A friend of mine went to a party this weekend and it opened a floodgate of emotions.  I was so happy because this person has put in a ton of work on a venture and the party was to celebrate that success.  But I felt lonely.  I saw the beautiful community this person has created and the support they have and it made me see how stuck I’ve kept myself.  We’ve been in this little bubble for the last couple of years trying to stay physically healthy/safe and it has been super isolating.  I mean, everything happens for a reason, but a wave of “what have I been doing with my time” passed over me.  I’ve made progress but I see how hindered it has been by going it alone.  And in spite of where I’ve gotten, I feel a certain emptiness around me. 

My husband and I made a move about 9 months ago now.  We purchased a new home with the intent of having space to assist my parents as needed.  We brought a ton of things with, mainly from my past and the house is full, but it isn’t alive.  It feels like a museum, a shrine to what once was.  There is no life.  Don’t misunderstand, I am beyond grateful for the experience those things represent.  I am beyond grateful we were able to set up something feasible for my parents if they need it.  But we are sitting here, surrounded by what is no longer.  Empty rooms, waiting for life.  It’s all  here and waiting for us but we have no one to share it with now.    

I think it’s a matter of the expectations of what I thought life would be like kind of sliding through my fingers like sand.  I’m ok with that, honestly, because I believe if it wasn’t meant to be it will fall apart.  But that doesn’t mean it isn’t unnerving.  There is no foundation yet because I’m not sure what’s next.  None of this is me.  It’s a façade of what I thought life should be, a continuation of an expectation from long ago that can’t be fulfilled in today’s circumstances.  Creating something new is predicated on a solid foundation and life gets scary when you don’t know what that is.  It is the reaching out to people to create a net when the net you were given breaks apart.  We are never really alone.      

It’s in these moments when I have to focus on gratitude for what I have.  It’s also where I focus on gratitude for learning what I need and recognizing what I have to do.  It’s ok if certain things didn’t live up to my expectations.  I know we could look at is as we got what we wanted and now we don’t want it anymore, but that isn’t the case.  The truth is sometimes we have to experience certain things in order to redefine what we need.  Creating clarity is the key to getting unstuck.  Yes, I had a moment of being angry at myself for working so hard for something that seems futile.  But that doesn’t mean this won’t serve a purpose.  Sitting with those emotions can be hard, but it’s more about breaking patterns than letting it consume.  Sometimes the universe calls on us to do crazy things.  It’s ok.  Those crazy things lead us where we need to be, to create a foundation that’s real.   

I had a moment this past weekend that has weighed on me a bit.  We watched some trash TV that embellished some real events and I had a revelation: there is only so much the human mind can take before it breaks.  Even the strongest people can fall apart.  We all try our hardest and sometimes the universe has some curve balls that come our way.  It isn’t that people are “crazy,” it’s more that they are broken.  They’ve experienced enough trauma in their lives that their minds do not work as they once did.  I know, this is not truly a revelation, but the part that got to me is how the media skews events.  This story was so outlandish that most people wouldn’t believe it was real and it was presented to the world as victim versus villain (but you got to decide which party was which). 

How we tell a story and what we tell ourselves really matters.  The mind is so powerful.  We haven’t been taught to discern facts.  We’ve been taught to regurgitate stories without questioning their full scope or all sides.  When you start to see how people shield themselves from pain or how they learn to cope with pain, you see that their worlds make sense.  We can’t look at a snap shot in time and make a decision about who a person is.  There is context missing.  Now, I know that we can’t always spend the time to do a deep dive, but we can control that impulse to judge. We are all doing the best we can.  Just because it isn’t what someone else would do doesn’t mean it’s wrong.  Humans aren’t meant to be deciphered in 140 characters or less—we are the sum of a lifetime of experiences so ease up a bit.

“When you realize no one cares about your failure, your fear goes away,” Gary Vaynerchuk.  The truth is people are so obsessed with where they are and their own actions that they really aren’t focused on what you’re doing.  It frees the mind to know that you aren’t performing for anyone.  Yes, failures can sting, but there are so many lessons in it.  It makes the victory that much sweeter when we get it.  It makes all the effort worth it.  Better yet, understanding that no one is watching you because they are more focused on their own stuff is incredibly freeing.  Suddenly those opportunities don’t seem so scary.  The pressure lifts.  We find things we are capable of and we learn new ways to do things we didn’t think were there.  

We put an enormous amount of pressure on ourselves to be a certain way because we created these standards for what people should do and who they should be in any situation.  We all have different definitions of right and wrong and the truth is, even those definitions get skewed when we are put in different scenarios.  I mean, we’ve all broken our personal rules at times for one reason or another and I’m pretty certain we would defend ourselves to the death if we were physically threatened even though we think killing is wrong.  Yes, the latter point is dramatic, I apologize, but the point stands nonetheless.  We create these rules of engagement with life, its people, its animals, the Earth because we decided we needed to control it.  We fell out of the natural rhythm because we wanted to be perceived a certain way—as powerful.  We think we are manipulating a perspective when we will never know the truth.

It’s funny how often we let what we think others think dictate our actions.  I’ll say it again.  What we THINK others think dictates our actions.  It’s crazy.  We have no way at this time to get into people’s minds and hear what they are thinking.  We will never know.  Anything we tell ourselves about what they have going on in their minds is simply a story we tell ourselves.  It’s all made up.  Yes, for those of us who are slightly more intuitive, we may be closer to “knowing” what someone else is thinking or feeling but we will never have the full context because we are not that person.  We do not get a play by play of what thoughts run through someone else’s mind.

The safest thing to do is to simply be authentic.  Lay all the cards on the table.  Yes, I can absolutely guarantee you will get hurt.  People will judge, people will misunderstand, you will feel raw and exposed and alone.  I still say do it anyway.  You will never have to question anything about who stays with you when you know with absolute certainty who you are.  The people who stay are undoubtedly for you, and you for them.  It’s also imperative to see reality for what it is.  The more comfortable we get with truth as beautiful and reality as truth instead of a staged production, the easier it is to let go of the idea of failure as wrong.  It’s easier to let go of the idea of failure as failure.  The biggest thing to know in this day and age is that, even if people are watching, they will still interpret what you do in their context.  It doesn’t matter.  Do it anyway.    

Time came up through several media items today.  Time has always bugged me.  The concept of each second passing and never getting it back unnerves me to the core.  I mean, there is simply so much to do in this world that every second suddenly seems vital to make the right decision about what we should be doing, everything is significant.  That gets really overwhelming.  Being in the medical field, I see things every day.  I see families struggling to pay bills, I see the confusion on aging people’s faces as they navigate their care, I see young people with diagnoses that can’t be explained, I see people who used to have support suddenly alone and afraid.  And it all got me thinking how absolutely precious life is. 

Things change so quickly, sometimes unexplainably, and everything we thought we knew is gone.  We think we have it figured out only to find out we don’t or we wake up and see the years behind us, the bullshit we bought into only to see it’s a waste of that time.  I say choose again.  Christopher Lloyd recently did a promo for a movie and he mentioned that he’s 83 years old now.  He said, “The years seem like minutes yet I do not dwell in memories because life is about moving forward.  Not just about into the future, into the unknown…we can’t go back.”  That hit me so profoundly because I see how most of us spend our days in a loop of the same crap.  Our parents suddenly need our care, our children are starting school, and you wake up in the same job, having the same conversations over and over again. 

The way we live life now is pretty crazy.  We literally spend years wishing our lives away, waiting for a different moment.  When we are little, we want to be a big kid.  We want to be 16 and drive to get some independence.  Then we want to be 18 to be an adult and go to school.  Then we want to be 21 to drink. Then we want to find a job.  Then we want to be married.  Have kids. Have a house. Then work gets to be too much and we just want our kids in school.  We constantly look for peace, thinking it is somewhere down the road because we are never told that peace comes from within and the fulfillment of our purpose.  Worse yet, we are never told our true purpose on this Earth is love.  It isn’t until our years are short that we see how much time we spent on the things that didn’t matter.    

I think about what I’ve done with my time, this permission I thought I needed, the rigid schedule I thought I needed to adhere to.  The pattern I thought I was supposed to follow only to wake up at mid-life and see that everything I was promised for following that path was either not worth the sacrifice or never came to be.  Nothing is guaranteed.  This story we are told of how we are supposed to spend our days is complete crap.  I am learning that we are far better served living in love.  Just love.  Love is the key.  We hold ourselves back on a promise we aren’t guaranteed when we can just DO what we are meant to.  We need each other because we aren’t meant to isolate and do it all alone—we are meant to foster connection.  Life isn’t about dominance and convenience, it’s about joy and love and creation.  THAT is the point. 

“Is your vision strong enough?,” Dennis Franks.  This is a question I’ve been thinking of over the last two weeks since I’ve heard it.  At first I took it as a common sense thing (and I’ve talked about it before): if you want to get somewhere you need to know where you’re going.  Sometimes you have to take it one step at a time, but you will eventually get there.  After really letting this sink in for a bit, I started looking at it a bit differently.  It’s not just about the strength of your vision and what you’re willing to do to see it through—it’s about the clarity to help define the steps you need to take to get there.  Vision entails the whole picture: the courage to take the steps forward and the clarity to know which steps are the right ones.  See, I always believed the steps would reveal themselves but I realize now that kind of suggests we are all wandering aimlessly literally guided one step at a time.  The reality is, when you have the focus and the vision of where you’re going, you only see your path.  It isn’t an aimless venture until you find it. 

All this time I’ve sought to encourage people and I’ve hoped to bring a little light to their lives by igniting the spark of hope and clarity.  But that still wasn’t clear enough.  I’m an ambitious person but I’m not a very clear person.  I spend my days with a lot of activity in spite of already cutting out quite a bit.  When you get laser focused on the goals, that activity slows down even more.  You become the conductor, the guidance system for your life.  That’s the secret.  It isn’t about how much you get done.  It’s about WHAT you get done that moves you toward the end result and you can only measure that by knowing what you’re going for.   

I know in my gut how hurt this world is right now.  I’m talking on a personal level as well as a systemic level and that expands to a global and environmental level as well.  We’ve been so focused on maintaining what we know that we never stopped to examine the long term effects on the entire biological system we live in, both in our bodies and in the world.  Yes, there have been people screaming about this for decades but we have been able to put off any type of change for a long time because it always felt like it was someone else’s problem. I bring this up because it still starts with us.  We continue these cycles of finding the things that comfort us when we are hurt.  We look for ways to keep the cycle familiar when we are uncomfortable but now more than ever it is more apparent that the cycles we are striving to protect are doing more damage than good, and that is in our backyards today.

So when it comes to vision, I go back to my ever repeating refrain: know yourself well enough to know what you’re doing and why.  Know yourself well enough to understand what you’re doing and the impact it has on other people.  Know yourself well enough that you no longer need to hide behind a façade or present an image to the world.  Have a vision of yourself that goes beyond what people see today.  Get vulnerable.  Share what you know because one candle doesn’t dim by igniting another.  I have a vision of lighting up the entire world with the strength that comes from within and that requires immense belief and courage to shuck what we know as safe.  Start small but with clarity.  Know yourself.  Those words are so powerful because they hold the key to everything else.

I’ve been thinking a lot about insecurity and the need to prove lately.  I’ve also been thinking about the human condition and the need for acceptance as well as the need to dominate.  We have this compulsive need to be on top, to always know, to be aware of the situation.  I mean, I’m not naïve, there’s a biological component to that for our survival.  I’m talking about the need to be on top even in the little microcosms of our own worlds.  Like, how we behave at home versus how we behave at work or with our friends.  Even within each of those worlds, we behave differently with our colleagues versus those we report to or those who report to us. 

We have created a world where we are never fully present because we are never fully ourselves.  Yes, there are parts of our authentic personalities that will bleed through in what we do, but we are never in an environment where we are wholly who we are.  We’ve been trained to be certain things to certain people at certain times because we became more comfortable fulfilling someone else’s obligation/dreams than we did our own.  We allow ourselves to either be tempted by the illusion of security or we don’t feel like we can pass muster.  We are never taught how destructive that behavior is.

This really came up in discussion about a coworker the other day.  As I mentioned on Saturday, things have been rough at work.  There has been a ton of miscommunication overlayed with unclear expectations thrown in the mix of our own interpretation of what we are supposed to be doing.  No one really knows what the other is doing but we all believe we do.  This coworker has an idea about my role that is a mile from the mark of reality.  Instead of speaking to me about it, this person became incredibly cocky and intolerant of some of the things going on in my areas and even more impatient with the things I had to learn.  I use this as an example because I saw all of these emotions all over his face and it derailed me.  I really had to think about what was going on.

And it hit me: the kid has no clue about this environment.  We all have insecurities and when we are relatively new to a role, we try to prove how much we know or how deserving we are to be where we are.  This is a sheltered kid who lives at home who was put in a position of authority but was never given the full story about what we do.  While I felt insecure about what I couldn’t do or where I was struggling, I also got angry at his behavior toward me.  And then I took a step back: he’s lashing out because he has no clue about the implications of what he’s doing and he doesn’t know what the other teams do.  He also has no perspective on life because he hasn’t experienced it.  He’s run the show before—but that’s all it was: a show.  We can make anything look good, it doesn’t mean it is good.

So I wanted to use this as an opportunity to break through some of those layers, some of those facades we create to get through our days.  So much of what we do is based on survival or the fear of being ostracized somehow.  We want to fit in.  But when we start excluding others based on our notions, that is when it gets ugly.  Most of those grounds we use to exclude people aren’t even our own.  We have created a machine out of humans supporting a certain type of work.  We’ve lost touch with humanity by expecting people to perform a certain way in certain environments.  That isn’t me. 

I spent some time really angry about what had happened and the condescending, egoic attitude from this person.  And I realized I was feeling the trigger of my own insecurities and knowing where I was struggling learning the job, telling myself I didn’t deserve to be there and how could I keep this role if I wasn’t performing.  That’s when it hit me: he’s making himself feel better by making me feel worse and he feels like he has to do it because he’s insecure elsewhere.  So I just smiled.  I don’t have anything to prove.  Neither do I.  My goal now is to have people wake up and be more comfortable simply being who they are.  Dropping the image, the faces we wear.  And along with that, I want to redefine what we “accept” as normal because we shouldn’t be excluding anything.  I simply want us to learn to embrace our humanity. Let go of anything that shields you and embrace yourself first.  Let’s create a new light.

Today I am grateful for some peace.  I drew a card this morning that said, “Time to Go.”  It made me a bit sad because I’ve been wrestling some feelings lately about where I’m at in life.  It made me a bit sad because there is truth in it.  The current way of living is no longer serving.  It’s time to express the gratitude and simply move on.  Holding on in the hope that something changes isn’t going to make it happen.  It isn’t healthy, it’s hindering.  Accepting that makes it easier to do just that: move forward.

Today I am grateful for my mind and body.  When I really think about everything I’ve been through, it’s remarkable I’m still here.  It’s remarkable the resilience still here.  The healing and creation of both the mind and body and how we are able to continue on.  We are pure magic, that isn’t just me.  We’ve all got that in common.  We need to be grateful for what our very being can do, what our existence means.  We are infinitely powerful creators.  We can create something new. 

Today I am grateful for the whispers of my soul.  I mentioned in the first paragraph that I’ve been feeling some things lately.  I want to take that deeper and express that it has been a certain “knowing” surrounding me and that I haven’t wanted to take action because I don’t know what the future looks like on this potential new path.  What that means for me is there is more healing to do.  It means I need to be stronger than what I have been and spend more time in gratitude and connection.  It means that just because I’m afraid of what I think I have to do, it doesn’t necessarily mean what I think it does.  My soul is telling me that there are still surprises in this situation.  Yes, there are changes, but it doesn’t mean a permanent ending: it’s a new beginning.

Today I am grateful for guidance.  The universe has a way of leading us where we are supposed to be when we are supposed to be there.  There are no mistakes.  There are no accidents.  Jump in and believe that.  I’ve been in my office this morning contemplating a lot and dealing with some loneliness.  This gorgeous, bright red cardinal lands in the tree outside, framed in my window, against a bright blue sky just as I was writing about connection.  And I know that is what’s missing.  It’s time to connect again.

Today I am grateful for serendipity.  We had to run to the store and it’s under construction.  I wanted to take a quick peek down the book aisle and as it would happen, I found a book in a box they were moving about connecting.  I wrote the paragraph on connection/guidance earlier this morning and then, just as I remarked about the universe getting us in the right place at the right time, I found this book by complete accident and happenstance.  I’ve been feeling the separation a lot the last few weeks and this is an answer for me. 

Today I am grateful for fun.  I got to spend a huge chunk of the morning playing with my son and laughing with my husband.  I reached out to my friend and talked for a bit and he sent me some information on an author we love.  I went to the store with my family.  I made bread and did some meal prep.  I am so grateful I got to break some routine and do things I love doing today.  We have had a really special day today and I am grateful to create memories like that. I think we are going to have an after dinner walk as well to really enjoy the evening.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

Things have been rough at work for a while.  And even when they’re not rough, I found myself waiting for the other shoe to drop– because that’s what happens.  The environment I work in now thrives on the drama and creating crises to fight.  On top of that, there has been a cyclical increase in focusing on the petty crap, like what someone looks like and throwing each other under the bus.  We think so narrowly and look at what we have always done as the bible that we aren’t adapting to what is actually happening.  I’ve been sitting for a while with this feeling in my stomach, this knot that’s growing because it no longer feels good.  It no longer feels good to have to pretend on a daily basis that it’s ok to focus on something so far off the issue. It no longer feels good to be dismissed when I bring up an alternative viewpoint.   I’ve recently taken the leap and gone for an interview in an area completely different than where I’ve been for the last 20 years.  I felt a lot of intimidation by the fact that this isn’t an area of my expertise.  But something told me to go for it.  Something told me this is a chance to learn under a new style of management and take on different projects and to learn new skills. 

The truth is, it gets boring fighting the same fight day after day with no gain.  There is no purpose and very little genuine appreciation.  The work isn’t appreciated and the focus is frustratingly off track.  Now, even those things wouldn’t be a problem if the work is fulfilling but the problem is the same as it is everywhere else: we don’t look for the good in it.  There is always another level to attain and rather than focus on the 98% that is good, the 2% overshadows anything positive.  There is no way to dig out from under that especially when someone is holding the weight down.  We have an image to uphold as a group and anything that may be contrary to that (even if it ends up moving us forward) is looked down on.   

In circumstances like that, you have to make the choice to grow or stay in the same place.  Comfort is a killer and quite frankly, it takes just as much energy to stay the same as it does to grow.  The difference is the focus.  I’m a really empathetic person and I’m highly sensitive.  I’m guilty of taking things way too personally.  But there comes a time when you know it’s not just the sensitivity on high.  You can read people like a book and you know their intentions will not change.  You know they meant every word of what they said as a “joke” and that they did it at your expense.  That isn’t a healthy working environment.  The truth is I know the value of my teams and what they are capable of and I fight for that every day.  But I can’t make anyone else see that if they are choosing to see what isn’t. 

So I had to make a decision.  I can respect that there are goals we need to meet and things we need to do, that isn’t the problem.  But the methodology is.  I can’t say my way is always right, but I’m tired of it always being wrong in this environment. And no, that is completely ego.  This is a matter of I can say the sky is blue and they would be like, “No, it’s a certain shade of blue.” The soul can only tolerate that for so long, especially when the task isn’t the calling in the first place.  I’m not sure where this path will take me but I am certain it will get me exactly where I’m meant to be.  I want everyone to remember that they can do hard things and take those leaps.  Those wings will catch you!

A quick snippet tonight: I’ve repeated countless times that we have to take control of our mindset.  We have to make the choice to do things differently and to look at them differently.  As the saying goes, it isn’t what happens to you that’s the problem, it’s how you look at it.  Sometimes life puts us in situations we aren’t thrilled about.  Some are terrifying and some seem like we will never get through.  But the truth is, you’ve come through everything and made it to this point.  Sometimes life makes us take that push even for the good things.  Those things we really want.  It can be terrifying but so much of what we are looking to achieve is on the other side of that fear.

When something calls to us, that means it is for us.  The things that are for us are often on the other side of our comfort zone.  They will take us to places we never thought we could go and often times the only thing holding us back is our mindset.  When we feel fear the most, that is usually the sign.  We can spend a life time dreaming about it or going for it.  Guaranteed if you learn to take the steps, you’ll be a lot further than if you had just sat there thinking about it.  Hell, even if you just TAKE a step you’ll be further ahead. 

I’ve learned that one of the questions we need to ask ourselves is “What if it works?”.  It massively changes how you see the situation.  Suddenly you start seeing the opportunities where you previously felt there were none. Better yet, you learn to feel better in the wait.  You don’t worry about the outcome because you learn to trust that everything happens exactly as it’s meant to.  The really cool part is that when you trust that things are happening how they are meant to, you usually end up with something better than you imagined. 

“Gratitude Erases negativity—you can protect your mind with one simple coating—gratitude,” Steve Harvey.  Somehow the image of gratitude as a coating, a balm of sorts, for the mind somehow made me feel a real sense of peace.  I’ve been working on a gratitude practice for a long time and I share part of that with you on Sundays.  That’s just a small snippet of what I do.  There is something to be said for a state of gratitude that not only calms the soul, but brings an awareness to our purpose as well as our presence.  The key to being grateful is to appreciate it all.  It’s truly not only about getting what we want.  It’s about knowing that we have everything we need to get by in this moment.  That gratitude is a protection against any potential negativity that we can project in our mind.

When we focus on gratitude we are present and attuned to the state of what IS.  Not worrying about what will be or what could be.  No.  There is a firm grounding in reality when we are grateful because that is about something tangible.  Throw in a because statement and then you start solidifying the feeling. For example, “I’m grateful for x because it allows me to do y.”  Knowing why you are grateful for something allows you to know why you do it as well as what you will go for next.  It’s the purpose behind the action.  It means that we can appreciate what we have while working toward what is next.  Gary Vaynerchuk says, “Be grateful and ambitious.”  Ambition doesn’t mean you’re not satisfied, we aren’t talking complacence.  But appreciating what you have allows you to leverage for what you need. 

I think with the state of the world right now, worrying about current events, social climate, climate change, and any potential future we have for our children, we need to find a way to be grateful.  So many people are trying to find their happiness in ways that have potential repercussions for all and forever.  We have to realize how immensely privileged we are to be alive and stop worrying about who got the short end of the stick and wonder why, in a world with such vast supplies, there were different size straws to begin with.  We created a system that doesn’t work any longer.  And that is fine, we are all doing the best we can with what we have.  But we have to start looking at different ways to do the best we can.  We have to look at what time means. 

Life itself is precious and we are owed nothing in the grand scheme of things.  But we have opportunities to do great things if we appreciate what we have.  When we appreciate we are recognizing the possibility that was given to us.  It’s those little things that we don’t see are the big things.  Take the time to make every moment count in its own way.  Don’t let that inner voice or the voice of anyone else cloud what you know in your heart and soul.  Simply enjoy.  Be.  Appreciate every second and relish it.  That’s where the magic is.  When you see how much of reality is amazing, you can’t let what you may not get take over.  In the end none of that matters anyway.  What you do with what you have, seeing the reminders that all is well, how much you love…that is the heart of it.  Life moves fast.  Let’s spread the light while we still can.  Listen to your soul and follow what you know is right, and be grateful.  There is always hope.