I had a reading today that discussed needing space to find who we are.  The person referenced moving from clique to clique especially when younger as a way of finding identity.  Specifically calling out moving between groups of people.  This was a matter of the karma of others point of view (POV)—learning to not need their opinion on the matter and to embrace my own POV.  When we walk in truth of our unique perspective and become the best version of ourselves, we are renewed and we CONNECT with all sources of who we are (Richard Miller).  We need to trust we are where we need to be, to trust our own journey with our energy and accepting who we are, that we will make the right choice.  That we don’t need to worry about what others think of us.  That we can simply be.  We are looking for more connection to those around us and the world around us.  Sometimes we need space away from the story of who we are to receive the message of who we actually are.

There were times I felt guilty moving from group to group in high school because it felt like I was either using people to a degree (to have social support or appear that I was surrounded by people) or it was incredibly lonely not being entirely supported or accepted by anyone.  I had been a singer at one point and never went for it, I was a writer, I was friends with the jocks and somewhat of an athlete myself, I danced, I spoke French.  In each of those groups I was a different person.  In each of those scenarios I transitioned between what I was doing before and became the person who needed to address those tasks in that moment.  I became what I thought people wanted me to be depending on what I was doing.  I never held my own identity—I was whatever I was doing in the moment.  I wore so many masks all day that I think that was why I enjoyed time alone, reading, singing, doing whatever my brain thought of while I was home.  I flitted from task to task, completing things off of my list trying to impress people.

I pushed everyone away.  I became so intense about being accepted and defining myself by who I was with and what I was doing that they saw I was trying way too hard.  I was becoming something else every moment of the day—I didn’t even know who I was.  what I’ve learned in this is that there comes a point when we understand that what people think of us doesn’t matter.  It really doesn’t.  we are who we are and the world wants us to express that.  We can fold into the definitions and roles people see us in and we can get by like that.  But the pleasure and enjoyment of life that we discuss will never find us if we aren’t fully invested in who we are and what we want.  Until we learn that what people think of us really doesn’t matter, we will always be playing a role rather than being who we are.

“A life of pleasure and radical enjoyment require knowledge and practice,” Rebbe Gafni.  For as much as we all understand what pleasure and enjoyment are, they are incredibly subjective terms.  While we all know what joy is, we all experience joy at different things.  A concept we need to remember is that joy and happiness come from within.  While certain experiences, people, things etc. can bring joy, joy is still something that comes from within—we decide when we feel joy so joy is a personal experience.  We have a complex relationship with the purpose of life.  Is it joy and the pursuit of happiness?  Is it work?  Is it work that brings joy?  Is it time spent having fun and the pursuit of fun things? Is it the pursuit of things and power?  And then is it power over ourselves or power over others? I mean, none of us really have the same pursuits in life or decide on the same means of attaining those pursuits… Is it working and creating value in our personal lives and hopefully sharing that with others? Some people want to be writers while others want to be fighters.  Some want to paint and others want to save lives.  Some want to understand life and some want to understand death.  In this world there is the need for AND.  We need the creativity AND the drive.  We need the strength AND the gentleness.  We need the joy AND the purpose.  We need the fun AND the intention.  We need the boundaries AND the flexibility of understanding.

The real pleasure of life is in finding the balance.  It isn’t in the constant pursuit of material or gain or power nor is it in the pursuit of pleasure and enjoyment.  We soon find that in order to enjoy life, there is a degree of seriousness in that too.  We can’t just assume that what we wish for will appear.  There is a degree of that in manifestation and in faith but the point is we need to take action as well.  I’ve found that the real pleasure in life is in self-mastery.  That comes with understanding who we are and what we want to do.  It comes with being who we are and following through on what we say we will.  It’s in exploring and finding what truly brings us joy in the first place.  That is forming the knowledge mentioned in the opening quote.  The practice comes with trying it out.  Discovering what we like and learning about it and then putting it to use, trying it on.  I am the first person to admit an aversion to saying yes.  I often feared getting saddled with responsibility I didn’t want or being unduly burdened with what other people wanted me to do for them.  I didn’t want to work on their dreams.  I wanted the time to work on my own desires.  And in order to do that, we need to take the time to learn about it rather than be distracted with what other people tell us to do—or what we should do.  if we are going to find pleasure and joy in life, we need to figure out what pleasure and joy are to us.

We have such a weird relationship with life in general and as humans we have an even weirder relationship with how we feel about life.  Like, we want to let go and have fun but we tie ourselves down to a routine that we neither asked for or enjoy but we fully participate in it.  We seek freedom in as many areas of our lives as possible but we play by these rules.  Look, I advocate for neither extreme rules or extreme freedom because if we adopt either end of the spectrum, we are either living in an autocratic/fascist/dictatorship or we are living in between total anarchy/nihilism/lala land.  Neither really works. We don’t want people telling us what to do but we also want someone responsible for us and at the same time we want freedom with the security of being able to support ourselves.  The thing is this: we will always be in between.  We are never all one thing or another and that is the point of balance.  The thing with balance is that we need to practice it and take responsibility for it.  we need to understand it and practice it and see how we feel in it.  We need to understand how we feel and what we want and, at the core of it all, who we are and what our purpose is.  We can have fun, pleasure, enjoyment, but to understand the full capacity of it we need to take it seriously to a degree.  We learn about it. 

No one has all the answers but I do know that in order for us to find a sense of purpose we need to acknowledge and honor who we are and in order to do that we need to take the time to explore.  We need to allow more “yes” into our lives and stop turning away what we are afraid of or what we are afraid of taking responsibility for.  If we want joy, we have to take responsibility for finding and creating joy.  If we want pleasure, we need to learn what pleasure is to us.  The same with purpose and freedom.  All of those things, while we are seeking a life or moment of peace and ease, require us to dive in and do the work. To learn about who we are and what we are capable of.  To learn that we can push further than we thought we could and to own our choices, to fully navigate through life.  When we practice this and understand the layers of what we do, an entire world opens up for us with new levels to attain and pursue.  To let go, we have to take up the reins of our choices and explore it with ravenous curiosity and care.  Once we open the door, once we take that first step, it isn’t that far of a leap to find the key to success in our lives, and open the door to a life of joy and happiness AND purpose—we can make it one in the same.      

“It’s never about feeling ready, it’s about action right away,” Dritan Hodo. To continue on how we get in our own way and limit ourselves, we need to talk about the importance of taking action.  If we allow ourselves too much time to think in some circumstances we will never get it done.  Like most people, I have complicated emotions surrounding ability and worth and timing.  I was raised on the cusp of a generation that entirely raised itself and those who needed permission to do anything.  I often found myself wanting to do more, craving more, knowing I could do more and then stopping myself because it wasn’t the right time, someone didn’t give me permission.  The biggest disservice of that pattern was that I dimmed my connection to instinct and belief that I could trust I could make it through or at the very least trust that I could figure it out.  But we can change that.  We can learn to take the leap again and that happens by simply doing….anything.  Pick something and DO it.  We can’t think our way into living, there will always come a point where we have to take action.

We live in a complicated world where rules dictate the truth rather than the truth itself prevailing and telling the story.  Truth is misconstrued as insult and offense and we have not only learned to make tailoring the truth a necessity, but how to tailor the facts of the situation to make it look like that truth.  I’m not sure when the truth became so unpalatable to people but it has caused a major issue when it comes to confidence in our own ability to navigate the world.  If we spend more time worrying about how we are perceived and received by others, that is less time we have to figure out our own alignment and purpose and then create something of value aligned with who we are.  In that regard, we will never feel ready because we focus more on being accepted by the masses and we simply can’t make everyone happy.  That isn’t possible.  Even the most delicious of ice cream causes a stomach ache in those with an allergy.  Point being that we can be nearly perfect to nearly everyone and there will still be SOMEONE with an issue. That is human nature.  We inhibit our steps enough with issues of confidence, so much so that we have to learn the last thing that should stop us is someone else telling us what we can and can’t do when we know our own capabilities.

When we forget all of that and understand that our time here is limited and it is worth taking the chance to create something of value, we then move onto the next lesson: done is better than perfect.  No one ever said things have to be perfect to be worthy of sharing.  It’s enough to do what calls to us and what makes sense to us… and sometimes we have to take where we are at and simply use it as a block to the next step.  We have to put aside the worry of making it perfect or having all of our ducks in a row before taking a step.  Would that be ideal in all situations?  Sure, it might be.  But what happens if we need to learn something else and there might be another way to do something that we didn’t know about unless we would have taken the leap when we did.  If we wait for everything to be perfect before moving we will remain in the same place.  We take action by putting one foot in front of the other and then we take the next step, and the next step after that until we are walking confidently in the direction we are meant to follow.  Soon we can run and after that we can fly.  We will never learn unless we start taking steps toward the life we want.     

Stop Stopping ourselves.  There is an exercise we all need to do at some point in our lives if we are ever going to truly…experience life, I guess. We have to look at ourselves.  Truly look at ourselves.  More importantly we need to be honest.  Know who we are. Understand our actions.  The type of things we do and ask whether it matches the type of person we want to be.  This isn’t easy.  I was never afraid of being honest, but I’m not sure I understood how far the brain would go to protect us from ourselves, to cling to the patterns, to justify/excuse what we did and didn’t do.  We follow patterns from the time we are young, learning what we see and then emulating it and if we don’t go outside of our environment, we won’t know any different.  When we repeatedly find ourselves at a certain point, a wall, we have to ask what we are doing that keeps us there, how do we keep coming back to that point?  Did we ever leave it? 

The point is acceptance of what we have done, that we have participated in stopping our own progress.  I listened to a reel today discussing turning 40 and the shift in hormones this person was experiencing.  She had been feeling off and knew something wasn’t right and she went and got tested.  She got some answers and is working toward them and the point is this: we have to live how is right for us and we have to trust our instincts.  Even if advocacy hasn’t worked before, we know the truth about who we are.  We are worthy of living the life we want.  So if I want to be healthy and have a home that I run in a way that feels more comfortable to me, more in line with who I am, then that’s what I need to do.  Like, if I know dairy bothers me or I’m sensitive to sugar, then it’s ok to not have those things in my house even if other people do.  We need to do what is right for ourselves and our families.  We don’t need to give into peer pressure, we just need to do what is right for us.  Why do I limit my growth and my health for the sake of what someone else thinks? 

And if I know what I need, then why do I keep doing the things that bring me back to where I don’t want to be?  For example, I know that I want to do something different with my career, I am working on multiple avenues for other options—but why do I continue to plan my life around the work that I don’t enjoy?  Why do I prioritize that work and hate myself for not doing what I want every day?  I could take some time off and really focus on the things I enjoy, take that full leap and just do it. But something stops me and that is what I need to figure out. What is THAT thing that stops me?  It’s not like I don’t want to do the things I’m craving and have been talking about for years.  I DO.  So why don’t I becomes the question? Is it lack of self-worth that I don’t deserve to create that level of joy in my life?  Is it fear that I can’t maintain it?  Is it that I’m not sure what to do first in order to make it a viable thing?  Maybe it’s all of it.  But the point is I have realized one thing: the only thing stopping me at this juncture is myself and not knowing what I need to do next. It’s me.   And if it’s me holding myself back, then it’s me who can unleash the full breadth of my talent and purpose on the world as well. 

“Look at people like they’re going through something, like they’re in the middle of something…because they are,” Corey Talbott.  We all need this reminder every now and then.  We hear so many quips about being kind because of battles people face, but we need to keep it simpler than that: everyone is doing their best to navigate this world, a world that operates under a pretense of what we are “supposed” to do that makes it difficult to reconcile with what we want to do.  We are born into conflict between complete knowledge of who we are and who we are told to be, between having innate independence and curiosity and being told to curb it and not trust our own power.  We all face trials where that knowing and instinct would prove invaluable… and we are all taught to ignore those instincts for the sake of obligation.  For example, we have jobs that don’t allow us to be in the home to take care of a family that we are supposed to nurture and grow—we are meant to form a foundation but we can never be present for it.  We are born into man-made conflict. 

I’ve spoken of this before.  I want to remind us all that this is good news.  If we make the conflict, if we create our own issues and fears and we choose to get lost in the waves of emotion, then we can choose differently.  We can choose to not respond to conflict and trust the gifts we are given.  We can acknowledge the most important thing: we are all human.  We have no right to judge others and we have no real need to prove anything to anyone. That scale was put in place to create a sense of order and false power.  Power is ultimately an illusion anyway because we all go to the same place in the end and we can’t take any of this with us.  We are gifted with our own power, and I don’t care how many times I have to repeat that: we are truly gifted with power.  We just forget that the vision of the world is skewed and sometimes we need a reminder that we all lose footing every now and then.  We are all human.  We don’t know someone’s story.  The best we can do is be kind and have grace—grant the grace we want through our own trials.  Seeing through the lens of humanity changes that perspective—and at the basest level, we are all flesh and bone, walking meat sacks that have a mushy computer running the show.

I want to caveat this with one thing: just because everyone is going through something doesn’t excuse crappy behavior.  We are still responsible for managing our emotions as I spoke about yesterday, and just because we feel bad, we don’t get to treat others like shit.  But acknowledging we all go through stuff helps us remember that people are at different stages of the game and different experience teaches different things.  This isn’t about right and wrong per se, we just can’t go further than where we’ve been if we don’t see the other options.  This is more about leveling the playing field and recognizing our responsibility. The truth is this: for as resilient as we are, we are weak.  For as precious life is, there are moments of pure agony.  For all of us—whether it is relative or not this isn’t about comparing one person’s pain to another (pain is pain)—we all experience it.  If we can put aside the emotional reactivity and understand the actual FEELING, the physical feeling in our bodies that we are trying to process, that is how we manage our energy.  The emotion is the energy of what we feel and we must harness that—and give space and grace for people to learn what they are feeling as well.  So…it’s about taking control of the emotion through allowing what we feel and honoring it.  We all have SOMETHING, so let’s be patient with each other. 

Today I am grateful for life.  Real, raw, life.  Everything in the world can seem important until something comes that changes the trajectory of the moment/day/week/month/forever.  It’s been an incredibly challenging week professionally and personally and the personal stuff has taken precedence.  Time is truly precious, to breathe is a gift.  Hearing my son laugh with his friends, watching him play LaCrosse, spending time together as a family is absolutely precious.  I’ve learned that we really only have one go around and there is a lot of in between.  Last year caused a ton of mental stress because of all the in-between states.  Was I healthy or not?  Was I going to get the job or not?  Was I going to keep going on my health journey?  Was my father ok?  And I started to see that I couldn’t keep looking for things to be wrong.  I couldn’t keep prioritizing stuff that just doesn’t matter at the end of the day.  We have one shot and it is up to us to make the most of it.  When things are uncertain or when they are certainly bad, the universe is telling us to slow down and gather our bearings to the life around us.  What do we see/feel/hear/taste in that moment? There is a saying that the days are long but the years are short and it is true.  One day we wake up and we’re teenagers living our lives to the fullest, not a care in the world, trying to figure everything out, (perhaps a little angsty) and the next we’re 40 and asking how our kids got so big.  Life means more than what we put in the bank.  It is how we spend our time and live.

Today I am grateful for being seen and accepted by myself and those who take the time to know me.  I never realized the very- near-desperation I had (and needed) for being understood.  At the core we all want to be seen as we are and understood.  We don’t want to constantly explain ourselves or beg for people to relate to us.  I felt like such an outsider for so long, always feeling like I was on my own, floating from group to group.  Sure, I could blend in well enough to be welcomed for a time, and then it would just as quickly go away.  There were stipulations and rules to me being there.  I credit my upbringing and my nature in general that I maintain a strong open mind for everyone—I allow people to be who they are.  I know what it feels like to be judged so I put a lot of effort into accepting people as they are as long as they aren’t hurting others.  I’ve never really had a group that reciprocated that same level of acceptance.  I even felt like an outsider in my own home.  It’s not like I had obscure allegiances to anything—I wasn’t advocating for skinning cats in the basement for Pete’s sake—but I found it hard to find people to accept me as I am.  There were ALWAYS conditions.  And I’m grateful to walk away from those conditions that no longer serve me and enter rooms where I am welcome.    

Today I am grateful for authenticity.  When it comes to marriage, I am 100000% advocating for real conversation.  My husband and I spent years misinterpreting each other.  Never intentionally, but we had different motivation and priorities at different times.  We’ve found a common ground with each other that has changed the course of our conversations and focus.  It all started with playing darts together.  At first I was wound tight and frustrated (I’m still very new and make a lot of mistakes) but the more I pushed through and we started talking about other things with each other, we developed deeper conversations and that led to deeper understanding of each other and really discussing mutual goals—a shared future.  That isn’t to say we didn’t have a shared future, but it is to say that up until very recently we were looking at different plans for where we are going.  Something shifted a few months ago and I have truly appreciated the course we have started taking.  It’s as simple as being on the same page.  Neither of us were demanding the other see things a certain way. We listened and we discussed and we planned and laughed and had meaningful conversation.  It felt like we were dating again, hearing each other out and wanting to learn where the other was coming from.  It pays when we are who we are—the connection changes.    

Today I am grateful for presence.  Yesterday my son had a birthday party to attend.  It was a relatively last minute invite and I wasn’t sure for a while if we were going to go, but we decided to participate so we could let him blow off some steam.  He’d been to this venue before and he really liked it, the energy, the excitement, the games so it was a good choice to let him go experience it.  He tried the gravity ropes for the first time (suspended obstacle course) and we were so present watching him.  He had a moment of being absolutely frozen with fear (don’t blame him, he’s never been up that high with no guardrails before).  My husband and I encouraged him.  He made it through with a lot of coaxing.  After, his friend had stayed and told him how brave he was.  It was a beautiful moment to see these kids embrace each other—and my son was proud for seeing it through.  After, my husband actually said we were going to stay for a bit because our son was having a good time.  I melted a little bit because most of the kids from the party had already left and we normally would have as well—but we stayed together as a family to let him play and have fun.  I found out he had given some of his points to one of his friends so they could play a game together because his friend didn’t have enough left on his card and my heart melted.  Sometimes these kids drive me nuts because they see things sooo differently than we do—but witnessing the unquestioning support of his best friend and then the unquestioning generosity to share from my son made me so proud and gave me a lot of hope.  Sometimes we can’t be worried about the future—we just have to come together in the moment.

Today I am grateful for enforcing boundaries and understanding where I stand with people.  I’m going through a series of new medical tests to determine what is happening with one/both of my ovaries, and frankly I’m scared.  The waiting drives me nuts because I hate not knowing what’s happening in my own body.  Even if the prognosis is favored toward the positive, there is potential for a not so good outcome.  So I’ve shared with people close to me and I’ve received less than warm support on the issue.  In the majority of the cases it’s been diverted to something going on with them or them acting like they know the people I’m seeing as if I haven’t been in healthcare for 20 years.  These are the people who constantly say if you need anything let me know—and then the second I say I need something, even if it’s just support, they’re MIA.  That’s a pattern I’ve had since I was a kid and that’s why I often took care of things on my own.  But instead of getting upset by it, I am happy to remove myself from the situation where people aren’t going to support me when they say they will.  And I do not feel guilty for it.  It’s plain to see the truth in how people treat you, in their actions.  So while I appreciate the kindness that was extended, it was very clearly conditional and I am equally appreciative to step aside and focus on what needs to be done in my life.  As I’ve said before, I want you to eat, just not at my table.  And I do not feel guilty for focusing on what is important for myself and my family.  We got this.    

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead

“Don’t let how you feel devour you,” Corey Talbott. In other words, do not sink into how we feel.  When we let the feelings take over, we sink into an unhelpful, unproductive pattern that cycles downward. The feelings become all consuming and devour us.  I had this tragic figure, Cinderella complex, where I thought if I were sad enough or if there was enough wrong in my life, someone would come and rescue me and make me see my worth.  I’ve found no one to participate in that story and be the savior.  I’ve learned that sometimes we find connection to salvation through ourselves and listening to what we are told, through picking up the mantle of who we are rather than fighting it.  Rather than pretend to be something we are not.  When we are tested, we are on the right path and it is us to realize that some tests are about showing us we are ready to let go of some old thoughts and habits.  We are our own salvation and we don’t need anyone or anything else beyond our KNOWING to get us through.  Sometimes we need to SNAP up and get ourselves off the floor.  We may want to wallow in self-pity—we all have moments—but we can’t allow that to take over.  Acknowledge the feeling and understand what we’re feeling but then get out of our thoughts and feelings and KNOW.    

The question really becomes why not me?  If we are meant to learn the lesson then why wouldn’t we be given the experience to have and then learn the lesson?  When we ask for help and some sort of salvation, it isn’t like the issues are simply removed.  What really happens is we are given the lesson to work through it—whatever “it” is.  Know when it’s time to move on versus wallow in the feelings and emotions—that is when we know we passed the test—when we can finally move forward and not react how we used to.  We need to be proud of the wins—and getting through the low is absolutely a win.  We must also remember that there will always be other lessons.  Once we understand their purpose as teachers, we approach them and welcome them with grace and understanding that it is for us.  For our faith, for our space, and to bring out the best in ourselves that we can share with the world.  Until we learn to manage that, we won’t know how to navigate difficult or challenging situations and we are at the whim of a temporary feeling.  The world is shifting right now and emotion is high—understandably so, to be honest.  The very foundation of what we know is being rocked for the sake of power.  But we have an opportunity to take the energy of that emotion and shift it into something good if we don’t let it consume us.

And that is probably the most important point in this: how do we translate what we feel into purposeful action?  I will admit that we can’t always control how we feel.  Things creep up on us and seemingly come out of nowhere and we get triggered and react how we wouldn’t want to.  The key there is to regroup, reset, and refocus.  When we do that we can redirect that energy to something more productive.  We take our power back.  Don’t make the mistake of thinking that things we do are irreparable—I believe that’s ego talking (and for someone who has admitted ego issues—between self-worth and self-expression that is– that’s a true statement).  Never let emotion remove who we are, remove our humanity because even if people do wrong by us, there was something in them that felt they were doing right by them.  Selfish and crappy? ABSOLUTELY.  Anything to do with us? ABSOLUTELY NOT.  So why would we let that emotion dictate our next move or who we are?  Choose to snap up and move on.  We can only learn the lesson if we decide to move forward with purpose.  Don’t wallow or let something we have a choice over consume us until we lose sight of who we are.  We are here for a purpose and it isn’t up to us to decide who is worthy of anything.  It is our job to maintain our power and share our gifts. 

The world is a lab of sorts—an exploration.  A test of curiosity.  A way to create. Often times I think we are too serious.  We take our work too seriously, we take ourselves too seriously, we prioritize meaningless things, create hierarchies.  To what end?  We all end up in the same place.  I often wondered how a world filled with so much life and beauty and creativity and flow coexisted with the need for absolute order.  Like, we take the constant of math, a universal language, and it goes side by side with painters and musicians and poets.  Nature presents itself in fractal patterns.  The beauty of the natural world operates with unimagined possibility yet it still is within the natural law.  Animals, plants, the natural desire for symmetry, balance.  So I can take it that there is need for both in this world, the creative exploration and the natural laws that define existence.  If there wasn’t need for both they wouldn’t exist.  I’ve often wanted to know what my life would have been like had I followed more pursuits and questions rather than simply seeking answers and regurgitating information to everyone, becoming a copy of what had already been done to satisfy the ego. If I hadn’t taken myself so seriously and tried to portray that image of the serious girl.  I would have wasted a lot less time proving and a lot more time doing what fit and made sense to me.

The universe is so vast, so filled with possibility and potential that the mind can’t truly fathom it.  The human brain is designed to put order into what we do and to make sense of the order around us—and that often applies to what we see in the physical realm.  We’re curious by nature—if we weren’t we wouldn’t have cut bodies open to see what’s inside, we wouldn’t be able to fly or speak on the telephone (slightly less gruesome than the first example 😊).  It makes sense to make sense of things.  For survival purposes alone we need to understand how the world operates, what will and will not hurt us, what we need to protect ourselves. It’s been a slow evolution but once we started, we put some hustle into it.  Now, for as much as I’ve looked for guidance/direction on what to do, aside from natural law, I have struggled with the concept of operating in the parameters set by someone else.  I mean, I was always a rule follower to the letter and I sought order and control.  I’m sure we all do on some level.  But I can’t stand when someone tells me what to do.  Yet you ask me what I want to do and often times my brain turns to mush in the moment—I’m complex what can I say?

I started looking at the habit of seeking guidance differently.  We all have creative tendencies in us but we have an expectation to make something of them so to speak.  Like, creation can’t be taken seriously without proving its value.  We take ourselves so seriously that we only value what other people say has value.  That is why we put so much pressure on ourselves to be a certain way and why we seek the approval of others.  We created a system that we value more than the work people put out.  There are very few people out there who do the work for the sake of doing the work—but those who do create magic.  And what is the point of taking this life, taking ourselves as seriously as we do?  Have you seen what we look like during sex?  Come on, that alone is hilarious.  And, if someone shows up late to work and gets a warning, what is the worst of it?  A piece of paper or a note filed electronically chastising us—but does that leave a mark on our permanent record?  Do we get that engraved on our headstones when we die?  No.  So why do we let that so severely impact our time here like any mistake is a black mark against us as part of society.  I would hope that in this day and age we would value more about a person than whether or not they were on time, because at the end of the day it’s really insignificant. 

Why do we live like this with our very limited time here? Why do we choose to live in repetition of bad ideas, in struggles for power and domination, to create things that determine what someone is worth? Money isn’t fucking real.  It’s not some resource grown that we can’t live without.  It was man made, a tool.  The world is designed to cooperate and to exchange ideas and learn about and from each other.  This world designed for fun.  It isn’t about proving who is right or who has the most of anything—it’s about loving and working together.  It’s about fulfilling our role and if we keep taking ourselves as seriously as we do we are going to lose the opportunity to see the world for what it is: an endless playground filled with unimaginable creativity and joy that we are meant to tap into.  Why are we wasting our time with harnessing power over each other when we can harness power over our creative edge?  Why do we define what is important by someone else’s definition of worth?  We try to accomplish too much and our attention is too divided because we are straddling multiple realms of existence at once: functioning according to society’s standards, fulfilling our creative desire (and our purpose), and doing that to the approval of all those around us.  Let’s break this down.  We are meant to have fun—we aren’t meant to hinge our entire being and worth on how long we stayed at work and perfect attendance.  Because the truth is, we never know how many games we have the opportunity to see or how many dinners we have with friends or family.  Step into the lab and create, my friends.  Don’t put limitations on what you feel needs to be created at our hands.  Stop being so serious and have some fun.       

I’ve been on an insane creative roll since last night.  Ideas literally pouring out of me so much so that I wasn’t sure I could keep up with them.  I found myself thinking of how cool it was that these ideas flowed like this through me and that all I wanted was a way to put them into practice, to make them real, to create the life and follow through on the life I envision.  It’s the fear that holds us back, but there is no reason to fear.  We just have to do what we are called to do and what feels right—always.  We KNOW what’s right, we are given that gift and when we trust that gift, amazing things happen.  Within the last 10 hours, I have had a surge of ideas for posts, for businesses, for dreams, for ways of life, and it all feels amazing.  I had a truly cathartic meeting with my boss and the conversation was a lot about feeling.  Granted it was work related, but it helped to put things in perspective and I feel like getting some of those things on the table and hearing her share where she is at unlocked something.  It moved me in a different way this time around because it was a real example of the fact that people can seem to have it all and have it all together and they are still going through something.  Our job is to be there for each other, to connect.  Sure we work and complete tasks but there will always be another task.  That list is never complete.  So when we learn to connect on a human level and we see the real intent/person beneath, it’s easier to shift that focus to connection rather than dynamics/power/ego.

So I share this because the mind is a wild place and it will take us anywhere and everywhere which is awesome and terrifying.  Everything we see, everything that exists in this world is a result of something from the mind and a choice.  There are times I feel like the mind isn’t meant to be tamed because when I am able to ride the wave of creativity and joy and trust, amazing things happen and I’m often feeling unleashed in that point—like I am fully aware that this rush of energy, this surge of creation is energy on a different level—people would think this is nuts to witness.  But I see that there is a balance.  The emotion behind our thoughts is what needs to be tamed.  We can’t let the emotion stop us—I often say that emotion is a guidepost, it isn’t the driver.  The creativity needs to be channeled and then unleashed, we need to do the work.  The WORK is the discharge of that energy and the focal point for what we are meant to do.  It’s hard to wallow in emotion or thoughts when we actively produce something.  I am guilty of spending a HUGE chunk of my time in self-pity and sorrow waiting for someone to come fix the situation and tell me I’m worth it instead of simply acting on what I KNEW was right for me.  I do not diminish the things I went through because there were some truly rough moments—but I understand now that I can’t allow those feelings and thoughts to control my actions—certainly not after this much time has passed.  I can choose (we can choose) to be a victim or we can take action toward what we want.  Other people’s opinions don’t matter—it is our process and our drive that matter.  It is how we react and what we choose that matters.  So we don’t let the emotions call the shots, we let the creativity guide us where it wants to take us because that is the divine connection.  Creation is divine and if we are ever unsure of that, try and define where that spark came from.  It is magic.

It’s been a while since I really talked about a book in general and I wanted to share something a bit different today…I gave in and bought the first in a fantasy series that I’d been hesitant to buy in spite of curiosity.  Reading it, I can’t say I fell in love or anything, but it certainly captivated my curiosity enough and it was well written enough that I decided to move forward and buy the whole series.  I’m done with book one and in that story, I had questions about the concept of love between the two main characters.  Like, how do we fall in love without really knowing each other?  How can we say it’s love?  But it seemed romantic and I understood the actions of both characters as presented in the story.  It was typically fantasy-ish in the story arc and it was fun to read.  Now I’m on book two and there has been a major shift in this dynamic and it has me FLOORED.  I don’t know why this is having such an emotional impact on me.  Perhaps it’s because I would have always rooted for the initial protagonist before, believing that there were reasons for the behavior and that they would get past it and find understanding—that there was real love between them and they would find their way back to each other.  But in this case (at least where I’m at in the story now) the female lead has decided to burn down her existence in that world and take another path because she needs the freedom to be who she is.  Will this arc continue?  I have no idea, but this concept of utter acceptance and understanding of what we REALLY need and having someone understand what we need is intoxicating to a degree. 

The part that has me drawn in is the fact that the new character she is working with was portrayed as the evil/untrustworthy antagonist who liked to stir shit up.  In the first book we discover that he has his reasons for it and that he has been playing a game of his own—and in the second book we understand more in depth the extent of his actions and what it really meant to protect his people.  The way he protects his people, while it looked different than the original lead, was JUST as extensive and rooted in love.  We discover that he, perhaps, has sacrificed more than the other and he got a bad name that he was willing to bear for the sake of other people. But the magic of this new lead is that he has an inherent understanding of the needs of our female lead on a soul level, really.  He understands how her soul feels trapped in her new existence after she has become what she was to become, he understands that she needs to break free of that—and he sees the danger of the original lead stifling that in her.  Not just any danger, but the danger to her mentally—and to her spirit.  While he could very well still be using her as a tool (I have a lot more book to read to confirm this), he still acknowledges the human that remains and the need to learn to wield her power and to live in a way that suits her.  She has to live her life.

Ok, so that was a longer synopsis than I intended.  But I share this for a reason: there is an attraction to the life we are meant to have, to the freedom that comes from being who we are and being entirely accepted for who we are. Not only that, but to have those innate skills honed because they are seen as valuable, not as a liability.  There is nothing more encouraging in the world than to be told who we are isn’t a bad thing.  Not just that we aren’t doing anything wrong, but that what we have is needed—it is given purpose.  No one is proud of every action they’ve taken in their lives but there is a difference between hiding from them to the point of making ourselves sick, and learning to turn that poison into water again, knowing that what we did can’t be undone but that we can do something different moving forward.  We can use who we are and what we have become for good.  There is no longer the game of trying to fit into someone else’s vision of us to make others happy—we simply embrace what we are.  When someone is able to do that with us, when they are able to embrace us in that fashion, we feel whole.  And so many of us are broken.  A typical fantasy arc like this would involve another individual filling in the gaps for this character but I am in love with the idea that this character is making her feel like she is whole on her own—she doesn’t need fixing, she needs support and guidance.

There is a line in the story where this character calls the female lead his savior.  It could be seen as saccharine or over the top—but it is perfectly fitting in there.  We see throughout the story that even though he is portrayed as a villain or a master manipulator, he is just as much a savior as the initial lead was to our heroine.  But the beautiful part is this: he sees that SHE, too, is a savior.  The initial lead kept insisting on protecting her when she didn’t need it—she needed to partner with him and work through the demons they must learn to carry.  In life it is the same.  We can’t always be the savior for someone else and we can’t always be looking for someone to save us. I had a Cinderella complex for a long time, hoping that someone would come along and rescue me—from what I don’t know, the idea seems ridiculous to me now when I look back at my life.  So it is refreshing and encouraging to read a series where the female isn’t glorified—she is very much recognized as having flaws—and she isn’t coddled—we know that she is strong enough to handle it on her own.  So are we.  I talked about using the shit to fertilize growth the other day.  And this is a prime example of it: we don’t hide from the crap in our lives, we learn from it. We honor who we are instead of hiding in shame or caging it.  We learn to use our gifts and unleash our own magic on the world.  We are our own savior—and we learn the broken never mattered anyway.  We are still whole in our own right and the right person, the right people will see that, and never ask us to be anything different.  So even though this story is fantasy, THAT is a realty we can live in.