I’ve learned a lot about relationships over this summer.  There are people you could know for years and feel like you have a real bond, a real connection with them who suddenly feel further away from you than ever before.  There are people who live hundreds of miles away who barely know you that treat you better than your neighbors.  Then there are the people you’ve always loved that you may have taken for granted for a while because you know they know you and you know them so it’s easy to let time slip away and you forget how amazing and easy it always was until you connect again.  There is something that happens with time, when we are aging, that makes it suddenly seem like it’s going too fast and this past year in particular has felt like a blink.  It felt like that last year as well but I feel like this year is on hyperdrive, and in that regard when we think of our age, when we hit a certain point in life, we start to understand what is important enough to focus on and fight for and what simply isn’t worth our time anymore.  People are very good at wearing masks and they do it for many reasons, it’s human nature.  But as we get older, we are also able to see through the masks easier and there are some people who think they can still pull it over on us and take offense when they can’t.  Perhaps they try to turn the table on you, but the secret is this: it doesn’t matter if they do because time is too precious and short to waste it on jerks who would expect you to play a role in their lives and wouldn’t lift a finger for you.

I would be lying if I said these lessons didn’t affect me and that I was completely cool with the resulting situation I’m in right now.  It still hurts like hell thinking you know someone only to realize the entire thing was so far from what you thought it’s practically in the next state.  Self-preservation is natural and I don’t fault people for looking out for their best interest—I encourage that because we can only offer the best of ourselves if we are being that best self.  But when self-preservation turns into narcissism and demand that other people comply with what you want, that isn’t a relationship.  And that hurt.  There were moments over the last year that hit me harder than anything in my life.  Those moments were the reason why I started on an entirely different path for myself.  I realized that within those moments, the people who claimed to be my friends were nowhere to be found.  That’s fine, there are some things we have to go through alone—and some of them I wanted to go through alone if I’m honest.  But what was interesting is that no one took the time to understand the aftermath of what I’d been through alone.  I wasn’t the same person, drinking away what hurt, pretending everything was fine.  My truth and my experience made people uncomfortable but they were still comfortable with SOME people.  And even that is fine as much of a mindfuck as it is. On the other hand, I’ve developed a closer relationship with someone from my business, someone who doesn’t even reside in the same state and this person has shown more compassion and willingness to be there than people who KNOW me. 

When it comes to time, it’s fairly insignificant how long we’ve known people.  I saw a meme the other day talking about how some people got close so fast and it was because they didn’t need to tell that person how to be a friend.  In the context of people just aligning with each other and that sort of instant connection, I get it, you DON’T need to tell anyone how to be around you and it just clicks.  But there are times when we don’t know what to do with each other because we don’t know what someone is going through and it is what we do in those moments, how we show up, how we work through it together that define a relationship.  I’m going to use the word blessed here because I believe it: I have been blessed with many amazing people in my life.  I think that’s part of the reason why I’m so easily able to recognize the real side of someone, they can’t hide it from me because I can feel the truth and that scares the shit out of some people almost as much as being held accountable to that truth.  No, it’s more about the vibe between people because energy doesn’t lie.  If someone can turn away because they saw a crack in the armor that person doesn’t deserve a spot at your table.  It’s the people who show up and make the effort to understand that matter and I got tired of being the one to always bend, to always make the concession because I understood—and I thought that was what friends did for each other.  The truth is far simpler: keep the people with both feet in your court close, the ones with a foot on the other side of the line need to make the choice to be all in or get the fuck out.  If they can’t choose, then there’s the answer.

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.

“When you allow them to think you’re convincible, they will try to convince you,” Bishoi Khella.  This quote hit me on a level that I didn’t want to admit.  I will start with some grace for myself in that I’ve always been really good at seeing all sides of the situation and I’ve prided myself on making logical decisions and being able to arrive at a reasonable middle ground for people.  What I’ve noticed as of the last 7-10 years is that I’ve lost some of that spark for myself and my own opinion and I’ve spent far more time seeking a middle ground than I’ve spent understanding what I believe personally.  Seeing the middle ground isn’t a bad thing, frankly that’s always my goal, but the problem is it has turned into a behavior where people come to me seeking my agreement with them, seeking the way I see that they are right.  In hearing this quote, I realized that people aren’t coming to me for logic, they’re coming to me because they think I will be on their side—that I will support and believe their side, that they can convince me that they are right.  I don’t look for WHO is right, I look for WHAT is right and somewhere along the line, that became misinterpreted as me appeasing people.  I realized that the way I present myself can make it seem like I was trying to be amenable when really I was trying to gather information in a safe way and to get to the truth.

The reality is this is about maintaining the “no.”  We aren’t here to be swayed in a particular direction, we are meant to have our own opinion.  We are meant to develop the skill of seeing all sides so we can arrive at a mutually beneficial conclusion, that is true.  That doesn’t require me sacrificing myself and aligning with what you think is right over what I know is right for myself.  That requires saying “no,” using our voice because we know what we stand for.  If we feel something, believe something, if we are trying to make something happen, we are responsible for the boundary of maintaining what it takes to achieve that something.  There are times when keeping the peace means sacrificing our voice and, even if we have good intentions of hearing it from someone else, we need to let go of the fear of being too loud or being seen as difficult so we can convince ourselves we know who we are and what we are talking about.  We are given thoughts and opinions for a reason, we don’t have to adopt what anyone else tells us.  There are many people in this world who prey on those with weak resolve, those who could serve their purpose rather then their own—and I allowed myself to fall into the former for the sake of appearing easy and reasonable.  We have to speak up or we will be spoken over.

There is a way to maintain our opinion and express that opinion without dominating a situation and we are allowed to receive opinions without being forced to accept them. This is why we have a brain capable of complex thought engineering and deciphering.  I had a conversation with a colleague experiencing something similar to what I went through and I felt fortunate enough to help him navigate that situation because I had insight to share.  But at the end, I realized that this was a circumstance I’d warned him about already.  It didn’t bother me so much that he had to experience it himself to understand and appreciate what I went through, but it bothered me that this was an instance where I knew what would happen and he thought he had control over the situation, that it wouldn’t go the way I said it would.  He’d tried to convince me that he would be able to handle this, that he knew what would happen.  I didn’t need to be convinced that I knew what was going on—I’d already lived it.  So I nodded and politely told him I understood and that this par for course.  It isn’t my job to convince anyone either, so we will go about our business and we will support each other as appropriate.  

“Without a visual reference to what we need to do, we will follow what we see,” Brendon Bouchard.  This is a testament to the fact that we need to have a clear vision of what we have to do in order to get where we want to—we can’t just do things willy-nilly and think we will find our way otherwise we will end up working on someone else’s dream. If we don’t have a plan for our life then someone will fill it in.  I often struggle to find the middle ground so when I’m working out what needs to be done, I go to extremes: either every detail is planned to the second or I have no plan at all and wing it.  Neither is exceptionally effective because we can’t control every detail and winging it really won’t get it done.  The reason this quote caught my ear is because all life is a balance but it is so easy to get off track because we follow what we see.  We all need guide rails every now and then.

I thought of the visual reference as a cue—and that’s really what it is.  What we have in our environment is a trigger for us and it can set us up for success or failure.  No matter how organized we are, what we surround ourselves with has an impact on us.  For those of us with ADD/ADHD there are other challenges there because we may have the best intentions on doing something but we will squirrel off in a moments notice.  So for me, especially now that I work from home with my 9-5, I have had to create very distinct times/areas for me to do specific work.  That isn’t to say they don’t overlap, but in order to get anything done successfully, I need that defined space.  The space itself reminds me of what I need to do.

So this piece wasn’t meant to be a big inspirational deal, more of a reminder to set ourselves up for success no matter the arena.  If we are working toward personal freedom, we need to be disciplined about it and figure out what that means so we know what to do to achieve it.  When it comes to mental health, it pays to clear the unnecessary clutter and do the deep dive to figure out what matters and what we have the power to change in our lives.  No matter what we are working on, the message applies: make sure you have the tools and support you need to do the work and execute a plan.  You don’t need to know every step of the way but you need to be able to see that next step so get out of your own way. 

There is a concept of a unicursal line where no matter which way you go, you will end up in the same spot. The idea suggests that no matter what you choose, you will end up in the same spot so the choices we make are fairly irrelevant.  The don’t matter because no matter what the result is the same in the end. If we treat life like that, the pressure is relieved because it suggests that no matter what we choose we will always get where we are meant to be. Some may look at this as a defeatist mentality and question the futility of life but this is something that gives me hope because it takes the weight off of the every day.  Sure, we have a say in what happens, sure we can choose a different route to get there, but the unicursal line suggests that we were always meant to make that choice anyway—that we always WOULD have made that choice.  So it isn’t so much a matter of doomed to an outcome, but rather we have already played out every possibility and we would have settled on what we chose regardless so we are right where we need to be.

I fell in love with this because at this moment I am experiencing a different type of existential crisis. I’m watching the strongest people I’ve known in my life, the ones who were my guardrails, my guides, my heroes, the giants of what I thought it meant to be to LIVE, I’m witnessing them in their most human and vulnerable of states.  Of course they were always human.  They always had these states and they always had their weaknesses but witnessing the vulnerability of life is a reminder that we are all here at he same time and we will all endure the same fate at the end of the day no matter what our path looks like.  Some are granted a prettier path than others, that’s for sure, but even those with the glittery view will see the same thing in the end.  That gives  hope to a degree—we are all human and, regardless of what you believe the next step in this world is, we all return to the Earth in the end.

I spent a lifetime putting so much pressure on my decisions that I gave myself, not only decision fatigue, but I PTSD from trying to think so many steps ahead to see every possible outcome and what could happen to me.  I recently read that when we grow up in a home where there was a lot of yelling or the kids were yelled at in particular, we learn to be quiet because the smaller we are, the less noticed we are, the less chance we have of being “in danger” of being yelled at. In that regard, I can speak from experience and know this is true and it carries well into adulthood.  In full transparency I wasn’t yelled at directly very often, but I witnessed a lot of yelling in so many circumstances (yes, at myself but also at my siblings, at employees from the family business, from sibling to sibling both in the house and in the business, teacher to student, etc.) and I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that.  I wanted to be received and accepted and I didn’t want to be shunned—I already felt on the outside enough I didn’t want to add being in trouble to that equation as well.

So I chose the path of least resistance and keeping people happy in order to avoid being unhappy myself.  AT least I thought that made me happy.  It made me pliable and compliant and lost because I was small in so many ways.  When I raised my voice, no one bothered listening or that is when I was outright told I was doing something wrong so that taught me very clearly that I was….wrong.  That my opinion was wrong, that I should just keep quiet because the voice making noise belonged to someone else—not quite on the edge of seen and not heard but close enough.  I didn’t know how to reconcile it, reconcile the fact that I had ideas and knew they were good and that I came here to share ideas and simultaneously was being told to keep quiet.  SO this is my path: it doesn’t matter when I share the message because those who are meant to receive the message will get it in the right time.  I never lost my voice, I just needed to be in the right room to remember my power and to have it appreciated and, mostly, I needed to appreciate it myself.  So nothing I’ve done prior to this has damaged my ability to fulfill my purpose—I’m right on time, right on track, right where I belong.  This is it: life is now and it is everything it was supposed to be.   

“You are not responsible for how your growth journey makes other people feel,” Sahil Bloom.  Full transparency this quote was used in the context of children carrying the burden of adults around them and how not all adults are safe just because they are considered an adult.  This last line Bloom said, however, is remarkable in how it simply hits on the truth of a matter that applies to far more than just children learning to suffocate under the authority of an adult: it speaks to every time we undergo a change or evolution in our character and how people will always try to keep us as we were because it makes them feel safe and secure because they know the role we play in their lives.  Simply put, we don’t need to stay small because it makes other people feel better.  My growth may impact you, yes, it may affect how we interact and what we are able to do moving forward, even who we are to each other moving forward.  But that doesn’t mean I need to curb my journey to accommodate your desire to stay who you were when growth is called for.  And the truth is, I don’t get to decide when and how you grow/evolve nor do you get to choose that for me, so we can choose to grow together, or we can move forward on our path as we see fit.

Growth, change, evolution, taking the leap are about how WE feel, not how others feel.  I’ve borne witness to what life looks like when we have the opportunity to change and we cling so hard to what WAS that we lose the opportunity to move onto that next step.  It becomes a lifetime of wondering what the fuck happened and how we got where we are.  That is a feeling I have desperately tried to avoid at all costs because it is painful, sometimes even more so because it’s also avoidable.  I know what regret feels like (we all do) but I don’t want to regret missing out on the life I could have had because I was too afraid to move forward or I was more concerned about what you felt like in potentially leaving you behind (or the perception of leaving you behind).  Those who are meant to be with us will be with us on that journey and a good rule of thumb is that those who are supposed to be on the journey with us will be happy for whatever that evolution brings—and those who are REALLY in it will deal with their own evolution as well.  That’s how growth works—what works stays, what doesn’t falls away.

As a society we already fall into the habit of living up to standards from external influences and creating an image.  From the lizard brain perspective it makes sense because the more we fit in, the less exposed we are to any type of danger.  From the internal mental/emotional perspective, it’s a hindrance to who we are and, honestly, to those around us as well.  If we never align with the authentic version of ourselves, we inhibit our growth and the growth of those around us who were meant to learn.  What we are meant to be honestly never comes from outside—we know what it is.  When we have that knowing, we know that we can’t base our decisions on how other people feel and what their fears are.  We pass on fears and doubts along with bravery and boldness and we have the choice of what to express in our lives.  We have the choice on what wins and that needs to come from ourselves.  Whether someone likes it or not, we each get to express and live in our truth—their opinion on the matter is irrelevant.  We are responsible for not hurting people but not at the cost of ourselves.  We are not required to hurt ourselves to make other people feel better about their choices.  Grow even if others decide to stay in the dirt—we can’t force them to face the sun.  Perhaps we can give them enough shade to poke through and see the light but if we can’t, we still need to bloom.   

“I feel violent, like I’m dying, I feel broken, maybe I’m just breaking free,” Night Riots.  Ok, one more (tiny) piece on change that felt relevant because of what we talked about yesterday, how when we are scared we have to do it anyway.  Change CAN feel violent.  It’s the destruction of a former life, of what we knew/know and that truly is devastating to a degree—everything we knew is on the line and we have the potential to lose it.  It is truly a death because, as we learn in alchemy, the original no longer exists in the form it was; but as we ALSO learn in alchemy, the old exists within the new, just in different form.  Enduring any change/evolution is the shedding of skin we became comfortable in.  Once that skin starts getting tight, we see our growth is restricted so we have the choice to either stop growing and stay small, to suffocate because we grow within the confines, or to release the skin and step out into the world.  So change may be a death and it is a potentially violent process that breaks us, but at the end of it, no matter how raw we are, we are simply breaking free and stepping into all the possibilities that come with more space.    

 “If you can’t beat the fear, just do it scared,” Glennon Doyle.  This is an old one but it seemed important to bring it back now.  It’s not surprising at this stage in my life, there are a ton of changes happening and I’m in the throes of documenting some of the most difficult experiences I’ve ever had to speak about on top of reconciling changes in nearly every relationship I have at the moment, a new job, and construction in my home—it’s 100% chaos right now and every choice feels like it’s blurred/clouded.  Nothing is straightforward at the moment.  The truth is that I AM scared right now because these changes encompass everything from mortality to shifting life paths, creativity and purpose, power and struggle, and identity and the mask.  Everything is exposed, it’s all on the table (and in the case of my home quite literally all on the floor) and there are parts of me that I thought I could never live without that I don’t have a say in whether or not I get to keep it.  And I know that’s natural, that is the definition of life: change and evolution. I started to struggle with analysis paralysis and decision fatigue and realized that the first issue was that I was/am overstimulated and that makes it hard for anyone to think straight.  We know the universe sends us signs and for me it was hearing this quote again used in the context of a speech Ryan Leak was giving and it reminded me of what I say: when you don’t know what to do, do nothing until you can do SOMETHING.

Ryan expounded on this concept when he said, “Who’s to say you can’t be scared and still do it nervous?.”  If we continue to do nothing then nothing will ever get done and we will find ourselves in the same position for as long as we sit there—unicursal path or not, if we don’t move, we certainly won’t get anywhere.  Fear isn’t the deterrent, it’s our inability to get past it.  For me it’s ultimately the fact that I don’t want to look back and wish I had done something differently or to realize that I missed out on what I was supposed to do.  I also watched some videos of high divers/cliff divers and couldn’t fathom the idea of willingly jumping off of something to plunge into the water.  The height is terrifying but they still do it—the still find the courage to launch their bodies off whatever platform they are on and hit the water.  I realized that, even though I’m not jumping from 30-60 feet, the feeling of change is similar: we’re jumping off the edge of what we’ve known into something we can’t quite see the other side of.  There comes a point where you can’t go back and I heard in one of these videos that it was bad luck in diving to turn back once they were on the platform—so for us, once we are at that point, there truly is no turning back.  And that’s ok because if we are going to end up where we need to be then the concept is the leap was part of the journey all along.

There’s always the before and after—what it was like before we did this thing and then after.  What it was like with this person and then what it’s like in their absence.  What it was like at this job and then in a new job.  There is no way we can ever prepare for every single variable that occurs when we face a new challenge.  If we were required to do that, literally everything would stop because we wouldn’t be able to handle more complex issues than yes or no and, frankly, every decision would feel like life or death.  With that being said, the reality that we will have to do things while we are scared takes on a different look.  All we can do is prepare for what we know, for what we think may happen, and plan for what we want so we can somehow connect the two and close the gap between that before and after.  Sometimes the chaos is too much, sometimes there is too much change at once and it feels like we’re going to drown.  In those moments it is fully acceptable to stop fighting and try to float to gather our bearings.  But once we right ourselves again, we have to keep going.  It’s all part of the process.  It’s 100% true that once we take that leap we so often see it wasn’t as scary as we thought it was and part of life is figuring it out along the way.  Even if we are scared, we have to do it anyway because the alternative is looking back and wishing we had and not being able to do anything about it.  Change is a gift because it means we are alive and the truth is we have made living pretty scary sometimes.  It doesn’t have to be and even if we are afraid, life still moves forward so we may as well make the choice to leap when we want to.       

Today I am grateful for completion.  We’ve had the main level of the house under construction since March.  It’s been delay after delay, lesson after lesson, and frustration after frustration.  I can keep it in perspective and acknowledge in the grand scheme of things, this is not a huge issue.  I would be lying, however, to say that there was no impact on us mentally.  Having your house in some degree of unrest for any length of time is a pain, but to have the entire thing torn up and shifted over and over again and to have plans pushed aside and rerouted unexpectedly multiple times is wearing on ANYONE.  So this past week we received the last pieces of our project and we have been able to start to put things back together.  The relief is immense and I am so grateful that we can make some progress getting things where they belong.  It’s also awesome to see a vision come together like that.  I can’t say that the wait was worth it because 90% of the delays had nothing to do with us but I WILL say the vision is spot on and it is beautiful—it took time but it got to where we wanted it.  And I can breathe again.

Today I am grateful for surprises.  We’ve been invited to a conference for our business.  We haven’t been able to attend the last several years for various reasons but we received the invitation, and because we are gluttons for chaos, we accepted it.  Truthfully, it will be chaotic, there is no denying it, but this is a huge gift and we couldn’t have anticipated this.  This is an opportunity for us to really get things off the ground and make huge strides for the business and for other connections.  This is a networking gig unlike any other and I am so happy we have better awareness of what’s to come and what we will do moving forward.  This is a chance to move things forward in our lives and I am so happy to keep that in perspective. I wouldn’t be able to do this without my current role, without the changes I’ve made over the last few months.  I am proud, I am excited, and I am ready.  The time is right.  This is one of those moments that proves things happen when they are meant to.

Today I am grateful for family.  There are a lot of dynamics at play right now and I am learning to simply take people as they are.  We often don’t realize how much we expect people to live up to our standards.  I’m truly not speaking in the malicious sense, I’m talking in the way we think people are, we think we know them because they’ve been a certain way for a long time, and suddenly they are this different person.  They no longer fit the mold of how we knew them.  It’s an adjustment and it can be painful but the roles we play with people change.  I’m grateful my family is around no matter what role they have in my life.  I love that I still get to see their names come up on my phone, that I get to hear their voices.  It’s a gift.

Today I am grateful for finding peace.  I never realized what a journey it would be to find peace.  It sounds like such an easy thing—just be peaceful, allow peace, stay away from what causes unrest.  Buddhism talks about life being suffering and how we can’t avoid it but we have to work with it.  Because of suffering we know what joy is and because of unrest and disturbance we know what peace is.  Life will never be smooth sailing all around.  It will never be easy all day every day.  But what we can do is find a way to create peace in ourselves.  We can find a way to manage peace with who we are because when we find peace with who we are we know we can handle anything.  Peace is an acceptance, that’s really all it is. It’s a knowing that no matter what comes our way we can handle it.  I’ve allowed myself to be rattled for too long and that isn’t a place that feels good.  For me it’s almost instinct to find the negative/fear/unrest because there’s a compulsion to solve things in a way, to find purpose.  We find peace when we know our purpose because the rest of the distraction goes away.  So in a way, peace comes not only with acceptance, but with focus and action (more detail coming).  Taking steps and moving forward gives us peace because we have a direction and that makes all the difference in the world.      

Today I am grateful for purposeful action.  Conceptually I’ve been aware of purposeful action my entire life—we have a purpose and we do something about it.  In practice, that didn’t work so well.  Between distraction and people pleasing, we lose sight of what matters at times.  I’ve also never been a person who could do one thing at a time.  Multiple goals, multiple projects, and things to do—the goal itself was to complete as much as I could.  Part of that was natural interest and curiosity—I have interest in a variety of things.  But jumping from thing to thing gets us nowhere.  I am grateful to be reminded that sometimes slow and steady wins the race.  We can’t drink out of the fire hose—sometimes we just need to slow down and prioritize.  At some point we realize that there are no mistakes and we end up exactly where we need to be no matter what we do.    

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“Your future self is always watching, always being built,” Dritan Hodo.  Ah, the universe has a way of reminding us at all times that we are on track.  Just as we talked about yesterday with letting go of the past so we can embody the future, we need to know what that future looks like and what we are striving for.  Know who we are and allow that vision/version of ourselves to shine through—let it come out in all its glory and color.  We have to make the choices based on where we are going, not on where we were with the exception of learned lessons.  The future is waiting. The past is done and we can do nothing about it.  That’s why it hurts when we hold onto it for so long and it becomes a detriment because we are carrying something unnecessarily.  We’ve learned the lesson, we need to move on.  If we are to be a model for our future self, we need to let go of the past otherwise we will continue to get the same thing. 

The future changes all the time which may seem contradictory to the concepts of the singular path we’ve talked about recently.  I think even that singular path is meant to embody changes—it already comes with the twists and turns and it will still get us where we were headed.  So we can alleviate some of the pressure in that regard and allow the path to unfold and make the choices that feel right.  I believe that is partially why the future is constantly changing as well because we are meant to adjust.  Our intuition is a self-steering guide post/marker.  If I want something, I need to be a version of myself that can get it, an inspiration to what my future self will want to do to fulfill that purpose.  What we decide now does impact who we are tomorrow and when we zoom out, we see that we were always who we are and that choice would have brought us to that version anyway.