Today I am grateful for reminders to live without regrets.  Life is too damn short and moves too quickly to waste a moment regretting what we do.  Make the choice, do the best we can, don’t intentionally cause pain, and always stay the course—our course.  We are a skittish sort of species and I see how I’ve already passed my fears on to my child.  It’s hard for me to accept some of the things, the wildness he has only because I fear for him getting hurt.  But the more I fear for him, the less he will trust himself and then he won’t develop the skills he needs to actually stay safe because I will have to be that safety for him.  I don’t want him to regret not doing the things he wants to do because he was afraid he couldn’t do them—especially because his mother instilled the fear in him.  I have a mini-mountain of things I didn’t do because I was afraid and I am working on tackling those one at a time so I don’t have those regrets.  And so I don’t continue to shape my life with fear and my son’s life as well.  Life moves in a blink and we don’t always get a second chance to do what we want to do so if we are afforded an opportunity, seize it.  Take it right then and there and don’t let go.  Trust that it’s the right moment and jump.  The worst that comes of it is a lesson and we try again.  So perhaps it isn’t so much live without regrets as much as it is this: simply live.

Today I am grateful for pain.  I’m having a moment of struggling with time again, realizing how damn fast everything truly goes and it’s ripping my heart out.  But at the same time, I’m grateful and I’m happy because there have been such wonderful portions of my life that impacted me enough to want to go back, to not want to let go of those moments.  Even if I’ve had a million moments since then, and I’m grateful for all of those as well, I’m lucky to have had something that engrained itself in me so well that I identify with it to this day, that it makes me feel good to this day, that it is still familiar to this day.  I can acknowledge the difference from when I wanted to simply hide in what I knew—big fish in a little pond where I knew it all and was safe in that knowledge.  Branching out and learning new things, new people scared the crap out of me because they didn’t act how the ones I knew acted so I kept wanting to go back to when I felt I had my feet under me, when I felt protected.  Seeing the ones I love change and realizing that I’m changing, realizing how much time has passed and the fact that 30 years feels like an instant terrifies me.  But it’s emphasizing to me the genuine need for presence.  The people I love, the time we shared, the times we will have together are a gift, and losing them, things changing is always going to hurt to a degree.  But if we stay present and aware, we won’t miss a second of our time together.  All of it is a gift and I am so grateful because, yes the thought of losing any of it (any of the people I love) hurts like hell, but it means that there was something worth hurting for. 

Today I am grateful for stepping outside myself.  There comes a time we have to put aside our own bullshit and learn to look at what people need.  That isn’t to say we sacrifice our own needs to make others happy, rather, we put aside the doubt and bullshit we tell ourselves long enough to see how we can take those skills and use what we have to help people.  It’s always been easy to get wrapped up in our own heads—we have a constant voice that is both audience and creator in our minds and sometimes that voice isn’t always so kind.  It’s responsible for both the greatest and darkest moments we face in life.  This summer has been an emotional roller coaster—and I’m noticing the summer season is like that for me lately but that’s another story.  So instead of getting wrapped up in what I fear and the thoughts I’ve told myself for ages, I told myself to shut up and just get the work done.  Just do what needed to be done and see where I could be of use.  It shifts everything.  This is by no means an epiphany, rather a reminder that we are still capable even when we feel low.  People don’t need us to be anything other than what we are in that moment, and we can get out of our own heads to be who we are meant to be.  Being locked in the head is a lonely place to be and it often doesn’t get us anywhere.  We need to learn to tell a different story because as soon as we do, the real magic happens.  

Today I am grateful for freedom.  I’ve worked hard over the last 6 years to get myself to a point where I can create the life I want without permission, more specifically without constraints related to a 9-5 or what other people thought I should be doing.  I switched jobs at the beginning of the summer and that was a tough decision because it meant stepping down from leadership and a role I was used to for the last 6 years.  That job was tough on so many levels and I constantly felt in over my head.  I doubted who I was all the time, even when I know I made the right decisions, I constantly deferred to those above me.  So I had to make the choice to give up what I knew, a familiar path with potential for higher movement, and a routine that, while it was a pain for me, was something I knew.  I also knew whole heartedly that it wasn’t healthy for me, it wasn’t who I am.  Every day felt like dressing up and literally playing a role and I was constantly tossed around between people, trying to make everyone happy and not doing much more than trying to find ways to make people happy.  This new job is teaching me amazing things and I feel the inherent trust in the role where my choices will be supported—always.  That has allowed/afforded me a new sense of trust in myself knowing that I have made the right choices and that I am capable of right choices.  But this role has also offered me something I didn’t have: time.  Adapting to how this role worked challenged me in the beginning because I was constantly seeking what to do next, always making sure I proved what I was doing, that I was holding my weight.  But it’s been made very clear that this is a position I wouldn’t have gotten if I wasn’t capable and I’m happy to have a clear understanding that I am doing well.  Belief in myself has afforded me the ability to do the job and to trust my use of the time I have been given—and all of that has allowed me the freedom to do the things I want to be doing, to pursue the things I want to go after and to actually take action on creating the life I want.  That is freedom. 

Today I am grateful for opportunities and next steps.  I’ve taken a healthy dose of my own medicine in regards to accepting freedom and seizing the moment/opportunity when it comes our way.  The summer has been packed with a ton of work and activity and overwhelm but also progress, joy, and ultimately satisfaction.  There have also been some surprises in the way of moving forward on a few things that were going to be on the back burner for a while.  It wasn’t how we planned but we were given an opportunity to rekindle a spark related to a project we’ve worked on for years and we have a chance to gather full force with it, to experience the power with it, and to get in the middle of it all.  We initially weren’t going to, but this is something powerful and we can’t deny it any longer.  We can’t ignore the fact that we have been called to this and we have stuck with it this long, even with no results at this point, for a reason.  So, given all the changes over this summer and the spirit of moving forward, this was a chance we decided to pounce on.  We both know it has to be different this time and we need to be more active participants—we’d been waiting for that moment when we could focus our efforts.  But the time is never right, never perfect and sometimes you just have to take the leap and start the damn thing.  So that’s what we are doing.  We were given a gift, we are taking the chance, and we aren’t looking back this time.  THIS is the time we are given and the time is now.  I do not take that for granted.   

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.