ve learned that personal responsibility and accountability are actionable things—and this is where real power lies.  Not that I didn’t know that and not that I haven’t spoken of it before, but the truth is it’s a vibrational thing with our actions.  That’s what needs to be put into practice.  We can say we have decided to do something but if we don’t do it, it won’t get done.  We can say we are a certain type of person but if we simply repeat patterns, we will get what we always got. We don’t need power over people, we don’t need people to see us or treat us a certain way to achieve our goals—we simply need to decide and be the person we decide to be.  Alignment is matching the action to the vibration.  We are creatures of habit and it can be difficult to put aside some of those habits, but it’s necessary if we are going to be something else.  That power is ours.

Today I am grateful for the pivot.  Maybe this is more about being grateful for things clicking in my mind.  I have been terrified to take big steps toward my goals because I know (or at least I think I know) it will mean a time of scrambling and trying to float until we get to the other side.  In my mind that looks like a time where we will be waiting for the security of what we know now to come through from a different source.  Having faith means being decisive and taking the leap regardless of what it looks like.  That behavior is how we get stuck between two places—what we know (familiar/routine) and what we want (purpose/fulfillment).  The only way to get what we want is to become the person who does those things.  We have to do what the person we want to become would do—not what we know.  We have to be ready to let go of what we know if we are going to move forward.  We can show our gratitude for that person getting us where we are today and then we can lovingly leave that version behind us.  We can’t carry all of that with us, we can only take the lesson.  When we pivot our thoughts/decisions, we pivot our entire life.   

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“The spirit tells us what we want and we need to honor that or we will constantly feel unfulfilled,” Paula Daly.  Humans have so many parts that create their being that we need to dive into how they function together.  Our spirit is what we are born with that tells us what we are meant to do.  It’s our purpose, our passion, our belief, our will, the things that call to us and that bring us joy.  Our character is the expression of that and the behaviors we consistently demonstrate.  We tend to wear many masks based on the circumstances and at any given time, we confuse the other parts of us.  We ignore what we feel in place of what we are told needs to be done. In some cases it’s absolutely necessary we do that, but when we constantly ignore the call to our purpose, we lose touch with our innate intuition/connection with spirit.  The bottom line is we need to give the spirit the attention it needs and listen to intuition. 

We can’t choose to focus on one set of needs and expect the others to go away.  Some people may feel like they can do that, but they end up frustrated and lost, or feeling unfulfilled.  We need to find the way to honor the entirety of what we need.  This is balance.  No one has done it perfectly, but there are ways to maintain our integrity that still serve everyone while honoring who we are and meeting our needs.  For those of us raised to meet other people’s needs first, this can be challenging because we were taught it’s selfish to ever focus on what we need over someone else’s needs.  It took me a long time to understand that if I don’t have the energy or capacity to help people because I’m feeling like crap, then I’m not doing any good for them anyway.  We can do so much more when we are fulfilled and happy.  A full cup runs over to help fill others’ cups. 

If we want to be able to help others through our goals, then we need to be able to honor the little voice we hear inside nudging us toward a particular action.  The call never goes away—the voice may get smaller and quieter, but it’s always there.  It needs to be heard.  I personally don’t want to go through life feeling like I’m missing something.  Through honoring who we are, we learn to honor others and we learn to identify the things that others need or identify their struggles.  The beautiful thing is if we know who we are and we can understand what others are going through, we are able to identify HOW we are able to help them.  Knowing ourselves helps us identify our super-powers, the gifts we have that others need and we readily have access to use for them.  Learn to quiet the mind and hear what needs to be fulfilled.  Honor where we are and believe that we can get so much further through meeting our needs so we can help others.  There will be nothing missing in our lives if we learn to honor who we are—and the outer expression will match the inner desire.         

This is a complicated one today.  Not that we haven’t discussed grace before, but I had some setbacks that I want to get into.  I have been doing really well as far as keeping my spirits high and believing in the signs knowing I’m on the right path.  In spite of that, I fell back into some habits that I’m not proud of due to anxiety.  I had been sick for a while with a bad case of bronchitis, so I hadn’t been out much for about three weeks and I certainly wasn’t drinking and I wasn’t eating to excess—I dropped about 15 pounds.  Once I was well enough, we were falling into Thanksgiving and my husband’s birthday celebration.  On Thanksgiving itself, I had a ton of anxiety being around two members of my family.  I picked up a beer.  I don’t know why, maybe it was just the habit or I was subconsciously trying to soothe myself, but I had a second one.  I didn’t eat much in spite of the feast, but those beers called to me.  A few days later at my husband’s birthday celebration/friendsgiving, I drank more.  Then I drank again the following weekend.  I started eating like crap again too—my husband sweetly surprised us with donuts and sugar is my ultimate weakness.  I only had half a day, but that was something I didn’t need.  I ate hot dogs and cheesy bread.  The anxiety only got worse (naturally).

Work held a few tense moments as well.  The entire leadership staff were berated by our president for a poor clinical survey.  My boss told me how unhappy she was with an incident that happened with myself and another employee.  I had to work with correcting an employee and the conversation was so all over the place I could barely manage my energy.  Being there sent me into several toxic thought patterns and old negative thoughts started popping in again.  I went to a friend’s house to drop something off only to find that their kid was sick.  I just finished steroids so my immunity is lower so I freaked out and I said outright that I can’t stay around her because I can’t get sick.  I felt terrible about it.  Why? They should have told me their kid was sick whether I was healthy or not, but especially knowing I had just gotten better and was compromised.  I shouldn’t feel guilty for not wanting to get sick again after being sick for almost a month. I’ve had fear thoughts about botching a deal I was working on because of a missed email.  It came up in my inbox as read 10 days ago and I didn’t respond to it.  I was furious—how could I miss such an amazing opportunity?   It was similar to the feeling that the other shoe was about to drop in spite of receiving AMAZING signs I was on the right path.  Why was I self-sabotaging when I had finally gotten to the point where I felt progress?  Initially it was subconscious but I came to the reality that subconsciously I still struggled with believing I was worth the good or that I could attain it.  That is a hard beast to slay.  I had been feeling so much overwhelm in general that my brain struggled to keep up and the conversations with family, friends, my boss all sent me reeling.  Then I started feeling angry, ashamed, and guilty because I was going back to old habits.           

So, where is the grace?  The grace is in calming down and refocusing.  The grace is in accepting my humanity and knowing that we all fall of the track sometimes.  Grace is in dealing with where I’m at right now because I can’t change what I did.  Grace is in remembering my own boundaries and goals and doing what is in alignment with that.  Grace is in stopping doing what doesn’t make sense to me and not feeling obligated because someone else expects me to.  Grace is in not feeling guilty for holding to those boundaries.  Grace is continuing to love myself especially when I don’t feel loveable right now.  Grace is taking the time to breathe when I want to jump out of my skin.  Grace is focusing on the task in front of me.  Grace is taking care of myself and knowing that is the path forward.  Grace is trusting that all will turn out exactly as its meant to with a positive outcome for all.  Grace is choosing to believe there are options even if it feels like things are falling apart.  Grace is putting one foot in front of the other when I feel like I can barely crawl.  Grace is knowing that I am worthy no matter what unfolds.  Grace is letting go of control and allowing things to come together.  Grace is there when we can’t be there for ourselves.

I had a humbling lesson in acceptance from some friends the other day.  We were invited to a tree lighting ceremony in a town about an hour from us and we ended up in two different spots.  Both of us thought the other was in the wrong spot at first and my initial reaction was annoyance because I thought we were in the wrong spot after a minute and we had just spent money on parking.  I let the fear take over and I got angry about wasting money and about not communicating clearly where we were supposed to meet.  I didn’t want it to be about control because the point is that we were supposed to meet at a certain place at a certain time and we weren’t together.  Plus we had never done it before so I was upset they weren’t more clear with us about where we were going.  At the end of the day, it all worked out—we realized they were in the wrong spot, we stayed where we were, and they found us and didn’t need to pay additionally for their parking.  The lesson: relax, listen, breathe and it all works out in the end. It became a lesson in flow as well as love.

There were other moments that weekend that it felt like things were just kind of out of sync with everyone.  I had a few days off this past week and my husband and I enjoyed some lunches together.  During the last lunch he got a call and was invited to a friend’s house—I told him to go.  Later I found out that the wives were there and never invited me.  I started getting insecure. I was aggravated by everyone everywhere.  Like, we did what we needed to do, but everything was so busy and people were insane in the stores and we couldn’t find everything we needed. We left the store my husband wanted to go to and my kid asked if we could go somewhere he wanted to—I didn’t think it was a big deal because we had time but my husband didn’t want to.  My kid ended up crying in the backseat silently and I didn’t see his face until we got all the way to the next location.  Right away I was pissed because it felt like a power play.  All of this combined led me to feel extremely off kilter and frustrated—and insecure.  I started questioning if people didn’t like me because they kept blowing me off or not including me and the emotions kind of got all over the place. 

 So with this I realized that I’m still a control freak, especially when it comes to time.  I hate it when things aren’t planned out.  Like basic things like if we are going to meet people somewhere—where are we going to meet?  What time?  What are we actually doing?  I mean we don’t need every detail to the second, but we are too old wasting our time figuring out what we are going to do that evening when we get together.  We have other people involved and I have always found it rude to make people struggle to connect.  I know there is value in going with whatever the scenario brings but there is a time and place when we need to lock down some details or what the expectation is.  That part isn’t unreasonable in my mind.  But I can’t expect people to get there the same way I do.  People don’t have the same reaction to finding each other.  They don’t have the same reaction I do to making people wait, or waiting in chaos.  I can’t expect them to feel the same way I do or understand how I feel if they view it differently.    

So here was my lesson in flow: I have to let people be who they are because there is a reason I love them.  I love them more than my annoyance at feeling confused/lost when we aren’t communicating well.  And that is the key: we need to communicate better.  This is a relationship I value and want to take care of so that is more important than getting upset that I wasn’t in full control.  I don’t want them to be who I think they should be, I love them as they are.  There is a lot in life that we can’t control and we have to learn to navigate through it—it’s easier to do that with support and help from friends.  I can’t isolate myself because people aren’t living up to some arbitrary expectation.  The people are important, not that their behavior is what I thought it would be.  We need relationships and people we can rely on and in order to keep them around, we need to accept them as they are. 

Following up on yesterday’s discussion on positive words and reframing, I want to dive deeper into the concept of fear and the use of that word—well, the context of the word.  Fear ranges from mild shock to low-level constant anxiety to outright phobias.  There are legitimate things to fear in this world as well, but I want to talk about the fears related to taking chances.  The fears related to our personal ability.  Lack of belief in our ability creates uncertainty and fear for our survival because we aren’t sure if we are going to make it. Our brains interpret “failure” or “imperfection” as a weakness and it triggers our survival response.  This is why some of the challenges we talked about yesterday can be so detrimental.  We stop ourselves from trying before we even start because of how we view a problem.  I know I hit the pause button on my life for a significant amount of time simply because I didn’t believe in my ability to succeed at any of my goals.  Then I read this quote (source unknown): “Don’t be scared to live, feel good about living with value, purpose and achieving goals.  Fear is doubt in our ability to create.”  Wow.

Fear isn’t just about survival, it’s about interpreting our survival.  Again, there are legitimate threats to safety and survival in this world so we all innately recognize real threats.  But our minds have this weird way of interpreting threats to ego as threats to our survival.  If we think we will fail at something, we have the same physiological response as if our lives were in danger.  This is important because it goes deeper into what survival means to us.  I’ve discussed the purpose of life being expansion previously and we expand when we create—so if we have doubt in our ability to create, we are doubting our ability to survive.  We also limit ourselves when we limit the joy we experience or when we limit how much life we experience.  If we are stuck on the “should” train (I should be doing x, or I should y) then we miss the opportunity to work on our own values, purpose, and goals.  We have to put down should and our inhibitions about what makes us feel good and do what makes us feel good.  That’s how we define our purpose, goals, and value—and how we find what we need to create.    

We spend so much time meeting other’s expectations that we lose sight of our own or we lose the belief that our own expectations are worth meeting before anyone else’s.  Not all of us are meant for the same thing.  Please look at my post about fish and flying.  The short version is we can’t judge fish by their ability to fly.  We need to honor who we are and understand that each of us has a unique purpose.  That is by design.  We were just never taught to embrace that because there were systems that benefitted from our lack of belief in self and played on our survival.  They fed us a carrot a day and said that was all we needed when we were meant to create a whole damn farm.  If we never learned to take care of our own needs, then we’d be reliant on a system to meet them for us.  Don’t get me wrong, there are benefits to having systems in place, but we can’t sacrifice who we are in order to participate.  There are other ways.  Some people swim, some people fly, some people walk—and each of those still gets us to our destination.  Some people’s destinations are different and that’s ok too.  We have to ask ourselves whether it matters if someone tells us we won’t make it where they’re going.  How can it matter if they’re going somewhere on an entirely different map than what you have?  Follow our own course.  Then we will see we weren’t ever creating what they were anyway—we were meant to create something else.  Lean into feeling good and living our lives by our books.  That’s when the magic unfolds and we feel more alive—and suddenly we aren’t just surviving, we are thriving.

I saw a post the other day from one of my team members talking about using positive words.  I’m pretty good at turning a phrase and I try to be as careful as I can with the language I use because I believe in the power of words.  In the post, the person talked about using positive words for challenges and get them out of our minds and into a reality where they are workable.  He suggested to write them down and work on a tangible way to solve the issue.  This applies especially if we are easily stressed or overwhelmed—and we tend to get easily stressed and overwhelmed when we carry it in our heads.  There’s two pieces to this: 1. The language we use with ourselves is important and 2. Seeing the issue written down allows us to see it in a different way.  90% of how we solve a problem is how we view the problem-and if we even consider it a problem.  Often we build up the issue in our heads more than what it is in reality.    

I am the first to admit that this takes work.  My brain moves so fast and so many of my old habits and emotions and responses are so engrained that they still come out before I make a conscious choice to believe/think/feel something different.  But when we allow that to continue to happen, we disempower ourselves because we become reactive rather than proactive or even responsive.  Being responsive requires a more methodical and thought out approach.  We can teach ourselves to use more empowering words—opportunity, allow us to grow.  I used to be afraid that once a thought happened it was destined, I couldn’t change it—that’s a lot of pressure for a thought, believing that everything we think will come true somehow.  But it isn’t true.  We are meant to manage our thoughts and minds and the beautiful part is that we are allowed to change our minds any time. 

A good way to stop these thoughts when they happen is to immediately write them down and determine if there is anything that can be done in the moment.  That also allows us to create a plan of action like I mentioned above.  Honestly sometimes literally seeing an issue in a different medium (written down instead of just thought) gives us a new perspective in itself.  It’s also empowering because we are creating actionable items and any action we take creates momentum.  It’s all about reframing and mindset.  We create our own opportunity with how we interpret a situation and how we talk to ourselves about it.  Keep speaking about challenges as opportunities and soon the opportunity will reveal itself.   

I mentioned a few weeks ago in my  Sunday gratitude post that I would follow up on the fear I had related to sharing my story.  It’s funny because I have some trepidation about even sharing the reasons why I’m afraid.  So much of this information I have held incredibly close to my chest for years—I can say that in some of these cases there is NO ONE else who knows about what happened or it is only one or two people.  Part of me feels like people won’t believe some of it.  Is it real if there was no one else around for it?  But I understand that is about people pleasing.  I don’t need to be concerned that my history is real enough for people to believe it happened.  I worried about reconciling my version of events with other people’s.  Will people challenge the parts they do know?  On the ego level, it’s entirely about what people will think of these stories.  I know some of the stories I share are absolutely going to shatter any “image” I may have had.  Not necessarily my reputation, but certainly the idea people had of me.  I don’t know why I want to protect such a fragile-constructed idea anyway.  It’s been so much effort to maintain it for as long as I have and it’s a relief to let it go.  Maybe the point is to shatter the idea of what people had about me.  We can only get to the truth of who we are if we share the truth of who we are—and that is part of the journey of life.

This process has been incredibly cathartic but the healing journey isn’t linear.  There are so many facets to the human condition and I really needed to evaluate the value in sharing the stories.  What good comes from telling the truth?  Will anyone be hurt by them?  We need to reconcile ego and spirit and find the balance in what serves—and make sure what we do serves a purpose.  In the process of sharing, I’ve learned that there comes a point where you can’t worry about the impact on other people.  In order to serve our purpose, we need to share what happened. I never wanted to justify who I was through telling every dirty detail but I did such a good job of portraying myself in a certain light that people stopped seeing me in any other way.  I blended so well they thought I was vanilla and they doubted my capability and capacity for nearly everything.  The weight of being who we are not becomes too much to take.  Working through some of these stories has helped me identify exactly where things went sideways or where my habits developed.  Some of it has sent me spinning back in time.  Regardless, getting these events out of my head has helped me gain perspective on what needs to stay where it was and how I can move forward with new resolve.

 At the end of the day I decided that telling this story is necessary and will bring more good than harm.  I needed it for my mental health as well as my soul and the more I wrote about everything, the better I felt—and the clearer the message I’m sharing became.  The ironic thing is, the night I started having panic attacks thinking about the “consequences” of sharing these stories, I had a dream that brought me some comfort.  It wasn’t a hugely profound dream, but it felt incredibly symbolic.  I dreamt about my grandparents, 3 out of 4 of them.  In general grandparents are a symbol of protection in dreams—I’ve never dreamt about all of my grandparents in one dream before.  It really felt like they were making their presence known for me and that they were together collectively to support me.  It felt like they were saying I would be protected in sharing this story.  There was a part of the dream where we were surrounded by leaks in this basement and based on the context it felt like they were saying so much of what I have to talk about was already showing at the seams, leaking out so it’s time to just pull off the band-aid and let it all out.  I know that may seem far fetched, but it was enough to bolster my courage.  If I want to talk about authenticity, then I need to be authentic.  I hope we can all be that free. 

Today I am grateful for second chances.  Soon I will share some stories from over the Thanksgiving week that sent me into a tizzy.  I’ve been coping with the aftermath of it and trying to bring myself back to center.  That is where the second chances come in.  As hard as it is for my control freak nature to accept that I can’t change someone’s opinion, that I can’t make them see where I’m at, that I can’t change what I’ve done (hindsight is 20/20), I know I have no say whatsoever in controlling the circumstances.  What is done, is done and I need to accept and deal with the situation as it is.  I can work on rectifying it and not making those choices again, I can work on keeping my focus where it needs to be at all times, but I can’t change what happened.  That’s really hard for me because I feel like I’ve lived a series of almosts.  I almost went way to school, I almost had two kids, I almost went for that job, I almost went on that trip.  Now I have an opportunity that I really want and I’m afraid that I screwed that up too.  I have no say in it and trusting that it will turn out is a huge challenge for me right now because I really want it.  But I have no other choice.  I put out the apology and took responsibility and I can only hope for the best—and believe in second chances.

Today I am grateful for second chances AND starting over.  We had a rough day yesterday with a lot of business and some (a LOT) of crabbiness about things not working the way we wanted/needed them to.  No, the universe doesn’t always work according to our plan, and no, it isn’t always meant to.  That doesn’t make it any less frustrating when you’re trying to do something really nice and it isn’t working out.  My husband, my son, and myself were all at odds yesterday for different reasons.  We were all working on the same thing but each of us had several moments when things failed and we realized we just couldn’t keep going.  There was clearly something telling us to stop.  I guess there are reasons for everything, but tensions were high nonetheless.  WE all needed a reset and a reminder to begin today with a better attitude and better humor.  It isn’t easy, but it will be ok.  We have a second chance to start today over and to do better.

Today I am grateful for belief.  My boss mentioned something about consistency the other day and I realized she was right.  I’m super consistent in some things and I go back and forth with others.  The things I waver on tend to be things I don’t truly enjoy doing—I can’t say I’m alone in that.  So I know with everything in me that we are meant to do the things we are called to do.  We are meant to follow exactly what feels right for us.  We are so engrained with what we are “supposed” to do, wishing for more time to do what we want to do, trying to fit it all in that we lose sight of the possibility that we can do something else and we don’t have to live how other people do.  This past week has been mentally chaotic and dealing with a lot of energy—my own anxiety, other’s anxiety, everyone’s frustrations—it’s been really hard to make heads or tails of what to do next.  So I’m choosing my own consistency and focusing on what calls.  I’m focusing on the dreams that I want to pursue and becoming the person who can achieve them.  I don’t need to live up to anyone else’s expectations but my own, no matter how disappointed they may be.  We get one life.  I’m not going to worry about upsetting someone else’s idea if it isn’t right for me.  I choose to focus on my path.

Today I am grateful for decisiveness.  I have honestly detested how I’ve felt over this last week.  I mentioned above the chaotic feelings, the guilt, the fear, the sensation of screwing it all up.  I know I can’t go on like that—constantly seeing the negative in what I’ve done and believing any mistake I make is the end of the world—or the end of my dream.  It’s hitting me hard that there is an opportunity I want and I really could have screwed it up.  I didn’t want to mess it up and it was completely a mistake—an email was literally marked as read so too much time passed.  But I have to decide to keep going no matter what and to refocus my energy.  That isn’t the only opportunity out there.  I have to decide that it will be ok no matter what.  I have to decide that there are other paths to this goal and that it will all unfold exactly how it was meant to in its own time.  I also appreciate that this is a choice and I need to accept what has happened.  Focusing my energy on what goes well will keep it that way.

Today I am grateful for consistent focus.  Having ADD/ADHD makes it really hard to focus even on a good day.  But working toward a goal, forgiving the little misses, and pushing forward will help keep us on the right track.  Patience is never easy—I found that I really need to keep moving on things because I don’t like sitting still.  There’s a lot to do in this world and I don’t want to waste more time hoping for things to happen.  Shifting focus and being useful and having fun doing things aligned with our purpose keep us moving toward the goal.  It’s still a fight because my brain forgets that I can’t do it all even if my heart WANTS to do it all—like right now.  But I slow down enough to remember that it all happens as it’s meant to and sometimes doing it all isn’t the goal.  We just need to remember to do what works that’s aligned with our goal and purpose, one step at a time, a little more every day.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“If you can’t get the growth where you are it’s time to pivot, embrace change, start a new path—carve it out.  Shift or change in a new direction,” Wild Lotus Tarot.  I want to add a brief caveat after yesterday’s piece.  I stand behind everything I said: I truly believe we can move mountains if we need to.  But I want to add the discretion factor—decide if the mountain is worth moving or if it’s easier to climb it or walk around it or walk away from it—and also know when something is beyond saving so we MUST walk away.  There are certain paths that are not ours and the ability to know which trail is ours is a key marker in our success, our emotional state, and our results.  So, if we aren’t seeing the growth we need, if we aren’t nourished and supported as we deserve (and we all deserve support), then we have a different question to answer. It’s no longer CAN I do it, but do I WANT to do it.  There are things in life that are not meant for us.  We aren’t meant to be everything to everyone at all times—we are meant to be ourselves and align with the magic we are.  This means that not every environment is healthy for us or will support our growth.

I spent years of my life hinging my worth on other people accepting me and being good at things.  I tried to fit into every environment I was in.  I wanted to be accepted everywhere I went.  All that did was keep me exactly where I was.  I couldn’t find the distinction between what made me happy, what gave me fuel and what was strictly for other people’s benefit.  When they were happy, I was happy.  But the truth is it was a lot of energy wasted because it was the constant changing of masks depending on where I was and who I was with.  It was exhausting.  There comes a time where we have to stop and evaluate what journey we want to take.  If where we are isn’t conducive to our growth then it may be time to consider moving on.  Now, if there is the possibility to get some sort of gratification or make a positive change by pushing the rock, then by all means, do it.  In some situations all that’s required is a little push.  Every other situation requires the other choices: climb, find another way, or walk away. 

Above all, remember that life is meant to encourage and promote growth.  No matter where we are, we desire growth on some level.  Life doesn’t care how that growth happens as long as it happens.  Don’t waste time wondering what could have been or wishing for something else.  Make a decision and do the work.  Make a decision and trust that you will get there.  Make a decision and know change is for the better.  Know that it’s ok to not know it all.  You can’t see the whole road at night but you can still get home by way of the headlights.  All we have to do is start and soon the direction reveals itself.  We find our way and soon enough we are blooming brighter than we have ever done before.  We find the full expression of who we are and there is no more mountain—we fly above it.