Today I am grateful for action.  This is something we all need a reminder about every now and then.  With so many things happening in the world, in our minds, in our lives, things we want to happen and things we don’t, it’s easy to feel paralyzed.  Sometimes there is simply so much to do that we do nothing because the very prospect of where to start is too much.  If we start something then we’ve essentially pulled the Ker-Plunk stick and we risk all the marbles falling down before we can catch them.  But there comes a point when the overwhelm if inaction outweighs the anxiety of taking the first step.  The truth is all of life is a cascade, a ripple effect.  What we start will infinitely and inevitably lead to something else and we can’t stop that—we don’t want to stop that.  But we need to shift the perspective to understand that the ripple isn’t a bad thing: we aren’t trying to catch the mountain, we are trying to blaze a trail.  Some things will fall—it happens.  We aren’t meant to be omniscient and carry the weight of the world on our shoulders—this world demonstrates day in and day out how little is in our control.  All we can do is our best.  Create the plan, take the steps, do the work and accept that what comes is perfectly fine.  But taking action is the key.  We aren’t meant to stagnate waiting for the right time.  We are doers, and taking that first step is all we need to do and the rest will fall in line. 

Today I am grateful for conversation.  Over the last few weeks, and the last week in particular, I’ve had the opportunity to change perspective on some things.  So often we focus on talking and the things we need to get out (or what we feel we need to express) that many of us have truly lost the art of conversation.  In a world where we all feel a bit used and abused and ignored, we seek platforms to express our opinion, to demonstrate our control of thought, to showcase who we are.  Much of that behavior has transferred to in person interaction as well.  I made some judgements about people around me based on limited facts I had and some very strong feelings I had—and some legitimate cause for mistrust.  But what has happened is the breakdown of some barriers and boundaries that opened the doorways to hearing more of the other side and the truth is there is so much more in common there than I ever could have thought.  Hearing another person’s perspective and taking the time to understand someone else rather than wasting energy defending ourselves and worrying about our side creates not only a doorway, but a bridge.  I hold a lot of defense mechanisms to keep people at arms length because I don’t want to get hurt—shocker, no one wants to be hurt.  But as soon as I removed those barriers and let the other side in, it felt like something else opened up in me.  The truth is we never experience the same version of a person that others might so until we have the opportunity to form a decision on our own, we just need to take things at face value.  Without conversation and opening up, I would have missed an opportunity to form a connection with someone similar to me or to see facets of myself in this person.  Right now the world needs more bridges than anything and I am grateful to have thrown the first rope.

Today I am grateful for focus.  One of the side effects of that conversation mentioned above was the concept of focus.  Now, this is something I will repeat until I am blue in the face: we all need to remember that without focus we can’t make progress.  We will move, but it won’t be progressive.  During the course of the conversation, it truly helped to have someone understand exactly what I was talking about when it came to the desperation to make a move but that it was so desperate that I moved in multiple ways at once.  I created my own confusion out of that desperation, because when we are desperate there is no real path forward, it is only about movement.  The discussion I mentioned above brought a validation of sorts in that I wasn’t crazy for the initial feeling to get going but it was also validation of the support I needed and had expected from people I initially thought would be more supportive.  Not that I needed constant cheerleading, but some excitement and belief in what I was doing as is the normal course of friendship isn’t too much to ask.  And the truth is there is something to be said when there is an innate understanding from people and we don’t have to explain anything else.  That connection wouldn’t have happened without conversation.  It’s nice to not feel crazy—no one likes to feel crazy.  And all that takes is a little openness, honesty, and assurance that there are our people out there, we just need to take a chance sometimes.

Today I am grateful to put aside fear.  This is something I have fought for years, something I fight nearly every day.  The need for permission and to not anger people is so deeply engrained that I have made a mess of my life keeping all the balls in the air—many of them aren’t even mine.  I’m a fixer and a people pleaser so it is never too much for me to take on another task and that is something I need to stop especially when it is for the sake of someone else’s approval.  I eventually created such a mess of my life trying to clean up everyone else’s that I couldn’t see my own path.  That eventually became resentment and wasting my time telling other people how to live their lives so I wouldn’t have to clean up after them anymore that I just ran around the mountain instead of leaving things behind and walking up that mountain on my own.  Fear at its core is designed to keep us safe—but sometimes safety means inaction and waiting for the right moment and if we wait too long or spend too much time critical and directing others, we keep ourselves where we are.  So we need to put aside the fear of connection, the fear of failing, the fear of anything that keeps us where we are and simply take the first step.            

Today I am grateful to put aside fear and decide to focus—there is an overarching point to this.  I’ve realized that much of my fear about other people’s opinions, the perception of success, the idea of what I am supposed to do has prevented me from focusing at all.  I claim I want to do all of these creative pursuits and make my life look a certain way, and while I take the initial steps to do it, as soon as something from my old life calls, I am right back to it.  For example, at work there is one area that I really don’t enjoy engaging in and I have told myself repeatedly that I want to focus on a different area.  The problem is that the area I don’t enjoy unfortunately has a lot of visibility in the company so when my attention is needed there, even if I’m in the middle of doing something that I really want to for the space I love, I have to stop what I’m doing and work on the other area—and I do it with the intent of making sure people see I didn’t ignore/forget/delay anything for that high visibility area.  Here is a prime example in my personal life as well: I have a bunch of side projects in addition to a deal I’m working on for my writing, and I ended up bringing home work from my 9-5.  I had no real intention of doing anything with it, but I have it in case someone needs me to do something with it.  In the course of the conversation I am referencing, I was told that the only way to move forward is to focus and pick one thing so we are 100% all in.  And when we focus that is when we see movement in the direction we want.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead. 

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. But who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat,” Theodore Roosevelt.  I spoke about this years ago and on the heels of our conversation about stepping boldly into who we are, this is the perfect context.  We go for things, we fail, we try, we fail again.  Then we push through and we learn and we apply what we learn and we shape the life we are meant to have through these lessons, these trials, these failures and triumphs.  We become who we are meant to be through connecting with what we know and through the grand experiment of alchemizing passion and purpose into presence and performance. 

There will always be those who talk—we all have words, few have the action required to back them up.  I found my timidness came when those who didn’t know the details I did opened their mouths to speak louder than I could.  I foolishly allowed myself to be silenced and to question what I already knew.  My path was clear and I put these people in my way because I weighted their words higher than my intuition and knowing.  Talk means little—action is what creates.  There will always be those on the sidelines who know better than we do.  Those are the voices that we silence and drown out.  Do not allow those who refuse to do the work be the ones to determine our next steps or what we do.  Criticism from those determined to create disruption means less than nothing.  It is our drive and dedication and determination and belief that matter.  It is our course that matters and sometimes we need to learn to ignore everything around us and simply stick with what we know is right for us.  No one can tell us that—and that is something no one tells us.  Yes, the environment we live in and choose shapes us but that doesn’t mean that is what we have to be.  We were born with the map inside of us, the knowing that puts us on the path we were meant to have.  Don’t ignore that direction for the sake of someone who never even left the house.

I let those determined to cut me down win for a long time.  I thought I had to play nice and be who other people told me to be.  I still struggle to find my voice with what I need to express.  I am still outvoted much of the time when I do express my voice.  But the realization is hitting now more than ever, especially after the exposure I’ve had this past weekend, that those who have no idea what we are doing, what we are called to do are often the first ones to tell us it can’t be done.  Those wrapped in their little cocoons, safe in the knowledge of their safety are quick to point out the flaws of those who have journeyed beyond what they can see.  They weren’t born with the same map so we can’t expect them to know where we are going.  Don’t let someone steer when they can’t even see the road.  So the point is this: there will always be critics, there will always be voices out there telling us what we can’t do or what we should do.  The only voice that matters is the one that KNOWS what we are supposed to do and that can only be found within.  When we are called to take a leap of faith into something that doesn’t make sense, we can trust that we will learn to fly.  That leap of faith is the calling to greatness, the calling to be who we are meant to be.  Forget the critics and trust the path.   

Driving home from that Sunday dinner, Chris and I had a conversation about before we were together right to that transition when we were together.  We met so young and we’ve been through a lot but he had such a different life before we became we.  We started talking about darts in particular because he was playing darts on Saturday night and he told me how much he used to play prior to us getting together.  I knew he was always social but I didn’t realize how many different things he actually used to be involved in.  He’s always been magnetic, always attracted a lot of people, always social, always on the move.  I feel like he stopped so much of that when we got together and I know he did.  I was afraid of everything he was doing behind my back because of his “socialness” and his socialness.  But as he told these stories, as we talked about people from his past and from ours, how our paths crossed repeatedly but we were always in our own lanes, I realized how very much we have forgotten about that time as well.  Ironic considering I am writing a book about many of those past events.  But there was always this side to it: his side.  I never wanted to hear it because I was stuck in the righteousness of being wronged by him.  I was stuck in the needing to express myself and have my needs met for the sacrifices I made for him with no regard for who I was as a person.  I needed to hear these stories so I could be reminded that he was this person and he too sacrificed some of that when we became we.  I needed to have that integration of the person he was so I could understand who I am. 

I took control to the next level with him and I can fully admit that now.  It was ENTIRELY a defense mechanism.  I never had any desire to make him do my bidding or anything like that—the control came from the fact that I fell harder for him than he did for me and he wasn’t as committed, and I felt that every step of the way.  I foisted that control because I saw an outcome for us that he didn’t.  And I know that as much as I lost myself, he lost parts of himself too. Now we are trying to find who we are while we are still together.  But somehow this felt different.  I didn’t feel strangled by the memories or threatened by them.  I was curious.  I was curious about who we would be if we were both fully who we are.  I was also fascinated by the difference in the detail we remember from that time.  23 years is a lifetime.  We’ve been together longer than we were alive when we first got together.  We’ve literally had a lifetime.  The reality is I want to let go of the guilt or the fear that I forced him to stay with me and I want to let go of the guilt for making him make these amends all these years. The story has never changed and now we are working on that.

I’ve felt a little lost over the last few weeks.  Things I’ve been working on seem to be going in circles, not quite on the trajectory I had hoped.  There’s a lot of effort for little return at the moment and many things vying for my attention.  Basically, not much was coming together how I thought it would have and I got really tired and confused and, frankly, stuck.  I allowed the negative momentum to hit me even in spaces that I have been incredibly focused on like my health—and naturally I felt like crap.  It’s challenging to keep the spirits up when the effort seems to stagnate or outright spiral down and I got to the point I had no energy at all and wanted to do NOTHING.  I couldn’t write, my thoughts didn’t seem to want to come together, I didn’t know who to hang out with, plans seemed futile even for things I had been looking forward to doing.  I didn’t want to go to work and I didn’t want to do anything around the house either.  Everything felt like it was out of place, like that square wheel—it moves forward but certainly not without extra effort.  I can’t say it was a rock bottom moment or anything, but I felt pretty confused and low. Those moments can make it difficult to continue and when they happen with frequency across many areas, it makes it even more challenging.  Like, we have all these ideas and no way to bring them to fruition.

So the universe works in some funny ways, sending us reminders and messages, so often in unexpected places, unexpected ways, from unexpected people.  This confusion has lasted for months now, progressively getting worse but always working in waves as we’ve spent so much time in limbo this year.  We arrived at this past weekend and I expected nothing different—I knew it was going to be a busy weekend, but I didn’t expect anything different—but you know what they say about lightning striking.  I took an extra day off work to celebrate Halloween with my family and friends and to get some of my projects done around the house.  We spent time with our friends on Halloween, and I noticed the group further expanding and integrating—and instead of getting angry/jealous like I had been previously, I listened to what was happening and I recognized the value in connecting and networking—not that this is a revelation, but it helped me finally put aside some of the ego struggles I’ve been having and we had a great time that night.  I spent Friday with friends making Christmas gifts and that perspective also changed: Insecurity leads to power struggles and there are times we have to stop fighting for power and just learn from each other.  Recognize the value we have and understand that even fi relationships change, it doesn’t mean they were ever false or tainted.  Plus that night was a great reminder of creativity and ingenuity.          

Saturday was spent with friends at the holiday market and it was nice to reconnect with some people I had been feeling a bit distant from—we’ve been having some power struggles and I have been feeling completely excluded at times.  Given the events of Friday, I put aside my ego and did my best to stay open and we had a really nice time.  We then went to my brother’s for a little bit to celebrate his birthday and I watched my son have a great time with his uncle out on the farm, completely free, and my brother relax enough to have fun.  We got back early afternoon and ended up at some friend’s house—I had a lovely conversation with a friend’s mother, got a book from another, and then we ended the night all together in the garage of a third friend with the same group we had started with that morning.  I listened and learned a lot about one of the group and saw how freakin’ strong they are; from surviving disease, to building businesses, to standing on their own in their choices, I saw how surrounded I am by strength and determination.  I also found my own strength and voiced what had held me back in the beginning of my relationship with one of them—I told her the entire truth about my concerns and my perception.  She never knew what happened, and speaking with her, she voiced her appreciation for telling her what was actually happened.    

Sunday night came around and we had a dinner planned with family that came in from Minnesota. This is when things finally started to click for me.  We started talking about the family history and where we came from and the memories came flooding back.  In spite of all the fears and anxiety on that particular side of the family, they too took the chance and started lives for themselves.  I listened to stories with the same theme repeated over and over: we had a vision and we followed it and we created success.  We sacrificed certain things but we always came back to what we knew in our hearts and followed what we were meant to do.  The family had drive and spirit and followed their instincts—always.  Everyone started on a leap of faith, often with nothing more than said faith.  These things are in the blood.  The creative desire, the drive, the action, the calling, the purpose, the will and the want to do something different for ourselves.  I’m not just saying it’s in our blood, it’s in everyone.  But what clicked for me that night is that I am SURROUNDED by living examples of strength, entrepreneurship, survival, hope, tenacity, creativity, joy, independence, courage, directness, will, purpose, and power.  So many examples in one weekend that the message leapt out at me: there is nothing holding me back but me—take the damn leap and forget the rest.  Stop hesitating and live my life. 

The only reason it’s been stagnant and confused is because I let it get that way, trying to make a particular outcome out of a crappy situation.  Let it go, let the situation drown and allow myself to swim.  Remember who I am and remember the examples of who I am with—if we are the sum of those we surround ourselves with, then I am all of those things as well.  Sometimes we just need to be reminded—keep going even if it seems dark or confusing or all lost—it isn’t.  We know who we are, always—don’t let anyone convince us we don’t.  Just stick it out and be steadfast in who we are and soon the answers make sense because they were the answers we already knew.  We didn’t need anyone to tell us otherwise.  We simply needed to get rid of the noise telling us we had no idea.  There is a time to stop and gather our bearings and there is a time to push forward trusting our balance will kick in.  Sometimes the universe throws us off kilter so we can discover the balance again, so we can redirect, so we can remember that it isn’t about comfort, it’s about maintaining our path.  The lessons come from all those who came before us and in those we surround ourselves with, in our instincts and in what feels right.  Don’t ignore any of that.  We are never lost if we know where we come from.    

“A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position,” John C. Maxwell.  I want to talk about this a bit because we are on the precipice of great change.  We are at a point in history where everyone is looking for freedom and the ability to lead their own lives and make their own decisions while simultaneously continuing to operate under the paradigm that we need control and leadership over all systems.  I don’t pretend for a second that we would successfully operate in a society where we let go of all rules and everyone did exactly as they wanted—but I also don’t pretend that the way our current leadership, structure, and systems operate is successful.  We no longer need the type of leadership that tells us what to do at all times and feeds off of its citizens as legalized slaves, their energy spent protecting a system rather than the people.  We also don’t need the type of system that allows for everyone to do whatever they want whenever they want regardless of what it does to other people.  We’ve operated under the idea that those are the only choices for too long.  There are never just two choices, never just two sides. 

The truth is there is a middle.  We need freedom to be who we are and to operate our lives as we see fit and we also need mechanisms in place that allow for people to thrive in who they are.  We also need mechanisms in place to protect people and help guide people when they need to figure it out—but this is more a way to help people figure out where their skills and talents fit in, how we complement each other.  We need to let go of the search for power because this has more to do with maintaining power in our own lives while cooperating with others.  Until we learn to work with each other we will always seek power over each other.  Until we understand that we have the ability to change things, we will always seek power over each other.  Until we learn to trust and see the bigger picture, we will always seek power over each other.  A leader isn’t someone who tells us what to do, no a leader is someone who helps us navigate the course of our lives so we get to where we are meant to be.  A leader helps us achieve a common goal that allows us to play our part. 

Human nature balks at the idea of someone telling us what to do with every facet of our lives and we are all rallying now to determine who will be the best person to tell us what is right and wrong.  That is far too much power to put on one person.  Yes, that may have been necessary in the infancy and early stages of development (whether it’s an infant or a country, please see that parallel), but we are well-evolved and past the point where we need that level of interference.  We are also past the point where we can pretend that what once worked still does.  We need to take back the idea that we are in control of our lives and that we aren’t serving a person, or a country—we are serving each other.  When it comes down to it, human nature is cooperative.  Yes, we still have survival instincts, but we innately understand that working together helps us all do better.  We need to remember that regardless of what leadership is in place, we are more than capable of leading ourselves and that we have the power to change things.  Position means nothing—we are all leaders.  As Robin Sharma says, we do not need a title to lead—we lead our own lives.  Be the people we are meant to be and remember that we are for each other, not for a broken, antiquated system.  Support each other, care for each other, and we allow who we are to shine as brightly as possible.  Tough times create strength—so no matter where we fall today, remember that we are stronger together. 

“The only way to protect our peace is making a decision we know will break our heart,” JB Copeland.  Sit with me on this one for a minute.  I spent a lot of my life allowing the space for people to be exactly who they were.  I always folded, always adapted, always did what made other people comfortable—and as we know I did that with the hope that they would eventually do the same for me.  I became quite adept at being the chameleon at the expense of knowing what I truly wanted and developing myself enough to do it.  I’d always almost get there and then allow whatever “stopped” me to actually stop me.  Waiting on others to do what we think we need them to do means we can be waiting an awfully long time for the things we want to come to fruition.  We allow ourselves to get comfortable and content with the way things are going and we convince ourselves what we want will eventually find its way to us.  There are circumstances that will happen—sometime we are just waiting for the universe to align.  But there are others where we need to take better stock of what’s happening around us.  When things start to feel like they aren’t a good fit, like they aren’t working out how we envisioned, that they aren’t what we thought they would be, we have to start questioning the comfort.  Is it worth it to sacrifice the bigger goal and risk regret for the sake of comfort now?

The only way to maintain peace is to make the tough choice to go with what will serve the big picture.  Copeland talks about this as breaking our heart and I want to acknowledge my interpretation of that: sometimes we have a vision that we dedicate ourselves to and we do what we can to protect it even if we know it really isn’t working.  Sometimes we have to let go of that dream/vision simply because it isn’t working.  We have to let go of the idea of what could be and give up something that we may have become attached to as a goal.  We lose people, ideas, even belief at some point and we all get confused.  That is part of the human process of development and evolution.  And it’s hard because this is all a balancing act anyway: what works, what do we want, what do we need, what are our options, when do we bend and when do we stand firm?  And it requires honestly: when are we being too rigid with our vision, when is our judgement getting in the way, are we being honest about who we are and what we want, and is any of it aligned with our values?  All of that letting go, that shedding has the potential to be painful.  But we have to grow regardless.

I want to be clear that there is a difference between comfort and peace.  We can feel comfort while we are at peace, but comfort is an avoidance mechanism where we seek to numb whatever we don’t want to feel.  Peace is a stability and inner contentment that results from faith and belief and trust in ourselves and the universe.  At the end of the day, with all the craziness and unpredictability of this ever-moving, ever-distracted, connected-yet-distant world, all we are looking for is peace.  We seek contentment and this world is all too happy to offer various options that will “give” us happiness.  Time is fleeting and this life has the uncanny ability to be remarkably short and long, both fast and slow all at the same time—and we need to remember that we have the ability to determine how we spend our time.  The only constant we have is ourselves and our ability to discern what works for us.  We need to trust our instincts. We’ve created scenarios where everything is possible but we cut off our own legs or we bury ourselves where we are for whatever reason.  We don’t need to make life harder by waiting for things to fall into place—we simply need to decide and trust that we will do the right thing even if it may hurt in the moment.  Because once we determine what is best for the long term goal, nothing can stop us.  Make the tough choice for peace regardless of anything else, even if it’s a hard choice.  Life gets pretty clear once we know what we are aiming for: temporary pain for long term success and peace is well worth it because that peace from being who we are is priceless.

Today I am grateful for allowing new experiences in my life.  When things aren’t working out how we think they should, it’s easy to fall apart with them—and as much as I’m working on it, I know I still have a hard time controlling emotion.  Personally, confusion seems to be ramping up significantly in my life as well.  Nothing seems quite so sure-footed as it used to, nothing so certain, there really aren’t any black and white answers on anything.  The universe waits for us to make choices and fills in the steps to get there, but what happens when we waver on what the options even are?  A pattern I’ve noticed in my life is that I will make a decision and then some event will happen that will immediately make me contradict my choice.  I spent a lot of time in resentment thinking the universe constantly told me that my choices were wrong.  But I’m seeing now that one of two things actually happens: the universe is waiting for us to choose and then wants to make sure we are certain, or it is telling us that we need to reconsider the path we are on.  The only way we know for certain is if we have enough experience in our lives to show us that we are on the right path—for us.  I took an extra day off this past weekend to enjoy Halloween with my family and ended up spending my days doing some new things—shopping on my own, making candles, going to the town market determined to get things for others, hanging out with people.  I’ve seen with more certainty that I need more time away from my job and more time doing what I need to be doing in my life.  I’m grateful to be around people who have done the same things and are encouraging new choices as it keeps me motivated as well—and encouraged because they’ve been through this and have made choices to follow their own path.  I need to do the same thing. 

Today I am grateful for stepping out of my comfort zone with time and experiences.  I stress when my weekends or my free time is too determined for me.  I still fall into old habits at work where I feel like I need to ask permission to lead my day as I see fit, where I know specific things need to get done but I have to get the blessing of my boss (who is technically only my interim boss at the moment).  Waiting for permission on anything causes delays and I can’t seem to totally break the habit.  This particular weekend has been incredibly busy as we have a lot of activity planned each day so I tend to not feel relaxed (who does when every day has something else attached to it?) but I’ve realized that I have control over it.  I have control over what I need to do, how I spend my time, and what I want to do and I don’t need to feel guilty for it.  Like I said above, sometimes the universe tests us to see how committed we are to our plans and what we think we need to do.  I had to let go of time and just allow things to unfold how they are meant to and commit to the things I said I was going to do.  I don’t need to justify or get permission to do things: I just need to decide and do them.             

Today I am grateful for rethinking what needs to be done in my life.  I spent time making candles with one group of friends this weekend (gifts for Christmas) and then I spent time with old friends, family, and some new friends.  I felt different with each group but there was some level of comfort with each of them as well.  Each group representing different sides of me and I’m learning to integrate them a bit differently.  I spent time with the crafty and thrifty side, the people who support me, and someone who is showing me that what I want is possible and it’s time to take a leap—and to not feel guilty for making the decision I need to if I’m trusting my gut.  It was a weekend of entrepreneurs and creativity.  I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit because my family has been entrepreneurial forever—and I’ve had a creative side because there is a lot of creativity in my blood as well.  I am not around these people by accident.  I know what I am meant to do and they are encouraging me to do it—or at least encouraging me to be in touch with the things I want to do.  I am grateful for these reminders to stay on my path.   

Today I am grateful for putting things in perspective with relationships—we can call it honesty.  I’ve made no secret about the need to people please and how engrained that is in me whether it’s with friends, family, work, or people I’ve just met.  I don’t want to offend anyone and I don’t want to create a reason to be disliked—but that has been put to the test a lot lately because there are people around that I struggled with for various reasons—literal high school crap, non-supportive when needed, only there if I do exactly what they say, making it all about them all the time, I pre-judged some of them as the sum of who they surrounded themselves with—but I never had the courage to talk about what was actually going on.  I let my husband’s behavior and lack of respect for my boundaries spill onto these people because I didn’t initially know how to speak to them and I misplaced my anger for my husband on them.  Last night after finally getting alone with one group, I was able to be honest and tell a new friend exactly why/what the issue I had in the beginning was—everything from misplaced anger from a different third party and my wrong pre-judgement, from being frustrated with my husband and needing space after work and how I knew it impacted the group viewed me, to my insecurity with making people see the truth about me, and then confirming that the people we thought were at the center of the group were really trash talking and manipulating the entire thing—and as soon as the other people in the group started expanding and speaking directly to each other they panicked and needed to be involved.    

Today I am grateful for a new type of energy.  In this exact moment I do not feel the need to repeat patterns.  It’s a Sunday and I’m thinking about what will happen tomorrow and for the first time, I legitimately don’t care.  I know what’s happening right now isn’t working—professionally or personally and I’m seeing where the influence of others has impacted me.  I’m seeing exactly where I need to make my own choices—and this is different than before because before I didn’t feel like I as quite this close to the end of my rope.  Right now I feel like I have no tolerance to do anything that I don’t want to be doing.  Trust me I know that sounds a certain way, but the beauty of being at that point in life is that the pieces that don’t work become hyper-focused and we start to see the path toward what we need to do.  I’m grateful to do what feels right in my life.  I’m grateful to see that making choices like I’ve known and preached for ages is supported entirely by the universe—that isn’t to say it isn’t work to bring those visions to life, but it is a different kind of work.  In spite of the wavering and fear in my own life, I’ve always remained consistent in my messaging that the call of what we are meant to do is strong enough to pull us wherever we need to go and all we need to do is listen to it.  Trust that whatever we need will come to us and that we will be supported—that we can support ourselves.  Take the chance, do the different thing, and if we are confused about what to do next, pause and listen.  And if all else fails, just freakin’ do it.  The worst that can happen is that we find out we don’t want to do what we tried to do and we get closer to what we do want.  Stop wasting time doing what doesn’t work.      

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“Creation is your way to document your view on the world.  To refine your thinking. Sharpen your tools.  It’s an integration of mind and body that allows you to build confidence in which you already know.  You’re mapping the edges of your brain.  Exploring who you are through your creation.  You’re adding something new to the world.  It’s evolution, iteration, innovation, and this is the feeling you’re seeking.  It’s your pathway to abundance.  Because your goal is not success or money, your goal is happiness peace and fulfillment.  And you won’t feel any of these things if you create form a place of scarcity, if you create to fulfill external expectations. Because you’re not optimizing for what truly maters which is that you enjoy what you’re creating.  If you don’t, you’ll hate the life you’re building no matter how much money or success you have,” Rea.Earth.  Our intuition is what tells us what we enjoy, it is the path we are meant to follow, it is the answer to what we are meant to be doing.  We are meant to create in this world, not merely be passive receivers to the experiences of others.

We get lost in the chaos of this Earth, thinking we either need to be creating specific things to be worthy or we end up creating so many different things because we are simply trying to hang onto something.  What we need to take into account is that our views of what we create change all the time.  New experiences integrate and then form new ideas and we develop those ideas into new experiences.  That is the way of the world.  If our experiences are ever-changing then why do we expect our views to remain the same?  Why are we expected to choose one way of being when we are barely even out of our basic education and then told that that is the identity we need to hold onto the rest of our lives?  Creation reflects those experiences and we are never meant to stay the same.  If we choose to stay the same then we will live the same day over and over again.  If we are to be happy, then we need to learn to adapt and accept our evolution and express that experience in a way reflective of where we are at. 

We’ve been talking about intuition and following the things that call to us for the last several days and I want to be clear that this isn’t just speaking loftily about finding/following dreams.  There is real importance in connecting with that intuition we are born with because it is the map of who we are and where we are meant to go.  What we make of the world is our legacy, it is our history, it is our story, and it is a story that we are able to adapt and write as we go.  It isn’t something we need to wait for people to tell us, it is already written within us.  Intuition knows what we are meant to do and until we are able to give up distraction and stand firmly in who we are.  There are a lot of precarious, scary, and uncertain events happening in this world right now and many of the powers at be are relying on that confusion so we are swayed a certain way, swayed toward an agenda that serves their idea of what the world is supposed to be like.  That is the other reason why intuition is so important: it is literally our guide to what we know is right for us and what we want to do with our lives.  It isn’t always perfect, but when we use that intuition to create rather than spending our time creating something other people think is right, we connect with the universe in a way that spreads to the rest of the world.  Creation is our legacy, not how much we have.  It’s about what we can give, what we leave behind, not what we accumulate.  We evolve and change and we express who we are at any given time: connect and believe in who we are and don’t let the world sway us—show the world who we are.

“Your intuition is always one step ahead of you; I get still and I listen and what I hear is usually not logical, but I decide to take action off of what I’m hearing deep within.  And as time goes, things start to work out.  And so be still and listen to the depths within you because it’s speaking,” JB Copeland.  I pulled some cards today and one of them was, “Let me be still today and listen to the truth in silence,”  so let’s hear what the silence has to say.  There’s a lot of noise out there—constant voices, stimulation, entertainment, distraction, fear—and it’s easy to get swept up in it.  People misinterpret the value of silence as doing nothing.  What do we gain from sitting and doing nothing?  Well, let’s ask a different question: What do we get when we run around being busy, expending energy with no focus?  Are we seeing results?  So what is the bigger waste of time?  Expending energy on things that never come to fruition?  Or taking time to figure out where to put that energy? Some may argue that neither is a waste of time because in either case we are learning something, which may be true.  Trying and learning a different way to do something is different than telling ourselves we are helping anything playing a video game or scrolling social media for hours.  Listening is a skill, and hearing even more of a skill.    

The only way to know what our intuition tells us is to listen to it and to practice hearing it and following through (trusting it).  The brain truly is not designed to cope with constant stimulation and addition of information.  We simply can’t keep up and integrate anything because we can’t distinguish what’s important or even tell what’s real—we do not have enough context or information to do that especially with the speed information comes at us now.  In order to reconnect with that intuition, we need to remove the external noise and we need to be comfortable sitting with what our minds tell us.  It takes some practice to get comfortable sitting with ourselves, with nothing pummeling our brains, nothing dripping dopamine into our system, no switching from topic to topic…just sitting.  As Copeland states, there are times what we hear doesn’t make sense, and that is when we need to explore.  It takes time to figure out what the brain is actually telling us and I’m not saying that we need to follow every whim that flows through our minds, but we need to be able to trace it back and integrate it into the bigger picture.  The mind works in patterns and those patterns are often influenced by what we are most exposed to (reading, television, social media, news, email, conversations, etc.).  We can change those patterns.  We can learn to dive deep into our knowing even if it doesn’t make sense and we can trust it as long as it makes sense to us.

Those patterns and repetitive thoughts that speak to us repeatedly, constantly calling to us, those are the things we need to listen to or at least explore in more depth.  This is more than trying a viral recipe we see somewhere, this is the thought that constantly tells us we need to do something, the thing that always piques our interest.  There are things that connect with who we are, that resonate with us innately that we will never be able to explore.  Those are the things we are gifted and meant to follow—and develop and share.  There are times we find the answers with the help of others, with connection and finding complementary talents, ideas, and beliefs. In order to find what is complementary to us, we need to know what our ideas, talents, and beliefs are first—that means putting aside all distraction and doing the work to be who we are meant to be.  It can be overwhelming to connect with that inner knowing because there are times we won’t feel ready for the information we receive.  We have to learn to override that and do it anyway, especially when we’ve done the work of hearing our soul.  When we KNOW it, take the chance and trust it, even if it doesn’t make sense to ourselves.  Intuition is meant to guide us, not derail us, and the only way we know the difference is in silence.  So, always remember there is real value in silence, because silence is the key to everything within.