“They mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death,” Oscar Wilde.  I wrote about the importance of love in my gratitude a little over a week ago. The concept of love amazes me the more I look into it.  For a word we all know and apply to so many things on a daily basis, we really don’t know a lot about it.  We understand it conceptually—like we all know when we love something—but experientially it’s different to everyone.  Books on love language and the chemical traits of it and the science behind it the emotion of it flood the market and we study it all the time for different reasons, from different angles, and in so many different ways.  We’ve created holidays for it, we have cards for it, we buy each other gifts for it.  But when it comes down to it, no matter how we all feel it, none of us can really explain it.  Buddhism and other religions talk about love being the key to what makes the world go round.  Why is that?  My feelings have always been big—when I love, I LOVE, when I’m angry, I’m ANGRY, when something bothers me, I am BOTHERED big time.  I feel the emotion and then I let it pass.  Some stay longer than others but I never cling to it. Something about getting older and witnessing the fragility of life has shifted some perspective for me. I feel better when I’m sitting with that love state than I have previously—things seem easier. 

The ease I felt in that moment felt different than before and really got me thinking–and something clicked: this is what it means for things to flow in love state.  Love encompasses this understanding that allows things to be and moves them along as it should, it’s an acceptance of what is.  I’ve tried to articulate that understanding previously but it wasn’t quite what I wanted to say.  Flow is love, understanding is love, but more than that, acceptance is love.  That acceptance sends the vibration to the universe that we trust, that nothing needs to change, that we are aligned and with what we need in that moment.  Love isn’t necessarily blind acceptance because we often love things and that need some guidance, but love does provide those guiderails.  It is accepting the nature of what is and learning to work with it rather than force it to be what we want it to be.  Love isn’t a weapon or a tool, it is a way of being.  It’s in that way that we can truly experience love for all things and that is something we can only understand through experience.  Love also provides peace because we aren’t fighting against what is–love is life.  We are embraced in the moment, not trying to create anything else and presence is something we still undervalue in this society. We all want it, we all want presence and peace but we struggle to do what it takes to have those things—and all we have to do is understand what it actually means to love.   

I want to go a bit deeper into that meaning: I propose love is what keeps us from death BECAUSE it is what gives life meaning.  It is a marker of the soul and the human experience and perhaps it leaves a mark on the soul. When we ask how to be better and make things right, that all comes from how to love better.  Love creates connection and it is the connection we’re all looking for.  The human mind gets muddled up sometimes and we confuse what different chemicals in our body mean—lust v. love, anger v. fear, etc.  We don’t always understand the reality of what we’re feeling yet many people spend such an inordinate amount of time thinking of what’s next rather than being present with where we are now.  Instead of asking what happens tomorrow or even when this physical manifestation is gone, we can’t  forget the key how to live well right here and now.  And that is with love.  Let’s go back to that love state/flow and how when we are in a love state, things flow easily.  I’m the first to admit I’m not in that state every day.  Watch me when someone cuts me off while driving and you’ll see real quick that I am anything but accepting of that moment and love is far from the picture.  I try to remember as quickly as I can in those moments that whatever I’m feeling right then is an energy and it has an impact on what I receive from the universe.  If that’s true then that carries over into the every day life as well—what we feel can determine what we get.   

Love is an energy source—it carries a charge like anything else we do.  The emotion is a result of very specific chemical flow in our brains combined with an impulse.  While I wrote my section on gratitude for love, it hit me how many different kinds of love there are based on what we’re talking about.  The love we feel for a person isn’t the same as the love we feel for our favorite chair but we’re using the same word to describe it.  Sure, both provide some level of comfort and we’re saying it’s love, but that love is different—I wouldn’t die for my chair but I would for my child.  It’s different means to the same dopamine/oxytocin hit.  I love a simple answer to things and the chemical/electrical state of the brain creating a feeling makes the most sense.  When I witnessed my grandmother dying, she still said thing while unconscious/in a stupor.  I saw in that moment that we are a little more than a series of electrical impulses in a meat bag.  I’m not saying that disrespectfully—frankly I say it in awe.  Even as we shut down, our impulses still trigger and we have no conscious awareness of what we’re saying/experiencing but that is based on how we lived and what we believed, the input we gave our brains our entire lives.  On her death bed she said things like, “You better fix it or I’ll fix you!” and I immediately saw her when she was younger yelling at my mom and uncles that way.  So that led me to believe that we have control over how we view the world because that is how she viewed the world when she was alive and that was the message she shared with her kids—she believed that was how kids should be raised and it still fired through her brain at the end.  Fast forward to last weekend and that information combined with the feeling of flow made me understand how we very much have control over how we feel and our responses to the world.  Stay open, be curious, and learn to work with the true source—love.  We have a choice to see and experience the world any way we want so choose to see it in its highest possibility.   

Today I am grateful for life.  Life isn’t easy and there are daily reminders how precious and fleeting this existence can be.  I attended a memorial yesterday for a long time family friend’s mother (she was essentially a bonus grandmother to me).  I’ve been to hundreds of memorials in my life for all sorts of people under all sorts of circumstances and the thing that always strikes me is the fragility of it all.  Like one piece of the puzzle is missing and we are all present and witness to the fact that this person is no longer here, we all feel a degree of emptiness, all of our lives are changed…but what now?  It’s always a matter of finding peace and moving forward.  Of accepting what we thought we couldn’t accept.  It’s witnessing the people we saw as the strongest figures in our lives losing the person that was THEIR strongest figure and suddenly we see the frailty of it all.  It doesn’t matter how old we are, when we lose that presence in our lives, we lose a piece of our identity.  So we still work to find this balance between loving life and being present all while valuing what is important but not being attached.  It’s no small feat.  But I am 100% certain that one way to keep that progress in the journey toward balance is to honor those we love and cherish the time we have with them while they are here.  Honor the time we have here.  Live the life we are meant to live for the sake of the gift of life.    

Today I am grateful for laughter.  Genuine belly laughs with people we love is one of the most healing things we can do.  Sometimes we need that reminder that it’s ok to let go and to simply enjoy the moment—or even just to sit with the craziness of a particular situation where all you can do is laugh.  When my son was only a few months old we had gotten a new stroller the day before I was to take my mom to the eye doctor.  I knew how to open it and I was all good to go with getting him set in it but when we left, I couldn’t figure out how to collapse it to get it back in the car.  I thought I did—but I didn’t.  So my mom had her eyes dilated, I have a 5 month old in the back seat and I’m freaking out that I don’t know how to collapse this damn thing to get it back in the car.  My mom tried helping and I was cursing everyone under the sun because I couldn’t figure this out.  I remember I screamed one last curse out in frustration and my mom and I went silent and looked at each other….and busted up laughing.  Dealing with life is like that.  There will always be something we aren’t quite sure how to do that we thought we had an understanding of and then life throws us a curveball.  Life, loss, love, all of it requires a sense of humor and trust.  If we have some people we can still laugh with regardless of what we have been through, we are truly fortunate.   

Today I am grateful for knowing what’s for me.  We ran into someone from many years past at an event recently.  Normally I’m uncomfortable or awkward in those situations—how do they remember me, do they really remember me, they were part of x crowd so who are we now that we are adults?  Regardless, this individual started talking about other people from that same crowd from over two decades ago and instead of feeling awkward or longing for some sort of inclusion, I felt completely secure in not needing to know anything about these people.  I fully accepted and understood that they knew a version of me then and we haven’t spoken in over two decades so they have no clue who I am now or what I went through to get to where I’m at now—I’m not going to collapse into that girl trying to impress people, hoping they like her when you were on the periphery of my life anyway.  You don’t know me now and if you had any interest in knowing me, we’d have stayed in touch along the way.  You would have been part of my journey.  I made it here on my own and I don’t have any desire to go back, to rehash those moments.  I’m proud, I’m aware, I’m comfortable letting that part of my past go. 

Today I am grateful for genuine bonding with people who know us.  While at the memorial, it was fascinating to hear from our loved one’s friends, sharing stories from the past and how they formed and the lives they lived.  It was so cool to see a different facet of who they are and how their curiosity brought them together, how common interests kept them going, and how mutual support got them through various moments in their lives.  It was awesome to hear how they didn’t let some of the darkest moments in life define them.  They used those moments to figure out how to help others.  They created systems of support for people who’d had similar experiences and they made contributions to life and made sure to live life to the fullest every opportunity they got.  Seeing the genuine sisterhood between women who were not of the same blood but loved each other stronger than that made me ever more grateful for my best friend as well—because she needed me to hold space for her and I did and in that space we filled it with our own memories and laughter and I know that is something I will carry with me forever.

Today I am grateful for communication.  No one is meant to spend their life silent.  We communicate in so many different ways—sometimes we communicate when we don’t think we do or we think we have communicated and we’ve really done nothing.  Words are beautiful to me and I love using them.  I love the stories and the lilt and the dance and the sound of them.  I love the sound of the keyboard as I type the words in my head.  For all the ways we have to communicate with each other, we are kind of crappy at it.  Communicating takes a lot of practice and intention.  We are born without words yet we let the entire world know what we need.  We just need to hone that as we get older.  Never lose that voice, never lose that skill.  Always believe.  We have a voice for a reason and we are given a brain to create ideas to be conveyed through that voice.  We have a body that speaks for us, we have eyes that tell every story we’ve ever experienced.  We see it and if we take our time with it we can get really good at letting people know what we mean.  And when we say what we mean and mean what we say then it starts to get good. Some people aren’t comfortable experiencing direct communication because it feels like an attack in a world that tells us the truth is violent.  But I am so grateful to use these skills to get to the root. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“You attract damaged people because your energy feels like safety in a world that’s starving for it, not because you’re broken, but because you’ve done the work they’re still avoiding.  But ask yourself this: Is it connection or another attempt at rescue?  You keep handing out your spark to people who treat it like a battery pack.  That’s not love, that’s slow self-destruction.  Protecting your peace isn’t selfish, it’s clarity.  Let go of what drains, flow toward what reflects, let them come whole or not at all,” Kristoffer William.  This is a nice addition to moving with intention.  The human creature seeks connection and if we aren’t intentional with our energy we have potential to attract people who will take advantage and manipulate.  This is also next level when it comes to healing.  Once we get to the point where we know we need to shift course and letting go of the crap is the next step, that sets people off.  The people who were only present because we carried the energy they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) manage start to panic because they see they won’t be able to shift their energy onto us anymore.  The ones who were fine as long as you did what they said, as long as you were there for them but never returned your call, the ones who pushed and pushed and ignored when you told them what was wrong and then were shocked when you weren’t there anymore: those are the people who get bothered when we set the boundary.  The ones who come to us because they see we are healed in a way they aren’t, and they aren’t prepared to do that work.

I know the term “damaged” affects people differently because we are all “damaged” on some level.  There is no real way to avoid that, but for our purposes in this piece, damaged includes avoidant, destructive, repetitive patterns that keep them down.  The ones who have options to solve their issues and the tools available yet still refuse to do the work.  There is absolutely no judgement about anyone’s damage—none of us get through life unscathed so we will all have some level of shit to unpack at some point.  And honestly, there is no judgement about those who aren’t ready to unpack it yet.  We know when we’re ready to deal with it in our own time.  But this is about protecting our energy and in order to do that we need to be highly aware of the energy around us and be very clear on what we allow into our lives—we have to set the boundary for what we attract.  If we have intention in our life, the work we must do is clear—and confusion either loves/attracts more confusion, or it clings to clarity whether it’s internal or not—and we know what is and isn’t the right kind of company in our lives.  So perhaps it isn’t about the damaged part.  Perhaps it’s more about those willing to convert the energy into something good.  Perhaps it’s more about finding the people who resonate with the same type of issue we’re trying to resolve and learning to work through it together. 

Aside from intention, we must know that we are worthy of achieving what we set out to.  We are worthy of saying “no” to people who only seek to use our energy for their benefit.  We are worthy of learning and redirecting our own energy as many times as it takes.  We are worthy of the connection we desire and that means there are times we will have to say no to certain connections—and we are worthy of refusing to connect to those who “use us like a battery” or those who refuse to do the work themselves, those who only want us around to serve their purpose.  I’m not saying we need to be singularly focused or selfish in achieving a goal, I will repeat that as well as it’s something we’ve spoken about often—it isn’t selfish to refuse to fulfill someone else’s demands, especially for the work they refuse to do.  We can lead a horse to water so to speak but if it continues to run away or refuses to lower its head, there comes a point we are not responsible for what happens no matter how grim.  Some people are the same and they will opt to not drink every time, saying we didn’t give them what they want to some degree—like it somehow wasn’t the right water.  It is ok to have boundaries around what our goals are and to make choices that support those goals.  There is nothing wrong with that.  We need to have enough self-awareness to know when our actions cause harm to others and we must set the boundary when others cause harm to us.  There is no reason to accept harm for the sake of others and no reason to cause harm so if we recognize that someone is causing more harm/draining (or taking) more than they should, we need to recognize it isn’t up to us to fix them—we must let them go.   

“Move through life with intention or life will consume you without hesitation,” unknown.  I heard this and wrote it down so fast I didn’t pay attention to who said it—sorry about that.  There have been consistent reminders over the last 2 weeks to slow down and move intentionally.  To pay attention to what we do and to be deliberate in our choices and actions.  To make sure that we are purposeful in what we do.  If we go through life reacting to what happens to us, we set ourselves up to be the victim more often than not.  We tell the universe that we are open to the garbage and that we will take what we can get, or worse, that we have no real purpose.  For a long time I thought that there was a point to not setting a course because it would allow us to pivot easier, it would show us other opportunities, it would give us choices.  But when we don’t set a course, we live on a superficial level allowing ourselves to be bounced around like a ping pong ball.  We become a piece in someone else’s game because our energy says that we are a bystander and open to be a tool for other things. 

Setting intentions isn’t about control.  Just because we know where we want to go, we keep room for how we get there—something we have often talked about here.  But that intention clears the path so we become aware of what will and will not get us where we want to go and what we need to be aware of along the way.  It leaves room to learn other ways of doing things while drowning out the noise of what doesn’t matter.  In an odd way, it makes us more aware of what happens around us because we become aware of what is and isn’t true.  It can be argued that intention makes us singularly focused but, just like learning to argue the opposite side to learn about something, when we set the intention, we find the things that don’t support it which either makes us learn more about it or we know we can dismiss it.  Setting intention makes us more discerning and aware, not blind to the goal.  If we don’t have a goal in mind or an end point, someone will be all too happy to put you on their path to assist them in their endgame.  I spent far too much time in my life working someone else’s path because I wanted them to be happy or to like me—I wanted to be valuable to someone.  Over time I’ve learned that we create the most value by letting our own light shine rather than dimming it so someone else can be seen.

So I will repeat my ever constant refrain again: we must know ourselves enough to understand our purpose here and fulfill it.  We are given dreams and thoughts and ideas because we are meant to do something with them. We are meant to tell stories, create, build, harness and transmute energy—we are meant to live life.  But if we float for too long, soon life will use us for other purposes.  It will take our energy and assume we weren’t using it for anything so we become a supporting character so to speak.  If we let our dreams fade then someone else will be happy to take the assist.  I want to be clear that intention isn’t about ruthlessness where we ignore people and do what we need to achieve our goals at all costs because we’ve seen time and time again that doesn’t work either.  But if we want a meaningful and purposeful life, we have to be open to what we are meant to do here.  Then the intention becomes to fulfill that purpose in a way that benefits as many people as it can.  And no, intentionality doesn’t mean our work needs a global reach or anything—sometimes that intention is to be a spark to others who will create the ripple.  We are just the wind that stirs the pond enough for someone to expand the ripple—and that is ok because we are intentionally starting the fire.  Follow the intention, believe in it, and never let ourselves drift into someone else’s wake.  Be purposeful and be light. 

“Boredom doesn’t exist when you are forever looking at the world with the desire and intention to appreciate and notice,” Radhi Devlukia.  Radhi was talking about appreciating even the smallest moments because of how it helps us slow down and appreciate what is and create presence.  With the limitless distraction available today and the heightened sense of emotional entitlement, it’s easy to look past what is good and beautiful in the world thinking we need to change it to make it better—we are always looking to make things better.  It’s easy to look at what we think we lack as if the absence is somehow greater than the presence, like the desire is stronger than the creation. We have an expectation that the world is here to entertain us on some level or to do our bidding—we have forgotten that we are part of the natural world and we are gifted the ability to work WITH the world, not force it.  What we see and how we interpret it is a reflection of our perception and we can train our perception to see things in a specific way.  We can mourn what isn’t there or we can celebrate what is.  We can lament the losses or we can take in the millions of small wonders around us at any given time. 

With the speed thing are created and shared in this world, the culture of mass marketing and shoving ideas and images down people’s throats everywhere they turn, we have a tendency to think life is all about how fast we can do it and how much we can fit in.  We don’t care about how we are living as long as we feel like we are living the MOST.  We have forgotten what life is in some ways.  There is life all around us, life within us, and when we stop to notice and really take it in, suddenly we are alive in a way that puts meaning into life—we see the meat of what is really important.  This society tends to have an expectation that the things around us give us meaning.  Sure, there are some things that do (like a letter written by a loved one or our grandmother’s wedding ring, etc.).  But the things around us are tools to bring our purpose to life—things to help us fulfill our greater reason for being.  We could literally do nothing on this planet in the way of “making it better” and still survive.  The Earth would still provide food, we could still find shelter.  We don’t have to build and cultivate and take from the Earth as we do—Sure the advancements we have made certainly make things easier and even more efficient, but no one will die for lack of internet or a TV—there are other ways to communicate/connect.  The resources we need are readily available and our job is to figure out how to share them.  We don’t have to wield power, we can work with it. So the focus should be gratitude for those gifts.

Radhi’s quote caught me because I’ve been thinking about slowing down a LOT lately.  I struggle with slowing down—it’s inherent with ADD/ADHD brain.  Zipping from topic to topic or starting a ton of projects and unable to finish them, being interested for a few seconds—that makes the brain move mighty quickly, and with no context, it isn’t about results, it’s just movement.  There have also been a lot of reminders about how fast life moves and how we tend to not understand what we have until it’s gone—I don’t want to miss out on the good stuff while it’s here.  It’s part of why I changed careers—because I need to be more present and available for the good stuff in my life rather than dealing with utter nonsense.  There is too much good to get caught up in that crap any longer.  Plus constantly perceiving and interpreting interactions with people, finding meaning, finding who we are takes a lot of energy.  It’s a lot of work to harness the power that is given to us and mix it with what is here.  To learn how to work as a co-creator with Earth and live in peace and acceptance.  Letting go and trusting that all is well how it is and knowing the times we have to steer the ship versus let go is a challenge—but it all starts with appreciating the little things.  One day we all understand the little things were the big things all along, so don’t take it for granted.               

Right after I wrote yesterday’s piece, I saw another quote about reducing fear through knowledge that put more context around being curious about things we wouldn’t normally have interest in or had a strong opinion on.  Perhaps it doesn’t mean that something is wrong with us or we are having a break with reality—perhaps it’s just the brain wanting us to inform ourselves so we are aware of all sides of a situation.  It seems that the thought was directing me to remember to learn about what we fear—the more we can educate and empower ourselves, the more we have an edge in the situation.  When we know about what we fear we find solutions.  As I think about it, I believe that was really the point in what that debate teacher had told me so many years ago.  It’s lack of knowledge and ignorance that create fear and if we have the opportunity to change that we should always seek to find out a new answer because the more we bring light to a situation, the fewer dark corners things have to hide in.  So if we find ourselves drawn to something it isn’t necessarily a sign we are a hypocrite/values or changing or that something is wrong with us or we aren’t who we thought we were—it’s natures way of reminding us there are multiple sides to every story and that the only way to be fully informed is to seek all sides.  Stay curious, people, it’s a gift. 

A random question, working through it in my mind…Have you ever found your brain suddenly interested in things that you never believed in before?  Like topics you thought were abhorrent suddenly become interesting and you want to know more?  Or behaviors you’d never support before seem to make sense?  It kind of feels like supporting the opposing team in a way or switching sides.  Part of that is human (animal) nature and we have to develop a tolerance for the possibility we are wrong because that is how we evolve and learn.  If we have to trust that we are in the right place at the right time, I have to trust that shifting thoughts/beliefs/opinions are a sign or a natural progression to look at things differently, a way to see something different in the world and, most importantly, to learn a new lesson.  Either that or I am severely in the throws of middle age and having yet another identity crisis.  Either scenario is likely at this stage of the game but I’m embracing it.  Curiosity is a gateway and I know they say curiosity killed the cat but the truth is sometimes we have to take that chance to see what we can learn.  And there is a lot out there we don’t know.  Humans like a good story and quick answer wrapped in a neat little bow—and there always has to be a reason for everything.  But the stories we tell have a spin on them from every person involved and in the middle lies the truth. 

So I’ve been on a huge documentary kick on all sorts of topics ranging from the Carnival Triumph disaster to the Toronto mayor issues and old controversies and crises and murder mysteries.  I love a good mystery because I have always believed there is more to every story—because there is. It’s also intriguing that all of this stuff comes out NOW.  Take a look on any streaming and you’ll see a ton of “unheard tapes” or “new theories” on things we all think we know.  I heard a conversation about how if we can believe x story from y person who really has no credibility, then what else would we believe and what do we really know?  All these years we “knew” the story of Nixon and what a crook, backasswards greedy son of a bitch he was.  And ok, that may still be true, but the point is it depends on perspective.  What happens when we shift our perspective to take in more of the story?  What happens when we look at all sides and deep dive?  Is there a possibility that ideas opposed to what we know might have a chance to be true?  Is there a crack in the story?  Because that is something we can’t handle—if the truth is too simple or too complex it doesn’t make sense but if there’s a POSSIBLE way to connect things, then we open a whole new revolution.  Are the conspiracies real?  What the hell don’t we know because someone didn’t tell us or they didn’t think we could handle the full story? I want to know the whole story—my brain can handle it and I know the truth is where that bow comes in for me no matter how painful or disturbing it may be.     

When I took debate class years and years ago, the teacher said the way to make a good argument is to research the side you DON’T support because it will give you something to argue FOR what you do support.  I understood it practically then but the way information flies around now, it makes sense experientially as well.  We have so many “facts” coming at us from different angles so quickly it is really hard to discern fact from reality—compounded by the idea that someone has to be the first to get the news out there, truth is harder and harder to find.  We  have to operate on speculation and opinion and we are quick to put our two cents into anything because now everyone has a platform to speak that the world can see.  So perhaps there’s a level of mistrust in what we’ve always been told, perhaps it’s the intrigue that there are other answers to what we thought we knew.  But there is a point to taking the time to understand something even if it goes against what you believe/think you know.  It’s how we learn.  There are infinite possibilities in this universe—perhaps the whole thing is like some giant SIM where we are the experiment to see what works.  I think that is what fascinates me about the brain: Even if these things don’t exist, the fact that we can imagine them in our minds makes them real on some level.  We are fascinating creatures.  The ability to make the complex look easy, the ability to make the easy complex—we are dichotomous beings with multiple trains of thought and there is no way that multiple worlds CAN’T exist together.  We know the reality is that mathematically speaking we are just one version of what can be.  So should we be upset with ourselves when our feelings or tastes or curiosities change?  It’s all for a reason.

I talked about safe harbors and doing what we are meant to do—I’ve talked about that a lot but if I’m honest, I feel like I’m missing part of that story.  What happens when we know what we have to do and we know we need to take the steps to do it but somehow we still stop ourselves from doing it?  Self-esteem is the kicker there.  We need to believe we can do it and we need to have the belief that we WILL do it.  I know my fear is that I can’t see something through—like I will be able to start it but I won’t be able to see it through to the end, to make it what it was meant to be.  Essentially I’m afraid of shitting the bed—like starting out really strong and then just falling short.  I heard a TED talk the other day talking about how we psych ourselves up with the enormity of certain tasks and we think we can’t do it because we are essentially trying to eat the whole horse at once.  But if you can make just one gray square, you can replicate it for something bigger.  The example provided was a picture of Brad Pitt being replicated one gray square at a time.  So if it is that easy, what holds us back? 

We all have hang ups.  Self-doubt and limiting beliefs, an unsupportive circle (those who don’t really support us/only take what they can get from us), friends or family question everything we do (or make us question ourselves), past experiences with work/school/work/family etc. that make us believe we are incapable somehow. We are all capable of changing our self-talk and inner dialogue.  At the end of the day we are still animals and how we really feel is visible on some level (energetically or otherwise) to everyone around us.  So if we aren’t fully confident in what we do, people pick up on that and know—and instinct takes over and they will tear us down in some way or another.  I listened to a lecture from one of my business partners and he said that, “Some treat this business like driving a toy car—if we aren’t confident and don’t exude that [confidence] to our network, people can smell that doubt on us.  We aren’t driving a toy car—we are in the Lamborghini—we need to step up.”  The same is true for everything we do in life from knowing what we want to eat in a restaurant and asking for it to starting that business that no one understands or sees the endgame for. 

We know people have opinions on things they know nothing about—we do too.  We need to keep that in perspective because if they don’t know what we are talking about in relation to a goal, or what the experience/purpose is, they have no room to judge what needs to be done to succeed.  What they don’t understand or what they don’t experience will never make sense to them and we can’t make that happen.    The reality is they aren’t even on the fast track to success themselves and likely aren’t even clear on what they want to do with their own lives so it’s easier to judge someone else’s actions.  For our business in particular, they often say “Get to a billion a year in revenue before you start talking about [what we do] because we can say and prove we make a billion a year.  That’s the difference—we walk the walk.”  We also have to accept that it isn’t our job to make people believe in what we do because not everyone is meant to have the same experience as us.  The key is to keep practicing those basics, those first steps because we know they work and eventually will show the whole picture.  We have to trust that sometimes we understand things other people don’t and we must stick with our own path.  Whether in the first day, week, month, or year, if we see that spark, we have to trust that we are in the right place at the right time.  We don’t just have the cookie, we have the whole bakery.

Today I am grateful for standing my ground.  There often isn’t need for a big show or the drama that accompanies the chaos that people like to bring into our lives.  Some people simply like a show, they like to be the victim, they like the energy in that type of attention.  We do not have to participate in any of that.  Yesterday I had to make a choice to not participate in an event because of the behaviors around it.  I had done my part in asking to discuss certain things that occurred prior to this event with the goal of clearing the air and creating understanding—I am no longer interested in pretending shitty behavior hasn’t occurred and I have always been big on discussing what happened so everyone involved is on the same page. Neither of the latter two things occurred before this event so I made the choice that this wasn’t something I would participate in because I was not comfortable with pretending things were ok or giving the impression that recent events were acceptable.  We didn’t make a big scene, we removed/eliminated ourselves from the drama by not participating.  That was the best choice I could have made for my family.    

Today I am grateful for spontaneous date nights and family fun.  My husband and I very purposefully set up our home for entertaining.  He always loved going out when he was younger while I preferred to stay home.  I was always the worrier about our finances and frankly I never did well in crowds/social situations (shocker, I know).  It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy going out and doing things, I just knew at the time we couldn’t afford to do all the things we wanted to do as often as he wanted to do them and there was usually some issue or another that I would have with someone (that is a LONG story so suffice it to say that I struggled).  Regardless, we love games and movies and other sorts of entertainment so we set up our home so we could have large gatherings here with people we care about.  We are so incredibly grateful to have been able to set up our basement that way (we found amazing deals on 98% of all the things we have down there and inherited some of it) and we love spending time together hanging out, playing, and relaxing—we don’t take that for granted for a second.  And, again, it was very intentional so it’s always nice to have a plan come together like that.  With that being said, sometimes we need to shift the energy and it’s another fortunate thing that we are able to go out every so often with each other and simply let loose and have a good time—like a bowling/arcade night.  It keeps us fresh and it keeps us close as we find ways to have fun both in our home and out.  I am FOREVER grateful to get to spend time with my family like that, especially when things are a bit challenging emotionally.  Sometimes you just need to do something fun together to get out of a funk—getting out of our heads always helps.

Today I am grateful for planning.  I have often shared my complicated relationship with planning, time, anxiety, and OCD.  In my last role at work I was simultaneously incredibly organized and scatter brained and forgetful and pulled in multiple directions while standing my ground in others.  The level of responsibility shouldn’t have been anymore than I’d had in my previous roles, frankly it should have been less because I had a smaller amount of direct reports, but  I was over 3 unrelated areas and often had to switch gears mid thought to address one fire or another and, toward the end, some of the interpersonal issues became so severe that I truly didn’t know what to address first—ever.  I would come in and be able to handle what was on the calendar but I would never know what other crap I would have to address that day and that crap came fast and furious all day long in a barrage of bullshit (most of it avoidable on top of it).  So I often planned my days but still managed to feel like I was falling down a slide with no way to stop, asking myself where the time went.  I also found myself locked in a basement office with no perception on time and feeling like everything was slipping away, pulled out from under me.  I’d wake up and repeat the same bullshit stressors every day on repeat and I did it for years, seeking ways to fit in all the things I WANTED to do, yet somehow never managing to find the time to do it because I’d be exhausted at the end of the day.  Now I’m in a role where I have a significant amount of freedom and I felt lost because I wasn’t sure how to manage my days—I’d been so used to keeping myself open to deal with crises at all times that I didn’t know how to be NOT responsible for everything.  So here I had the freedom I wanted but still wasn’t getting what I wanted to do done.  And then I realized I have the ability to take control and plan out my day the same way I would have for anything else but to prioritize the things I valued/needed to do for my sanity.  The goal of this was a new life, and here I have the key and I’m standing at the door.  All I needed to do was walk through it.  I was allowed (and now encouraged) to prioritize the things I needed to do—my life comes first.  It’s still an adjustment, but what a beautiful thing to adjust to.  I’ve been told all the things I envisioned for my life are priority so now I’m diving in and adapting to making sure those things are added to my to do list just as much as my other responsibilities and it feels amazing to make progress in that arena.  So I’m grateful for that opportunity and for learning to follow through on that.     

Today I am grateful for love.  We all know love isn’t just romantic—love is an energy.  The purpose of love is to bring us closer to what it is we do and we experience love in so many ways.  Yes, I LOVE my family and I am bonded to them like no other both as a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sibling, and a niece—and I can’t forget my furry babies as well.  I LOVE my friends for their understanding and compassion and for their creativity.  But I also love that I have this freedom now.  I love my creativity and that I get to spend more time with it.  I love that I have more time to take care of myself and share those results.  I love that I have more time to focus on my business and helping people by doing the things I love.  I love that I get to work on my writing more. I love that I get to spend more time in faith and healing.  I love that I get to set up my home how I want to and that I am fortunate enough to be able to do so.  I love that I get to learn things personally and professionally and that I have access and time to do so.  I love that I have the ability to put all of the pieces of this puzzle together into one beautiful picture and I love so many pieces of the life I have created that the rough points really don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things.  When it comes to that energy of love, I see how important it is and how love really is the driver for this life.  This world really is magical and full of infinite possibility—we just need to be open to see it and love gives us the power to see that.  Love is the way to connect with ourselves and the world around us and part of setting up these new boundaries and experiencing this new gratitude in my life is to protect my ability to be in this love state as often as I can.  We need to be an example of that.        

Today I am grateful for presence (and manifestation).  I think this is one I’m going to make as a weekly thing because, along with love, I now realize that presence isn’t something we can be grateful for when we experience it—it’s something we need to be aware of and grateful for at all times and it is a privilege to be alive in the moment.  Presence is a deliberate act, a choice to be in contact with what IS and not force the moment to change.  I’m working from home and my son is on summer break and we need to work together to see what we are doing that day and what the plan will be with my work schedule and the things he needs to do.  I’m learning to allow exactly what needs to happen to happen.  The house is still torn apart so distraction abounds in the moment but there are still so many things to be aware of and grateful for in the chaos.  We get to be the eye of the storm and keep that calm during moments of (what feels like) insanity.  While my sister was still in town, we connected in a way we haven’t in a long time—we had lots of long talks, we walked, we bonded over things we have in common.  During one of those conversations I had recommended some books to her.  She liked one of them and said she was going to buy it and the sequel to that one she said she would consider after fully reading the first one.  She texted me last night that she went to an event and she got a free book—the sequel to the book I had recommended.  Had I not paid attention to what she was going through, I wouldn’t have thought of those books, and together we manifested that in her life.  I manifested the calm and the presence for myself.  I’m grateful for the gentle reminders that we are allowed to connect with our power.      

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

We talk about what holds us back but we need to examine what the real issues is—like what is the real obstacle keeping us from living the life we want when we are more than capable of breaking the scenario down and taking it on bit by bit?  Today I want to talk about the pursuit of more in an unconventional way.  Having discussed the purpose of leaving a safe harbor, now I want to dive a bit deeper into the ways we try to leave the harbor.  Lessons pop up in the most unlikely of places and I’m oddly addicted to watching America’s Sweethearts, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.  Sure, a lot of them are 20+ years younger than me and they’re the type of clique-y girls I detested in my younger years—but kind of, sort of, probably wanted to be a part of.  Regardless of personal trauma triggers, there is something captivating about the story these women share.  I feel the institution is such a fine line of what it stands for and supports in what they look for—the aesthetic is important and highly focused on but so is the person and what they contribute to themselves, the team, and the community at large. 

First and foremost, I will say that these are highly intelligent, talented, driven, passionate, well-rounded women.  Not one of them looks at this as a meal ticket to something else—they do it because they love it.  The show captures the amount of dedication and work that goes into the dance aspect of it as far as the discipline and the ability to learn quickly, but it also shows what these girls do outside of that work.  One of the leads works 4 jobs including being a licensed pharmacist running the family business, a Pilates teacher, and an assistant to an executive.  Another is a billing director for a law firm preparing to take the LSATs.  Last season, one of them was a dentist.  I have always wanted to navigate multiple things like that—and that is still a goal of mine because there are so many things to do in this life and I never thought we had to settle on just one thing.  It takes a lot of energy, clarity, and discipline, but it’s doable as all these women demonstrate.  Aside from burnout potential, the multi-faceted focus is absolutely something to strive for.  Life has a lot to offer so take advantage of it.

Which leads to the other side of the story that needs to be addressed: the standards these girls live up to and the fact that if they don’t, there is someone waiting in the wings to take their spot—and they know it.  Dance is a tough industry to begin with but this company throws in crazy timelines to learn the material and is quite unforgiving when it comes to mistakes. One mistake can result in being cut.  Standards like that can set people up for a potential tailspin into darker things.  Many of the girls do deal with various mental health issues and a few of them opened up about eating disorders.  The uniform leaves nothing to the imagination and the requirement to get a makeover to meet the standards of the perfectly-together-woman seem overwhelming for even the most capable.  But these women still take that chance—they love dance and they want to put that skill to use and they put themselves on the line personally and professionally to do it.  They show what it means to deal with the good and the bad of what we love and how to fight for what is right within that.  There are so many layers to what we experience in life that we can’t take things at face value.