“You need goals that give you goosebumps, friends that give you energy, Lovers that give you butterflies, and a mission that makes it impossible to sleep and irresistible to wake up. It feels like fireworks in your mind.  So use excitement as a compass. It shows you exactly where to go,” (Zachprogrob).  When we think about the course of our lives and how we want things to look, these are things we should keep in mind.  We should feel joy and excitement about our lives, a thrill at the idea of taking the next step, excited to turn the page.  I’ve been talking about leadership the last few days and it’s partially because I’ve been feeling stuck.  I let the people around me derail my thinking for a time and the truth is I’m struggling a bit to keep up with everything both personally and professionally.  I’m a bit lost, asking myself what my goals are and whether or not I have those goosebumps and if my life is filled with that type of excitement.  I certainly don’t feel dread or anything like that, and I know there are pieces that excite me, but I also know I want this insatiable lust for life that is described above.  I also know I’m working toward it and I’m trying to be patient to see all the results, and there are still changes to be made on my end—like not letting those around me stop me from where I’m going.

I’ve wasted enough time doing what other people told me to do, trying to please them, trying to keep a middle ground and keep the peace between others, making everyone happy at the cost of my own sanity and peace and happiness.  There are things that give me joy, but I certainly don’t have the goosebumps about my life right now.  I have a TON that I am appreciative of but not much in the way of excitement for what is to come.  I’ve been working on projects I enjoy outside of work but my time is limited and it’s become difficult to get the work in that I want to and my relationships have been struggling.  I feel like I’m on the outside of the conversation more often than not now—so I question whether or not these are the right people around me anyway.  I do not feel the reciprocal energy or support from people.  In that regard, it is a reminder that we need to find our own way to connect to source or find a way to be our own source—we can’t rely on other people to fill us up like that, especially if they aren’t really aligned with who we are.  I’ve said it a million times over these years: we must know who we are in order to bring the right people, places, events, and things into our lives.  If we want the tingles and the joy we need to find what gives us tingles and joy. 

This piece isn’t about lamenting what we don’t have, not by any means.  This is meant to spark that reminder, that feeling of excitement and lust for life.  I have so much gratitude for where I’m at, and I know now that I’m looking for that final piece: the fulfillment of purpose and the life it brings.  I’m not just talking about how I live my life, I’m talking about the life that gets added to each moment when we are aligned.  That goal in itself gives me goosebumps, the possibility of feeling that energy flowing through my body every day.  The feeling of confidence, of being supported, that each action is exactly what it needs to be, that the people around us understand us.  I guess that goes back to my point about knowing ourselves as well: in order to be understood we must understand.  As we wind down the year, I want to encourage everyone to seek out these live-giving and perhaps life-altering feelings.  Look for the joy, the inspiration, the draw, the drive of live.  Don’t settle for getting through the day because all the days become the same.  Look for the thrill and the excitement of life because the possibilities are endless and that potential should excite everyone.  It’s up to us to navigate the way.  Follow the joy.

There is a saying that goes, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.”  Creation takes dedication and clarity and action as we’ve been discussing so we need to have honest, authentic conversations about our purpose and what we’ve done to create what we are looking for.  We can’t achieve a new goal being the same person. Presence, authenticity, honesty, coupled with action are key—we learn to pivot in the moment.  I read today that, instead of worrying about the future we need to focus and align in the moment because our energy creates the reality and what we focus on is what will manifest so we should focus on joy because when we are inspired, we effortlessly produce the vision.  Creation isn’t about rigid following, it’s about flexible flow to the next step.

Yesterday I spoke about leadership and its role in our personal lives as well as our professional or even social lives so I wanted to talk a bit more about creating the tone for our lives.  Living aimlessly only works for so long, we all need a purpose and in order to have that purpose, we need to know our values as I discussed yesterday.  We need to know who we are, what we are capable of, what feels right, where our talents lie, and what fits with our goals, what behavior aligns.  We need to create a culture, a way of being, that makes sense.  We lead based on the culture we create as that culture becomes the foundation—so culture and ingrained ways of operating are created by the leader.  The leader sets the tone for success through how they handle things.  As discussed yesterday, that is the same for our personal lives as well.  We need a culture, a purpose, a mission, values for how we live every day.  

When we don’t have a foundation or a core set of values to live from, we don’t have a starting ground to create a foundation and we often misinterpret or misunderstand a foundation as a series of thoughts.  It’s more complicated than that. We define our lives through our actions, so belief is great, ideas are even better, but we need to apply them to action.  That is where leadership comes in.  The mind is a creative powerhouse and can take us anywhere which is both amazing and intimidating.  The mind doesn’t know how to focus itself, it knows how to create so we are the mechanism that needs to drive those thoughts consistently, and in order to know that consistent direction, we need to have a rock solid knowledge of who we are.  If we don’t like who we are or where we are, or even if we just want to shift direction, it is up to us to take the reins and move ourselves in a new direction.      

My 9-5 has been dealing with an acquisition for several years now and we are deeply in the throws of change.  During one of our leadership meetings, we were told that “there is no time clock on this leadership” facet, that we need to be available and driven and focused 24/7.  Based on where we are at in the process and what we have been shown, most of us are very well aware that investing that type of energy into this venture may be dangerous—or at the very least not worth it.  I started thinking about leadership in general and the question of worth.  What is worth the energy?  What am I willing to lead and be a 24/7 presence for?  Life truly doesn’t stop, time and the days are all an illusion and the reality is we live one continuous moment punctuated with sleep and shifts in light, but it never stops.  So it comes down to purpose and values and our vision for life, what work we want to do to fulfill our goals/dreams or our purpose.  Purposeful work doesn’t feel like work. It is guided effort toward a goal that has a bigger purpose than just us, something we spend our time doing to make things better or at least have meaning.  So then the question becomes what work doesn’t feel like work, like it has a chokehold on me?  What is the shit sandwich I am willing to eat over and over again?

For anything we want in life, there are things we have to be willing to do.  There are no shortcuts to the end goal because the goal isn’t to get to the end, it is to live in and create purpose—and purposely create something that calls to us, something that has meaning.  This ties into the reason I bring up leadership–that particular leadership forum triggered some different emotions in me in regards to how I spend my time and how I live my life.  The expectation set during that meeting is that we would take the helm of responsibility for the organization’s current financial position and that we would work tirelessly doing whatever we were told or what it took to revive the organization.  But they didn’t give us any direction for how to do that.  So basically, be constantly available and do whatever is needed in the moment but we aren’t going to look for the source of the bleed—just expend the energy doing something to make it look like we’re fixing it.  Meanwhile the executive position is to direct us to fix it with no direction.  It amazes me how in this society, one with all the gifts and advantages in the world we still promote sacrificing ourselves, our time, our energy for the sake of an entity.  True, if done well that entity is healthy enough to sustain people, but we live in a volatile market and the needs are changing along with the how—it doesn’t work anymore. 

Right after that meeting I was part of a seminar for my side business and they too were discussing leadership and mindset and the contrast was drastic.  These people profess no less dedication to their business and to expansion and work and they live that way. They too believe that leadership and working toward a dream has no time limit, like we don’t clock in and out of that mission.  What we put in is indicative of what we get out.  The difference came from the purpose behind it—my 9-5 claims their purpose is to help the community and in order to do that we need to make money so the real focus is on making money.  My business aims to help people create the best life they can live and in doing so they help others create their best lives as well—and in doing so we all help each other make money. Leadership begins with leading our own lives with integrity and purpose, a purpose bigger than just ourselves.  When we focus on someone else’s goal we burn out because we are subject to their vision and how they want things done.  The goal is to make money and keep under the radar—there will always be a cap to how far we can go because someone decides our position and value.

Real leadership is about dedication and direction toward specific goals.  Clarity of purpose sets the course and we need to have that purpose in our values first.  Regardless of what we put our energy towards, we have to understand that we are determining the outcome with our efforts and intention.  Leading for the sake of creating money for others is draining, even leading just to get money for ourselves is draining.  But when we put intent behind it to help others we open multiple doors.  We open the doorway to relationships and connection as well as other ways to satisfy a specific need or discover that there is more we can do, other things to address.  And in doing that work we also open the door to creating abundance and wealth.  If we lead ourselves down a path of value and purpose we can have all of those things we desire and personal satisfaction.  Follow the right course, the course that calls to us and do it in a way that helps others.  When we decide what is right for us, the rest falls into place.           

Love is so complicated.  Human beings feel a lot and there is some degree of relationships where we compromise and bend to make something work.  But when it’s only one person bending, eventually that person will bend to the point they may break or they won’t be able to stand straight again.  We lose a certain part of ourselves if we continually blur the boundaries for others.  I will never dim my light, dampen my flame for the sake of someone else’s insecurity again.  Never.  I’ve done it for 23 years, placated by people telling me they wouldn’t do x,y, z again only to get what they need and do it again. I’ve given in to everyone close to me damn near every time.  I have NEVER been perfect by any means, in fact, there are so many things I feel so ashamed of that I haven’t really begun exploring the depths of what I feel/fear in some ways and those are the reasons I have allowed people to walk over me—for fear of my mistakes like I deserve to be walked on.  I think I had felt like crap about myself for so long that I didn’t think I was ever worthy of being liked or cared for or that my opinion mattered.  Like I was lucky if people gave me the time of day.  That I was only good for facts but not ideas.

But one consistent feeling that has ruled me (in spite of not feeling worthy as a general rule) was that on some level, I knew I didn’t deserve to be ignored or walked over and used when convenient. Mainly because the feelings kept coming back or the ideas kept repeating themselves.  I never had a real understanding of a healthy relationship as nearly every relationship I’d witnessed or been part of was codependent in many ways.  So when it comes to love, I thought that meant blurring the lines of my own identity for the sake of the relationship and the relationship needed to come first at all costs.  Now, in any partnership there must be compromise and we don’t always get our way nor do the other parties involved, but that doesn’t mean one person gets what they want while the other cleans up or runs interference.  It can be complicated to set that boundary when it never existed.  Love means understanding when that boundary is needed, and I’m learning that when there is real love, that boundary is never tested in the first place.

So why do we tolerate what isn’t good for us and make allowances for people to treat us like crap?  Is it because we are social creatures and crave the companionship even if it hurts us?  Perhaps it is so we can develop an understanding for what does work for us and what we want in the future.  Not every relationship is meant to pan out.  Sometimes the time we spend with people is simply so we can discover something about ourselves and move on.  Sometimes we are meant to learn our boundaries and when we need to bend.  But we can’t let our previous experiences translate into a belief about who we are and what we deserve because the other person’s interactions are based on their experiences and not necessarily the truth of what’s happening.  I know now that I don’t want someone just to fill a void or a warm spot in my life. I want someone who understands my mind and soul as well because it is in understanding the soul that we are most seen and heard and understood. This life is too short and those who are threatened by our light have no place in our lives.  Sometimes we have to recenter because we will repeat the pattern and bring into our lives what we accept and tolerate, and that recentering is a recalibration of who we are and what we want.  Relationships go through phases so we need to make sure our relationship to ourselves is strongest of all.  It takes practice but that isn’t complicated. 

When we talked about strength yesterday, I realized something about the fire I haven’t really spoken about before, something about my relationship to fire:  I feel a fire within me every day, one that keeps me moving and sometimes it feels like it can burn everything down around me—it feels uncontrollable at times, and I am fully aware of its power.  I feel like most days are an effort to keep the fire under control, keep it safe and contained.  This isn’t out of fear, it’s out of wanting to keep others comfortable with my heat, to make myself palatable so they can get close.  It’s me trying to control it.  The thing with fire is that it doesn’t want to be controlled, it can’t live in a cage as it will absolutely destroy anything that holds it back.  For all of its power, fire also has a few elements of fear: it burns quickly and brightly and the dark fears the light.  Darkness grows in the absence of light and fire in all its wildness doesn’t allow anything to shrink away—it shows the entire truth.  Just like it doesn’t take much to spark it and keep it going, it really doesn’t take much to put it out either.  Miss one key ingredient of the fuel or suffocate it with water or sand/dirt and it will fade away.  It’s a delicate being for something so powerful. 

It’s a complicated energy because for all of those days where it feels like I can burn everything around me, there are other times it feels like burning it all down would refresh the very being of my existence, like burning and destruction of what I know is exactly what I need to do.  See, fire can scorch the Earth, but it also feeds the nutrients back into the ground that will sustain and promote growth for life moving forward.  I’ve been trying to grow on damaged ground for a while and I feel the signs that I’ve only been playing on the edges of what I need to do to ignite the flame that creates the new life.  That spark, the one that I have allowed people to attempt to extinguish time and time again, the one that I have attempted to put out myself, does not go away.  Strength and power have nothing to do with dominion over others, it is about dominion and power over the path we choose to take for ourselves.  Those signs, those feelings aren’t meant to be ignored, the body tells us very clearly what we need, where we need to go.      

We spend so much time (or at least I have spent a lot of time) curating a vision of what we think we are supposed to look like even if we know it isn’t right for us, and that is the very cage for the fire we hold inside of us.  Sometimes we need to let that fire burn and do what is in its nature to bring light to the life we are meant to have or even clear the path for others.  I was afraid of hurting others, being alone in the bright, that the bright was too much, burning myself—and I could feel from others that they were afraid of the fire in me.  They were afraid the anger, the fire, the everything was out of control and too much.  The anger fuels the destruction to make way for the growth needed to sustain our very lives because, also at its core, fire is passion.  Creativity is passion and if we feel that burn inside of us, we are meant to let it ignite.  Life is born from the ash of what we burn down and it takes immense strength to take the match to the cultivated image of what we have grown and who we are.  But I’ve learned it is nothing to fear, it is something to embrace.  Fire is a magical, powerful element and we (I) can learn to harness that energy.  Intent with action makes that a controlled burn without stifling the spark of the dream or the course it is meant to follow.  Stop stifling the power. 

“And one day she discovered that she was fierce, and strong, and full of fire, and that not even she could hold herself back because her passion burned brighter than her fears,” Mark Anthony.  We all need a little reminder that we are bad ass.  The only thing that keeps us where we are is ourselves, specifically how we view ourselves.  When we recognize our power we unlock the door to tremendous possibility.  Let’s talk about ways we are badass, I’ll go first.

I’m badass for working all the projects that I do.  There are days it drives me crazy and I feel like I am more ADD than human, not as productive as I want to be.  But I am a highly driven and ambitious person and I know with a little (a lot) of focus I can get where I want to go.  Put actions to dreams and soon the alchemical process of manifestation occurs and it’s all real.  I have a taste for dreams, I have a lot of dreams, things I want to do, see, accomplish.  With the effort I know I can get there.

I’ve been hurt by some of the people closest to me and I am still able (and WANT) to love.  Everyone has been hurt at some point in their lives, felt devastated, cut up.  But there are events that really come out of left field and the people you thought you could trust turn out to be the ones feeding you poison.  It takes a lot for us to pick up the pieces and move forward from stuff like that.  Trust is one of the strongest things in the world but also so incredibly fragile, it only takes one moment to destroy it.  To pick up again after that is a gift.

I’ve started over, over and over again.  There was a long period of time I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to go in.  I thought I could be everything and everyone to everyone at all times and I had no real direction of what I wanted to do.  I stopped and started a million times thinking I could do whatever—like be a dog trainer or handle dispatching, setting up POS sales equipment, be a massage therapist—whatever.  I had different ideas, a lot of them didn’t pan out, like I would start and they didn’t feel right and the things I really wanted to do I didn’t think I could succeed so I held off as long as possible.  Starting over into the thing we are meant to do takes courage, especially after failing at other things we don’t necessarily love but things we took a chance on.  It takes guts to begin again and I have done it.

I’m allowing my creativity to take center stage.  I’ve always felt a pull to speak, to share my information, to share words, to discuss, to create new things.  But I’ve always fell back into what I thought I was supposed to be doing and prioritized my job (even if I didn’t like it) because I felt that was what I should be doing, what I was supposed to do.  But the creative pull is strong and it will continue to call until we respond.  Starting anything based on a hunch or a calling alone is terrifying because we have no idea where we are going, we just know we need to go “that” way.  I have absolutely confirmed that once we start walking in the right direction, the path starts to clear.  We can’t get where we want to go if we continue to wait for the way to be clear and things will not build themselves.  We must answer that call.

I know I am capable of doing things on my own.  I used to think I needed permission to do things or to get started, or that I needed agreement and consensus to do what I wanted to do.  Even something as simple as running to the store—I would wait until I heard from everyone around me before I would go just in case they wanted to come with or needed something.  It got to the point where I couldn’t go alone.  Events over the last weekend have shown me that others do NOT have the same consideration for me.  They don’t even trust that they can tell me what’s happening or what they want in their lives so they behave in secrecy, do it behind my back.  They aren’t waiting for my permission—and I do not need theirs.

When we remember our power we are unstoppable—the world has their views of who we are and it is irrelevant.  We need to know who we are and we need to own our power.  For all that we allow to hold us back, we are capable of burning it away.  Release the ties to whatever it is we think we need to do.  It is incredibly badass to own our power and authenticity and our identity.  Don’t let discomfort create fear of what we are called to do.  We don’t need permission, we need courage and understanding of our soul.  That is all it requires to live an untamed, free, powerful life.    

Today I am grateful for compliments.  I do not take compliments well.  They make me uncomfortable and I feel awkward—like, are we supposed to say we know how good we are?  Or that we look good because we put in some effort?  Are we supposed to brag about what we know?  IDK, compliments feel like a setup sometimes.  Regardless, I voiced some concerns to a friend/colleague the other day and their response was they didn’t understand how people don’t hear me.  They said I have a presence—like when I enter a room I have a noticeable energy.  It made me feel validated as a person because there are days when it feels like I could be choking and no one would even notice, especially when I try to get my ideas out there.  This person told me that sometimes people think we already perceive ourselves the way they see us so they don’t think they are hurting us—they think we already get the validation we need so they don’t need to add anymore.  That may be true to a degree, the fact that humans perceive and interpret how people feel and perhaps confidence is assumed to be felt internally any time it is shared externally.  There’s a little secret: for those of us who fake it til we make it, it doesn’t feel real until we know it is real.  But I learned that there are some people who understand the energy we present and it is real to them—and we look different to everyone.  So I can appreciate that to some I am amazing and to others I am the worst. What matters though, is the information I let in—so I can take the compliment and believe it and THAT will make it real.    

Today I am grateful for learning to dissociate others feelings from my worth.  Just because someone behaves a certain way or treats us a certain way, that doesn’t mean it is truth and it doesn’t mean that is who we are.  Their truth doesn’t mean it’s your truth—or the truth.  When someone has an off day it isn’t a reflection of us.  There are certain people who will be sad or angry just because they are sad and angry and no matter what we do—they feel that way because they feel that way.  It isn’t about us and there is literally nothing we can do to change it.  I have several people around me who make me feel like no matter what I do that I am doing something wrong, like I am an inconvenience.  And some of these are people really close to me.  If someone makes you feel like you are an imposition or a waste of time or if they make you feel like a bother, then remove yourself as an option.  I am working on taking my own advice in this case.  When we know things aren’t working, when we know they aren’t right, we aren’t able to make excuses for their behavior any longer.  It’s always devastating when we get information differing from what we thought we knew or when we see a new side to people.  But people show who they are over and over again-believe what they show, not what they tell you.  So I am happy to have the opportunity to remember who I am and that I deserve better because their view isn’t my reality and it doesn’t have to be.  I can and do choose to move forward on my own.     

Today I am grateful for being reminded of my strength.  Strength comes in so many forms and when we spend our time feeling unworthy and finding worth in making other people happy, we often lose sight of where our worth is.  We can never make people do certain things or treat us a certain way, or feel a certain way for us.  It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been friends with people or in any type of relationship with people.  Just because we are close to someone it doesn’t mean we give up who we are.  We don’t need to give up who we are so we can get what we want or so someone gives us the validation that we are right for them. Sometimes these relationships exist so we learn who we are and become a new version.  No one is meant to be perfect so we don’t need to worry about being perfect for someone else–sometimes we have to just do what works for us., especially if those we thought we could rely on have demonstrated they will not be there.  Believe what people show.  Believe that we can do it on our own if needed.  I don’t need to fix the problems of those around me (especially those who create the problem in the first place), I don’t need to be available to those who aren’t available to me, and I don’t need to dim my light for those who choose to live in the dark.      

Today I am grateful for people who are there when we need them—even if we aren’t always able to be there for them.  When we fall on tough times we often find who is really there for us and we learn how to be there for ourselves.  There are different kinds of love, and sometimes we need a reminder that we are loved, especially when we don’t know how to love ourselves.  When people show up, that is the ultimate demonstration of love and care.  I want to throw in that I am grateful to demonstrate that kind of love as well, to be there for people, to help. The soul feels heard and seen when we are present and sometimes presence is the ultimate ministry.  Falling in love is beautiful, but staying in love is work, and love is varied but always kind. A little presence goes a long way.  In dealing with a highly sensitive situation this weekend (exactly the one that helped me find my strength and remember my worth), I understood the selfishness of one person around me and that it was no longer my responsibility to make them happy, to accept that I have done all I can and we are at the point where the next steps in the game are fully on them.  And in that moment I had to walk away.  It felt like the world swayed right then because it wasn’t something I expected.  I was not prepared and I acted on instinct and I am grateful for friends who are available when we need them. 

Today I am grateful for understanding that forgiveness and moving on doesn’t mean continuing to lose our identity through accepting shitty behavior from others.  We need to focus on who we are and accept the life we have without destroying our foundation or allowing anyone else to destroy it.  We don’t need to lie to each other to get what we want.  Lying is where the issues arise—one mistake or one error doesn’t mean we deserve to be written off and we live in a society that condemns mistakes readily and willingly and sometimes hungrily.  We are trained to find fault before praise.  We all know that each of us have a list that we are on that we aren’t proud of, we have all done something we wish we hadn’t (or we wish we had at least done it differently).  Understanding and forgiveness come when we are super honest about who we are and know what we need to know.  We also need to be really clear on what counts as a mistake and what was a willful/wanton choice to destroy us/the relationship. Sometimes forgiveness is about forgiving who we are—and knowing the difference between an accident and that choice in our own lives because there comes a point for all of us where we can’t play the victim if we continue to choose what brought us down in the first place.  We need trust in our relationships and when we deceive people because we don’t want them to react a certain way, we are taking away their autonomy to decide what they do or set boundaries that work for them.  Deception lets us believe we are controlling the narrative or the situation, but it doesn’t fix anything and that is a deception to ourselves as well.  In order to forgive others we must learn to forgive ourselves and accept forgiveness for ourselves.  The human state is complicated but it understands energy easily. If we can manage our energy and how we feel about ourselves, it makes navigating relationships with others that much simpler because it is clear what we are willing to accept.   

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

Good isn’t the absence of bad it is also the presence of good.  People often think that just because they don’t actively behave a certain way they aren’t that way, or they believe because they feel a certain way that they are that way.  Neither is true–We have to live with decisiveness.  Stop living on the fence, thinking that life will happen for us because we are neutral.  This piece doesn’t need to be long to reiterate what we spoke about yesterday or what I’ve spoken about a million times: The universe responds to energy and action and if we don’t match the action to our energy or vice versa, the universe doesn’t know how to respond.  To move forward we must get started.  Being good doesn’t derive from not being bad—we have to actively do good things.  The same is with anything in our lives.  We don’t become a writer without writing.  We don’t get to travel without buying the tickets.  We don’t learn to sing by listening to music. To live is to do and we must be decisive so the results are clear.

There are people who spend so much time defining good and bad or judging others that they never look at what they’ve done in their own lives.  They think the act of judgement is somehow living.  Good doesn’t come from thinking we know all the answers and telling people how to live either.  Real good comes from focusing on doing our best and taking the opportunities to do our best when they come.  It’s about seizing life and making choices and learning from them and being who we are meant to be.  Life is a series of decisions and a clear being, not a matter of avoiding something.  We must DO.  So be certain, be clear, be direct, and most importantly, be authentic in our actions and choices.  Don’t allow the absence of something make us believe we are something else—and don’t let what has happened stop us from creating what we want moving forward.  Live boldly.  Live clearly.  Don’t sit on the fence.            

This life is full of potential and can be deemed any one of a million things.  Those familiar with Schroedinger’s cat know the concept that the cat in the box is either alive or dead and therefore BOTH alive and dead until we open the box to see what it is.  There are scenarios where we open the box and it either one is true, but we don’t know for sure until we open it.  The same is true with life—it is good and bad, it is light and dark, it is joyful and painful, it is organized and chaotic—sometimes one or the other but always the possibility for both or anything exists.  It is up to us to make it.  There are infinite blank pages in this life and it is up to us to fill them.  While they are blank they are both good and bad, filled with endless potential but not defined.  While they are blank they are nothing more than paper.  Once we define it, we create the presence of something and it is up to us to define further what that means.  Get writing and rewrite or add to the text as often as we need to.                  

There was a gag I heard about someone dying (I know it’s morbid but stay with me) and no one wanted the person’s soul.  The issue wasn’t that this person was good or bad, but the fact that they couldn’t decide on where the person should go, Heaven or Hell (if you believe in that particular path) because the person didn’t really do anything with their lives—he was boring.  He tried arguing he was a good person because he adopted a dog rather than purchase from a breeder, and the Devil said you only adopted because you couldn’t afford to purchase from a breeder.  He said he did everything he was supposed to do and the gate keeper said, “That was the point.  You woke up, went to work, came home, and watched Netflix.  You didn’t DO anything.”  And that was what struck me–Many of us live our lives that way, where we confuse what we “should” be doing with what we are meant to be doing or the opportunity to do what we are meant to do.  We feel like distraction is the norm, numbing away what we want to do in life, like that is what people do so we should do it too.  We seek so much distraction it’s ridiculous because we fill our days with things we don’t want to do so any ability to numb out and forget where we are at for a while is taken.  When we end up doing nothing more than what we feel we are supposed to we aren’t honoring all we are capable of doing.

*Side note, it is perfectly acceptable to have an occasion or occasional day where we do exactly that or when we just sit on the couch doing nothing—we all need that break sometimes. But if we continually refuse to participate in our lives, specifically the creation of our lives, we will never witness that wonder and our life will pass us by—we are existing, not living.  In this gag, they call this person plain yogurt, a human rice cake.  They certainly haven’t drunk the Felix Felicis in their lives (see yesterday’s post).*

Now, there is a difference between experiencing life for genuine reasons versus settling for what we can get.  When we don’t live with ambition toward something other than ourselves, we end up in that distracted, melancholy, discontented state.  The reasons aren’t our own.  No one said we have to be selfish or anything like that and it isn’t about ego, it’s about fulfilling our purpose and taking up that mantle willingly.  So when we work a job we hate because we “have to” pay the bills and we don’t take the time to find a way to make ends meet doing what we love, we feel resentful and angry.  We aren’t living life according to our terms and we feel trapped.  When we settle and do things like adopt that puppy because we can’t afford what we want, we are saying that we don’t trust we can ever get what we want from the universe or that we aren’t willing to do the work to get what we want.  I’m not here to be critical of those who purchase dogs, but what I’m saying is that if we want something (ANY particular outcome) then we need to be honest about it and embrace it fully.

When we are honest and embrace life and we understand who we are and what our purpose is, things fall into place and align.  We aren’t living life like a square wheel.  Yes, that is one of my favorite metaphors because it is so fitting and perfect for what we try to accomplish.  The square wheel will in fact move forward, but it will take tremendous effort.  Embracing life is about cutting away the excess, the stone that hinders us from full range of motion.  One may argue the square is what keeps us whole, but sometimes we have to chip away the stone to see what’s underneath.  Once we gain momentum in our lives, we don’t have to be boring, we have freed ourselves to go anywhere.  In order to live, we must do something, and to live authentically we must do the work of finding that authenticity.  We must not be afraid to embrace the truth of who we are and to take action on it, not settle for what we get thinking we are living by doing the same thing every day that doesn’t actively take us somewhere.  While there isn’t anything wrong with plain yogurt or even rice cakes, we don’t want to spend our lives that way.  Be decisive, choose a path, commit.  The soul knows the way to go.   

Yesterday we discussed fishing and hunting and purpose and I wanted to elaborate on a few other things that happened—the universe constantly guides us and I have felt that increase as this year starts to wind down.  I mentioned how my colleagues and I have been sharing feelings of discontent with where we are at but the other piece to this is that each and every one of us has a plan or a different idea of what we want to be doing.  We all articulated exactly what we would do if we weren’t working these roles.  It was raw and vulnerable and humbling.  We weren’t talking about riches or fame or even notoriety—we all spoke of things that gave us contentment and joy.   So why are we all where we are and how did we end up where we are?  We got lost in the purpose of making money to support our families or our goals or our current needs and we forgot that we can have purpose that means something to the world—we lost sight of the big picture.  Now, I’m not saying that what we do is worthless, it just isn’t the driving force for US any longer, it isn’t our motivation, it is the realization of someone else’s dream and the money we make out of it is hollow even if we are grateful for it.  In short we are looking for more than money, we are looking for that purpose. 

As we had this discussion, I noticed that there was a different sense of ease amongst us.  Normally we are all business and complaining or discussing our jobs, speculating about where things are going, talking about what we have to do that day. This time it felt like we let the reality of who we are out.  Letting the guard down and sharing who we are felt completely natural (and vulnerable) in the moment and, I can only speak for myself, but I felt the weight lift off my shoulders.  It didn’t feel like we were holding any pretense or carrying the mask.  When you have that first true expression of self it really is like everything we’ve been carrying simply falls away.  I have no idea why we put on these facades like the only way to get what we want is to lie.  I know most of us don’t think we are lying but that is the reality of it.  When we are doing something we don’t want to do for the sake of achieving a goal rather than working on the goal itself through aligned action, we are saying we don’t trust the universe to give us what we want.  We are insinuating that we need to manipulate to get what we want rather than share the authentic expression of who we are.

So after, this conversation, while driving home, I felt a different sense of contentment and ease that I haven’t felt leaving work in a long time.  There is a feeling of ease when we simply share our truth because it isn’t obscured by the façade we’ve created—there is no confusion. While driving home, my body felt different, my shoulders literally dropped and I felt no stress.  The light hit different and I felt aware of the beauty of the sky and how lucky I was to see it in that moment.  I felt absolutely no rush to get where I was going. There was no unnecessary urgency to anything—and I think that is where we have been at lately, this constant rushing around trying to do something to plug these leaks in our lives whether personally or professionally, and all we do is create motion that feels like we are swept in it and can’t be stopped.  What we are looking for is flow, not a torrent, and when we show who we are, how to get where we need to be is way more clear.  I understood the need for presence in a new way, of presence with my son—I already had fears about missing out on things with him, but this wasn’t about fear of missing out, this was about learning how to be present with him.  This was an awareness of being in the right spot.  We have to learn to put aside the instinct to say no when something good happens, we have to believe it is meant to be as it is happening—that we are always where we need to be, and we can release the guilt of what we think we should be doing in favor of what we actually should be doing. 

I’m a Harry Potter fan and in book 6 Harry takes Felix Felicis, or lucky potion.  I’m pretty sure I wrote about this too but the description of the effects of this potion is one of my favorite things in the world.  This lucky potion doesn’t make the outcome we want appear, rather it puts us in the right place at the right time for things that are mean to happen, to happen.  It is the epitome of flow.  Even if we don’t understand why a certain action is required that we don’t necessarily understand, we do it knowing it is the right thing to do, trusting we are exactly where we need to be doing what we need to do in that moment.  When I first read it, I became completely infatuated with that feeling—perhaps a bit obsessed.  I knew that was what I wanted all the time.  And I believe it is possible.  Some things in the universe are a stroke of luck and we just happen to get what we need in the right place at the right time.  But this is a matter of knowing we are always where we need to be, we just have to keep saying yes to all the things that push us along our path. So driving home that Friday, I believe that is exactly what I felt—traffic flowed, that was the time I wanted to head home, I had some work to do but there was no desperation to get it done.  Everything felt possible and I knew it would turn out exactly as it was meant to.  Even the delays and rerouting make sense, there is no reason to be upset.  So perhaps the key, or the lucky potion in our life is simply to BE.  Be aware, be honest about what we want and what feels right, be present to understand what is happening in the moment, be willing to feel what we need to, be willing to accept help and guidance.  We all have the lucky potion within us, we just need to let it work and follow it.