Photo by Kris Lucas on Pexels.com

Seeing as the larger events are cancelled, I think this is an opportunity to examine what independence really means.  In the spirit of independence day I decided that it is time for us to look at different forms of independence and how this is an opportunity to adjust how we treat our independence moving forward.

This year has seen a crazy amount of change and upheaval.  While the world is no stranger to things changing, we are definitely strangers to it on this scale.  In the US we are also strangers to the idea of universal impact.  While different groups are dealing with this pandemic quite differently, there is not one person who hasn’t been touched somehow.  There are specific groups of people who feel like they are untouchable, like there are just certain things that won’t affect them.  This pandemic has been a great equalizer.

I listened to a live the other day from Sophia Roe discussing weathering and the impact on DNA.  The short version is that we face trauma and it has an impact on our bodies and then we are continually exposed to that trauma so a lasting impact occurs and changes the structure of our bodies and DNA—and we pass it onto our children.  The trauma of our past, the experiences of those who came before us lives inside of us.  In a very real sense, when it comes to the passing of DNA from woman to daughter, this has ripples for generations.  When the mother carries the daughter, that fetus carries all the eggs she will have in her lifetime so there are immediately 4 generations of people involved.

This amount of fear, anxiety, oppression, is so deeply rooted it is no wonder why it is so challenging to eliminate.  While I 100% agree that we can no longer to afford to tolerate it on any level, I completely understand that this isn’t going to be eliminated overnight.  Old habits, old beliefs, generations old fears will not be removed so easily.  But I also know that we are 100% responsible for calling attention at every turn to these beliefs.  We need to be hyper aware-not hyper sensitive.  “I would rather adjust my life to your absence than adjust my boundaries to accommodate your disrespect.

My worry at this point is that we are all very quick to adjust our interpretations of people’s behaviors so I will be clear to say that witch hunt mentality will not work in this case, either.  Looking for things that people do wrong will defeat the purpose of learning.  In order to unlearn there will be mistakes.  Rubbing it in people’s faces will only foster more animosity and anger amongst each other.  During this tie we have to be exceptionally patient and open and willing to accept people in their entirety.  We have to be willing to see people as vulnerable and we have to be vulnerable.  We have to be very willing to deal with flaws—and to accept them.

Perhaps we can create independence from those deep rooted traumas and to plant the seeds of real healing and recovery.  Breaking out of a system that is designed to fail people and support business—that is independence

I normally wouldn’t spend so much time fixated on the actions of a particular person, especially once it has been resolved.  But I have been extremely triggered this whole week and feeling incredibly vulnerable so I felt like a little more exploration was warranted.

So perhaps triggered, is the wrong word.  I’m on edge and defensive and hyper sensitive.  I hate when it feels like other people have control over me.  And the very fact that I am feeling this way means that I am allowing her to control me.  So I tried to set some boundaries but there are new workflows in place as a result of this interaction so I have a new dynamic.  I hate even more that I feel guilty when I take that control back.  My job is to lead in the best way I can—and I can’t do that if I am under the yoke of someone who doesn’t have all the facts or understand the full story.

Maybe that is the issue: conflicting, needless guilt.  We are so trained to feel like we are meant to give in and bend and cut away parts of ourselves at every turn in order to make people happy but we know it’s wrong—and then we feel bad for calling people on it.  How are we supposed to function if we aren’t allowed to make definitive decisions because it offends someone? Honestly I am frustrated by the amount of power HR has given this woman.  They are allowing her to have input in an area that she has nothing to do with.  An area that she knows nothing about.

To the issue of her having power, is that my ego annoyed that someone with a position below me is telling me what to do?  Perhaps.  But it annoys me that a corporation that is dealing with financial issues would waste their time entertaining the opinion of someone who doesn’t do the work.  That would be like letting me decide how surgeries are supposed to function.  I have no business making those kind of decisions.  I know that and I accept it.  If she can’t accept it then there are other issues at play.

I know that my time can be better spent if her behavior was managed better.  I’m not talking about controlling her, I’m talking about setting clear boundaries about what behavior will and will not be allowed in the workplace.  I don’t feel like that is a revolutionary idea.  In this day and age with everyone becoming offended and the hypersensitivity all around, we have lost our focus and are worried about making people happy over making people secure and safe.

The more I reflected on the latter point, I began to look at things differently.  This woman is a hurt person and she is lashing out.  Yes, I got caught in the tailings and I didn’t deserve it but it wasn’t personal.  She had a history of issues with other people and she let her professional life get out of control because she had no control anywhere else.  So the lesson really is that nothing in leadership is personal.  We are so raw right now and we all feel the struggle as we try to maintain a sense of control over our world.  It seems everything we know is being called into question and falling apart.  That makes us cling harder to the image we hold in our minds about how things should go.

Photo by Quang Nguyen Vinh on Pexels.com

We have come full circle in the crazy events at work.  The woman never brought up any issues with me to HR, she kept it to the previous issues she had.  The events at work over the last week have shown me how important self-love and self-confidence are.  It is easy to be swayed by other people or to lose your step when other people question your abilities.  When you are firm in your choices and your authenticity, it is easier to let opinions go.

No matter what we preach or how hard we practice there is always room for improvement with practice.  So how am I loving myself today?  I took a day to work from home rather than go in.  I woke up and stretched and did some exercises for my low back.  I drank extra water today.  I spent time cleaning up and clearing things out.  I spent time creating.  And I spent time working on affirmations to reinforce that I am on the right path and to help ease anxiety.  I used some affirmations to touch base that I am connected with guidance and that I am protected and well.  I am loving myself by believing in myself and taking steps to move forward.

Having confidence and self-love is about connection as well.  How do we need to stay connected at this point?  With clarity, with faith, and with work.  Taking action by taking the time to make clear decisions based on who we are is where you align.  And our work can’t just be busy work, it has to be meaningful work.  That is the kind of work you find when you align in faith with your purpose.  I’ve learned that I don’t always need to move as fast as I think I do.  Things tend to unfold just as they were meant to be.  There is no need to push.  I also find clarity through gratitude.  Believing all is ok, I am well and protected, and that I am following the path I am meant to.  That belief helps us find what we are passionate about—and ultimately our purpose.

What am I passionate about?  Liz Gilbert talks about the difficulty with finding passion and believes that sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves to find a driving force.  Even if we find something that excites us, that is still an external focus.  So she suggests asking what we are curious about.  When we reframe that question, you will find that you have a lot more answers and you can peel back the layers to find what motivates you.  It’s easier to state, “I am curious about language” or “Wouldn’t it be cool to learn a new language” that it is to say I want to unite different countries by spreading education about communication.  This puts you in a place to learn something new and to develop tools and interests that may end up being what drives you.

So many people who are multi-passionate are either labeled as flighty or too _______ (insert adjective here: intense, emotional, “much”).  They called me too serious—but had no problem coming to me if they needed something from me when things went to hell.  I can absolutely admit that I am serious—but I no longer will consider that a flaw.  I take my pursuits seriously and passionately and with devotion.  I don’t regret how “big” I feel when it comes to things I care about.  I love hard.  I cry hard.  I laugh hard.  I defend hard.  I feel what I feel.  I am bothered by unaffected people but I admire those with emotional self-control.  I’d love to not wear my heart on my sleeve but it is an asset.  The truth is I downplayed my feelings for a long time and was still considered too much—but I felt everything and had no outlet.  I know now that I want to feel.  I want to feel the excitement and I want to feel it all the way to my bones.  I refuse to let people turn one of my biggest assets into a weakness.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

“The Universe has big plans for me.  It’s time to claim them.” Gabby Bernstein, Super Attractor deck.  After the incident with my coworker’s employee, this message resonated closely.  It is not for any of us to play small.  The truth is this life is a gift.  I am blessed.  And my gratitude made me think about this incident more deeply.

My style of leadership is really collaborative and open but I also have firm boundaries and I am highly communicative.  Sometimes that communication is my downfall–I have overshared before.  After this woman called into question my methods for running this department I started feeling like a weak leader.  I know logically that my style and my accomplishments haven’t been raised as an issue with my boss but I still asked what I did wrong—about a woman I HAD NEVER MET BEFORE.  It hit me that the only mistake I have made as a leader is to not stand behind my actions and not have the confidence that I needed to trust that some people are just not going to be satisfied.  Once I drew that card this morning, I knew I had to redirect.

I will not allow myself to spiral for the sake of a person I have never met.  I can not let someone have that much power over me.  I will make my choices and I will stand firm when I am the subject matter expert in an area.  People are allowed to have their opinions—that doesn’t mean I need to change my operation for people who are not impacted by what I do.

Clearly something in me, something about me, triggers people.  GOOD.  I finally understand that I don’t need to be everyone’s cup of tea.  I’m not going to give up my shot to play nice with people who have no intention of hearing what I’m really saying.  So it is time to accept what I am meant to do and take responsibility for my gifts.  No one can keep that from me anymore, not even myself.

There are some affirmations that go along with owning your authenticity.  I will step into my power and use it to share my gifts with the world.  I will not yield until I unearth all of the amazing things in me.  The way we speak to ourselves matter—choose your words wisely.  Don’t stand in the direction someone has blindly place you.  Go where you are called.

-You will be too much for some. Those aren’t your people.-

Photo by Polina Zimmerman on Pexels.com

An incident happened at work with an employee from a department one of my co-workers oversees.  I had never met nor spoken to this woman and she brought forward some critiques over my area in an attempt to discredit my work.  My initial reaction was confusion as I had no idea where these attacks were coming from–again we had never met.  Then I started questioning my skills and then why I felt this way at all.  I decided to hear the woman out and our first meeting did not go well.

I am the first to admit that I tend to take criticism to heart and I have a history of feeling defensive especially when someone makes sweeping judgements.  In this circumstance, I can say with 100% confidence that I kept myself as open as possible and wanted to hear this woman out.  The short version is there was no appeasing her.  There was no middle ground.  There was no right answer any of us in that meeting could have given her.  The conversation continued to escalate and we had to stop.

This event was the epitome of someone with some kind of trauma history as well as someone who is extremely calculated and knows exactly how to play the game so there is no winning—on either side.  I began thinking about what a hostile and dangerous a work environment is when people are allowed to behave like this.  I started thinking about how our business had gone from so disproportionately in favor of the department/business and now is equally disproportionately in favor of the individual employee.  You can not have a business run making decisions based on 4000 individual decisions.  This woman has effectively made it impossible to do my job as it stands—and she is not even my employee.

I have a choice—I can either drive myself crazy trying to do what they are telling me to do (which is different every day) or I can learn to make the right choices for myself.  This is letting go of the fear of the bullshit and stepping into who I am.  This is setting a boundary of not tolerating this type of bullying.  This is loving myself enough to have my back.  This is loving myself enough to stand in who I am and say I’ve done my best.  I don’t need to waste my time trying to defend myself—in this case in particular because this woman’s claims are unfounded.

I need to spend the time building the life I love.  If my existence here is so challenging then I can make the next right choice.  And I will always choose to love myself.  No one can make me feel inferior or worthless.  I will own my space, I will not own your discomfort.  As a whole we don’t know how to manage the truth of our lives—we create an image, a façade, and we manage that.  We haven’t learned to be comfortable in our truth, our vulnerability, and we sure as hell do not have tolerance for any flaws.

We are so reactive and so betrayed or offended by other’s realities, by their truth, by their experiences.  We feel entitled to dictate how people behave and completely ignore their experience.  This is fragility.  We spend all of our time defending an image, an ideal we created (that is no longer attainable) and then label people “bad” if they can’t get it or if they don’t want it–all in a system that will find any way to not give it.  The truth is, our system is about manipulation, power, and control.  We have equated money to God and lost all sense of connection to our humanity.  If we stopped feeding this monster we created we may find an alternative.  Finding source, connection, power WITHIN is how we will dismantle this inefficiency.  Through that connection we will put aside ego and realize how much easier this life flows when you let go.  And good lord the ego fights hard.  It’s insidious in how it latches and lingers.  But if we learn to defend the man and not the plan we find what works for us all.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Today I am grateful for giving in.  I have lived my life according to what I am “supposed” to do.  And the truth is it always felt incomplete, forced, and lacking.  I always knew there was more to it—I always felt it in my bones and that feeling drove me to always search for something.  The reality is that in order to experience that something more you need to be in touch with what it is you want.  More importantly you have to be in touch with what you are meant to do, not what you are told to do.  So I gave into what I had always heard my intuition telling me: just live.  This is the first step of many, but heeding that voice without question or hesitation felt 100% right.

Today I am grateful for progress.  Yes, I have been grateful for progress before, and no matter how redundant, I will always be grateful for it.  Progress is the evidence that life isn’t stagnant.  Progress is the yielded result.  And as cliché as it sounds, that little bit of effort every day adds up.

Today I am grateful for rest.  I did not sleep well last night—I haven’t been sleeping well for the last three weeks to be honest—and I had a ton of work to get done today.  I woke up at 5:30AM expecting to have to clean up nothing but mess and a laundry list I feared would never get done.  All I could do was simply put one foot in front of the other and start.  Slowly but surely the things got done.  I listened to my body and rested when I needed to.  A quick 30 minute power nap did the trick and kept me going.

Today I am grateful for our health.  Last week we lost a close friend of ours due to some unexpected complications during surgery.  There are a slew of things related to his passing and his lifestyle choices that made us take pause in where we are.  Neither my husband nor myself are kids anymore and seeing how vulnerable we are, how vulnerable we ALL are made us think about our lifestyle choices and how we need to take care of ourselves moving forward.

Today I am grateful for the direction my life is going.  Not long ago I felt discontent with where I was.  I had to force myself to do anything.  Motivation was nonexistent.  Happiness felt fleeting.  While things haven’t magically resolved themselves, I did a lot of soul searching and owned that I felt that way because of my own choices.  The simple action of ownership made me snap out of it.  We have one life and the bottom line is we can’t sit around waiting for things to fall into our laps to make us happy.  We have to consciously choose to change the things that no longer fit for us.

Today I am grateful to take action.  There isn’t a feeling quite like when you finish something.  The  universe works in our favor when we decide to act.  As a perfectionist I spent a lot of time waiting for the right moment to act—we all know how that story goes: nothing gets done.  I spent even more time benching myself because I was either nervous about looking like a fool or not confident in my ability to learn as I went.  The truth is not as many people pay attention to you as you think so I heeded that advice and started doing the things I enjoyed doing.  And the universe responded.  The bottom line is the universe will move on no matter what you do—you may as well do what you love and join the game.  Learn to play your hand and see where it takes you.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I’ve noticed that when I feel especially down that signs tend to flow even faster into my life.  It is usually during those times that I find more signs about perseverance and continuing on than I normally do.  I was scrolling through Instagram and I happened across an inspirational word-search puzzle.  The instructions were “The first four words describe your position right now.”  I was already feeling down and out and I figured if this was at least inspirational I couldn’t be any worse off.  So I played.

The first word for me was Self-care.  I found this to be perfect timing considering I have been feeling so out of sorts lately.  Self-care was high on my priority list as I felt the call to take better care and to take more time for care for myself.

The second word for me was Miracles.  Just when I had been feeling like all of my work was for nothing and that things weren’t panning out as they were meant to, I received the message that just because things weren’t happening as quickly as I thought they should be, it didn’t mean that things weren’t (or aren’t) coming together in the time they should.  That is a small miracle.  You see, the big results are often the result of the small steps we take every day so the reminder to keep going felt incredibly profound.

The third word for me was Intuition.  This is when it felt like lightening hit me.  During all of this external (and resulting internal) turmoil, I had been telling myself that I couldn’t hear my intuition—but that I needed to.  I already intuitively knew that I needed to listen to my intuition.  This is a challenge for me because you can’t just listen to your intuition—you have to trust it and then act on it.  The underlying issue really isn’t that I DON’T hear my intuition, it’s that I don’t TRUST it.

The fourth word for me was Family.  This has totally been at the forefront of my thoughts for the last few months.  I’m preparing to help my parents decide on their next steps in life—full retirement, moving, selling their house.  I’m also preparing to move my family into a bigger home.  All of the work I’ve been doing has been to secure this future.

Maybe it was just the mood I was in but clearly I connected with these words at that time.  So I kept going and found the next four. They were Gratitude, Money, Connection, Purpose.  BAM!!  I felt like these would actually logically be the next step after laying the foundation of self-care, believing in miracles, following intuition, and then caring for family.  With gratitude you open up to more miracles including money and connections—specifically connections to find and fulfill your purpose.

I didn’t stop there.  The next four were Strength, Breakthrough, Change, and Creation.  Mic Drop!!  Again, the logical next steps.  Once you find your purpose, you need strength to follow your intuition to fulfill your purpose.  This is often the breakthrough.  And breakthrough leads to change because of what we are creating.  Once we find our purpose we are often incited to create change.

You got it, I kept going.  The last three words I found were Love, Lessons, and Alignment.  Oh my friends, by this point I was weeping.  Change is not only brought about by creation and purpose, but also by love.  By finding our purpose, we are doing what we love.  And in love we learn the universal lesson that we are all human and we are all fundamentally worthy.  Aligning with that truth will always keep us aligned with our purpose.

The simple random act of crossing this puzzle and finding the links between those random words in that random order made it so evidently clear that the world, the universe is not random.  We are meant to find things at the right time.  This nudge profoundly reminded me of my connection to the universe, and I felt my sadness begin to wane.  I felt peace.  In these words I felt like I found the key to my path.  The steps.  Keep looking for your words my friends because the lessons are often in the most unexpected places.

Photo by Todd Trapani on Pexels.com

Today I am grateful for amazing time spent with my family.  In celebration of Father’s Day, my husband, son, and I went fishing at the little lake by our house.  My brother called while we were out and asked us to come over and celebrate with our father as well.  So we packed up and drove over and we all spent the morning and early afternoon fishing by them.  It was such a lovely time and a moment I will cherish forever.

Today I am grateful for time spent outdoors.  Not only were we together, we were in nature enjoying the quiet, the stillness, and the absolute peace and simplicity of being outside.  It felt wonderful to connect with nature and to leave everything else aside.

Today I am grateful for things turning out unexpectedly.  My control issues have repeatedly come to focus this last week and I have struggled to let go when things looked like they weren’t turning out as planned.  But cosmic humor prevailed showing me that just because it didn’t look like I thought it would, everything still turned out how it was meant to.  And it is all fine.

Today I am grateful for the reminder to pause.  This is something I have been grateful for many times and it amazes me how it’s a lesson I need continual reminding of.  I KNOW how good it feels to let go and trust yet I allow myself to get caught up in the machine of routine and drive.  Sometimes not accomplishing something is exactly what you need to do to get done what needs to.

Today I am grateful for the universe showing me what is really important—the things I have really asked for.  Being with family, doing something healthy, taking care of each other, creating memories—those are the things that matter.  Using the time we have to do the things we enjoy with the people we love:  those are the things to never take for granted.

Today I am grateful for rest.  My mind has been in overdrive for the last week with no clear direction.  That means that nothing truly productive has been done.  It was all activity, not productivity.  Taking that pause really served as a reset.  Sometimes it isn’t right to push through and we have to stop in order to see which way to go.

Today I am grateful for life.  Echoing what I discussed above about being in sync with what is really important, I am so grateful to have the opportunity to make different decisions once those little reminders set in.  Life is the moments we create, it is doing what makes you feel alive, it is experience.  The experiences today nudged me in the direction I really want to go.

Photo by Bekka Mongeau on Pexels.com

The universe works in some pretty amazing ways sometimes. Yesterday we discussed the need to release the masks we create in order to live the life we are meant to.  We also discussed learning to settle in the in-between where we can learn more about who we are.  Today began with me waking up early to break my routine a little.  Really it was just to pay a bill I had forgotten to pay, but that is not something I would normally do.  My neurotic brain would normally worry and worry all day and then force myself to try and remember to pay it when I got home from work.  The whole day would have been filled with stress to remember to pay it.  Yes, I have been that crazy where I wouldn’t wake up 10 minutes early to simply pay a bill because it wasn’t my routine.

When it comes to taking control and directing my course, I realized that everything is about perspective.  I listened to a live event from Gabby Bernstein today and she was answering questions from the audience.  Someone was discussing their constant pushing.  The constant need to have control and push through.  How they couldn’t let go and always needed to be doing something to make progress toward their goals: and they were getting nowhere.  Gabby’s response was beautiful.  She said, “I hear no joy.  Absolutely no joy.  I’m prescribing you to 30 days of fun.  You need to have fun again.”  At these words something in my head just clicked.

I haven’t left a single centimeter of space in my life for fun.  I am always working.  Always obsessing over my goals.  I feel like any action not done in pursuit of that goal means that I am lazy and that I am not making any progress toward the life I want.  The audience member had laid out a similar story and Gabby also said, “It is in letting go and in having fun and not forcing our purpose that we find how to fulfill our purpose.  It is in having fun that we learn what to do.”  BAM.

So, with the million and one things that are going on in the world and in my life right now, I understand that I needed a reminder to have fun.  Having fun doesn’t negate or downgrade the seriousness of what is going on in the world nor does it mean that I am ignoring my purpose.  Having fun is the simplest way to invite the life back in.  It is the most effective way to bring you back to your path and experience what is both joyful and purposeful.

We can live without happiness or joy but that is all it will be: It is an existence but it is not a life.  Fulfilling our purpose and the path we take to get there is unique to each of us is what makes our life worth living.  It is the joy, the fun that opens us up to the possibilities that are meant for us.  A life that is purpose driven is necessary but it is equally necessary to enjoy it.

It is ok to take a break from the seriousness we create and to relish in the silliness and beauty.  Taking a moment to enjoy doesn’t mean we will lose that happiness and it doesn’t mean that we don’t take our purpose seriously.  We are meant to be happy.  We are meant to dance.  Find the song that calls to you and turn up the music.  Once you have your beat the rest will fall in place.