Sorry in advance, folks, I’m having a slightly obsessive period related to my topics here.

Perhaps it’s because I’m literally days away from starting my newest venture, but change has been on my mind a lot lately.  I mean, we’ve talked about conscious change numerous times here, but this feels different.  This feels like the implication and the action of changing goes further than just a job change.  So, as I mentioned the other day, sometimes the inspiration for these pieces comes from the most random stuff.  Stick with me on this one.  I want to preface the rest of this that the focus on this piece is CHANGE, not necessarily a commentary on the people I’ve used as examples.  So I was scrolling through YouTube looking for a particular song while working on a separate project I have going when I discovered there’s a ton of AI out there with Eminem collaborating on worship music.  This was one of the first moments when I struck me how far AI is reaching.  For the record, as a writer I’ve been terrified of AI since ChatGPT really became a thing and it didn’t take much for me to be incredibly concerned about the use of images and likenesses of people in the world to create things—things that may be so far off the mark from what this person would do.  We can create ANYTHING with AI.  That is another major point of being more concerned with whether or not we can v. whether or not we should do it.  Regardless, some of these songs seemed 100% authentic.   This is where it gets a little complicated for me.  Even if this work isn’t truthfully sung by him, it still got me thinking about the facets of ourselves that we decide to share and what we hide—the pieces of ourselves that always existed but we never revealed. 

Every time we see someone change things up (like changing jobs, wearing new clothes, a new hairstyle etc.) or take a new focus on a particular genre (Michael Jordan playing baseball, Beyonce singing country, Jim Carrey playing a serious role etc.) we have a moment of shock and adjustment.  For me, I started thinking if Eminem went through this transformation to writing Christian music perhaps it applies that there are things inside of us that take time to come out.  That we all have things we want to share but perhaps we’ve portrayed something else so we don’t get hurt or so we don’t have to face the hurt.  This goes to the hidden parts of ourselves.  We say things to express what we think we want people to understand about us, to protect ourselves.  But the more we protect, the less we see the truth– that we are all hurt and need help at some point.  That we’ve been wearing a mask and it’s time for it to come off.  There is a very real importance on understanding the difference between what we show and who we are—I do not schedule my husband and son like I schedule my staff.  There are different facets of each of us that come out at different times, that doesn’t mean we ARE that person, or rather solely that person.  We adapt to the need in the moment but we all have the different pieces in all of us.  There are so many things we want to say in this world and sometimes we can’t or we don’t allow it, but it is still in us.

The other layer to this piece is the combination of change as it specifically relates to faith.  I used to think that we could induce change/endure change with pure grit.  There is an element of grit to undertaking any change but I’m learning now that there is also an element of faith.  Yes, we’ve talked about blind faith and leaping and following instinct and all of that remains true.  But I’m talking about the faith that we feel when we have 0 clue what could possibly be next.  The faith that allows the right things to show up at the right time, the faith that gives us signs that we know are for us, the faith that reminds us there is something bigger than us every day.  Even my husband has started talking about finding faith again—neither of us are full proponents of organized religion but we understand that there is a higher power we seek connection to—and NEED connection to.  I’m ready to find our faith together. Sometimes there are people who pair together and we never saw it coming, never understood what we may have needed from them—just like Chris and I.  I NEVER saw myself with him at the time we met but we have become a different type of partner to each other at this point. Then there was what spurred this piece: artists who paired together in a fake (AI) world like Eminem and Adele, Eminem and Billie Eilish and the work still has meaning.  There was the very real pairing of Eminem and Rihanna and that wouldn’t have been expected but they killed it. In each of them we see people who feed off of each other and find something in each other that they couldn’t get from someone else—they had something that needed to be expressed and they found a way to do that together.  There are similarities in us that we don’t always know about, that aren’t visible to everyone, but when we find that connection, it’s like a kindred spirit.  Effective change means recognizing all these facets of who we are and embracing them.  Embrace the entirety of who we are with faith and courage and those pieces will show us the way.

There isn’t enough credit given to the benefits of changing things around.  Ok, maybe I wasn’t giving enough credit to changing things around.  No one is a fan of surprise change that disrupts our lives or creates unnecessary chaos.  Chaos for chaos’ sake rarely works out well for anyone.  But deliberate intent and focus on changing things up can have great benefits for the mind, body, and soul.  Sure, there are amazing benefits to routine and efficiency—we tend to accomplish more, we know what we are doing/what the goal is, we know what we need to focus on to get it done, we stick to our timeframes, we are able to rely on anticipated outcomes, and as long as all parts are functioning as they are supposed to we yield what is expected and thensome.  However, I noticed a drastic change in my productivity when I started working from home.  I thought it was just the elimination of distraction from the office, the constant pull of people knowing I was physically there and available but as I continued working from home, I noticed a marked increase in knocking things off of whatever to do list I had.  A colleague of mine who focuses on wellbeing for employees shared some thoughts on changing her environment when she had to go to a different location in our system and some of the research she was doing on new healing techniques/techniques for wellbeing.

The technique she mentioned that caught my eye was Forest Bathing (Shinrin-Yoku).  I’ve heard of this before and it sounded absolutely amazing to me.  It was when I read The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield that I first felt the draw toward it.  I loved the idea of maintaining presence while in a forest, surrounded entirely by nature and the degree of connection the main character expresses.  Every time I’ve ever been surrounded by trees I’ve felt an intense calm come over me.  Every time I’ve passed a forest preserve or driven past hills/mountains covered with trees, I’ve had the urge to walk through it.  Trails entice me, I love watching the trees breathe outside my windows.  So I’ve naturally had this connection to the technique my whole life and there is genuine validity to it.  Nature itself lowers blood pressure/heart rate, engages the parasympathetic nervous system, reducing anxiety, and increasing feelings of connectedness—and that connectedness is with self.  There is grounding when we are near such a high energy source.  So this technique is demonstrative of the benefits of even temporarily changing our environment but it hits on so much more.  Sure, temporary change can stimulate us but it can also inspire us for something bigger.  It can revitalize us, connect us to our purpose again, still us enough to show a new way.  Change can be the catalyst to the stillness/peace we are looking for.

As I step into one of the biggest changes I’ve made in my life, I feel the difference in me.  I made a conscious choice to do something different for myself and my family and it means giving up nearly everything I have known/done for the last 8 years and giving up what I’ve worked for over the last 23 years.  But it is the culmination of the bigger picture, the next step into my evolution.  Perhaps more of the unveiling of who I really am.  I thought I wanted a specific type of power, to call the shots, but I’ve realized that there was so much bureaucratic bullshit with it that I would never be allowed to accomplish what I wanted to regardless of what I did.  I see the toxicity of what I’ve been living in and I feel the weight of who I used to be falling away.  The expectations I’ve known for a while that don’t work, the unnecessary pressure, the behind the back jockeying for position.  I have moments of clinging to it because that is still familiar.  It still feels weird to be that person who calmly goes with the flow, who follows her instincts, who listens to her spirit, who tries to find guidance and connection in something greater, who has taken control of her personal habits and is taking care of herself, who stands confidently on her own two feet. But all of this came from changing things around.  Do we have to disrupt our entire lives to find the benefit of change?  No.  We just need to make the conscious choice to find where we belong because we have that knowing—and then we need to get there.  

Today I am grateful for help.  I am the first to admit that I hate having to ask for help.  I want to figure it out on my own, I want to be able to do things on my own, I hate being held back by others, I hate it when things don’t work how they are supposed to.  In life, these things happen all the time and there is no way to avoid it.  So when those moments happen, all I can say at this point is that I am grateful for those around me who DO help.  For those who have helped carry me through and given me what I needed.  My brain seems to be all over the place a lot lately and I struggle with controlling the pattern of thought to focus enough to actually contribute anything of value to my own life.  And I hate myself for that if I’m totally honest—I’m working through that.  But I am completely grateful for the people who step in to help when needed.  I’m grateful to those who answer the call when I put it out there.  I’m grateful for those who hear me.

Today I am grateful for magic moments.  Signs come in all forms, some of the most powerful are animals.  The creatures that come into our lives or how they behave tell us what we need to know.  Recently I took my family to the zoo.  It was the first time we have gone that my son will remember.  This zoo has free roaming peacocks so you run into them all over the place—people are constantly waiting for the males to display their feathers.  I always love seeing it too and it had been years since I’d been to this zoo so I was excited/hopeful as well.  After we finished an attraction, we sat together at one of the picnic benches right in the area and we saw a male laying there not too far from us.  One of the females wandered by and the male saw her.  Sure enough, right where we were in that moment, he stood up and began to display.  People came running from all directions with their cameras and kids in tow.   A few minutes after that we were walking in a new area and a group of people stood around a different male who seemed quite curious.  He was standing alert and watching everyone.  People were taking his picture, myself included, I was on the opposite side of the group away from everyone.  He turned from the group and started to walk toward me, stopped less than a foot from me and we held eye contact for almost a full minute. It felt like he was looking right through my soul, no fear whatsoever.  It was a spiritual moment for me, having an animal approach like that, seeing the trust.  If I had reached out, he would have let me touch him, but we understood each other in that moment.  People stared as we looked at each, shocked he was that close to me, but we only had eyes for each other.  As a family we also had repeat appearances of groundhogs—not nearly as close as the peacock but when animals show up repeatedly, they mean something as well.  These moments absolutely meant something to me—and the universe knew I needed that.

Today I am grateful for diving deeper into the hurt of self-loathing.  Understanding where the trigger is, the issue with identity and not feeling like I’m worthy, like I haven’t contributed anything to my life—or to anyone else’s.  That it’s ok to set boundaries with people, even at work, even if they get pissed, even if they don’t like that the work they are supposed to do is pushed back on them.  I’m here to perform a role and that isn’t for them to dictate what I do—I don’t have to jump when everyone tells me to and that’s a habit I’m learning to get more comfortable with—standing still when I need to.  Holding my ground.  I’ve always been the first to move, always the first to try and fix and adapt, I’ve never sat in who I am long enough to settle and BE who I am.  I jumped quickly and people reacted poorly when I stood my ground, accusing me of being difficult, over-sensitive, over-reactive, etc.  The truth is they couldn’t handle the truth and someone putting their own shit back on them.  I don’t need to wade through the depths of your crap in order to prove I’m worthy.  All that happens is I come out smelling like your shit.  And now that I understand these behaviors and the triggers behind it, I know to avoid it all together.

Today I am grateful for closing chapters.  It admittedly took me a while to get here.  I’ve been at peace with my decision regarding my new role for a while but there were still pieces of me that wanted to receive a certain level of validation that I was wanted on my current team, that I was valuable.  It was hard to not have feelings of being pushed aside like I had been some problem they were waiting to figure out and I solved the issue by removing myself from the equation.  But if someone is holding the door open that wide, then there has to be some truth in simply needing to walk away.  Don’t wait for people to tell you you’re needed.  If they didn’t see your value, shine somewhere else.  So I appreciate what I’ve learned and I’m grateful to move forward but most importantly, I’m grateful to shed what clearly doesn’t work, what clearly wasn’t for me.  It’s a bitter pill to swallow, knowing you were the one they were willing to let go.  But instead of worrying about my place in someone else’s life, I’m now focused on where I’m at in mine, what I mean in my own life, what is important in my life.    

Today I am grateful for total freedom.  The day is here when I am starting my new role at my 9-5.  It was a strange feeling over these last few days as I wrapped things up in the office, cleaning, going through old paperwork.  I realized I am 100% a hoarder of paper, keeping record of everything I’ve done.  Years upon years of stuff.  I sorted and sorted the documents, looking for what I may need, debating about keeping nearly all of it.  But the thought kept going through my head that I’m going to be working from home now, I can’t bring all of this stuff with me—and I really didn’t want to.  It’s time to lovingly and completely close out this chapter of my life.  It’s time to let it go.  All the keeping and searching and believing I need these things to protect/prove myself is such a drain on my energy.  My entire career up to this point has been about proving and covering my own ass.  I’ve done amazing work but I’ve been in the same situation over and over again, fighting for something and carrying everything.  I’m done with that—I’m exhausted by that.  So I made the decision to shred everything.  I tossed it.  It was by far one of the most liberating feelings I’ve ever had.  I’m grateful to know I can wake up tomorrow and take my time, enjoy my life and I don’t have to be out the door and ready and dressed to the 9s at an exact time, on the road at an exact time.  I feel like I can breathe and enjoy life simply because I don’t have the weight of the world on me anymore—I am making decisions for myself. It’s all coming together.      

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead

I recently heard Blind Melon’s Change for the first time–I know, it’s one of their first songs, it just wasn’t my thing at the time–and I believe we receive messages when we are meant to, so this was my time. We talk about the power of words and listening to this song, admittedly the first time I’ve heard it, stopped me in my tracks.  This is where I’ve always found my passion for words.  This is why words matter to me.  Words are the etchings, the recordings of time, of a moment, that capture the visceral feeling that we have.  In some respects they transport me around and I have a near existential crisis as I sit in my office thinking and feeling what it was like as a kid to be in my house, to know that those times are gone, wondering what my siblings felt and thought at that time as well.  How we all learned to live our lives in our own way.  How there is this knowing we all have, these feelings we have that we can’t explain yet we know are true.  I’ve written for years about not knowing what happens in my life after a certain point and it’s true.  I’m listening to this song and it was one of the first released and he knew what was going to happen to him on some level.  He also knew what to do to fix it.  We all know what we need to do to fix it, but the question is if we do it.     

“I know we can’t all stay here forever so I want to write my words on the face of today before they’re painted,” Shannon Hoon. The other side of this is believing that definition of who we are.  Sticking with it no matter what because we don’t know who else we can be.  We have to be willing to let those pieces of us, those definitions of who we are, die because when we let those pieces die we allow the rest of the pieces that remain to live. We have to be more willing to live than we are to die with the image we’ve created. Most importantly in this song is the line about not seeing the sun from where we’re sitting.  Sometimes we have to move.  Simply move, decide to step out of the shadow.  Step out of the darkness we carry, let the sun fall behind us.  And the line that says, “When life is hard, you have to change,”  he acknowledges looking for the good when we are down rather than staying in the dark.  So when things get hard, we have to change our outlook on it or we have to change the view.    

The sensitivity of people today, the things that bother people today, the things people prioritize today blows my mind.  I’m watching videos from the early 90’s, from the 50’s, from nearly every decade, and there were good things and bad things about each time.  But the point of what I’m seeing is that we had a different tolerance for different things (again some good, some bad).  We have always known historically that what we find acceptable has changed over time and that is natural.  We evolve, we learn, we adapt.  But the human psyche must be slower going in that evolution at times because the emphasis we put on being offended astounds me.  It seems people taking offense to things takes more precedence over actual areas of concern like equality, access, life, and death.  And look, I fully acknowledge I’m a hyper sensitive person, my emotions ran the show for a long time.  But I am the first to admit that WASN’T a good thing.  Emotions and feelings are valid but they aren’t the truth.  Just because we feel a certain way doesn’t mean that’s what’s happening.  We can’t let long term decisions be made over temporary emotions.

So much of my work surrounds the notion that we need to have a keen awareness of who we are, why we act a certain way, why we feel a certain way, and how to navigate those instincts.  We need to be astute enough to recognize what we are feeling and how to handle it at the same time.  We have created a recipe for disaster when it comes to allowing what we think and feel run the show.  From social media, to click bait entertainment/news, to diluted facts to help people cope with what they think they see all the way to lowering the bar on what we accept as effort—all in the name of making people feel a certain way.  Emotions are manipulative in their own right.  When we feel an impulse to buy something we’ve really wanted and we know we can’t quite afford it but we see it’s on sale, it takes a tremendous will to make a logical choice.  This doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for emotion—we need to use them as a compass.  It’s a guidepost, not where we stake our claim.  The saying about the hills we want to die on comes to mind.  Is how we feel really where we want to settle/stand our ground?

The bottom line is that people have different points of view and different priorities all based on their experience and proclivities.  We struggle to accept these differences because in our primal brains, this is somehow a danger to us, an area of unknown discomfort. The reminder is this: being comfortable isn’t always a good indicator of what is right.  It’s very often that what’s right doesn’t feel good.  But for millennia we have found ways to figure this out—we have also struggled to do so.  However, if we accept our differences and points of view and understand that there are things to work through in reaching a resolution or common ground—or we understand that there is no common ground and we are the ones who have to change or at least to do something differently, then we are closer to an answer that benefits everyone.  And that is the true goal: mutually beneficial growth and freedom.  We are allowed our respective thoughts and feelings but we are not allowed to expect others to feel how we do and we are not allowed to expect people to navigate through our emotions.  There are enough issues in the world without causing additional problems based on how we feel. So when we feel offended or sensitive, take a beat.  That moment can determine whether or not we need to really address whatever is happening in that moment or if we can find another way.  We can always learn another way.

“It’s time you grew your own shadow instead of living in someone else’s,” Yellowstone.  I promise I’ll get over this kick with Yellowstone soon, there’s just some gems even in the twisted parts of the story.  It’s also appropriate that this fell after my discussion on name.  We behave how we think we are supposed to from learning behaviors from all those people around us and we often go against what we know of ourselves to make things easier for the sake of those around us.  We work on fitting into someone else’s definition of who we are before we realize what we knew all along—that we know what we need and who we are.  When we live under the shadow of someone else, sure we can still grow and thrive.  But we will never reach the heights of all we can be if we live under someone else’s definition and thought of who we are.  It’s the conversation about the flea again and limiting that jump for ourselves and future generations.  We don’t need to cast our own shadow for the sake of towering over someone, we cast a shadow that embraces all of who we are.  We cast a shadow over an empire we build for ourselves.  It doesn’t need to be a thing of dominance.  It’s a thing of certainty in who we are and when we have built what we were called to we are able to help others build their calling as well.    

It is some of the most random moments that bring about realizations sometimes.  Life works like that, lessons in unexpected places.  It makes them no less profound, sometimes just a little more surprising.  I had a conversation with some newer acquaintances the other night and I heard them pronounce their last name for the first time.  I’ve known these people for some time now but I hadn’t really taken the time to get to know them, mainly due to time and the timing of events—so I’d never really been introduced properly and only heard their names said from other people.  When they said it in front of me, I took the time to ask them if that was how it was supposed to be said because I’d only ever heard it what was apparently the wrong way.  They responded with saying it doesn’t matter, just say it how you want to.  To that I told them, no, if that’s how you say your name that’s how it needs to be said.  Our names are more than just what we are called, they are how we identify ourselves and how we interact with the world.  Our names are ours and that is the representation of our identity to the world—it should matter how it is said. 

Language is a funny thing because it is both irrelevant and important on so many levels.  The words we use, the way we use them, when we use them all impact our understanding yet, at the end of the day, they are just words.  The understanding comes from us.  It matters what we allow people to call us.  Shakespeare said, “That which we would call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet?” Sure, Juliet is a love struck hormonal kid, but the truth is still there—we know a rose as a rose and all that comes with it.  The same is for our name.  The words we use to label ourselves come with equally important connotations.  Blind Melon’s No Rain touched this as well—the video depicting a girl looking for where she fits in.  She’s rejected from every place she goes for being herself until she finds the field full of people dressed as bees.  Now, there was no real insinuation that the girl thought she was a bee, it was the freedom of finding people who understood her passion.  Sometimes we just need to find the right place to find ourselves and that means finding ourselves and where we know we belong.  We are born with the knowledge of who we are, it is only our habits and training that try to tell us we should be something or someone else.  I had previously been taught to not hurt someone’s feelings by correcting them on how they say things, even names.  It never felt right hearing my name wrong.

Now that I’m older, I know every time I hear someone pronounce my name wrong, I correct them.  When they call me some version of my first name that I don’t like, or if they use a more familiar name/nickname and we don’t have that relationship, even if we do know each other and we are in a different setting where anything other than my real name is used, I make sure to correct them.  I have a friend who refuses to use their first name—they only use part of it.  The connotation of their full name hurts them and makes them feel different about who they are and triggers painful memories.  A name is different than how we feel about ourselves and who we think we are—a name is literally who we are.  Details matter.  Mispronouncing a word can change the entire meaning of the word.  So too can the name we call ourselves change who we are.  When we are beyond the process of trying to figure out who we are, we know our name. So don’t be afraid to tell someone when they said your name wrong.  People who get offended at being corrected are working through a different issue so let them be upset.  That doesn’t change anything about who we are. Tell them how to say your name.       

“It’s good to be good and kind and real and sometimes it’s for your own good to say how you really feel,” Stacie Martin.  The key is knowing the difference and when each is necessary.  I once heard a rule of thumb that if something still bothers you after 24 hours, speak up within 48.  It’s about being honest with ourselves and allowing the feeling we have in the moment—but not letting it control anything–and accountability to ourselves about communication.  We allow ourselves enough time to decide how we really feel and we communicate about it.  People pleasing aside, I never saw the point in approaching any conversation with demands, anger, or malice–my goal is to have honest communication.  Sure, I’ve had to have tough conversations with demands that likely could have been more pleasant, but the intent was never anger.  And while I spent the majority of my life allowing myself to be shoved to the background, I have spent a lot of my time in the spotlight advocating for others.  I know what it feels like to be the underdog and to need backup—and while I haven’t always defended myself, I have always defended those who needed it. Kindness had nothing to do with it—it was the right thing.

Saying how we really feel doesn’t have to be mean, it just has to be honest. As long as we are direct and not intentionally cruel, we have no say (or responsibility) in how our message is received.  People will perceive a message in their own context based on experience anyway.  We can say how we really feel and still be kind, and sometimes we just have to pull the band-aid off.  I’ve spent a significant amount of time worried about what others think of me and how I behave with them, all the while they never gave a damn about how I interpreted or felt about their actions.  Each time I worried about that perception, the message was watered down, not quite what I was trying to say and then I’d get frustrated that I was misunderstood.  There are always times to choose words carefully, words matter, but there are also times we need to let go of the reins and simply say what we need to.  As scary as that can be, I will say that every time I’ve allowed the truth out, amazing things have happened.  Not that it was easy, but there was no denying the clarity that came out of it.

I wrote a while back about victims and villains and I stand by it: we will all be the victim in some story and we will be the villain in someone else’s.  The world is a complicated place and we are different people to different people.  I know I’ve been different people to myself when it came down to it.  There were moments I felt like an entirely different person when at work, while in creative mode, while helping my parents, while being a daughter, while being a mother, a lover, a wife, a friend.  Sure, those are all different titles but I’m physically the same person in each scenario.  So how can the same person be different?  Because we need to be.  We aren’t one thing—ever.  And being those different things isn’t a bad thing so we can take the pressure off of ourselves to be a certain way.  Take the pressure off by simply saying what needs to be said. The truth is always easier to remember regardless and instead of watering down a message that’s important to us, or the truth of how we feel, it’s easier to let it out.  Now, if it’s something that someone can’t change in 30 seconds, that doesn’t need to be said—I wrote about that too.  The goal is never to be cruel, just honest.  Painful honesty can be resolved—cruelty cannot.  So let down the shield and let the truth out.  The goal isn’t to placate anyone at our expense.  It’s to get the truth out.      

Time is such an illusion.  Moments that test us feel like an eternity while moments spent in joy pass in a blink.  We pass the days doing the same things over and over again, repeating the same routines, begging and searching for things to change only to wake up one day and find years have passed, wishing we could have done something different, wondering how everything stayed the same yet is so different.  How we begin and when things happen often isn’t up to us.  Following my Yellowstone kick, Luke Grimes is 41 and didn’t get married until he was 34 and had his first kid at 40—and he has been acting for over 20 years and is now enjoying the spoils of it. He didn’t stay in Hollywood, he moved to Montana.  Taylor Sheridan is 55-ish and he says he got kicked out of multiple schools until he saw Lonesome Dove and didn’t hit success with Yellowstone and spinoffs until just a few years ago.  Demi Moore is 60 and has been acting for 40 yeas and just won her first award.  Vera Wang didn’t start designing dresses until 40.  Tabitha Brown found her groove with food, children’s shows, and writing at 43.  JK Rowling was on welfare and didn’t hit success with Harry Poter until her 30s.  Harrison Ford was a carpenter, Ken Jeong was a doctor, Samuel L. Jackson didn’t start acting until his 40s.  There are infinite more examples of this in the world.  So as I’m starting over again at 41, tackling my health, sanity, career, goals, priorities, and confidence, I find myself in good company.    

None of the people listed above were an overnight success at 20something.  There was a significant portion of life spent trying to figure it out, waiting for things to happen, waiting for them to unfold.  I’m sure there were many nights begging for things to happen, hoping against hope that things would turn out.  From my side, this journey has been a little bit more convoluted to get here than I thought it would, but it has been amazing and knowing that some of the most brilliant minds in the world took the long way as well, that there is amazing work done by people who have started the greatest part of their journey at what some would consider a later part of their lives.  It means there is hope for all of us.  We aren’t all meant to peak at 20 and life isn’t over at 25.  There is a whole lot of life and love to have well beyond those years.  For the portion of our lives that we spend after those early years, we sure do put a lot of emphasis and pressure on finding ourselves young and making a name young.  Sure, it’s nice to secure our identities early and know exactly who we are and what we want to do.  But there is real value in discovering and starting again with intent no matter when it is or how many attempts it takes.  There is value in learning and exploring.  We don’t need to be a certain thing by any point in our lives.  We just need to be who we are and allow.  We need to allow the life we want to unfold as it is meant to happen. Say yes and the right things will find us. 

So this is a reminder, perhaps just as much for myself, that Just because it isn’t happening right this second doesn’t mean it won’t happen. I tried to go for a new 9-5 dozens of times, tried with a particular department upwards of a dozen times itself.  I made it far a few times thinking those were the moments of change, only to not have it pan out.  And now that I am on the precipice of something bigger in my life, the timing has proven right to allow for that change to happen.  It looks entirely different than I thought it would and I feel different than I thought I would, but I’m ready.  Sure, I could be upset about things not happening sooner or not in the way I wanted them to.  Or I can accept where I’m at and be grateful that these dreams are finally revealing themselves and coming into fruition.  Having that dream realized now is no less sweet than it would have been if I had gotten it 10 years ago. 10 years ago I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted and I certainly didn’t believe in what I was capable of.  I had a vague idea of it, but I never did anything about it.  I think the most important lesson in all that is learning to get out of our own way.  Had I not been so stubborn and demanding of the timing and place and the how of things happening, I may have learned these things sooner—but the truth is it doesn’t matter.  It’s here now and the fruit is still as delicious as it would have been.  It always bothered me when things didn’t happen sooner because I wanted to relish in the joy of something longer.  I wanted the good to last longer.  But no matter how much time we have doing specifically what we want, it doesn’t take away from the joy we can have doing other things while we are on the journey.

Today I am grateful for understanding what it means when one door closes and another opens.  I am also grateful for understanding that doors open and close in all facets of our lives whether it is in career, friendships, relationships, ideas, ventures, hopes, dreams, fears, anything really.  We have to come to terms with the fact that there are certain things in life that just ARE.  It can be challenging to discern the meaning behind things when at times, frankly, there isn’t any.  At other times, we have to accept that when things aren’t working, they aren’t working for a reason.  Things we believed in entirely, relationships we thought were solid, understanding we thought we agreed on. Sometimes they fall apart not because of what we did or didn’t do, but because they weren’t quite what they were supposed to be in the grand scheme of things regardless. If someone was willing to close a door in our faces, then we can be grateful for understanding their true colors when they showed us. It isn’t up to us to make people feel any way about us.  We have these relationships and each relationship serves a purpose.  Allow it to be, allow the events to pass, allow everything to be as it is.  Sure, it stings when something goes to the wayside, but it hurts more staying where it isn’t working in the first place.

Today I am grateful for faith in myself.  Life threw a few curveballs at me these past few weeks.  Truthfully, nothing I couldn’t handle, not even really anything that wasn’t expected or known, either—things that I hoped weren’t how I thought? Yes.  We always hope something can swing the other way and even if we are aware of all possibilities, it can still catch us a bit off guard if it goes off course.  So.  The real lesson was about finding my own wings and remembering that even if things fell apart I could still fly.  In the midst of big change, things always seem overwhelming.  When we are dealing with multiple big changes at once, it can feel completely disorienting.  Truth be told it is disorienting because we lose all the familiar ground we had when we venture into something new.  That isn’t necessarily a bad thing because we will eventually gain our footing no matter where we land.  But the real point in it is that even if we don’t have our footing, we certainly have the ability to carry ourselves to the next stable ground where we will find our footing.  I didn’t think I would be able to initiate all of these changes at once—all the wonderful things I’ve been working on building in my life all coming to a head at nearly the same time.  But this is a gift.  I am here on the precipice of all the amazing things I want to accomplish and experience and shedding the last bit of weight from things that no longer fit or serve may be a bit painful, but I will rise above that too.

Today I am grateful for completion.  I have about 150 open projects in my life right now between work, home, my son’s commitments/sports, my personal ventures, gatherings, etc.  There’s a lot going on like any other person.  Nothing is ever really completed because there is always something else next on the list or something else we find in the process.  I’ve vacillated between acceptance that change means destruction and chaos and then the absolute need to have it done, to understanding that certain things take longer than we thought, and then getting angry and then finding mild acceptance again for the last several months.  The last year taught me repeatedly about waiting—and those lessons in learning patience failed miserably to be totally honest.  But I did learn that there are things that sit in limbo and they will sit there as long as they need to.  Sometimes life just moves on its own schedule.  So all of the things we have going on now feel overwhelming because it is a huge multitude of things that need to be addressed at once.  But we are so fortunate that we have the means and the ability to do it all as we need to.  We are still able to be comfortable even as the checklist of things we find to do grows.  And all we can do is continue to complete one thing at a time and as it goes on, everything will get done.  The list never ends—we will always have something to do.  When we don’t we are at the end, and I can tell you, I’m not at the end yet.

Today I am grateful for transition.  The waiting, the in between is enough to drive anyone nuts.  But I am grateful for the transition period because this is the precipice of all that I wanted.  It’s uncomfortable with all the loose ends but those loose ends mean that I am able to discern between what needs to be done and what we can let go.  Loose ends mean that there are/were possibilities and we were given the opportunity to choose what works for us.  Transition means we have choice and that is a gift.  I will take the ability to choose any day.  I will take the ability to go through the chaos to make things better for myself, my family, and others any time.  Sometimes we have to trust that we will find out what we need to know when we need to know it. There’s no real way to prepare for everything anyway—we aren’t omniscient.  Sometimes we just have to trust that we will figure it out on the way.  So let the change happen.

Today I am grateful for support.  I’d be remiss if I denied that there was a level of support in everything I’ve done, even in the stuff that went to shit.  I have lived with a sort of naiveite for a  good portion of my life in that people wouldn’t outright try to hurt each other or that if we at least did the right thing by others they would do the right thing by us.  That 100% delayed my progression personally and professionally and that led to a lot of seeking permission and waiting.  It led me to waiting for people to tell me I could do things, waiting for their belief that I could do things.  And I allowed that to steer me wrong in many regards.  In the cases where I took the leap without waiting, when I took it based on my own volition and desire, things worked out for the best.  It’s often that way that we need to remind ourselves that we know what we are doing and that we can trust our instincts when we see how well things can go.  Even if it isn’t perfect, even if parts of it still fall apart, I’m seeing that it keeps me on the right track as long as I follow what I am being told to do.  There are people who have helped me and I’ve always made sure to tell them how grateful I am—and I am.  But I am finding I’m grateful even to those who tried to hold me back, to those who made me doubt myself.  Sure, I faced a lot of delay because of that, but I also learned to surpass my own expectations and do what I needed to do.  I learned to find my way in spite of that.  So in its own way, that too was support.  And here I am about to begin the next great adventure of my life.   

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.