“So many people tell me their old story. I want to know where you’re going. I don’t want you to tell me about your old character, I want to hear about your new character.  Your former script is not your current one,” Ed Mylett.  What a beautiful continuation of our conversation from Saturday.  Like living in the before/after world, when we constantly rehash what we used to be or what we used to do, we negate what is happening.  We confuse the energy of where we’re going because we are only focused on where we’ve been.  Does that person even exist anymore?  We have the ability to change the story at any time so why do we continue to live in a world that quite literally doesn’t exist anymore?

I can speak from personal experience that most of it is comfort.  Living in nostalgia is familiar and it reminds us of times that were either perceived as better or where we felt safer.  Venturing out in the world whether it is in the prescribed fashion or on a trail of our own is terrifying.  We are responsible for our own existence and the results that come with it are entirely our own.  It makes sense that we try to find our way through what we’ve known and where we’ve been before.  But the past isn’t where we are going.  That person isn’t who we are now.

How we speak to ourselves determines everything.  I used to talk about what I would do when I was good enough or when I knew enough or when people took me seriously enough.  My entire existence depended on the opinions and acceptance of other people.  That kept me firmly rooted where I was.  I never learned to set the bar for my own identity.  I never even learned to write my own identity because it was seen as something I needed permission to do in my house growing up.  I lived with a deep feeling of needing to be worthy to do anything and that worth was always unachievable for the things I wanted so I held myself back.  I remember going out for cheerleading and making it and then quitting the day of the performance because I didn’t feel like I knew what I was doing.  That’s an old story and I have hundreds more just like that.  But I don’t want to live from that place any longer.

Who I am now is someone who knows the value in learning and who wants to share the beautifully terrifying process of finding who we are.  Not all of us are blessed with an environment that supports who we are so it takes us a little longer to get comfortable navigating our worth and the things we want to do.  It takes a while to accept the now and understand that we don’t need to prove anything to exist.  The fact we are here is enough and has value.  Perhaps we take life too seriously.  I mean, there was a time when playing ball meant security for you and yours for all time.  But those days are long gone.  We need to find a way to create security in ourselves and that means telling a new story.  That means being a version of ourselves that makes sense and feels right for who we are.

I’ve recently started reading “The High 5 Habit” by Mel Robbins.  The premise of the book is to acknowledge and accept ourselves and to learn to be our own cheerleaders.  She talks about rewiring the brain through this small habit every day, of high fiving ourselves in the mirror.  Now, I will admit I haven’t started doing that yet (and to be fair I’m not done with the book yet) but after my experience the other day of seeing the value in sharing an authentic side of myself where I normally wouldn’t, I feel there is value in this type of self-validation as well. 

So, while I didn’t high five myself yet, I did take some time to really sit (well stand) with my reflection in the mirror.  I noticed that I don’t often look at myself in the mirror unless I’m correcting something like brushing my teeth, fixing my hair, or putting on makeup.  I’m not using the mirror to see myself, I’m using the mirror to put on a façade.  Then something interesting happened: I felt a spark of when I was a child and feeling afraid looking at myself, feeling sad for saying something to my mom that my four year old mind didn’t understand.  I remember as a teen feeling embarrassed over some nonsense and feeling shame watching myself in the mirror.  And I realized that even if I wasn’t ready to high five myself, not ready to celebrate myself, maybe I could see myself differently.  I could acknowledge what was THERE.  For me, that was facing the fear. 

I have felt fear about accepting myself for a long time because of what I mentioned the other day: we are trained that we are worthy when someone tells us we are worthy and I bought into that nearly my whole life.  So when I stood in front of the mirror and felt those things from my past, reliving the mistakes, I faced my fear.  And it didn’t happen right away, but I slowly started feeling like facing that fear is what I am meant to do.  A different emotion popped up as well: acceptance of what happened and forgiveness.  Standing in the face of fear and saying I forgive myself for not knowing better, I forgive us all for not knowing better—I do now and it is time to move forward knowing better today.

So the celebration is important.  But I feel the foundation is more important and that foundation means seeing yourself for the first time.  Like, really seeing yourself and taking the moment to just be there.  I mentioned above that I never really looked in the mirror, and I know I never used to be able to look myself in the eyes—it felt too personal or like I was hiding something.  The truth is, I really was hiding something.  Every time I saw myself, I saw every horrible thing I’ve done, I saw every negative thing about myself.  And to Mel’s point: what good was that doing?  Learning to forgive is what got me to see myself.  THAT is something worth celebrating.  The more I see and accept who I am, the more I forgive, the more strength I put in my own wings, the easier it becomes.  So, celebration is necessary, yes, but take the time to accept first.  That’s where we start.

Today I am grateful for a break in the darkness.  I’ve been so dark the last few weeks that I didn’t think light existed anymore.  I had a conversation with my sister that threw me for a loop as we are in the midst of dealing with my parent’s health issues and it made me think a lot about my life.  Some of what she said was judgmental as she doesn’t know the full story but other parts of it resonated and made me feel sick.  Sick because I’ve known those parts are true but I haven’t been able to do anything about it.  It isn’t my job to do anything about it to some degree. And that is when I felt better.  My sister wasn’t even part of the concerns she brought up, so why was I letting her get to me? I woke up yesterday and that is the first time I didn’t feel the crushing weight of, “I don’t even know what steps I need to take today.”  Nothing is actually resolved, but I see we are heading in the right direction.

Today I am grateful to realize where my worth is.  I went to visit my mother at her facility and met one of the CNAs for the first time.  Within 5 seconds, the first thing he brought up was my height.  I felt the anger as I always do and I choked it down like I always do.  I mean, I get it, it’s a noticeable feature, but I’m so tired of my entire existence being diminished to my height.  I had to remind myself that we are all going through a hard time.  It’s so hard to not take those things personally because they are about my person.  But I know I am more than what I look like. 

Today I am grateful to remember who I am.  Following up on the previous point, I know when someone is feeling weak or down in some aspect of their lives they will focus on the easy target.  I am short but that is not who I am.  I have accomplished a lot in my life and none of that has to do with how I look.  Just because it is your focus, that is not mine.  It hurts being the one to take it and have to choke back my anger about it but if I want to move forward, I have to remember their initial reaction says more about who they are than who I am. Their shallowness and inability to see through external appearance is their deficit, not mine.  I am strong, I am smart, I have a message to share and your opinion doesn’t matter on that topic.

Today I am grateful to incorporate the lesson that we can have the same experience differently.  We can be together and take away two different experiences at the same time.  No matter how much effort I put into making the person see it my way, they won’t.  Their experience is based on their interpretation which is the culmination of their other experiences.  I don’t need to accept negative behavior toward me as a result and I don’t need to pretend it’s ok.  I don’t need to accept someone else’s agreement with it either.  I am allowed my experience the same as they are and it doesn’t make me crazy if they don’t see it my way—and it doesn’t make their interpretation correct either.  And that is FINE.  Letting the world move forward regardless is letting the ego go and stepping into my own identity.

Today I am grateful to know it is ok to do what I need to do.  I’ve seen a lot of cardinals lately so I finally looked up their spiritual meaning.  I’ve knew they were messages from our loved ones who have passed, but they also mean connecting with our purpose, our home, setting boundaries, and manifesting.  I didn’t know those latter points and it floored me.  I’ve been questioning my worth and how to move forward and asking why I’ve been faced with the same challenges repeatedly, and I see now that it has been up to me to make the decision.  We can face the same situation over and over again but until we do it differently, we will get the same result.  We have to decide differently.  So, the universe has been telling me to decide and now it wants me to know that not only is it time, it is necessary to do so.  My gut is right and I can trust.  It is time to make the decision that best benefits my sanity and my home instead of anyone else.  And that decision will manifest what I need.    

Today I am grateful to understand an aspect of the universe in a new way.  The last few weeks have been challenging and I found myself emotionally drained and compromised.  Even communicating with my husband has been difficult and it culminated in an absolute screaming breakdown from me.  A few days have since passed and I see things a little differently.  Sometimes we have to hit our lowest to eliminate all the distraction and possibility and to work with what is.  Sometimes it’s a reminder that things have a way of working out.  “This too shall pass” rings in a new way for me.  Two days ago I was in a heap on the floor unable to breathe I was crying so hard and suddenly things are heading toward ok again.  Time changes things—good or bad is irrelevant—but things will not look the same.  Give it time.

Wishing you a wonderful week ahead!

So much of our daily life revolves around the image we project to the world.  And I understand that.  We are all trying to survive and we are doing it in ways that we were taught.  We are looking for safety and we have all been trained from birth that the only way to be safe is to be what is expected.  We have also been trained that the only way to find safety is with people and in order to be with people we feel like we need to be like them.  That last part is also biology so, I mean, we can’t totally blame training.  Regardless, we go through life feeling like we have to be a certain way in order to be accepted but our inner knowing tells us that there is something more.  We spend a majority of our time feeling off, doing something to either numb ourselves to fit in or simply ignoring the warning signs to be accepted all while we know something doesn’t feel right.  We hide facets of who we are.

I had a conversation the other day about conspiracy theories.  I don’t subscribe to all conspiracy theories, but there are a few that have always piqued my interest and it just so happened that this conversation was about one of those things.  This was an unusual moment because it was with one of the last people in the world I would have thought believed this way on the matter but I felt myself lighting up.  Any stigma I had in my mind either about sharing my beliefs on the matter or about this person’s ability to believe those things as well went away.  The words flowed and I exposed a side of myself that I don’t normally share.  We all compartmentalize our behavior, but I will tell you that unleashing the whole me was the most invigorating feeling I’ve had in a while. 

So, the topic of the conversation honestly isn’t important, but what I got from it was.  The moment I shared this side of myself in an arena I normally NEVER would, I felt real.  I’m normally very careful about what I project to that side of my world but I felt bold enough to let my guard down and it hit me: I need more.  I need more output of who I am.  I need more joy.  I need more movement.  I need more of THAT energy, the energy that aligns with me, not the idea of me.  It felt like finding a well after wandering through a desert for years.  Suddenly I was genuinely animated and not putting on a show.  And holy crap, aside from when I’m writing, I don’t feel that in person very often.  I can forgive myself because that is something we all do.  But that feeling of being seen for who I am was like a drug. 

I felt more alive in those moments than I have in 20 years in my career.  I felt more alive than I have at the completion of any project I’ve done and it was all because I shared a component of myself.  If all it takes to feel alive is acknowledging who we are and letting that person flow, then count me in.  Now, I will not discredit the absolute joy I’ve gotten from sharing my story here—in fact, the feeling is very similar—but there is something different when it’s in person, when you’re feeling your energy flow face to face with someone.  It’s an exchange you don’t always get behind a computer screen.  So I highly recommend it.  Even if it isn’t someone you think would accept you that way, they may be putting on a show as well—because we ALL do it. 

As fate would have it, I drew a card after that and it was “Behind the Mask.”  Naturally I believe in signs from the universe and that to me was absolute validation for what I was feeling.  The card talks about being more authentic at all times in order to let your light shine through.  But the interesting part of the interpretation was the part about letting go of the false condemnation and hatred of self. That’s when the other light went off.  The only reason I’ve never tapped into that type of in person energy before is because of the hiding and I have been hiding (we all do) because we are trained that showing our real selves isn’t safe.  I’ve been the recipient of that before, ridiculed and mocked for being who I am.  But I never considered that I internalized it to the degree of condemning and hating myself. 

We don’t like to admit who we are because deep down we feel like we aren’t worthy of being accepted as we are.  We feel like we are worthy when someone tells us we are worthy.  The secret is, we ALL feel that way.  Some of us are lucky enough to have a moment like I’ve described where the feeling of letting ourselves be seen is validated.  The truth is it took 37 years for me to have that moment.  The other truth is it took that long because I’ve held back that side of me for over 20 years.  So the most important lesson aside from needing more of that output, more of that connection, and more of that self-acceptance is to do it sooner.  Do it now.  Don’t hesitate.  There will always be the risk that you make a “fool” of yourself, but you may be surprised.  Your ability to share may awaken that in someone else too.  THAT is what we are here to do: wake up!  

At work the other day we had the official welcome announcement about the merger with another hospital in our area.  I listened to hear what they had to say about this newest venture, roughly a year after we joined the same group, and I felt a serious sense of déjà vu.  As the new CEO discussed this latest acquisition with the CEO, the exact same story played out.  I mean, the same goals, the same plan, the same everything came out.  It felt completely practiced—and honestly, maybe that’s a good thing in situations like this because it’s consistent.  The goal is clear and it would be the same blah blah blah.  But what got to me is the messaging is about serving the community even though we cover a huge area and the words were exactly the same.  It felt fake.

How much of what we take in on a day to day basis is real?  Honestly, do we even know how to be real anymore?  I’m not so sure.  Every message is curated and refined and practiced and serves a purpose.  I don’t know if we can handle reality.  I was raised by entrepreneurs from a generation where someone’s word meant something.  Where people believed and when they spoke they stood behind their message.  Here I was listening to a beautiful message—but it was the same one.  How is it possible to take such vastly different organizations and treat them exactly the same?  We’re starting from different points so our actions HAVE to be different.  The same can be said for what we sell to each other.  We don’t want to tell the truth because we are afraid people won’t accept us as we are. 

When it comes to our day to day, finding what is real has to come from inside.  Learning to connect with people has to be genuine.  I’m guilty of not knowing how people will receive me and trying to put on a façade I think will gain acceptance.  We all want to be accepted.  But I see how the world we created isn’t real.  It’s an image.  If we want it to be real, we need to get to the roots again and learn to celebrate what blooms.  I feel like the world IS starting to wake up and we no longer want to see the pretty picture.  We want the truth.  There is something stirring in all of us that knows deep down we need the truth in order to move forward.  We are so trained to look at the negative aspects of our lives because we are sold ways to make it perfect.  What if we started looking at ways to perfect how we feel in our skin?  What if we are sold ways to see what IS as pefect?

This world as it stands to day is going through massive upheaval and so many people think it’s because of their actions.  That is true—what is happening to day is a direct result of our actions and the actions of generations millenia before us.  But the upheaval is about more than cause and effect.  It’s about awakening and realizing the way we live today isn’t sustainable, it doesn’t work.  There was a time it felt like something good was happening but as we dig through, our global history is bloody, and about dominance and power, and ego.  Our souls know that we are capable of more than that.  So when we start seeing or hearing messaging that sends out a trigger or doesn’t feel quite right, it’s real.  We were just taught to ignore it and accept what we are told.  I’m here to ask you to start listening to that trigger again. 

I know how terrifying it is to be vulnerable.  I know the shame it brings about and the stigma’s that arise but I will tell you that there is a tipping point where none of that matters.  You realize the outside doesn’t get to see nearly as much of you as you do and it is far more important to open up to what is inside of you and to be the person you are meant to be.  Liking yourself becomes more important than someone else liking you.  It’s more important than acquiring another thing, or appearing a certain way.  We can only break through the veil if we lift our own first.  It’s uncomfortable because we are navigating some new territory, but it is worth it.  Spread that message because the world needs it.      

Continuing on the path of healing, I want to share a little epiphany I had.  A key trait of martyrdom is self-sacrifice and the “nobility” in putting your needs last.  I remember always hearing about the struggles and the things my mother gave up throughout her life, some a necessary part of life, some a trauma response, but some completely unnecessary and merely out of habit.  After having that level of sacrifice engrained for so long, it became a habit for me to feel immense guiltitude (guilt and gratitude) over everything my mother did for me whether it was making my lunch as a kid or support in any form.  I felt everything I needed from her was taking away from her somehow.  So I over compensated on the gratitude and went even further to make sure I did as much as I could on my own. 

I’ve realized how twisted much of that behavior was.  I felt guilty for asking for things I needed but my mother would get me things I never asked for.  Believe me, I genuinely appreciated all of it, and I didn’t lack for much.  But what I did get wasn’t always exactly what I needed.  So much of my life was spent getting what she THOUGHT I needed.  I mean, I remember there was a time we made some bad financial choices and we were down on our luck.  We needed a place to stay and my parents opened their doors to us.  And we appreciated it so much and tried to give back as much as we could through paying some rent and buying food and cleaning—normal stuff.  But my mom took it upon herself to start cooking meals for us every night regardless of the hours we worked and then got mad if we didn’t eat what she prepared. 

That type of behavior is a specific kind of martyrdom and gaslighting.  It’s not like we didn’t need help—we just needed a different kind of help.  What happens when you need a pain reliever and someone gives you an antacid? Not a bit of relief.  The same can be said for any scenario like this.  It isn’t like you don’t need help and yes, you need to be grateful for the help you get, but if it isn’t helping fix the need, then what good is it?  It’s wasted energy.  That isn’t to discredit what people can do but that is something to be said about people who want to act in a way that doesn’t fully support the need and demand appreciation for either exacerbating the problem or not fixing it.  This isn’t about ego and proving what you did, it’s about putting that aside and recognizing what someone needs.

When you are trained to accept what someone believes you need, it’s easy to lose sight of what your instincts are telling you.  It’s easy to accept what someone tells you is enough.  It’s easy to believe that there are limits on what you’re capable of.  Do not let someone try running in your shoes because they will never understand what you need and you can never make them understand something they haven’t experienced.  Even if they have experienced what you have, they haven’t experienced it in your way.  Their definition of what will work for you is theirs.  Reclaim what you need and reclaim those instincts.  Do not let anyone believe that asking for what you need makes you selfish and do not let them make you think that they know what you need.      

Healing work is ironically one of the most painful things we do.  I used to think it was this beautiful experience of releasing and allowing.  The reality is it is more about standing up and facing everything, looking that pain in the eye and learning to either accept and release it or learning how to tell it its power over you is over.  It is cutting away at the self-imposed strings we’ve created between ourselves and that shadow and admitting we were the ones tying the cords.  And it is doing that over and over again until you believe it, until you feel it in your bones.  That is the painful part.  Just when you think you’ve mastered it, something comes back again.  That is the path and we are shown the same things until we truly learn.

One of the traumas I’ve been healing is a generational thing, specifically with my mother, where we live in martyrdom.  We have this unhealthy expectation where sacrificing all of our wants precludes us or indebts us to others having to fulfill our wants.  Then we live in misery for not having the life we want and lash out whenever things are inconvenient.  A small example is I used to FLIP out with driving—I still do get mad because people struggle with the basics, but I digress—to the point where it felt like a personal attack every time someone cut me off.  It took me years to understand it was about control and I was focusing my energy outside rather than on what was really bothering me.

Back to the mother stuff.  I learned early on that what I really needed didn’t matter.  I was taught you give all of yourself and if you don’t, you’re selfish.  I was taught the people who got what they needed were either lucky or selfish.  My mother was raised this way and she was reminded over and over again of her mistakes from her mother—specifically how my mother’s mistakes made her mother look bad.  I will give it to my mom, she didn’t pass on that part of her trauma, but she did pass on the confusion about relationships and who serves what purpose.  Put another way, she taught me to ignore what I needed in favor of what other people needed and to expect them to fulfill my needs.  And it makes sense, she never learned to take care of herself because of her mother.  She thought if you were “good” enough you would get what you wanted.  My grandmother went to her grave angry that she didn’t get what she wanted in life and that she sacrificed what she wanted in hopes she would be worthy.  I can no longer repeat that pattern.

I had to learn about inherent worth on my own and that changed everything.  That made me aware of who I am and how to fulfill my own needs and desires.  That cleared the path for me to fulfill my purpose because part of our need is to express who we are.  When we express who we are we create space for the world to do the same. The more I got into the habit of self-expression I understood self-care because that is how I figured out what I actually needed—unconditional love and the chance to be who I am.  I didn’t want to have to appear a certain way anymore.  I didn’t want to have to hope someone would take care of me.  I didn’t want to be a Cinderella hoping my prince would save me.  I wanted to live my life and I wanted to LOVE my life.

For a long time I felt so angry at having to hide who I was, at having to be the quiet kid, the one who never caused any trouble.  I was angry at being told my joy and excitement meant I was out of control and too loud or that it made me a bimbo.  I feel things intensely, both the good and the bad, so when I feel joy, I express it LOUD and with exuberance.  Life is meant to be felt and in feeling it wholly we allow it to move through us.  It took a long time to not give a damn if I was “too much” for some people.  I got angry with my mother for making me curb my childhood in order to appear a certain way.  It took a long time to understand she didn’t know any better when she passed on these patterns.  Part of my healing was learning to not go in guns blazing with her—she didn’t even know what she was doing.  I realized the best healing I could do was to continue to express myself.

So, as I work through this, my mother healing physically, and me healing the generational stuff inside of me, I know I will have moments that will bring me back to that anger and that feeling of unworthiness.  I’ve made a promise to myself to make sure my needs are met by myself and to remember that I am capable.  I made a promise to myself to not give a damn about what things look like.  This is life—who the hell says it has to look any way at all?  Life isn’t for looking it is for living.  And the more I heal the past of shame with self-expression, the more open I feel to experiencing what life has to offer.  That is my wish for all of us—not that we all have generational mother trauma.  I wish us all healing and self-acceptance and that loud, beautiful, joyous life we can’t wait to take a bite out of.  If that means saying, “I will not repeat this again” in the face of fear until I die, so be it.  I will fight for my needs and I hope you will too.

“What would your life look like if you stopped trying to fix yourself and you started creating yourself instead?” Tonya Leigh.  This past week saw a turbulent time in the family.  Balancing caring for aging parents, a five year old, a full time job, two side gigs, and what I can of my sanity took it’s toll.  I had a challenging conversation with  my sister about my child care situation as well as some personal things in my marriage—finances and decisions my husband and I have made together.  Basically all of my personal fears came up and it really triggered a nerve.  Not that I felt attacked or anything like that, but more that the fears I had about being judged and perceived a certain way were confirmed—and it hurt coming from family.  Emotions from not so long ago surfaced as I’ve been focused on letting go of other people’s opinions of me and this made me face their opinions head on.  A nice little test from the universe.

I found myself emotional and spiralling as I thought over and over again about what my sister said, knowing there were facets that were true, but also knowing that I’ve done everything I could to work on those things.  There are reasons why I’ve taken the approaches I have to my life—I’m working the path that I have for me.  Not that I don’t feel guilt as these things are new and I’m breaking generational stuff, but I know I can’t fall into the pattern of hating myself again.  I knew I was trying to make her see my life my way, trying to make her understand why I did what I’ve done.  And I felt helpless because at the end of the day, she is still going to think what she wants.  I felt helpless because I couldn’t fix myself or make myself appear acceptable to her.      

The truth is I am human.  I have many flaws and faults but I know with absolute certainty that fixating on those faults got me nowhere.  It hurt and it kept me stuck.  Spending all of that time and energy hating myself didn’t do a damn thing for me either.  I wasted enough years thinking I needed fixing, finding every flaw, remembering the things I screwed up even if I moved past them, trying to be what others wanted me to be.  I didn’t feel any sense of certainty in my life until I stopped prioritizing other people’s anything over my needs.  And this conversation brought all of those habits right to the surface again. 

It took a good 24 hours of sitting with that and feeling like crap, I started to look at it differently.  I’ve built a life for me—not for my sister or anyone else.  They don’t need to understand it and it isn’t my job to make them understand.  It’s my job to live my life and fulfill my purpose, and I can attest to what it feels like creating something rather than living up to other people’s expectations.  The truth is it doesn’t matter if other people can see what you’re building—it’s up to you to see the vision and execute.  So to answer the question at the opening of this piece, what would life look like if we stopped fixing and starting creating?  What if we lived with acceptance of who we are?  It would look like whatever the hell we needed it to.  It would look like what it is meant to by our own definition.  It would look like we’ve lived, failed, tried, and lived again.  Simply put: it would look like happiness.

“Who I am right now will be the before of who I am tomorrow,” Sarah Landry.  This one stopped me in my tracks as the rest of the post went on to talk about living in the before/after (like posting before and after pics).  As I’m embarking on the new year with all of you, I feel a ton of excitement and energy around what I’m planning to accomplish this year.  It isn’t in an aggressive way or in a way that negates where I’m currently at, it is a genuine excitement to do the work.  I have never felt so supported and aligned with understanding someone’s post before and I felt genuinely seen.  For years I’ve waited for the right moment to do anything and I have missed countless opportunities and events that may have taught me lessons much earlier than they did now.  I waited until I was good enough to experience anything or to even attempt anything.  I really thought I needed to be a certain type of “good” in order to get the experiences I was looking for.  Reading Sarah’s words kept it fresh in my mind: We are good enough NOW.

I convinced myself that I had to wait until the right time or until I was “ready” or “capable” or “able to do it” before trying anything.  I wouldn’t try anything in public because I didn’t want to make a fool of myself.  I wouldn’t even speak up in meetings for a long time because I didn’t want to make waves with my team.  I never saw the value or the worth that I brought to the table.  Even if I had an idea that I knew would work, I kept quiet, assuming others would have a better idea.  I put on the bulky clothes to cover myself so others wouldn’t see my body as it is.  I didn’t share my writing for the longest time because I didn’t think it was good enough.

I realized living that way didn’t feel good.  All of the thoughts I had rolling in my head kept rolling with nowhere to go and they got louder and louder and I started to feel like crap keeping them inside.  I also realized I was forgetting things as I tried to force down the natural progression of my thoughts in favor of what I “should” be doing.  It got so tiring repeating the same day over and over again, constantly feeling frustrated and unexpressed.  And then I realized it was me—I was holding myself back.  Waiting for the “right” time or whatever milestone deemed me worthy kept me fixated on the shortfall of not being where I wanted to be in that moment.  And Sarah says it best for that as well: “The idea of waiting until [whatever is right] is only leading to an unfulfilling of my now days.”

If we are constantly living in the before/after world, we are saying that the now means nothing.  We know the reality is the “now” is all we have yet we live in a constant push for the appearance of more.  We are so trained to ignore what is in order to make sure we are good enough for some imagined requirement in our head.  But the truth is, we are not living in a before.  We are living now and what happens after now is very real.  We can change now at any time with our thoughts.  Sarah goes on to say that seeing ourselves as a before makes us stuck where we are because we aren’t seeing all we are today.  So let me clarify: it isn’t that we shouldn’t strive for more, it’s that we need to understand we are worthy enough as we are to achieve whatever we want to.    

I’m so grateful for this now.  I still don’t do it perfectly, where I’m constantly in flow and simply accepting what is.  That isn’t the point either.  The point is I accept that imperfection as a means to do better and a way to learn more about what I’m capable of.  I am grateful for all my life and for all that is to come because of how I am choosing to live this now. I am so grateful to be able to choose this now and to embrace it for all it is.  That is the only way to fully accept where I’m at, where any of us are at.  So don’t live your live as the before, constantly striving to get to the after.  That after will only be another before to something else.  Live NOW.

Today I am grateful for a new practice. I’ve spent the past week waking up every morning and writing down my gratitude.  I ended 2021 in a highly emotional and chaotic state, trying to reconcile all of the things I want to accomplish and I knew I didn’t want to keep moving forward like that.  So I carved out time every day to talk about what I am grateful for in my life.  My days have shifted.  Yes, there are still headaches, but seeing the big picture and knowing that there is so much good out there makes it easier to move through the day.

Today I am grateful for healing.  This one touches on so many levels, some of them are still really raw.  Our lives are so fragile as strong as we try to be.  Maybe that’s why we want to appear strong—we know that anything can be taken away so we strive to appear in control.  Or maybe that’s me, I don’t know.  But when we look at all of our time here, the pain we feel tends to dominate and it tends to permeate lifetimes as we pass on our traits to our kids.  Focused work and intention makes it so much clearer and easier to deal with that pain.  I feel the weight of the work and I carry it gratefully. 

Today I am grateful for the reminders that come right on time.  My husband and I started our relationship in a fairly unusual way (well, maybe the situation was normal but the initial notion we had wasn’t) and we are still going.  At the beginning, we found some common ground that neither of us expected in a film franchise that is still going 20 years later.  The universe constantly sends reminders to me that we are meant to work together as whenever we have difficult times, this film seems to come on somewhere, somehow.  It’s a loving reminder that we still need to find common ground sometimes and that the things you least expect to work are perfect exactly as they are.

Today I am grateful for my parents.  Our relationship is changing as they are getting older and I am so grateful for the reminders of how important they are to me.  How lucky I’ve been to have the life I’ve had.  Yes, in spite of the trauma talk and the stories I’ve been sharing about the time with my mother, I am so grateful.  Our time here is so short and we truly do the best we can with what we have.  I don’t claim it is easy to look beyond what happened or that I’m not still triggered when we speak.  But I am so lucky to know that I still have them and that I can adjust my perspective any time. 

Today I am grateful to learn to rely on my wings again.  This situation with my parents has reminded me that nothing lasts forever.  More importantly, it has reminded me that we are meant to develop our own security and carve out our own path in life.  I’m taking steps I’ve never taken because I didn’t believe in myself before now.  But there comes a point when you simply have to leap and start flapping to learn to fly.  The same comes with life.  There comes a point when you have to start doing in order to get things done and to learn what needs to be done. 

Today I am grateful to slow down.  One of my vices is going too fast.  I’m always in hyper drive trying to get as much done as possible so I’m not always taking everything in and I’m too often relying on my own strength to fit everything in.  I’m learning that sometimes the way to get things done isn’t to push or to go faster—it’s to slow down.  When we go faster not only do we miss some of the picture, we open up more time for more things to be done.  We can live life on a never ending check list because there is literally ALWAYS something that needs doing.  But we have to learn to ask ourselves if we are the ones responsible for taking it all on.  Are we the ones who need to be doing it?  So I’m making it a practice to get organized and do what I AM responsible for.  It makes all the difference.

Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead