“The greater good is rarely outweighed by one’s self interest,” Howard Stark, Endgame.  There are so many gems in this movie and I wrote about one years ago spoken from Freya regarding failing at who we are “supposed” to be—that one always hits me no matter how many times I hear it because the simple truth is no one in this world is supposed to be anything other than who they are no matter what people pressure them into feeling.  When we review this quote from the Stark character, I consider the entire character arc of Tony Stark, going from complete narcissist to somewhere in between, knowing he needs to use his gifts for good.  Understanding how the world works and using it for personal gain and then turning that power into something that can help the world.  And here we have a line from his father talking about the lessening of the self to help the greater good—both wanted to help, each did it in their own way.  The ironic part of it, and something that I credit the Tony Stack character for is understanding that if we don’t know who we are and honor ourselves then we aren’t able to do the world a damn bit of good.  While our own interest can be detrimental to the world, sacrificing who we are is just as detrimental.  The latter is demonstrated by the Howard Stark character lost time with his family for helping others while Tony finds himself with his family—the last place he thought he would.

So how do we understand the greater good in this context?  We need to understand that while our personal interests can hurt the world if we don’t balance it with using those gifts, we need to know ourselves well enough to develop who we are so we can be of service.  This is essentially what I was writing about the other day when I spoke of God’s purpose for us. Our purpose was never meant for personal gain in spite of being OUR purpose.  That gift is meant to benefit as many people as possible—and that is true for all of us as we all have a gift that we need to develop and learn about and turn into something we can share with the world.  That isn’t to say that all of our gifts will have that kind of reach.  We need to remember the butterfly effect and the ripple effect and understand that, while some of our actions can seem small, those actions may impact someone else’s life to the point where they make the change the world is looking for.  We are all a web. 

So with that in mind, what would we do differently? What can we change moving forward? Would we go back if we could?  Live those moments differently?  Or do we learn to make peace with it and simply move forward as we are?  Stop pretending to be someone else, lost in a memory or regret.  Just be.  I find that as much as I wish to change what happened and make it what my version of right is, that we can’t do that.  So the desire to change what was becomes the catalyst and the opportunity to do something different and still effect change even if it wasn’t how we thought originally.  I don’t know all the answers, none of us do.  But I do know that there is some reason for everything and that we will find it eventually.  And even if we don’t (which I’m not saying will happen) I will take some solace in the fact that I can and did do the best I could while I am/was here.  That’s all I have control over—my actions and decisions here and now.  I will use that knowledge to make the best choices based on who I am and how I can do the most good.  That’s all we can do.

I want to continue briefly on yesterday’s discussion on our purpose.  Driving home from the Ren Faire today I had a weird feeling about how weird this world is in general.  How little point there is to any of it.  We were with this massive group of people all walking around this fake town from another time, some dressed up to the nth degree in high heat.  Why do we do this?  And that made me question why we do anything we do. Why do we work like we do?  Why do we choose the work we do?  Why do we modify our behavior around other people?  Why do we form the relationships we do?  Why do we believe we need to have our lives a certain way?  Why do we think we need to have achieved certain things by a certain time?  It’s so arbitrary, we can do anything, yet we choose to repeat patterns of those before us and what we have learned ourselves.  Perhaps it’s a safety thing because it always feels best to repeat what we know…But we have to start questioning what we are doing, how we feel about it, what the point is.  I feel that is a natural part of our existence here.

We start to evaluate what gives us love, peace, hope, drive…all of the things that seem to excite us.  We search for what makes us happy and seek to unite and alchemize all of our intricacies into one loving vibration.  We use our wisdom and make the transition to move all those parts into one so we become the master of something unique in our lives.  I’m not saying this to be morbid, but the truth is we are all going to die and we are all on this weird ride together, choosing to spend our energy in a certain way—when the truth is we can spend that energy any way we want.  Perhaps the existential moment I was having is more this: we don’t have to do anything that we are told to do, we don’t have to do anything the same way as anyone else.  It’s a risk, but in the end, it literally doesn’t matter.  We choose how we spend our time and energy.  We can choose again.  If there is no point and we all end up the same way, why waste any time stressing over what we do now.  I never spent enough time finding what made me truly happy—and that is the key to finding our way in this world.  Follow the desires, what feels good, and work on making it our own.  That’s where we find the answers we need. We don’t need the why-we need the resonance of what feels right.  That is our purpose.

We are God’s handiwork, created…to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.  Ephesians 2:10. Even using this verse, I want to be clear that I am not a religious person, although I am spiritual and I do study different religions to better understand different points of view.  This verse struck me because I had been wrestling with the idea that I’m wasting time trying to be something I’m not but I’m scared to spend the time discovering who that is and what my purpose is.  We all have a gift and we are meant to share it—that is our purpose on this Earth.  Don’t judge outward appearances, because no matter what people look like, we all have a purpose–just do the work we are meant to do.  I had written some goals earlier in the day and when I went to write about them and to start my study, the universe solidified and confirmed my message by sharing those verses with me.  We are here to share our light, to share our talent and gifts.  Sometimes we have to slow down to recognize what we really want to do and believe that our wants often align with our purpose—we need to follow them.

There are times we all question the validity of it all, the point of it all.  Certain things don’t make sense, we are power hungry and we use our power for personal gain rather than shifting the world so all can benefit.  There are times when our greatest effort yields nothing and we question what we are even doing here.  We can spend years repeating patterns and find ourselves on the precipice of giving up when we have that one moment of clarity.  And there are times we repeat the pattern.  But if we are attuned enough to what we feel then we can learn to turn toward what we really feel inside, and we can remember that we do have a purpose.  Not every day is going to feel good—it isn’t meant to.  Some days we need the lessons.  Some days we need encouragement and others we need to be the cheerleader.  Some days we need to lead and other days we need to retreat.  But each day, each person, each moment has a purpose.  So if we ever struggle to remember what that is for us, then we need to breathe and find a way to reconnect with who we are—because that shows us all we need to know.  We just need to trust it and remember we are here for a reason.

Today I am grateful for not being grateful.  This is not my usual path, and truthfully not something I am going to continue to explore but I know what I am feeling in this moment and it’s something that needs to be shared.  The last 6 weeks, without question, have been some of the most difficult of my life.  On the outside, anyone could easily say that it isn’t that bad, that it’s all ok, that we all go through things like this.  Perhaps I really am emotionally weak and my threshold for pain/sadness is lower than others.  Regardless, I know the weight I’ve been carrying has simply been too much.  Normally I choose to be grateful no matter what—even if it takes me a minute I find my way back to being grateful.  But I’ve had moments over the last few weeks where I’m looking at the patterns in my life, the things I attract, the doors that have been closed, and I am overwhelmed.  The universe tests us by doing nothing at all or having it all happen at once—and right now it is all happening at once.  Dealing with relationship, financial, career, family, health, future planning, life in general.  While I am not unique in dealing with any of this, I have to admit that there are some things we can’t simply push through and pretend are ok.  Sometimes they truly just aren’t ok—and we don’t need to be grateful for that.  We need to understand it and in this moment I understand that there are things I need to do for myself and that we have different decisions to make to move forward.  For that I am grateful.  But I know many of the plates are about to fall down and there isn’t a thing I can do to stop it.  Sometimes, regardless of how we feel or what makes sense, or how hard we try, things simply need to fall.

Today I am grateful for clarity.  I need to work on boundaries and I’ve been scared to do that because I didn’t want to end up alone.  I wanted people to like me so it was easier to shove down what I wanted and my real thoughts than it was to express myself.  I’m grateful for the clarity that there were additional ways I was people pleasing and it’s time to stop it. When we spend our time pleasing others to our own neglect, we end up hurting ourselves and others.  We hurt ourselves because we aren’t expressing our truth and we hurt others because we aren’t able to show up for them fully.  When we are with people and feel that something isn’t right, then we need to acknowledge that rather than try to make ourselves fit the mold.  As I said above, sometimes there are things that simply need to break and no matter how careful we are with them, they will break.  So the clarity I am grateful for isn’t just about the boundaries, it’s about being ok with who we are and showing up as we are.  It’s ok to let those who only want us around because we say yes go.  It’s ok to be the one who walks away.  It’s ok to be clear on our worth and allow the things that need to break away to be mourned, but appreciated for revealing the truth of what’s underneath.

Today I am grateful for the bumps.  Given the course of the last few weeks, and the fact that I’ve learned to be ok with not being grateful for everything, I find myself surprised to say this.  I mentioned the other day that life feels like a cheese grater right now.  Things that are meant to happen flow, things that are meant to come into our lives enter with ease.  And these last few weeks have been a test of resolve in a way that I’ve never experienced.  But I’m grateful for some of these bumps because it’s helping me see what I don’t want.  It’s helping me be ok with shedding and allowing what I don’t need to fall away.  It’s helping me see what I need in my life, and while that isn’t the same as clarity on what I DO want and bringing it in, it’s at least a step toward defining that vision.  It’s helping me be comfortable with allowing things I held onto so tight before, the things I thought I couldn’t live without, go.  It’s terrifying letting go of what used to define us.  At least it is for me.  But I know with 100% certainty that I am not able to control the outcome of these things, and doing so is like trying to hold onto smoke.  Some things we just have to let go because it hurts more to try and keep it than it does to release. 

Today I am grateful for the push.  So the issues I’m facing are no closer to being resolved and on some level I am ok with that.  This isn’t a pity party, this isn’t me crying “Woe is me,”.  Again, I am very well aware that what’s happening is well within the scope of human experience and I am not the first, nor will I be the last to feel this way.  But I do see that this is giving me a push.  As unclear as the direction is, the idea that I am no table to stay where I’m it is 100% clear.  I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know that this is pushing toward something else.  I have to trust it as much as I DON’T trust it.  So, I talk a lot about this leap and that isn’t the issue.  The issue is letting go of what I know in favor of the void.  It’s not like, “Oh, I’m jumping in and going to take my chance,” it’s, “I can’t even see the pool and I have no clue if there’s even water down there.”  But we have no choice but to leap or stay.  It’s a choice we make.

Today I am grateful for the pause.  I understand with the utmost clarity that I have been pushing too hard in nearly every aspect of my life.  I’ve always been afraid that if I don’t push then nothing will happen.  If I don’t work incessantly that I won’t get what I want.  It’s always been a game of proving, something deeply rooted in me since I was a child.  There was no such thing as inherent worth—and while it wasn’t so cutting as to SAY you weren’t worthy, it was always pointed out that someone was doing it better.  There was always the question of, “You think you can do that?  I could never do that,” or even the outright, “You think you’re enough for him?”.  All of those questions, fears I already wrestled with myself, were the realization of those things I already felt inside.  So I picked up and did all I could, did it for people, did it better than most, hid the praise, felt shame over what I accomplished, and proceeded to do more and more so I would be justified in what I got.  But the message the universe received was that I wasn’t good enough and I would always have to work harder than anyone, that I needed more approval from everyone in order to be worthy.  And it drowned me.  The problem with doing more is that there is always more to do.  So now I pause, and I practice allowing the thoughts to come to me so I can recognize what is for me.

Today I am grateful for the rain.  It’s pouring as I type this, and as I think about the pause, I realize that the weather is indicative of what I’m feeling.  Right now it’s a time for nourishing and growth, to sit inside and heal, to cleanse, to release.  I have choices to make, and I am blessed to have the ability to make those choices, to have the options I do.  It’s time to stop choosing them all, and rest assured that I don’t have to do it all to be worthy of what I want.  I can recharge, and restore, and enjoy more. I can have fun.  So I am grateful for this little reminder to find peace inside, and it’s ok to retreat for the moment.  But tomorrow we stand and face the sun again—and if it’s still dark, we create our own light.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.  

Worries can’t add a single moment to your life.  If worry can’t do the little things, then it certainly can’t do the big things.  So relax, trust, focus, and follow through.  The mind is incredibly powerful, yet left unattended, it will bring us to places that serve no purpose for us. It can bring us to places that will stop us in our tracks or distract us from staying on the right track.  The mind will turn to worry in times of uncertainty, yes, as a primitive response, but we are able to discern what truly is a worry in this day and age.  We can decide what is a threat and what isn’t because the threats aren’t the same as they were before.  Our job is to train our minds to focus on what is important in the moment.  To make decisions based on what we know where we are with what is happening.  We also have the gift of foresight and intention and we can direct our thoughts and energy where we want to go.

Knowing that we have the power of discernment, we can decide what is good or bad for us.  What creates needless worry and what is productive energy.  So many of us act from a place of caution and trying to make sure things turn out exactly as we plan because we expect a certain result.  This is control and the universe does not respond to control.  It responds to flow.  The natural instinct is to want to fix and make things happen and sometimes we aren’t able to do that.  Sometimes we have to move onto something else and allow things to take their natural course in life.  All we can do is flip all the puzzle pieces over so we can see what we are working with, trust they are all there, trust they will all fall into place—more importantly that they all fit so they CAN fall into place. 

Once we learn to accept that there are times that things don’t make sense in the process of it, we can accept that they always come together how they are supposed to.  We need to do our part and allow the rest to play their part as well.  Worry is an unproductive waste of time and creates unnecessary stress.  Things are destined to be a certain way and they will happen no matter what we do.  So instead of working on changing the course of something beyond our control, work on aligning with and understanding the flow.  Learning the twists and turns, anticipating the shifts in speed and course.  As a person with control issues myself, I know how difficult this is.  But the truth is we can’t alter anything anyone else does.  We can’t stop the inevitable.  So learn to dance in the uncertainty and trust that all will come to be as it is meant to.        

“You are going to fail.  That is not a negative thing.  Learn from what you did and if you fail again at least you are one step closer to getting it right,” unknown.  This wasn’t attributed to anyone, it was just on my calendar but I loved the quote.  Unless we sit in that pristine box for our entire lives, failure is inevitable at some point.  We have this concept that failure is a bad thing that is one of the hardest hurdles to get over.  No one likes to fail. No one likes to be seen struggling.  There are very real reasons for that still sitting in our reptilian brain, the survival mechanisms that tell us we are going to die if we are exposed, that one mistake can mean we are eaten alive.  Shifting from the idea that a mistake can kill us to a mistake isn’t the end of the world is hard.  And don’t get me wrong, I understand very clearly there are certain mistakes we can make today that are still going to kill us. So the shift needs to happen in discerning the importance of the failure and the risk.  Those situations that have potential harm need to be reconsidered while those that are merely embarrassing aren’t so important.

As I said, unless we spend our lives in a box we are going to fail at some point.  It doesn’t mean it’s fun to fail.  It means we are human.  It’s part of our process.  We are meant to give into the things that call to us because they lead us to our purpose and passion.  That doesn’t mean it will all be smooth sailing.  No, there will always be some rough seas because we need to learn to navigate the waters of our lives.  When things are too smooth we only know how to drive when it’s perfect.  The weather can change at any time and we need to know how to adapt.  Something I never wanted to admit was that my life was pretty smooth because I was afraid to take chances on the things I really wanted to do.  I never thought I would succeed at any of it.  I never learned how to navigate disappointment because I went for what I knew I could do.  Not that I didn’t enjoy those things, but the things that really lit me up often took a back burner because I was afraid to admit I wanted it or I was afraid I couldn’t get it.  I thought failure meant fail forever, not learn and try again.        

“Don’t look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just Dance,” Anne Lamott.  I’ve often been confused by the idea of someone deciding that one way was THE way.  The idea that we need to compete in things that are meant to be unique to us and flow from the soul, and that something we hear in the soul is somehow wrong.  Everyone will have an opinion on something at some point but we have the ultimate say in continuing on our path or not.  We get to decide what is right for us.  We allow ourselves to get in the way if we start telling ourselves the story of comparison and that the only way something can be good is if we do it the same way it was always done.  The greatest pieces of art come when we are fully in tune with who we are.  We hear something that is meant only for us and we create something that we are meant to, and we act on it to bring it to life.  That isn’t something we get from doing what we are told—that is something we get from going out and learning the steps ourselves.  It doesn’t matter if our steps look a little different from everyone else.  They are meant to look different.

Just as no one can tell us what to do, no one can tell us what to feel.  We are the only ones who know what we feel and what feels right.  We are the only ones who know when we are ready to move forward.  Many of us make the mistake of thinking things need to look or feel a certain way to move forward when all we need is the belief that it’s the right thing to do.  Waiting for things to be perfect is a stall tactic and I am all to familiar with that.  If we wait for perfection we will never move.  I told the story about these specific pens I really liked that I was saving to use for a special time.  It never came and I ended up having to throw those pens out because they dried up.  I just found some lens wipes that I’ve had because I was saving them thinking I couldn’t get more, and they are all dried up as well.  We don’t want to let the well of our creativity and our emotion and the possibilities we all have dry up because we are waiting for the right time.  Now is the right time because it is the only time we have.  Take every precious moment we have with those we love and do the things we love.  There isn’t a right way—there is only the way that calls to us.  That is the way that is right for us, and that is all that matters.

“There is nothing anyone can say that is going to make you do the things that you know you should be doing,” Bishoi Khella.  We need to determine what that “should” is.  I watched a fascinating live the other day where one of the coaches asked the question about what we think the problem is with ourselves.  She didn’t want the circumstance, she wanted the participants to actively say what was wrong.  So she didn’t want to hear, “I tell myself x,y,z,” she wanted to hear, “I’m too afraid to move forward on this because I don’t think I can.”  Her responses were totally unorthodox and not something I’ve experienced with a coach.  When she heard the perceived issue she would reply with, “Then you can’t do it.  You’re a loser who can’t do it.”  I bristled for the first 5 minutes of this thing because it sounded horrific and I knew that if I were paying for something like that I’d be pissed.  I think there were several people thinking along the same way because she wasn’t getting the questions as she wanted them, and she eventually clarified: “This is what you’re telling yourself.  I’m just mirroring what you say to yourself.”  And then the concept of the mirror shifted for me.

We can’t sit there telling ourselves that we can’t figure it out and expect the universe to deliver the answers wrapped in a neat little package for us.  Mind work is tough and requires focus and patience and clarity and dedication.  It means cutting out all of the extraneous junk and really getting down to the core of it and keeping disciplined enough to stay on track.  No one outside of ourselves is going to be able to tell us what to do and how to do it.  We have to decide what to do, we have to decide to change the stories, we have to decide we want to feel differently and actually do something about it.  If we tell ourselves we can’t do it, the universe is going to show us that we can’t do it in spite of what anyone else says—in fact it will probably put people who tell us we can’t do it in our paths.  We can’t rely on people to tell us what we should be doing if there is something that calls to us alone. We have to want it enough to actually follow through.  We have to want to redefine who we are and where we are going and then actually do it.  Even a pep talk from someone else won’t help because it is only fulfilling a temporary need.  We must be able to carry the torch ourselves and do what we need to do to change that story.  We have the answers, we just need to sit long enough to hear them and then be brave enough to follow through on them.        

We were at a birthday party for a friend and neighbor the other night and I had the opportunity to hang out in a way I haven’t before.  I tend to get really socially awkward and that makes me judge people because I feel like I’m being judged.  I put them on a pedestal and I realized that night that we are all just people.  It was a really nice reminder of confidence—something I always preach about but still severely lack myself.  I learned a lot about one of my neighbors, someone I’ve been next to for 3 years at this point and had never really hung out with on a personal level.  There is a common theme amongst my neighbors of a different kind of hardship than I have faced.  They’ve dealt with teen pregnancy, bad relationships, money struggles, all of it.  Some of it in the same vein as I’m dealing with it and some of it worse.  And the other common theme is that all of them are still here and they are doing REALLY well for themselves.  I have no shame in admitting they are doing far better than we are in a lot of regards.  But they say that we attract the energy we give off so if I am able to attract these people who have overcome and succeeded at a level I want to be at, then that means I am capable of the same thing as well. 

Now, during the course of this party, what I realized is that there is no longer room for this control freak, perfectionist streak that I’ve been battling for so long.  It’s time for it to be killed—not phased out, but absolutely destroyed.  It serves nothing for me or my dreams, for anyone around me, or for those I want to help in the future.  I realized that the same message I have professed for so long needs to be deeply indoctrinated in me and practiced: it isn’t about being perfect, it’s about being perfectly me.  That is where the confidence really comes in.  I stress over things falling apart because I’m so afraid I can’t rely on myself (or others) to put it back together.  I need to rely on myself and decide and commit and execute and follow through.  I need to give into joy and WHO I am.  Not recklessly, but completely.  It’s only in giving over ourselves, not to whims, but true calls of purpose that we develop confidence, security, and knowledge of who we are.  We can’t, I can’t be afraid of who I am.  My choices ARE my story (the same for anyone)—I don’t need to be the main character for everyone else.  I need to be the main character for me and I need to be consistently and completely me. 

We meet new people for a reason, we are called to do things for a reason, even if we don’t understand it initially.  Don’t be afraid to follow that if it is something that doesn’t go away.  Meet new people, do new things.  Unite with others instead of dividing over differences.  Learn.  Spend time with people.  In being inclusive of others, that fear of being excluded goes away. Stop distracting ourselves with all of the should, must, have, to-dos.  Pick a lane, have some fun, and do what is right for us.  It’s ok to have fun.  We need to have fun.  Stop putting so much pressure on things and just love life as it is, experience it as it is right now.  Complete, full acceptance.  Again, complete acceptance, but not reckless acceptance (we don’t need to keep those habits that hurt us or others) will keep us on the path meant for us and show us our strengths and remind us of what we are capable of.  We are all the bosses of our lives and the owners of our paths.  Don’t be afraid of it.  Enjoy it. The themes that return to our lives have lessons for us and they pop up when we least expect it.  Sometimes it’s a reading.  Sometimes it’s a kid’s birthday party.