Yesterday I witnessed one of the most beautiful instances of love that I have seen in over a year.  I’ve mentioned several times that my organization is going through a lot of changes.  For the last year we’ve been in this awkward position of acting like everything is normal when it isn’t.  That has created an unbelievable level of mental strain.  There is also immense guilt and frustration because many of us have been so privileged during all of this (keeping a roof over our heads, continuing our jobs, eating, etc.) that it feels wrong to feel stressed.   There is an accompanying anger for so many reasons, for so many things that feels so unresolved and uncertain that you just don’t know what to do with it.

At work, we’ve been good about checking in with each other and seeing how we’ve been doing.  But it isn’t something we were accustomed to and it came across as a little superficial.  We would all say we were ok and maybe share a little detail about ourselves, but any real discussion made us uncomfortable.  Until yesterday.  The organization has one person who has created an amazing outreach for employees and my boss took the time to check in using this program.

It was one of the most cathartic experiences I’ve ever shared with a group of people, and it certainly was the most cathartic experience I’ve had at work.  We shared real stories about real things happening in our lives.  We actually let ourselves out of our cages and said what was happening.  We cried, we admitted things we should have talked about months ago.  And that was all we needed.  To see each other as we are and to know that we aren’t alone—not just saying we aren’t alone, but actually showing each other we are present, listening, and understanding what we’re all going through.

For some time now it has felt like we were losing hope.  Like we weren’t really supporting each other and it didn’t feel like we were supposed to do anything other than our jobs.  That conversation yesterday was just the first of what will really bring about healing but that first step was so important.  Vulnerability is scary but it is necessary to remember that we aren’t alone and that we have people we can relate to.

It’s actually sad that this type of compassion isn’t the norm at work—because it works; in order to do the best job possible, there has to be an element of humanity.  The same is said for our daily lives.  In order to be the best person we can be and in order to fulfill our purpose we need to remember our humanity and celebrate it, to resonate with it, and to share it.  That’s all we need.  I believe we need to make practices like this a norm because we are more than a machine designed to work 40 or more hours to collect a paycheck.  We are designed to embrace life, no matter what that brings.  And to remember we are never alone.       

This month we examine love.  I know, it’s cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less important.  My goal this month is to really break down this word that is thrown around billions of times a day and to see what it means.  The truth is love really does mean different things to different people.  There are even different types of love within the same group.  Some spend decades looking for it and others detest the idea of it. 

So what is love?  What’s the big deal?  And why do we put such an emphasis on needing it to be a certain way?  It’s funny that we assume love would need to be anything when love, by its very definition, simply is.  I want to talk about all of this because I’ve been in the process of learning what love really is.  I want to look at self-love, love in relationships, and love in families or close groups. 

What really got me started on this topic is that I’ve been with my husband for 20 years this year.  We have a child and we have been through the gamut with each other.  We were young when we got together and there are times I know that we are not loving each other well.  I thought I knew early in my life what love was.  I didn’t understand that it was anything different to other people.  There comes a point, however, when you spend such a great length of time with someone that you start to notice things aren’t what you think they are.  things are projecting how you make them, but that doesn’t mean it’s real.

Love doesn’t make demands and has no expectations, yet I have high expectations of everything.  So is that really love?  Does love exist in a state where we are conflicted?  Absolutely.  But we HAVE forgotten what love really is.  I don’t pretend to have that answer, but I know that there is a sense of coming back to something with real love. 

For me, love is a source.  It’s a belief that there is something connecting us all to each other and connecting us back to source as well—that thing inside of all of us that drives us and gives us meaning for being here.  Love is seeing people as they are, giving them enough space to be who they are, and doing the same for ourselves. 

Love is imperfect and messy and changes all the time.  There are a few constants about love.  One is that we all feel it in some way.  The other is that we need it in some way.  It’s our job to find our way back to love through ourselves.  To learn to not demand our needs be met by someone else.  There is a lot going on in this world and we all need a little extra support.  So let’s take this month and decide to relearn what we think we know.  Let’s take this time to figure out the parts of us that need love again (spoiler alert—it’s every part).

So here is to learning, unlearning, and loving—everything.         

Today I am grateful for being able to recognize when things aren’t right with myself (see the next section) and to be able to try and fix it.  I was able to get some errands done yesterday and I bought myself some books.  I started reading one that has absolutely hooked me and I will be sharing that with you soon. 

Today I am grateful for completely shutting off my mind.  I’ve been in overdrive (again) and this time I actually feel myself getting closer and closer to burnout.  I’m not myself, I’m snippy and curt, and I’m tired all the time.  We had some business to take care of yesterday and my right eye started going completely blurry in the periphery.  It sent me into a panic attack.  I haven’t been taking care of myself or my home very well.  I haven’t been able to cope with basics like taking a shower—it has been too much effort.  So, for today, I gave in. There is no amount of pushing that would have made me feel like I accomplished anything.  I sat and watched TV after playing in the snow with my son.  That was it.  I did shower a bit later, but that was it.

Today I am grateful for finding some resonance and some words for what I’ve been feeling.  This new book I started reading has expressed exactly what I’ve been going through in ways that I couldn’t articulate.  For as isolated as I’ve been, reading these pages makes me feel like there are people who really do understand.

Today I am grateful for my body.  It has been telling me for some time now that I need to make changes (which I have been working on) and it keeps me going.  It is so challenging to make changes when your mind isn’t in the right place.  We feel lonely or lost and we end up doing things we are familiar with to ease the uncertainty of not knowing.  My body is doing a great job of keeping me focused and reminding me when I get off track.

Today I am grateful to consider other ways of having to do things.  I’ve noticed my impact on others lately, namely my family.  My husband is using phrases that I normally do and he’s aggravated about things he would normally let go.  My son is doing the same thing and I see his frustration to adequately express what he is really feeling.  At first I was mad at myself.  Now I know it is a chance for me to be a better example.  Sometimes we don’t realize how much people are watching.

Today I am grateful for my animals.  Yes, they drive me insane 70% of the time, but I love their fuzzy butts.  Today is one of my cat’s fifth birthday.  This guy is really special–he definitely picks up on the subtle things when I’m not feeling well—things the humans in my life don’t see.  He’s a Maine Coon and they have a certain bond with their humans that isn’t really like other cats.  Sometimes that unspoken understanding is all we need—even if it’s from an animal.   

Today I am grateful to have made it.  I’m tired and I’m raw, but I’m here.  I’m breathing and I have a purpose even when I have no clue what that may be.  I’m grateful to have a chance to try again.  Most days feel like a crap shoot—I have no idea what it’s going to be like.  I used to go through life thinking there was a certain age when you had it figured out.  No one does.  Not really anyway.  Some people are closer than others, but no one has the secret formula.  So I am grateful for each day I have to choose to do something right for me.  To feel better.  We all have that choice. 

Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead.

I have another Gabby Bernstein quote tonight…it just fit the pattern. She said, “Don’t ask What happens if I do it? Ask What happens if I don’t do it.”  Our gifts aren’t meant to be stifled or hidden.  They are meant to be explored, developed, and shared.  We need to stop looking at our gifts as “just something we can do” or as something that makes us arrogant.  We have to look at our gifts as something we have an imperative to share with the world.  They are necessary and we wouldn’t have them if we weren’t meant to do something profound with them.

Our culture makes it seem like we are wrong for exploring things that interest us or that we are selfish for doing what we enjoy or crazy for trying to make a living doing something we love.  We feel like we can only accept what we’ve been told and anything else is unrealistic or unimportant.  We are also trained that we are meant to do nothing more than fit in and be part of the crowd.  When you start searching for your purpose it feels uncomfortable and questions of doubt and worth inevitably creep in.  It takes a lot of training to stop listening to that training and go with your gut. 

Decide to be who you are because that light you can share is irreplaceable and irrevocable.  It is necessary as much as breathing.  We are blessed to live in a time where our basic needs are readily available so we aren’t in survival mode…but we still behave as if we are in survival mode because, to us, being part of the group IS survival.  Getting a job and a home and paying bills is survival.  We shifted from hunting and gathering to nomadic life to agricultural life to consumer life and we are on the precipice of the next shift.  Our personal evolution is a part of bringing this in. 

What is at stake if you don’t answer your calling?  My friends, I can’t say over sell this: everything is at stake.  From your personal sanity, to your worth, to your fulfillment, to your gift opening up new ways to live in a world that is very much in need of an evolutionary revolution.  Times were never exactly easy for us but it was all from self inflicted aggravation.  This has been exposed, ripped wide open for us to deal with at the most basic level and we can no longer ignore it without serious consequences on what society will look like.  We have nothing but opportunity in front of us.  How exciting is that?

Again, change is difficult, it feels uncomfortable.  We don’t often fear failure, we fear success.  Success means that we stand out and our primal brain knows that standing out is potentially dangerous.  Success means that we are different than we thought we were.  Success means living at a different level, living up to a different standard than we may be accustomed to.  That means that we may have to give up some of what we know, if not all we know. 

The more we get used to the idea of change and what it really means the easier it becomes.  Change is like anything—it comes easier with practice.  I’m no pro, but I have dealt with a lot of change in my life and not much has gone according to my plan.  But I have always gotten where I need to be.  That in itself tells me there is a bigger reason to this thing called life, bigger than we can imagine.  We have a nearly endless array of technology and tools available to us.  Combine that with a sense of adaptability and some ingenuity, a dash of confidence, a splash of curiosity and we really have something.  Mary Oliver asked, “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?”  Don’t ever take a moment for granted and don’t for one second ever believe you aren’t worthy of going after what you want—no matter what anyone tells you.  The world needs you.

Gabby Bernstein asked, “What does it mean to Level Up?”  The reality is that we don’t have a clue what this life is really about.  Sometimes that’s scary.  We don’t know what to make of it, we don’t know what to do, we pretend that there may be some standard we have to live up to in order to prove our worth. 

The good news is that if we can buy into all of that crap for as long as we have, then we can learn new ways to think.  I’ve been reading a lot lately about unlearning in place of learning something new.  There is a certain liberation that comes when you understand that you can let go of things at any time.  physical things, emotions, patterns, beliefs.  I don’t think we take enough time to consider the weight of what we carry.  We take on everything that comes before us, we have to process it, we have to make a judgement of it in order to make it fit, and we have to integrate our own learnings.

In order to do that, you need to get comfortable with yourself on every level.  Accepting who you are in spite of anything anyone told you.  The way you look, the way you think and identifying those parts of yourself that don’t belong to you.   

So many of the habits and thought patterns we have aren’t even ours.  We are immediately indoctrinated into a system of what we are supposed to do.  We go to school to learn what everyone else is learning and we are supposed to give up our sense of autonomy in order to be “accepted.”  Leveling up means giving up that forced sense of homogeny and opening up to our autonomy.  I’m not talking about giving up all social norms or interaction with society—but I am talking about giving up the idea that you need to blend.

To me, that is the definition of leveling up.  Full, radical acceptance of self is leveling up.  Boundless confidence and recognizing our limitlessness is leveling up.  Taking chances on things that light us up is leveling up.  Making moves to change your situation is leveling up.  Anything that makes you feel better or peels back the layers, anything that makes you feel free is leveling up.

It doesn’t matter if we don’t know exactly what comes next or what the point of all this mess we call life is.  There is no competition—all of that is a man-made construct in our imagined fight for created power.  All we can do is what feels right and learn to let go of the systems that have been designed to benefit the few and keep us locked in place for a millennia.  Get better for yourself.  Do better for yourself.  Create better for yourself.  That is what will get you to the next level.

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy,” Rumi.  There is a feeling of immense relief when you’re in alignment.  There is no rushing, no filling of time, no catching up—there is just a prescient movement between what needs to be done.  The doing becomes effortless and intuitive.  There is a comfortable sense of inevitability as if you’re moving toward the goal, into that connection in the delta between your being and the universe.

I found myself feeling confused about the point of what we do in this world the other day.  This universe is so big, so expansive and I felt my smallness but I also feel how powerful we are.  Honestly, I felt conflicted because I feel such a strong sense of ownership in connection with source that I believe with all of my soul that we are capable of anything.  But the universe is so big that I see how small our impact may be.  The reality is we are all little atomic blips on a course we have little say over.  But connecting with authentic power puts us in a position where magic can really happen.

There is a significant difference in egoic power versus authentic power.  It is the difference between aligning with the flow and being swept away.  We have to decide what we want to do while we’re here.  We can partake in the joys we’ve created, the distractions presented to us, the imagined race to power or we can pause and look at what is really important.  All of the really important things are provided to us the moment we are born.  We have air in our lungs and brains ready to grasp any information presented to us.  We are blessed to hear the messages from the universe that tell us where to go. We have the capacity to love.  For those who aren’t as blessed as that, we have the capacity to share it with them as well—and we need to remember that is our real purpose.

If we quiet ourselves enough you will hear it and know that is true.  I’m learning to stop fighting over everything.  I allow myself to be the victim because it’s an identity I am familiar with. But that isn’t me and not everything is a fight and not everything is about hurting me.  I know I am strong, educated, and capable—I just allow myself to forget that because of my training.  I found myself falling into the victim pattern at work when it came to my employees and some co-workers.  I’m trying to make a conscious effort to be honest and not let myself hold things in, pretending everything is alright while my teams suffer.  So I spoke with my boss, nervous and anxious the whole time because I didn’t want to come across as someone who isn’t a team player.  She told me to deal with it head on—which I did.

I picked up the phone and spoke with the person I’ve been having some difficulty with.  I was honest and let him know the impact of what was happening.  He was completely receptive and understanding and we now have an arrangement of what is going to happen moving forward.  I was afraid of what I would look like in making this decision even though I knew it would be good for my team.  I had it so built up in my head I had visions of being told I would lose my job because I had to stop helping elsewhere and stick up for my team.   

Yes, it’s small example, but it speaks to how powerful we are.  We have the ability to work through situations more easily than we think we do.  We have the ability to shine even in simple moments of communication.  When we communicate from a place of honest authenticity we can move mountains if needed.  It doesn’t matter what people think of us.  Sometimes we just need to do what is right.  Don’t we say something along the lines of, “Sometimes we must do what is right, not what is easy.”?    Hearing our soul isn’t always easy, but it will always speak the truth.  And you will flow like the river, in divine motion, exactly where you need to go.

“When we cling to what we know we miss how we could grow”—sophia.joan.short. the other day I wrote about the innate habits we all have and how, in my case, it came out in how I am raising my son.  I see so clearly how I have hindered myself by trying to control everything.  Gabby Bernstein talks about how surrender isn’t giving up, it’s giving over—and even that distinction pissed me off because I felt like there was always an order to things and that if you acted according to how it was supposed to go it would go that way.

 I’ve struggled with the things that didn’t come to pass in my life.  I ALWAYS took it personally, like I had done something to affront the universe so my wishes weren’t worthy of coming true.  And it hurt because I took so much time to do exactly what I was told, hoping every time that I would get what I deserved—well, what I thought I deserved. 

Looking back now, learning what I have learned, I see where that inflexibility has hindered me.  I fear letting go of anything because I have so many memories of the blessings I’ve received that I’m afraid I won’t get again.  Maybe that’s the wrong way to say it—it’s more I’m afraid of losing the possibility of having it again.  I fear not getting what I need in spite of doing what I’m supposed to do.  Meaning hard work will get you your reward…my life hasn’t always worked out like that.

There were moments it felt like I was meant to be a doormat while other people got the credit for work I did and that I was always meant to feel like that.  Now I need to see that there are other lessons that may have needed to come out not getting my way other than feeling like I wasn’t meant to succeed.  Some of those lessons I’m still not 100% on what they were, but I can admit that there has to be something there.          

Any time you cling it prevents you from moving one way or the other.  Times I ventured out kind of left me with a bad taste in myself so I felt safer trying to keep things as they were.  But now I see that staying in this safe harbor I’ve created has cultivated a life on repeat—comfortable, yes, but very stifling.  It is time to trust that life takes you where you need to be.  I need to trust that life will take me where I need to be. 

I know how important it is to keep moving, I have spoken of it.  But it was so key for me to stop until I figured out what exactly it was that held me back.  I love my family very much, I have been so privileged in my life, but I have been afraid.  Afraid of who I really am, afraid of letting people down, afraid of never having that type of joy again, afraid of not knowing how to do things for myself and always needing people who may not always be there. 

In order to cope with the natural changes of life it is important to learn how to build your own foundation.  It eases the fear of things changing when you know where you stand.  When you stand firm in who you are, you know how to bend and learn new ways to adapt.  You learn how to stretch, you learn new things and you get creative.  Growth is in letting go.  Growth is in trusting your decisions.  Growth is in acting on what is right for you.  Don’t cling to things that have moved on…move in your own direction.

Sachin Sharma said, “Those who have no dominion over themselves will try to seek dominion over others.  Often these people will try to get into positions of authority so they can feel powerful through telling others what to do.  This is an example of what it means to be of weak character.”  Stopped me in my tracks. At first I took it personally because I have never hidden the fact that I have some major control issues.  And I’ve always been drawn to positions of authority without really thinking about why, so this quote made me think.  But I kept going because really started looking at the bigger implications.

I have a long history of being the kid who got stuck with the group assignment and had to either do it all or fix it in the end.  I was always the kid who was put in the group with challenging people because I had a moderate temperament and could make people feel accepted.  But no one ever saw the toll it had on me.  No one ever saw the quality of my work—they saw that I was able to “make things work under difficult circumstances.”  While that did give me some sense of resilience and even some creativity, it always felt like I was in survival mode and that I had to take everyone to the top with me.

Honestly, I can admit now that I was so frustrated because I wasn’t allowed to shine.  It made me want to take control so I could at least get some credit for doing a good job.  But that was never the focus.  Maybe it was meant to show me the value of teamwork.  Yeah, I could do it on my own but I had to learn and understand what other people could contribute.  The problem with this set up at a young age and repeating the pattern is that I was paired up with people who didn’t want to contribute.  And then it has turned into a personal issue where I couldn’t pull people’s development out fast enough to contribute.

Part of me feels like this sounds feeble.  Like the reality is that no one is inherently altruistic enough to sacrifice the recognition for work they have done for the greater good.  If I were a good leader, would I need to tell people what to do or would I be able to guide them to their potential?  I’m really not sure.  Human nature and my experience with people tells me that people need guidance and structure on some level.  That isn’t about power.  If you want to harness the collective efforts of people for a common goal, they need direction.  It’s that simple.  If we are focusing on a million different goals nothing would get done. 

So where do we find the balance between ego and accepting what needs to be done because it needs to be done?  It isn’t about control, it’s about what is necessary for a goal and making sure everyone does their part.  And anyone can say it isn’t about the recognition, but no one is altruistic enough to not do something for a reason and if you’re championing a cause, of course you want your name attached.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with recognition—it is when you let that go to your head that it’s an issue.  That is where it’s an issue of character.  Recognition and power as the only goal, that is an issue.

I don’t agree that seeking control is an indicator of weak character.  But I do agree that there needs to be balance where we know how to control ourselves first.  I also believe it is possible to achieve that balance.  More importantly, I think the best indicator of character is asking ourselves what type of person we want to be and how we act on that.  Some of us are adept at identifying the details of a needed task and executing to achieve it.  Some of us are good at generating ideas that need to be put together.  It is neither here nor there until you determine what you do with your abilities.  Decide well.       

I had to take a few days to really process what has happened over the last week in my home.  I’ve been feeling incredibly disconnected from my husband as we’ve been arguing over things we’ve never really spoken about before.  My husband is normally a very agreeable person as well as go with the flow, and to be fair, we haven’t had much to fight over when it comes to fundamental beliefs before—we’ve always been pretty solid on that.

We’ve been together for 20 years this year and he said some things about our relationship that gave me pause.  He said that he felt like he wasn’t allowed to have an opinion during an argument we were having after inauguration day.  Some of his fears came to the surface and I know I rose to the bait.  He turned it against me and said he couldn’t have an opinion. Legitimately, I felt like this was the dying call of white male power in our home.  He has ridden on my coat tails, allowed me to support this home financially by myself for the last 20 years and then has the audacity to say I’m not allowing his opinion when he is trying to demean what I stand for.

I know this really out of character for my husband but it made me question if we were really on the same page after all.  It’s a disorienting feeling to think you know someone on a fundamental level for two decades only to find that you may not know them at all.  And if I’m honest, I had to think about whether or not I really do suffocate his opinion. 

The truth is I am a person who has strong values and beliefs and I have always rooted for the underdog.  I have always been vocal for the person struggling and I have always worked to see the other side.  My husband has spent much of his life fending for himself, so he tends to be pretty focused on his own wants and needs and not worry about other people.  It doesn’t make him a bad person—it’s a trauma response.  But we have been together long enough that he knows he isn’t fighting for survival anymore.  When I heard some of the things he was saying, my protector mode shot up and I became defensive of everything I stand for.

Evolution can be a slow process even if it begins with a bang out of nowhere.  I’m meant to stand firm on my own as I’ve been too reliant on other people’s opinions of me.  Like, I have opinions but I use caution on who I share them with and then I tend to share them harshly…         

I’m a strong person and I’ve talked about that before.  I feel intensely, no matter the emotion.  It hurt to hear that he equated a difference of opinion as disregarding him when his opinion disregarded me as a person.  That isn’t something you recover from and that suggests a deeper issue.  I had to evaluate what really happened.  There have been other things going on between us that we’ve truly been trying to approach together (things with our son, our respective health issues) and I think that kind of put us on edge.  We’ve also been trying to figure out our next steps for the future regarding our family and our home and I think that has put some pressure on us. We have the opportunity to approach differences differently in the future, we’ve both recognized that.  I know that it is ok to stand firm for what is right even if it is against my husband’s opinion—and I know it is ok for us to think differently. 

Today I am grateful for coming back to myself.  I have a story that I will be sharing tomorrow that explains more of this, but I literally didn’t do anything that I didn’t want to today.  While that may seem insignificant it is so important to my head-space.  It wasn’t the least bit self-indulgent, it was about listening to what I needed and doing some basic self-care.  I am continually amazed at how easily I forget to slow down…and I am glad I was able to remember today.

Today I am grateful for my husband’s help.  It was all the little things I’ve needed help with so I could just shut down for a while and reboot.  We hadn’t been on the greatest terms lately and it was wonderful to have his help.  I know in spite of our arguments the last few days, he has still been concerned about me so it was really comforting to have him step up like he did.

Today I am grateful for being so close…to everything.  I’ve always been the main support for my family (and I honestly have no issue with that) but it has always been disheartening when we’ve been so close to a goal and we can’t see it through or when we just aren’t able to decide on what we want to do.  I’ve been working on gathering my focus, pruning what isn’t important, and setting my boundaries to get where I want to be and I see that effort paying off.  There are still a lot of areas that I need to apply the same formula to—but I am so glad to be where I’m at now.

Today I am grateful for such a fun day with my son.  I always make a concerted effort to spend more time with my boy on the weekends.  It’s good for him, it’s good for my sanity, and I always learn a lot.  We didn’t do anything extraordinary today but we made a lot of memories together and laughed and loved.  I love those moments—that’s honestly why I talk about them so much.  I know they don’t last forever and if I can give my kid a chance to remember some fun with his crazy mom then I’m doing it.

Today I am grateful to start seeing the pieces of myself that are me and the pieces I can let go of.  I’ve been doing a lot of soul work and so much of me is entwined with my parents and even my grandparents.  I noticed a while ago how much I perpetuated those things onto my son.  I still have jarring moments when I don’t even notice I’m doing it (see “Recognizing My Obsession”) but I can very easily say what is and isn’t from myself.  Now when I notice something that wasn’t from me, I ask, “Do I still need to do this?  Why would I have to continue to do it this way?”  And that has snapped me right back into the moment because it puts the decision squarely on me.

Today I am grateful to sit in this moment remembering my gratitude.  I so easily fall back into my fear patterns because I haven’t fully trained myself to embrace the pause yet.  There are times it’s really disappointing when I see myself so far from who I want to be.  But I haven’t given up on continuing to be grateful—and I am grateful that there is always an opportunity to be grateful.  I know in the grand scheme of things this is small potatoes, so even if I have a moment, I try to counter it with feeling gratitude.  It has worked wonders.

Have a wonderful week!