I have a toxic trait of seeing the best in people and believing they are already that way.  I don’t understand how they don’t see the need to operate at their best already and I believe they already see their best and want to be that.  I also tend to think they ARE their best already and if they aren’t at full function, they just need to let that out.  What I had to learn is that just because I see that capability, that doesn’t mean they ARE that.  It also doesn’t mean that because I see a specific potential and see them in their highest light that they want to be that.  No one will ever be what you see in them unless they feel that they are that version themselves.  People have infinite potential but they only live up to how they feel and view themselves.  That’s the real reason why energy, frequency, and vibration are so important.  We can never be more than what we feel about ourselves.  We can never accomplish more in our lives than what we believe, see, think, feel, or conceptualize as our reality.  Also, their definition of their best and highest potential may be different than mine.  They may not understand the possibilities I see for them or be aware of possibilities that exist.

Seeing the good in people who rarely display it themselves isn’t necessarily a bad thing because it shows confidence in their abilities, confidence in humanity that there are infinite possibilities for people. It can even give those people who aren’t so sure of themselves the boost they need to go for their best, to raise the bar.  It becomes toxic when that vision becomes expectation on the other person’s part (my part).  People don’t have to live up to our expectations even if they are the best intentioned expectations.  It can also be toxic for the person with expectations because it’s easy to become a martyr when making the choice to stick around with someone who consistently uses the hope of the best to bail out of responsibility for making poor decisions consciously.  It isn’t right to hold someone up to our expectations just as it isn’t right to take advantage of someone’s belief and drag them along. 

For years I thought seeing the best in people and holding them to a higher standard was a good thing.  I thought it meant I was showing them I believed in them, that I trusted we could accomplish whatever goal we set together—and more importantly that I believed they could accomplish any goal they set for themselves.  Truly that was my intent—I wanted to show them I knew they could do anything they wanted to.  Instead it came across as being haughty and judgmental.  And what I’m realizing now is that I can hold myself to those standards, I can have that belief in myself, and for those who don’t want to operate at that level, I can let them go.  For those that don’t have the same goals or outlook on possibility, they will live up to their own goals and values.  Sometimes people don’t need a martyr, they just need someone to see them for who they are and that is enough to unlock their potential.  Others will never live up to what they can be but in either scenario, it isn’t up to me or anyone else what that level is supposed to be.  Sometimes people are only there to fill the potential of the relationship in that moment and we are meant to move on.  We all change and evolve but we can’t make people change how we want them to, no matter how positive it may be.

Today I am grateful for road trips.  My sister found information on a really cool book store we had never heard of and we decided to go look at it.  The store is 3 hours from where we live so we made plans to make a day of it.  The entire trip down and up was filled with laughter and stories and confessions and truth, and unpacking layers of things we’ve been experiencing together as we step up into the next role as leads of our entire family.  Unpacking the layers of what happened in the course of our lives, and getting different perspective on the conclusions we had come to years ago, seeing it a bit differently now.  The simple joy of talking and actually being heard, of seeing how similar we still are, understanding how much our brains function in the same illogical, magical, creative way.  Then there was the store.  Now truth be told there was no way to know what we were going to walk into (there never really is) so I had no expectations, I just wanted a day with my sister, I wanted to feel presence with someone for the first time in a long time.  We arrived at the store and it was sensory overload at first—the decorations, the aisles and piles of books stretched everywhere, the smells, the cat crying as we walked around.  Then the visceral experience of touching history and the nostalgia of the things we had when we were kids, the emotion tied to it from our experience and the residual emotion of previous owners—we felt like treasure hunters and had a blast exploring this massive supply of books and having time to discover the gems on the shelves.  But the real magic is that sometimes you find the treasure of what you’re looking for in the shelves, but we always know the real treasure is understanding the connection and the depth of what you actually have sitting right next to you. There is nothing like that connection.

Today I am grateful for relationships.  Every relationship is different.  I tend to get caught up in expecting things to be a certain way because I have trauma around connection and I also have a million things I’m trying to balance so I try to keep my life easy by planning out what needs to get done.  Lately there have been some shifts in relationships in my life.  The way I used to ask for permission at work no longer fits what I’m trying to do—I have to go for my goals.  Things I used to do with certain people are no longer fun, no longer interesting to me—I don’t want to waste time doing things I no longer love.  I don’t want to pass judgement because these people are still important in my life, but the things we used to do and how we used to spend our time don’t bring joy to me like they used to, they don’t make me feel connection like I used to.  It doesn’t mean I want these people out of my life, but it does mean that the nature of who we are together is changing. It also means I have different priorities now.  Relationships need to grow and evolve as we grow and evolve otherwise they become chains—the comfort, the repetition, the nuances all start to hold us back rather than propel us forward.  I am super grateful for the people in my life because we all support each other in some way—but I am also grateful to realize what is now a hindrance rather than actual support.  I am grateful to decide what needs to be done in my own life rather than wait for them to tell me what to do.  Many of them got used to the latter behavior and now have an issue when I do the former.  And now I really don’t care if that bothers people.  I can be grateful and still realize when enough is enough and it’s time to move on, when things have outgrown their purpose, their welcome.  The heart knows when it is no longer welcome either.  Best to not let it suffer under either circumstance—it needs freedom.

Today I am grateful for better understanding of my boundaries.  This part is a bit tricky because it goes back to my relationship with my husband, which, while rocky at many points, has been relatively smooth lately.  I have a new appreciation for him on some levels and increased frustration on others.  I’m fully understanding that there are absolutely things we have outgrown together, and there are things I’ve outgrown that still root him to the spot.  While my sister and I were on the little road trip—keeping in mind I haven’t been out with anyone besides my husband and son in over a year—I had been somewhat hopeful that he might take care of a few things that needed attention in our home and I told him that prior to leaving.  When I got home I found he had been with the neighbors all day.  I’d been gone for nearly 12 hours and he’d been working on something with them which I found out after the fact was going to cost him money.  He was gone so long that he wasn’t feeding the animals until I got home and the dog had relieved herself in the house.  Truthfully I was furious.  He was drunk, my house was a mess, and he’s out with the neighbors and done nothing for our house.  I calmly explained to him I wish he would give our own home the same attention he gave the neighbor’s and their projects.  My heart ached as I realized how low a priority his own family is at times.  Dealing with my Aunt’s house, he balked and got irritated at having to help for one day for less than 5 hours but the neighbors get together and he can do whatever they want for 15 hours—he didn’t get home until after 11pm—and then expect sympathy for his aches/pains.  Relationships are give and take and I’m tired of having to beg for what he so easily gives to everyone else.  I’m tired of accepting lower and lower standards and making more allowances.  I am grateful to accept what I actually need and not feel ashamed for it and for knowing these are things I shouldn’t have to ask for. 

Today I am grateful for advancing. While it feels like some parts of my life are on hold, some are on repeat, some are stuck, there are most certainly parts that are moving forward with leaps and bounds.  I have a creative project that was accepted and now has become a priority for me.  I have made advances at my 9-5 in that I’ve been waiting on for nearly a year—one I’ve been waiting on for nearly 6 years.  I spent much of my life feeling like a failure because things weren’t coming to fruition, or things kept stopping and starting—and there are times I still feel that way because I’m still waiting for certain things.  But it doesn’t take away from the advances happening now.  These are opportunities that could be missed wallowing in the questions of why didn’t it happen sooner—so honor them now.  It still feels good to experience the joy of success now, and the more minor success is celebrated, the more we open the doors for the big success.  We never know with 100% certainty when things will come together—it’s like watching the flowers bloom.  They don’t open until they are ready, and when they are ready, they show the most beautiful display.  It doesn’t matter they didn’t open yesterday, they are beautiful now.  The timing of it doesn’t detract from their beauty any more than it should detract from the beauty of our blooms.  Progress feels good, and it happens when it is meant to.

Today I am grateful for hope.  I struggle with hope because it so often felt like chasing the carrot.  It’s like a drug.  When things show a glimmer of possibility, it’s easy to get sucked in and make the image of the future huge, or make our lives contingent on one result because we have hope that the one moment will unlock the rest like some magic key to the floodgates of happiness and joy—so we keep finding ways to hope things will change, that things will get better, that what we want will appear.  But when we find real connection, when we find means to have fun again, when we find the courage to firmly declare what we want, and when we finally see the results of what we’ve been working for, it is in those moments that hope shines brightest.  It’s when hope is the most important because hope, in those cases, is the guiding light we need.  Some say hope is most important when things are darkest because we need that glimmer of light—and it is.  But hope is more important in those moments when we are in the middle of the journey and we can’t quite see the results of the work and we are seconds away from giving up and then suddenly we see a pin hole of light that says, “YES! This way, it’s right here!”.  Hope isn’t the magic key, it’s the key to the next step.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“I realized that I hadn’t found my PCP but I had found my primary care server.  Sometimes the best caregivers aren’t the people with the fancy titles, they’re just the people who care. Who even on the worst day can make you feel seen and heard.  Sometimes a cold drink and a less tippy glass are just what the doctor ordered,” Zach Anner.  Help doesn’t always come from who we expect it to.  Help doesn’t always look like we think it will.  Anner shared the story of going to his physician asking for a particular thing he needed and the physician not only dismissed his need but degraded him.  Anner was discouraged but took it in stride, in humor.  He then shared how going to his favorite restaurant gave him the realization that help comes in unexpected forms from unexpected people.  One thing we can all connect on is that we’ve all felt alone at some point.  We’ve all felt discouraged and misunderstood and isolated.  And for all of our sake’s, I’m hoping we’ve had the alternate experience where we found someone who made us feel heard in the most unexpected way.

These days it seems ever more evident that we aren’t able to rely on the systems we used to, or the people.  The effort we put in doesn’t yield the same results anymore so everyone is questioning what to do and what everything means.  They are asking what’s worth it. But what they are also realizing is that our worth isn’t determined by our effort, it’s determined by our existence and our character, and it’s our responsibility to reshape these broken systems, those filled with people who are supposed to help us and no longer do, the systems meant to support us that now drain us.  It’s up to us to become the primary care for each other and work together to make things right again.  We’ve operated under the premise that a system will save us and function the same for all, that a prescribed method of living in order to be successful/fulfilled will function the same for all of us.  Sometimes all that’s required is to listen to one another.  We each carry wisdom that benefits all of us, and we only discover it when we open up to each other—not necessarily when we seek it out. Sometimes the very thing we avoid gives us what we need.   

It’s been a theme of my life over the last two weeks that we don’t always get what we want but we certainly get what we need.  I’ve been waiting all this year for resolution on certain foundational items in my life: will my relationship sink or swim, will I get the job that could elevate my family without much strain, will this illness around me abate and will they all survive, will I figure out how to follow through on what I need to?  With all of those things up in the air, I felt much like Anner described where straightforward questions/needs were posed and I had to fight to get even the most basic of answers.  And I faced loss repeatedly.  The job didn’t pan out, I lost my cat, I nearly lost my father, I lost my Aunt entirely unexpectedly.  But I’ve gained the opportunity to do something I really enjoy, I’ve gained a creative opportunity, we took in two other animals that needed help, my father understands the importance of relationships differently, and my husband is pulling himself together.  So, I never needed the system or the idea of the perfect life I had in mind.  I just needed to let life flow.  There are bumps no matter what we do and we can only go with it.  No matter what we keep going—and if we pay attention, we will see that exactly what we need has fallen right into our laps.

“Even This I get to experience,” Norman Lear. Ryan Reynolds shared this quote at the passing of a friend and colleague.  I realize I’ve been working through some of the darker moments of life over the last couple of years—starting a business, the status of my relationship, life and death, deciding where my power lies and what to do with it.  This year in particular dealt some rather heavy and nasty hands—facing mortality and witnessing the wins and losses that come with that.  I spent a lot of time on the precipice, the cusp, wondering what was going to happen next, waiting for the decision to teeter over onto one side or the other.  Life lived in limbo is not living, and as painful as the decision either way could be, at least it is a decision, there is clarity.  When we look at life and wonder about all of those moments that make a life, we can spend a lot of time questioning things.  Like we talked about yesterday, there is magic in people who are able to pivot, able to accept, able to flow.  Perhaps there is something different in their chemistry or in their makeup that makes them see things differently, because the best I can figure is that how we experience moments of pain and disappointment prepare us for how we understand and experience joy—and life as a whole. 

Do we determine the quality of a life, whether it is good or bad, based on those experiences?  Or do we learn to understand that it’s simply life, all neutral, and we assign the meaning to it?  Do we learn to not take things personally and learn to fill our role without pretense or the desire to get anything else?  There are shitty moments mixed in with all the good and, no matter how painful or frustrating, I have to believe that even those come with a reason.  All of life is an adventure and we never know when our time is up.  So we can lament the upcoming losses and challenges we will face or we can learn to pivot with them, or we can simply understand that those things are going to happen no matter what so all we have to do is allow them.  No one wants the shitty moments—and I find myself questioning the reason for many of those shitty moments often—but there are some things that we need to trust are exactly as they are for whatever reason.

I don’t claim to be at peace with anything that has happened over the last two years—if I’m honest, I’m not really at peace with much that has happened over the last two decades.  But what I do understand is that nothing on the outside will give me peace in these moments—it’s up to me to find peace in it.  It’s up to us to define what we learn from even those tough times.  It doesn’t have to take those moments of life and death to point out what is important, we are able to change that perspective every time.  But it never fails that those who are on that line waiting for things to fall to one side or the other see things the most clear.  Reynolds said of his friend’s experience, “And if anyone reading this knows someone parked at the intersection of life and death, you know it’s hard for them to see anything but life.  When the light at the end of the tunnel probably isn’t a cure, I think people see more clearly—focusing on the stuff that really matters.”  So instead of lamenting what goes wrong, understand that, “Even This we get to experience,” and be grateful for the opportunity to live and make life what we want it. 

“There is magic in people who take redirection or even rejection as a message to slow down and reset and aim higher.  I think it’s hard for us to wrap our minds around the fact that maybe the reason we didn’t get what we wanted is that we were made for way more,” JB Copeland.  Keeping present through even the toughest of times requires a special mindset.  We’ve all experienced the happiness, the adrenaline, the thrill of getting to the point where we think we are getting exactly what we want only to have it fall apart.  No amount of confidence eases the sting of not getting what we wanted, especially when we thought we were so close to getting it.  But there are people who can pivot/rebound quickly and understand that even though it’s a tough blow, it isn’t the end of the world and there are still opportunities to create something else.  They don’t get stuck on the no.  They look for ways to keep the fountain flowing.  Seeing messages like that, understanding there isn’t anything personal happening is a special gift.  These people understand the bigger picture and that life is working for them, they just need to decide and operate in their capacity. 

A no doesn’t mean that we are broken, or that we are doing something wrong.  It doesn’t mean that we need to stop the flow of life until things are exactly in the right place at the right time exactly as we pictured it. We talked about the fountain yesterday and in keeping perspective the day before, and that sometimes means we need to find another way.  The human spirit is resilient and amazing and the soul has infinite capacity to do many things.  Sometimes what we want may feel like all we need but there is something greater trying to make its way to us and it doesn’t want us to settle.  We have to learn to trust, to find the magic in those moments and go with it.  Some people are never afforded the opportunity to pivot, and when we are faced with scenarios that remove our options, we can feel caged and angry, or we can look around and asses our situation.  The truth is, sometimes there are no good answers or options.  We are simply stuck.  That doesn’t mean it’s permanent, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a way out.  It means we have to wait until we have enough information about the situation to understand what we need to do…and then to do it.

One of the hardest things to understand is that life isn’t personal.  It’s completely contradictory to a lot of what I’ve shared, so stay with me.  We all have a place in this life and we all have a purpose.  Yes, it is our place and our purpose, but that has a bigger impact and role in the plan of the universe.  It isn’t about personal gain and satisfaction, it’s about our ability to fulfill our role for the bigger picture.  When we are told no, it isn’t because we are good or bad, it’s because that particular thing may not have been meant for us.  Yes, it’s frustrating, but when we detach from the outcome or the desire for things, it’s easier to see that it has nothing to do with us.  We aren’t here to get every single thing we wanted, we are here to serve a purpose.  If those things we want help serve our purpose then we can align and receive it.  If they aren’t meant for us and won’t help us along the way toward what we want, then it won’t happen.  Frustrating—yes.  The end of the world—no.  When we are redirected by a no, we are given the opportunity to see other possibilities.  That’s where the magic comes in.  The universe wants us to play and create, and sometimes we can see what we are capable of only if what is extraneous and not meant for us is taken away.  So the next time we are told no, be grateful and consider what possibility we have next. 

I came across a reel that caught my eye from Rainn Wilson—as the seasons change we all need a little reminder on how to recognize and cope with mental health struggles.  He sat in front of a algae filled, broken fountain and talked about the metaphor involved.  “How many times have you felt like a broken fountain?  It is life giving, it is resurrecting, it is nourishing, it represents God’s bounty.  It is cleansing.  When in mental health struggles we are a broken fountain.  The water (source) becomes dingy and green.  What do you do to begin giving forth that precious water of life?” Rainn Wilson.  When we are struggling with emotion or other things that make us feel out of control, we put a choke hold on life and create the stagnancy, the algae, the suffocating feeling of not being able to move.  We stop the flow of our abundance and life into our being because we are saying we need to be a certain way in order to make the fountain work.  When we feel broken and weak, we need to get close to the fountain again.  We need to make sure the fountain isn’t clogged. 

What struck me about this post is that the fountain is also indicative of flow in general—not just as it relates to our mental health, but to our overall health and how we live on a daily basis.  When we sit still we tend to stagnate.  We feel frustration and anger and disappointment and restlessness, and all of those things alone can lead to mental health struggles.  When we are not promoting the right environment for our overall well-being, it all suffers.  This can start with little things like spending too much time behind our desks doing things we don’t love, and then spread into settling, then into agreeing to do things we don’t love—and soon we are living our lives on someone else’s terms.  When we can’t move, when we aren’t actively in source, we become heavy with unnecessary muck and gunk and that adds to the mental health struggles.  Learning to recognize when we need to unclog, when we need to move is the epitome of seeing happiness in the ugliness—it’s how we take our power and use it, it’s keeping perspective and knowing we aren’t alone.  We need to remember that what makes us unique can (and should) be used for the good and that is where the real living is. 

We’ve spoken of mindset and flow and the natural rhythm of things over the last few days in particular, and this is another indicator that we need to be in a state of flow because as soon as we block ourselves, we suffocate the truth inside of us, the feelings we have for our passions.  The path becomes cloudy and murky and we lose the wind in our sails.  Sometimes we aren’t even aware that we are creating our own fog and confusion, that we’ve muddied the waters with our constant churning and trying to move, when all we had to do was settle for a minute so the waters cleared and we can see which way we need to go.  Life isn’t easy as we face the constant pressures of needing to do and prove and tying our value to things and productivity.  That’s where we get stuck: when we aren’t living up to society’s idea of what we should be doing or what makes us successful.  We feel disappointment in ourselves and our lives.  When we connect with source that’s a big dose of perspective and reality.  Clear the blockage whether it is emotional or physical, and reconnect with what keeps us in a state of connected flow.  Give what we are able to and turn that energy all the way on, allow the fountain of life to flow completely and that fountain, that source will never stop again.    

No matter how imperfect I am at it, I spend much of my focus on mindset and sharing the knowledge I have of the subject, my successes and failures, and my hope that people are better able to focus on how they want to think and feel versus have their emotions and lives dictated for them.  I whole-heartedly believe we have spent too much time receiving input on what is important to us rather than learning how to discern and feel what is actually important to us.  We are fed narratives about what happiness is and what success looks and feels like, and what we need to achieve to hit either of those markers.  But we spend little time discussing the importance of peace, of value, of time well spent, and the power that comes from knowing/honoring/believing in ourselves and our abilities and even less time working on connection and understanding the similarities in humanity.  We have misconstrued power over other people as the marker of true power and success when we should be looking at the power of personal mastery and recognition of our own goals and what is important to us.  The power that comes from honing our skills and then applying them to help people around us.  The power that comes from a solid foundation in our personal values.  When we are solid there, nothing can sway us from knowing who we are.

Over the last several years I’ve worked deeply in mindset work and one thing that stays constant in all aspects is that our mindset will determine our results.  In the last two weeks I’ve heard a quote (or parts of quotes mashed together) from Michael Jordan used several times by other motivational and inspirational speakers as well as some self-help enthusiasts and it’s simplicity holds a strong truth: Jordan says something along the lines of, “Spending time in the mind gym is just as important as spending time in the physical gym; [We can] turn fear into anger, you can run from fear or you can get angry and attack it; I think people like Julius Erving, Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, and Martin Luther King, people I admire, all created their own vision.”  It speaks of the truth of a few things: one, we have power when we have clarity and control over our emotions, and mindset is a practice like any other skill we want to become successful with.  Speaking from personal experience, I am well aware of how much time it takes to master some feeling of control over the mind.  I am aware of the roller coaster of getting close to where we want to be and then falling into old habits.  I am aware of feeling safe with old habits but what we have to talk about with habit is programming.  We fall into old habits because it’s a program well engrained and practiced in our mind.  That means we can learn a new one.

I experience frustration every time I fall back into old habits but one thing I’m learning about is the rebound.  Habits are so automatic we often don’t have the chance to stop them before we repeat them but I believe with all of my being that we are capable of doing just that and thinking entirely new thoughts instead.  While I haven’t replaced all of those thoughts yet, I am absolutely able to add another thought to the negative thought pattern: STOP, that isn’t how I want to feel.  That act alone brings me closer to how I want to feel and the interruption of a pattern serves to start breaking the pattern.  It isn’t until we have control over those patterns and our thoughts that we are able to start a new pattern, and it isn’t until we are clear on our values, beliefs, goals, and how we want to feel that we know we need to stop the old pattern.  Start evaluating life in a new way.  Ask ourselves if this is really on par with how we want to feel.  Asking if it’s what we want to have leaves opportunity to miss the mark so it’s important to ask how we want to feel as that’s a better guide toward purpose.  As we practice more and more, the shorter time it takes for us to rebound and go in another direction.  That’s a skill we need to master on the way toward mastering our thoughts.  Mindset truly is the key and we need to practice the skills of exercising it.

In yesterday’s gratitude I spoke of appreciating the physical experience of duality and change.  While some people lament the changing of the seasons, we all know there isn’t anything we can do about it.  If we look at life in the same way and follow the natural pattern of things, we quickly see that there is an inevitability in life that makes it futile to force our will.  I’m the first person who wants to uphold tradition because it feels right, the first one to imagine going back, the first one to want to redo things because hindsight is 20/20.  But time has shown me that energy wasted on what was and what we thought it could be is just that: wasted.  We are meant to change and we are meant to face the light and dark not only externally, but internally as well.  I allowed myself to get caught on the dark moments for a long time because I was raised to believe that the dark left a sort of mark on us, a branding like a scarlet letter, that we were never allowed to shake off.  I felt that a mistake was a burden we were meant to carry forever.  I was taught that our value was in perfection and making other people happy, making them see us in a certain light.  I want to break the habit of thinking we have control over anything but ourselves. 

There is no stopping time anymore than we have the ability to stop the natural order of anything.  I struggle to let the past go because I still have the scars of what happened as well as the scars of believing it should have been any different.  There is nothing worse than the amount of time we make ourselves suffer over something we can’t change.  It’s wasted.  We admire the change in seasons, and so many of us look at fall as a time of coziness and change and joy that it always struck me that we get frustrated or angry when we enter a season of change.  It doesn’t always line up with the big seasonal changes, but those changes are no different in they are just as inevitable and they are also part of the natural order of things.  We are not separate from nature, we are the embodiment of it, of all the infinite possibilities of the universe expressed in each one of us.  The light and dark are in us so, if we wouldn’t presume to stop the shift in light and the way the Earth turns, why would we try to stop that in ourselves?  In the first place we don’t have that power, in the second place, there is no need to have that power.  It’s our responsibility to take on the mantle of what works for us. 

Most importantly, understand that none of this is about control.  All things in this universe are what they are—and that isn’t a tautology or a negative, that is simply the truth.  We aren’t meant to change them, we are meant to learn to work with them.  We are meant to take up our place WITH them.  What we need to understand is that we too simply are what we are and the more we try to deny it, the more difficult it is to find our rhythm.  That isn’t to say we shouldn’t strive to do our best or improve upon it, but we shouldn’t try to DENY it and become something else.  We know who we are and we feel it in our souls the exact same way the Earth knows the seasons are changing, the way the universe knows it’s time to pivot.  With that, welcome the light and the dark.  Welcome the changing of the seasons within ourselves just as we do outside.  Honor who we are the same way we honor the passing of time and know that time, in the grand scheme of things, means nothing. It too is one of those things that simply IS, and all will happen exactly as it is meant to, when it is meant to.  Feel the light and allow it to shine exactly how it is called to.  This is our season. 

“Shame Shames; That shame may not even be ours.  We take on the feelings of other generations.  We Can break the subconscious patterns of shame.  It’s not about who’s at fault, it’s about how we end it,” JB Copeland.  No one is unique in this—every family has a history of shame over something.  We all have a history of things that make us feel less than in some way, and we aren’t sure why.  It can manifest in so may ways—we never confront people when we’ve been wronged, we try to please people by putting everything we need last, we don’t ask for help, we repeat the patterns of self-deprecation and low self-worth because we feel a certain way about ourselves whether we can explain it or not.  If we look at this strictly from an historical perspective, society has shifted continuously and the definition of what is “acceptable” has shifted with it.  For Pete’s sake there was a time when we let each other die if we couldn’t gather enough food, then it became about the amount of money we brought in or how we earned a living, then the type of clothes we wore, then the type of house we have and the things in it.  But there are other things too—like how we look, how we feel about our nose or our legs and why we can’t explain how annoyed we are with those features or how we do certain things—like we just don’t dance in public etc.  Those things aren’t ours.

We feel so much shame in this family and it is deeply rooted on both sides.  I can trace the moment it was passed to my mother and I can trace the moment it was passed to me—and I can see the moments that I’m passing it to my son.  So that’s key.  This isn’t about carrying those things anymore and it isn’t about blaming those people because the truth is, they really may not have known better.  It’s about understanding what happened in those moments, knowing what was handed to us, and seeing the potential where we can do the same thing—and then stopping that pattern.  We can’t change what happened but we can stop it from happening again.  I know shame for my appearance has stopped me from even trying things that I know I would have loved.  It has stopped me from believing that I could achieve my biggest goals.  It has allowed me to accept poor treatment in many scenarios because I felt I deserved it.  And I spent too much time trying to prove my worth, and in that journey, I further solidified that I was somehow unworthy—and I exhausted myself in the process.  The weight of shame wears us down because we never knew we weren’t meant to carry it.  We never understood we could stop carrying it at any time.            

I’m looking at a physical representation of shame every time I walk into my Aunt’s house.  There are real patterns of addiction to various degrees in the family and addiction led my Aunt to do some terrible things.  I know she felt shame about what she did every day—and she felt pain about the loss that she knew resulted from the things that happened in that house.  Only that would have prevented her from reaching out for the help she so clearly needed.  We have other patterns of shame in the family including making people feel shame over who they are, specifically for things they can’t control.  It’s a deflecting mechanism for the shame others carry as well.  In that regard, this isn’t so much about the shame that was passed down but rather what carrying shame can do.  It can take something beautiful and render it completely useless.  It can destroy the most solid of foundations.  Our inability to admit our wrong and correct it is one of the most destructive things.  Follow that with the realization that we were wrong and too proud to admit it, and we end up carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders, and we will collapse every time.      

It’s up to us to stop the patterns of shame even if that means admitting the shame we feel and what has happened.  The other person doesn’t even have to acknowledge their role in it.  We simply need to be ready to take on our responsibility for what happened and deciding that we are going to do things differently.  We do this by having compassion for those who passed on a pattern that they didn’t even know they had or didn’t know how to break.  We remember that we are one, we aren’t targeted by these people, they didn’t know any better and they were repeating what they were taught.  When we receive shame it feels like one of the most personal things ever but it really isn’t.  We want to break the pattern and we do that with love, and appreciation and practicing gratitude.  That will guide us to our purpose and finding our purpose gives us our passion, the ground to change our patterns.  With purpose we aren’t afraid to face the pain of years of trauma and shame that was passed down because no one knew what to do with.  Our foundation doesn’t have room to carry that any longer and we are strong enough to say that is enough.  The shame ends with us.