Today I am grateful for turning the mirror to myself.  It has been a hellish week as far as my relationship goes and I literally couldn’t pin it down.  The fights and the responses felt entirely different than before, and I felt completely off center with what to do, waiting in this limbo for an answer.  And I felt something happen, a realization.  We all have a part to play.  A few years ago I wrote about my role in our problems with the understanding that I had a part in where we are at too.  I understood it but I don’t think I fully incorporated it.  I still acted from ego and defensively.  All this time I thought I was getting what I was owed, not realizing how much our behavior was pushing the other away.  I can’t say I was the start of it but the truth is even that doesn’t matter.  I drew a card the other day about the difficult relationships being a mirror for us to look at our own behavior.  I knew I wasn’t perfect but I guess I didn’t want to acknowledge how what I was doing impacted us—and may have had the greater impact in the long run.  All for the sake of attention, control, and a nasty defense mechanism, I completely ignored the actual work of self-improvement, constantly trying to be this or that or do this or that instead of just fucking being.  I am so sorry. 

Today I am grateful for second chances.  While I don’t know if those chances can apply to all of my relationships (and I hope they do), I know I at least have a second chance with myself.  My intention was never to blow up my life to learn these lessons and I am so fucking sorry for all the collateral damage my ego caused, the stress I put people under, the over-sensitivity.  But if I can start over now, I can at least be grateful for the fact that I can start over.  I never wanted to be a selfish asshole, I just wanted to protect myself.  I can stop trying and just be.  I’ve always known that life isn’t perfect, I’ve witnessed the imperfections of life since I was four.  My background, while it wasn’t unfortunate by any means, allowed for needing attention and searching for my place at a desperate level.  I carried that with me for so much longer than I should have and I rested in every hurt and injustice and slight and jab and I let it turn me into a monster.  I don’t want to be that, and the beauty of this, no matter how it turns out, is that it is a chance to try again.  I don’t get to decide how this looks now, but I know it’s a new start.  I am no victim, I was part of everything that happened.  Now I find the middle ground and start again.     

Today I am grateful for light.  No matter how things feel we always have the light.  For a while there I literally was angry at myself for ever having hope.  I see it was a drama and trauma pattern—it’s easy to be the victim if “everything” is always going wrong and if “nothing” ever turns out how it’s supposed to.  As if life is supposed to be any other way than what it is.  Feeling like everything I’ve gone for, everything I’ve tried to achieve has been a giant stop sign, and that I’ve been a fool to keep chasing the carrot on something that didn’t exist.  But even in that darkest place, I have to realize that there is still a spark.  It felt like it was gone, completely blocked out, but there is a bit of light left.  That tiniest bit of hope.  The difference is this time, instead of putting it under glass and hoping it ignites, I have to let it breathe and be open and hope that it bursts into life again. 

Today I am grateful for the memories.  Life throws us some curve balls and I spent a lot of time hating them.  Hating the fact that I couldn’t control what happened next, feeling like I got knocked in the head by the pitch more often than I hit it—and my hits didn’t go too far.  Taking away the drama of it and looking at the past objectively, that latter part is pretty accurate.  I got tired of trying in the big game because it was exhausting thinking I could compete, that I could get what I wanted, and never getting there.  I settled.  But in all this bullshit, somewhere between the history I created and the truth of it, I see that there were some beautiful moments.  Times that weren’t bullshit.  That there is something that may have been real, good, lovely.  We sat around the fire last night listening to our wedding songs (nostalgic and melodramatic in a way no one realized because they don’t know what’s happening in this house) and my heart immediately welled up thinking of my wedding.  The song we chose discussing the vulnerability of showing ourselves fully to each other and knowing we had each other’s back, that we loved all of who we were, that love was enough to show us to ourselves.  I don’t want to think that memory was bullshit.  I hope it meant the same to him.  But the truth is, even if he didn’t feel the same in that moment, I’m going to keep that one for myself.     

Today I am grateful for surrender.  This is one of the most terrifying places I’ve been in my life.  I find myself shaking every day, my heart pounding incessantly—no drama on this one, it’s real.  The entirety of my future is about to change and I know this is no longer something I can adjust the sails on to bring back to the course I know.  This is deeper waters than I’m used to.  I’m terrified as I said.  But the positive of this is, perhaps for the first time in over 20 years, this isn’t about me, and it’s demonstrating where I need to change.  The spots I’ve avoided in my life until now need to be addressed fully and head on.  Address the pain head on.  Because again, no drama, this one hurts deeper than I’ve ever experienced before.  It’s like trying to hold onto smoke—you can’t do it but you have to try because there is something there that needs to be contained.  All you can do is let it go otherwise you drive yourself absolutely insane.  Let the final grains fall through the hourglass and wait.  Let it go.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

Prince Ea: A reminder of the tools of the devil.  The most powerful tool the devil has is self-doubt.  I wrote a piece on this years ago and I think it’s timely to discuss it again.  There is so much uncertainty in the world right now.  Given the current circumstances and how this society functions, we are led to believe that we are failing, that there isn’t enough, that somehow these imaginary games in these systems we created are what sustains us.  We separate further and further from what we need to thrive, convincing ourselves that what we do on a daily basis will somehow help us survive.  We think that survival is about protecting the ego and how well we do, often in things we don’t even care about.  We play this game forgetting it is indeed a game.  We created the rules, we bend the rules if we have enough money/power/clout in the situation.  But we never discuss how the majority are set up to not even be able to enter the game. 

Throughout the entirety of this world and this universe, we really can’t believe that there is any one right way to do something.  There are infinite possibilities because there are infinite existences out there.  But when we plant the seed of doubt, we never learn to trust our own instincts and we lose the connection with who we are, the very thing we needed so we could develop and sustain ourselves.  Doubt can be so powerful we won’t even plant the seed.  Or if we finally gain the courage to plant the seed, we stop tending it.  We don’t nurture it and then berate it if it doesn’t become what we thought it should be. Or we shrug it off as something inevitable, like we didn’t have the time to honor it and address the dreams.  Doubt is the easy ticket for the devil because he doesn’t have to do a damn thing.  We will talk ourselves out of taking action just because we are on a bit of shaky ground and haven’t developed the sea legs yet.

The only way to defeat this tool is to never pick it up.  Never allow ourselves to be tempted by it.  Never allow ourselves to believe it, and we do that by ignoring the shoulds and guilt and fear we are trained to believe is normal from the time we are kids.  It may feel uncomfortable following our own drum at times, but we are meant to do just that.  Doubt is used by people to make us feel like we don’t have the answers and that our time is better spent serving their purpose because they have the answers.  Don’t buy into it.  It can be scary to know that we will fail, sometimes often, and that it may be one of the only ways to succeed.  Success does not come without risk.  Success isn’t always clean.  Success isn’t always easy.  It’s simple and it will flow—but it still takes work and effort until we can get the machine flowing.  Don’t let self-doubt be one of the tools we use in the creation of that machine.  Don’t let it stop us.     

We are clearly on a theme this week and that is a strong reminder and encouragement to take responsibility for our reality.  Plan our lives and, more importantly, act on those plans.  Decide what to do and actually do it.  Learn from it and try again until we start seeing the results of what we want unfolding.  Make the choice to do what we want and follow through with it until we are so capable of following our instincts that we no longer seek outside validation or permission.  We simply know who we are and we embrace that and live according to our purpose.  While researching some business opportunities I came across a quote from Sam Rossi: “Everything happens because of us.  We have average experiences because we are average people.  Like a record player, we will never hear different music if we keep playing the same records.  The version we are being is a collection of the habitual things we say and do.  That’s why life feels the same every day.” 

I understood the laws of vibration and energy and frequency even if I wasn’t very careful or consistent with my own, but, if I’m honest, I never understood it in terms of that type of story.  Ironic considering I talk about the stories we tell ourselves all the time.  It’s funny how sometimes we need to hear things in just a slightly different way for it to click.  The universe can only respond to what we put out, whether vibrationally or with action—and it can only believe what we feel and what we act on.  There is no right or wrong when it comes to creating our reality—it merely needs to be authentic and aligned with who we are.  And in order for it to work, it also needs to be aligned with what we say we want.  I used the example before that if we want to go to Bali and buy a ticket to Florida, we aren’t going to get where we want to go.  We can want and feel something with all of our souls but until we follow through on it, we will be right where we are.  If we play the same song over and over again, just like if we tell ourselves the same story, we will only ever hear and do the same things.  The rut will become deep and grooved and harder to get out of.  That doesn’t mean we can’t do it, but the effort changes.

If something doesn’t feel right then we have to change it.  I spent last evening with some friends and neighbors and I learned something new specifically related to this concept of making decisions in our lives: we are who we are and we can have a lot more fun if we simply embrace and accept that.  We get a lot further by being aligned and taking actions on who we are than we do trying to be something else.  Perfection is irrelevant and boring.  It can look pretty, sure, but you spend more time trying to keep pretty whole rather than making it functional.  We don’t need to destroy the pretty thing—we need to destroy the box it comes in so it can do what it is meant to do.  Change the record.  Decide to take a new action.  Decide to feel another way.  Decide to honor who we are and what we love and be honest about it.  See what magic unfolds when we act on the plans we make rather than talking about it.  We are the only ones responsible for what happens in our lives so if we don’t like what is happening, ask what we are telling ourselves and what we are choosing to allow.  Then choose differently.

“The reality you experience depends on the decisions you’re making in every moment.  So to change your reality you need to get better at deciding and doing not planning and dreaming.  Stop waiting for life to happen to you.  You are an infinite creator.  There is nothing you need to seek nothing you need to wait for.  No one to anoint you with the power you think you need. You already have it.  You’re always creating your reality from the expansive now.  Stop seeking a future that will never come.  All that exists is this moment.  The choice is yours. What do you want to create?” Via Rea Earth.  This is an amazing follow up to our discussion on presence from Richard the other day—our lives are the culmination of our thoughts and actions based on the decisions we make.  No one’s reality is the same, not even those who are experiencing and present for the same thing.  How we feel about the circumstance determines how we react and often our bodies will make that decision for us. 

It has taken me a long time to understand the complexity in the simplicity of that statement and to understand how hard it really was for me—and why I hated it so much.  For something that in fact IS that simple, it is not easy.  The notion that we can control our thoughts was always an abstract idea for me.  My thoughts always felt beyond my control, like they just flowed in as they wanted to and I had no choice but to take the ride—often angry and emotional.  I never thought that a thought was something I could select.  The first notion of that concept (outside of controlling the mind in general) was from Liz Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love.  While frustrated that her thoughts are rampant during meditation, her friend tells her to choose her thoughts like she chooses her clothes—and it gave me a new question: Can we choose our thoughts like that?  It wasn’t a matter of telling myself this is what I had to do, it was a question of if it was even possible.  I hadn’t considered a thought could be a decision.

We spend a lot of our time accepting the idea that our reality needs to be based off of decisions we made when we were 18.  We also accept the idea that we are unable to change our reality without a lot of effort and struggle.  I still struggle with the idea that shifting everything can be as simple as shifting a choice.  The point we need to really focus on is the second and third lines of the quote: to change your reality you need to get better at deciding and doing not planning and dreaming—Stop waiting for life to happen to you.  The most insidious lie we are told is that we have limited options, rather that we all only have the same options when we all feel a different calling.  We are taught to ignore the very instincts that we are born with, insinuating we are wrong from the time we arrive here.  We are taught and groomed to think and behave a certain way and it can be hard to break free of that.

Hearing the clip from Rea Earth reminded me very clearly that we have a say in this existence, in fact, we are responsible for it.  Sometimes the world is simply waiting for us to decide and take actions in the direction of that decision.  It isn’t a matter of permission—it’s a matter of giving ourselves permission to receive.  And receive is a verb—I spoke about that while back.  It doesn’t mean having a package neatly delivered in our laps and then we keep it locked up.  No.  To Receive means to take that gift and apply all the magic we have to it, to use it, to develop it, to share it.  We can create an unbelievable reality with following that vision of the thing that calls to us.  We won’t find that following the same patter we were told to follow or even doing the same thing every day.  Sometimes we have to make a different choice and we open up the doors to a different possibility. 

Ed Mylett; what would you do if you knew you had one more week left?  Mylett was interviewed by Lewis Howes and he discussed seeing Kobe Bryant the week before he died and how he thought about what he would prioritize in his life if he knew he had such limited time left—here are some brief points: “Hug those you love, spend more time with those you love.  Get it (the relationship) right.  Whoever matters to you make it right.  You have one day left?  When we begin to think of our lives that way we realize the power of one more moment, one more minute.  Why would we spend that minute in history.  We think that everyone else is going to die.  They think that they will get around to getting happy, they keep their lives in the distance until there are no more days,”.  We are so accustomed to complaining about our lives, acting like we have no say in how we spend our time, living in distraction, that we think happiness is some future goal we can attain.  We lose the concept and sight of the fact that all we have is now and that happiness is something we emanate, a state of being, not something we achieve or that can be taken away from us. 

The truth of the matter is that we never know how much time is left and our time will eventually run out. There are no exceptions to this rule.  With that in mind, why would we ever feel we can or should postpone our happiness?  Why would we ever feel we could or should postpone anything?  The game we play is either buying into this altruistic sense of sacrifice/martyrdom or allowing ourselves to drown in self-indulgence on some level.  Time is the most precious thing and we have total control over how we spend that time.  It doesn’t matter how much we have, we need to understand that we are all capable of doing our best with that time.  I see how quickly time goes, how fast my son is growing up, and I know that I still haven’t gotten to the point I want to be at so I am free to be with him how I want to be.  How much longer do I have to waste waiting for someone else to make a decision for me on how I spend my time, on giving me permission to be with those I love?  I don’t want to find out.  I want to create the most I can with the time I have, I want to live my life exactly how I want to—and it’s terrifying because there are no guarantees on anything.  The only thing guaranteed is that if we don’t go for what we want, we will NEVER get it.

So the things that don’t work for me anymore, as uncomfortable as it is thinking of the worst case scenario, I know it is far better off to let that go rather than sit and hope it turns into something it isn’t.  Even if I see the possibility, time is too short to gamble on a possibility.  There comes a point when we have to know to walk away.  There comes a point when we have to know to go all in.  We will never see the outcome 100% or know with that degree of certainty how things will turn out.  We aren’t meant to.  We are meant to trust our instincts and know that everything is turning out exactly how it is meant to.  We are meant to understand that our relationships are more valuable than our bank accounts and that those of us blessed with good fortune can help others to get on their feet as well.  We are meant to know that we are capable of doing anything and that we are all worthy.  We are meant to find our purpose and share it, not judge and create a hierarchy of worth and power based on material things.  Time goes quickly and we never know when that final moment will be so don’t postpone our lives hoping for something more.  Spend our time creating what we can to the best of our ability and spending time in presence.  Get it right.   

I saw a brief clip the other day talking about bringing back the hippie mentality; grounding, forest bathing, psychedelics.  Hippies weren’t crazy.  We have such a different mentality now than we did even 20 years ago, let alone nearly 60 years ago at this point.  What always attracted me to the hippie movement was the idea that they wanted to enforce change and they felt it could be done in a different way.  They saw that things were wrong and they addressed it—this was a group that didn’t remain silent regardless of what it did to them.  I can see where some people of the time felt like it was a waste or like this group of seemingly unkempt and wild people didn’t know what they were talking about—after all no one had really seen people like that before.  Plus the contrast between those who had taken a mellow approach to life and the very real, very scary things that were happening at the time created confusion.  How do you address such volatile and politicized things where lives can be at stake when people are under the influence of some kind? 

In spite of all that, there is very real merit to some of those methods and it all comes down to intention.  Understanding that we are all working toward the same goal is key because that shows we recognize the issue.  From there we can work on reaching a common ground for resolution.  The other part of this is that was way ahead of its time was the idea that connecting with the Earth would provide and heal.  The idea of human industrialization is fascinating because it produced technologies and advances that wouldn’t have come otherwise and we absolutely learned about using power in a different way—simultaneously making life easier and more challenging (that’s a different piece).  But what happened during that time was the loss of some of our more basic skills—like using the Earth to provide and heal.  The more we advanced, the more we forgot the basics.  Thankfully not all was lost, but we certainly categorized the “old” ways differently and lost our trust in what naturally came from the Earth.

If we were all to get together and discuss the idea that we have a need for advancement and slowing down, we may see the opportunity to make that middle ground a real thing.  Sometimes we have to look at how fast we are going and ask if that is the best thing.  There are tools, medicines, resources, and skills that can very much take care of us and heal and even advance us in a better way than what we currently allow.  We can remove politics and commerce from the idea that people need to afford basic things like health care to survive and we can show people how to take care of themselves again until medical intervention needs to take place.  We can teach our kids about things that matter like the value of people versus the value of money and we can allow them to explore the things that raise their curiosity rather than forcing them to all digest and believe the same way.  We can promote a more fair and just way of life that’s inclusive rather than idolatrizing the things we create and buy at the expense of human energy.  We can learn to connect with ourselves again and at this stage in the game, that is one of the most advanced practices we can offer.  

“Judgement is someone saying to carry their suitcase.  Pain is like dodgeball.  Take that ball of pain they feel and throw it.  Being a crappy human will never make you a happy human. So when someone is judging you they are saying here is my suitcase of everything I’m miserable about (life circumstances, choices) take it.  DON’T take it.  We make choices about our lives based on a suitcase that was never ours to carry.  We started believing those lies and we are still carrying it.  PUT IT DOWN.  We all have our own suitcases of things we belong to us.  As far as our own stuff, don’t hand it t someone thinking it will help.  Start unpacking it.  Open up the suitcases.” Kristina Kuzmic. This is similar thinking to a piece I wrote weeks ago about Loren Ridinger’s quote on baggage we carry that isn’t even ours.  The way our society functions today is largely based on judgement of ourselves projected onto others.  This is twofold: the first step we need to take is to determine what is ours and what isn’t ours.  That requires the work of unpacking.  Then it requires the work of leaving behind what isn’t ours. 

Judgement does nothing for us beyond project those things that are inside of us.  We are triggered by others because we are dealing with something similar ourselves.  The truth is that Everyone has stuff.  That’s a capital Everyone. Sitting with what weighs us down is uncomfortable and it can be tricky to understand how to unpack it and decide if we need to let it go.  Anything that keeps us where we are, anything that holds us back, needs to be let go.  We can lovingly be grateful for it and let it go or we can address it head on and do what we need to do so we never have to carry that baggage again.  Imagine if instead of burdening others with things that don’t serve them we simply took the time to help them unpack their suitcase.  That doesn’t mean we are unpacking it to stay with us or to move it to our suitcase.  No. Sometimes we are helping others bury it in the ground.  Imagine we do this for everyone, for each other.  The world would loo a lot different if we took the time to look at what people carry with them and if we take the time to understand why.  Not that its our job to understand every person’s motives, but in doing that we learn to handle our own baggage as well.

For as much work as it takes to get through the idea of our suitcases, there is an incredibly simple fix: don’t pick up the suitcases and don’t let the suitcases hold us back.  I look forward to a time when I can teach my son to never fill the suitcase of fear in the first place.  Never fill the suitcase of doubt.  Never let the dreams be crushed by the extra stones we are trying to fit in a bag that we feel we need to carry because someone else told us we did or they carried it themselves.  The world doesn’t have to work like that anymore.  The invention of propriety and the way things “should” be was to keep people chained, to keep them under control.  The invention of guilt was to exert power and create a false sense of worth on a scale where we would be easily manipulated into proving something.  There is nothing to be ashamed of if we have picked up some baggage over the years.  There is no reason to feel bad about the human experience and navigating how to handle that.  There is also no reason to pick up anyone else’s baggage either.  Let’s help each other stay a while and do the work to feel comfortable in our own skin. 

Today I am grateful for time together with those who matter.  My father is currently experiencing a major health issue and it has been emotionally draining waiting to make sense of the answers.  We have all the results but we haven’t had many people tell us what they mean and what next steps are.  Some seem to treat it quite lackadaisically frankly and it has put a strain on all of us, my siblings, my mother, my father.  But what it has also done is brought us together to work on solving a common problem.  I literally watched my father’s blood pressure drop when we were all together.  Rallying around someone during their time of need is so important and it is so good for their mental health and their overall improvement.  Attacking any problem is the same.  Go for the problem, not for the person.  We haven’t been this unified in our efforts probably ever.  But now we come together to collectively find a solution and heal together, and to heal my father physically.  It’s been a beautiful experience and, as scary as it has been, as tumultuous as the road ahead may still be, I feel comforted knowing that we are all doing this together.  That we are all in this together.  That we are all capable of addressing this as a team.  I’m grateful for the reminder that we are still family in spite of our differences and how far apart we are, how much we try to do it all on our own.  I am grateful to have this time to remember what we love about one another.

Today I am grateful for understanding what lies in my hands.  I’ve allowed myself to be confused for a long time.  I started and stopped a million things, I started too many things at the same time, I gave up with the most insignificant of setbacks, I let my awkwardness and insecurities get in the way of my own advancement.  I let all of those things stop me from making a decision about what to do and, even if I managed to get that far, I let it stop me from following through on it.  I see very clearly now that doing all the things at once isn’t going to work for me any longer.  I enjoy the work I do and the end result of all those goals is toward the same thing—but the problem is I’m allowing myself to get close and then let it stop.  I have too many pots boiling at once and some things are undercooked, some are too gummy, some haven’t been hot enough, and some boiled out and dried up.  So what lies in my hands is the entirety of my goals.  All the things I intend on doing and want to do don’t rely on more movement and effort.  They rely on me making focused effort and completing the damn thing.  No one said I couldn’t achieve all of those goals—I just can’t live all of them at the same time.  My days, yet again, need to look a little different than they normally do.  It’s about the focus. 

Today I am grateful for some changes in perspective.  There are certain things about my relationships with people that have always been a sticking point, a particular pattern I followed that I understand I need to break now.  All of my relationships started off with the idea that I constantly please people in order to bring them into my life.  Make them like me at all costs.  Then I would become that yes-person and do whatever they said—and it would be fun for a while.  They would reciprocate a little and help me manage some of my things.  Then that would start to dwindle and I’d start to get aggravated and feel a little pushed.  Then I would feel a lot pushed and then steamrolled.  I’d end up blowing up at the person or just not talking to them again.  Now I understand that this is MY pattern and I need to stop it.  I used to be so afraid of being alone, doing what ever anyone wanted of me so I could have them in my life, that I never took the time to find me.  I’d adapt to the next person and the next person.  Now I see that 1. Being alone isn’t the worst thing if people really don’t respect me and 2. Taking the time to find myself will help me find the people who accept me for who I am, not what I give them.  I don’t need to harbor anger toward people when I sent mixed messages in the first place.  Follow through and be who I am meant to be and let those who can’t accept that fall away.  It’s ok.   

Today I am grateful for peeling away the extraneous.  I lived my life in the vague, gray, area for too long, and as I said above, I created confusion for myself.  As I work through prioritizing what’s next, I understand that it hasn’t been healthy holding on to so much.  I packed too much in, and as grateful as I am to have those experiences and resources available, it has been overload trying to carry all that around all the time.  I’m talking about mental and physical clutter, the self-created confusion and the daily routine of saying that I don’t understand and don’t have time when all I need to do is find some focus.  It sometimes takes a major life event for us to prioritize what really matters and stop telling ourselves a story—and then to change that story into one of empowerment and application of purpose.  The extraneous distraction is a waste of time and we should all be grateful to cut out anything that takes our precious time away from us.

Today I am grateful for humility and boundaries.  I’ve struggled with navigating some family dynamics during my father’s health issues.  Some of the frustration is related to ego and some is related to genuine anger at not being understood and disregarded at 40 years old.  I’m the youngest but I have been in healthcare for 20 years, and while I’m not clinical, I do have a very solid knowledge base around healthcare and treatment plans.  I also know my facility and basic rules about visiting patients etc.  While I don’t begrudge my family being involved in any way, I struggle with the implication that because I am the youngest I would need to defer to them for anything or that I would somehow need to find permission to be included.  This isn’t to say that my family doesn’t have valid points in their questions and concerns, I just have a different focus on the treatment and goals of the discussion with the team.  I am grateful to let that go and simply be myself, stand my ground, enter the room like I need to be there, and ask the questions that are appropriate regardless of who is with me.  I know that I don’t know it all.  I know that I don’t want propriety over my father—but I know that I need to be in there and speak up as well and that I do not need to let them talk over me and my knowledge at any time.  I meant to be in the room—and so are they.  We can do this together and get the best outcome for my father. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“All [life] goes up and down and you can’t bat 1000 all the time,” Attributed to Julie Andrews on my calendar.  The interesting thing is right after I saw the calendar, I came upon a post from Steven Pressfield about the long view.  We do the work we are meant to do and not everything is a winner every time.  We have to learn the lessons and move on and we accept the responsibility for our learning process.  He even used the example of Bob Dylan occasionally putting out a bad album or Derek Jeter going down swinging.  We aren’t meant to win all the time.  We are meant to develop and learn and part of that is taking the time to see the point of the lows.  To understand that a single low doesn’t mean that we aren’t meant to have what we are seeking or that it will always be a struggle.  I shared with my son the other day the quote about falling 7 times and standing up 8.  We can’t look at all of those hiccups as dark nights of the soul—sometimes they are simply hiccups.  Not all is forsaken.  And even if there were facets of what we did that prove to be a waste of time, we still learned how to improve for next time. 

I know the perfectionist in me cringes at that concept and I often say to myself: I’ve wasted enough time in my life, every action means something.  The truth is that mindset is limiting and it puts unnecessary pressure on our role in the grand scheme of things—which we won’t ever really know anyway.  If we can learn to role with the punches, find joy, find presence, and ease into the moment, all will flow and make sense as it is. I know I have a tendency to make all my life hinge on these specific moments (like getting an answer on a job) instead of taking the time to decide what I actually want and focusing on that.  Scattered attention makes for scattered results.  We waste more time throwing darts at a target than practicing a specific aim.  The point in all that is it’s ok if things aren’t always in high season.  We aren’t meant to operate like that anyway.  We all need rest and time to incorporate and bloom again.  Take the long view.  Accept the idea that there is a point for everything, a reason for everything, a season for everything.  Sometimes that downward trajectory is building momentum for the next climb which is even greater than the last.