My husband and I have been going through a really rough patch lately, that started around the time I found out I was pregnant.  We haven’t been connecting, our communication has been off, we haven’t been intimate for months.  We’ve been bickering and lost as we try to determine how we move forward.  I found myself snapping at him for anything, arguing over nothing and blaming him for everything.  I felt completely isolated, especially after losing a child, and we started having issues with one of our animals—and we couldn’t agree on how to handle it so I lost it.  I realized that so many of our beliefs have been growing apart.  We even started talking about possibly separating. 

I watched a video from Mel Robbins the other day about recognizing if your relationship is over.  As she discussed ownership and letting go as needed or trying to make it work, it hit me like a lead balloon that I am toxic.  I have allowed myself to become exactly what I have been trying to avoid: a nit-picking martyr hell bent on being right all the time, blaming everyone but myself.  I placed an expectation on my husband to know everything I was feeling or needed and I felt I was owed that for the behavior I’ve endured throughout our relationship.  I expected him to bend to who I am and to behave how I expected him to.  I still felt the need for him to perform penance over things we have said we resolved years ago—and that was so wrong of me. 

Worse, I’ve spent so much time thinking I’m perfect, that my way is right, and that people need to conform to what I’m saying at all times.  Part of that is a trauma response because I spent so many years cleaning up after him.  I know I could have chosen to leave and not be the martyr (that part of it is my upbringing) but I so desperately just wanted him to be appreciative of what I did, of what I sacrificed, and to recognize that I was (legitimately) the only one there no matter what he did.  That isn’t what happened—I taught him he could do whatever he wanted and I would always be there.  I digress.

I started believing he had to be a certain way and that he needed to make me happy because of what I did for him.  I spent more time criticizing him than I did loving him and I felt like it was my right to do so—I was the wronged victim every time.  I’m ashamed—and relieved—because I know we couldn’t go on like that.  I’m ashamed because I can no longer identify as the “right” one.  Because I really caused him pain without realizing it.  I made him give up his identity to conform to mine because I thought I was owed.  I was so focused on controlling the outcome and his actions, I made him into something he’s not.  I lost myself because I focused on him and his actions and what he was “supposed” to be doing rather than make any real progress on myself.  I’ve done that to everyone to a degree.     

I allowed myself to feel hurt when they did what was right for them—because I made the choice to do what was right for them, I expected them to do what was right for me.  I could have accepted them and moved on with my life, learning to fulfill my own needs.  But I’ve never done that so it was painful to be anything other than what I’ve always been.  I’m afraid letting that identity go will open me up to hurt.  Is being hurt better than being lonely?  I’m around people I have no real connection with.  It’s like being a lone in a crowded room. 

I’ve been afraid of connection because I never moved on from the hurt those closed to me caused—and the early losses of those I loved most.  My grandpa’s death, my siblings leaving the house, overly connected to my parents, Chris cheating, buying things behind my back, Jason talking about me, Jerry dying, my sisters and their additions and my brother almost dying (twice).  Seeing the life I thought I’d have slip away.  Realizing how much I relied on my parents.  Knowing I’d have to learn to rely on myself and fearful I couldn’t do it.  Chris’s spending legitimately getting in the way of a future we could build together.  Feeling like he only used me for my money.  Insecure and frightened that I didn’t bring anything else to the table but money.          

Is this starting over?  Uncovering whether or not we are together or alone or alone together.  Determining if I’m trying to make a bad thing work.  Or if this is genuine healing.  Fear has come up more often than not, fearing that, as we are discovering ourselves, we will discover that we don’t want each other anymore.  At this point all I can do is continue on in my discovery and let him be.  If we are meant to be, we will be.  As painful as this realization is, it feels better being authentic because this is genuinely something that can’t be forced.  I know I need help because I don’t want to repeat the cycle—I want to heal. 

“Everything you say yes to means saying no to something else,” Marie Forleo.  Going with the theme of letting go, we have to be prepared for the fact that accepting a future that is meant for us means DECIDING to accept it—which means saying no to anything else.  It doesn’t have to be a painful thing.  In fact deciding, removing circumstances that aren’t meant for you, makes everything a lot clearer.  It removes the extraneous and shows us where to go. 

Highly creative people have a tendency to pursue multiple things at the same time.  It can be a good thing because they have the ability to think outside the box and get things done.  The down side is that when people go after multiple things at the same time, it isn’t always easy to finish them.  So deciding, prioritizing, and creating actionable steps makes you more productive and gets it done. 

Having anxiety makes deciding terrifying because you’re always weighing the possibilities and second-guessing your decisions, always afraid that you made the wrong choice.  Sometimes it’s more than just fear of a wrong choice—I have often berated myself for not knowing better, even while I was still learning, and I have felt the heavy weight of loss when something didn’t turn out how I thought it would.  Getting over that means shifting perspective.  It isn’t about losing out or making the wrong decision, it’s about learning and being guided toward what is meant for you.  To this day I struggle with this because I’m not able to see the end result or the big picture—and I love knowing what I’m working toward and I want to know that my efforts will be worth it.  Maybe it’s about the effort being put in making it worth it; It’s not about what you’re owed for the work you do, it’s about making the work you do worth it no matter what.

Part of what made making decisions so scary for me was the idea of committing to one decision for a long time.  If I chose to do or be one thing, I was afraid that was who I had to be forever.  I didn’t have much flexibility in my life growing up so I didn’t really learn about letting go and being myself—or that our definitions of self could change as often as we needed them to.  I find it ridiculous now, but I felt I had to prove I KNEW what was best for me at all times, and that I was always right.  If I needed to shift gears and be someone else because the choices I made weren’t working for me, that would mean I was wrong.  In those situations I had a tendency to create stories so it wasn’t my fault (hey, my therapist says we shouldn’t date anymore…) or I denied completely (this job makes me so happy, I love working Wednesday through Sunday!) or I ran away (I have no idea who you are). 

I used to feel bad admitting what didn’t work for me because I thought it made some statement about the other person as well—and I didn’t want them to feel bad.  I just didn’t know how to communicate that it wasn’t working for me.  Standing my ground didn’t come easily to me because I wanted to make people happy and that is why it was easier to either run away or just go along with what they wanted.  I didn’t want to be responsible for making other people angry because I was the nice girl.  It wasn’t until very recently that I understood making decisions for yourself doesn’t make you mean or nice, it only means you’re in touch with yourself.

It has taken a lot of work to get in touch with the parts of me that are honest enough to declare what works for them.  Navigating self-awareness brings to light many of the things we think we fear about ourselves because, no matter what, there are some dark parts to each of us.  It’s about deciding to integrate the light and the dark.  It’s also about understanding the malleability of who we are.  We aren’t stuck in one identity—we often have to shift between multiple roles in a day.  And that person doesn’t need to be the same forever, they just need to be able to shift.  It’s ironic that I used to think surviving meant sticking to my guns (unless it made someone unhappy) but it’s really about reading the scene and moving with it.  So, I have decided to embrace the ever changing tide of my life and see where it gets me. 

“We must let go of the life we have planned so as to accept the one that is waiting for us,” Joseph Campbell.  I’m revisiting this quote as events have brought it back into my life.  Letting go is rarely easy.  The weight of the meaningless trifles we carry can bury us and we will still pretend we are moving right along.  Letting go of something we have attached ourselves to, whether literally or figuratively, is even harder.  Now it has meaning.  It isn’t just about proving the point that we can carry heavy things, this becomes about identifying with it.  Once our identity is woven into the vision we have, letting it go becomes terrifying and painful.  And we have to do it anyway.  Life has a way of making that mandatory, especially for the things we attach to.

Not to drone like a broken record, but I have endured a lot in these last few months.  Unidentified gastric issues, liver issues, cervical polyps and two procedures to remove them, ovarian cysts, a pregnancy, the loss of that pregnancy, losing one of our dogs, putting our house up for sale, searching for a new home, shifting job roles.  All of this while maintaining my work, keeping my business going, and being a mother and wife.  I thank God every day that I have been strong enough to endure—but I feel like that’s all I’m doing—enduring.  I feel like I have failed.  I know I am blessed and I don’t exclude myself from the normal tribulations of life but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t heavy.  It feels like I am merely existing, a shell, an empty presence.

I attached myself to the idea of what I thought this life would be.  I never expected it to be smooth sailing the entire way, I just didn’t expect a storm quite like this.  As a child I envisioned having the dream job (never knew what it would be), a home, a husband, a family, traveling.  I envisioned friends and family around me. I’ve also come face to face with the demons at the core of who I am.  I’ve felt a steadily increasing loneliness creeping into my life and I see my role in it.  I saw the life I wanted and thought it would be given to me—I didn’t match my actions to the vision. 

It is entirely humbling to watch your life be at stake and to get it back only to lose your footing on where you’re at.  Each of these events has made me dive deeply into who I am and, as I’ve peeled back the onion, I see there isn’t one defining aspect to my personality.  In fact, as I have lost those pieces of me, I’m not sure I ever knew who I was let alone who I will be.  As heavy as this is, I am grateful because I can put it down.  I can honor who I was and understand the things I did without carrying them with me.  I can let go of what I thought I would be.  Yes, it’s a loss.  It hurts.  But it’s also cleansing.  The act of losing creates space for what is meant to be.

There are few things in life we can write down and commit to when it comes to the overall trajectory of our story.  We can’t know all of the events that happen and we can’t always know how they will shape us.  Life isn’t meant to be planned—it’s meant to be experienced.  It’s the greatest trust fall there is.  You just have to jump and do it and allow the pieces to fall into place and try to understand it is for some reason.  I know that my life’s purpose is about more than enduring pain.  This is just a tough season for me and I will come out of this.  Maybe the purpose is simply to share, to find a way to reconnect with myself and with others in a genuine way.  Maybe it’s to garner a deeper appreciation for what I have.  Maybe it’s the foundation for the life I can’t see yet.  But I won’t know until I let go and make peace with what is no longer here.   

Today I am grateful for the ability to shift.  My son woke me up at 3:45AM and I couldn’t get back to sleep.  I went to his bed to try to sleep alone, and all I could hear were the neighbors partying.  I immediately felt angry because there are so many people who just don’t think about what they’re doing—they do it simply because they want to no matter who gets in the way.  I felt my old habit of self-righteous anger creeping in and debated walking over there to scream at them when I felt overwhelmingly tired.  And it hit me that I am so blessed.  There are so many changes happening in my life and I’m moving in the right direction—and not many people have that now—so who am I to stop them from enjoying themselves?  We need more joy.  Doesn’t change that it was annoying as hell, but I wasn’t going to be the one to stop them. 

Today I am grateful for adventure.  We’ve been looking for our forever home and I found myself super stressed yesterday.  We’ve looked at 20 houses and nothing seems quite right so frustration creeped in when we looked at the last house and it was NOTHING like we anticipated.  The pictures showed it needed some work but when we got there, the entire thing needed renovation.  I know it’s not unusual, it’s just challenging to keep your emotions in check with a huge decision like this when you’re disappointed.  So, after a nice dinner, I decided that I am going to make this an adventure.  I get to pick where we go next and we are just going to keep looking until something feels right.  Our home is out there and I am so fortunate to be able to look for it right now. 

Today I am grateful to support my family.  We’ve been going through a lot of transition and I’m grateful to help us tread through it.  I know I couldn’t do it on my own, but I’m grateful to be able to take the reins when I need to.  Just a few weeks ago, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it through the day and here we are, getting healthy, planning a move, and making decisions about what we want our lives to look like. 

Today I am grateful for drive.  I’ve had to adopt new habits over the last few weeks in order to move us where we need to be.  That means owning a lot of who I am and eliminating the habits that kept me stuck (see tomorrow’s post on toxicity).  The heaviness of being that person, of always having to be right got to be too much.  And ignoring the negative parts of who I am only made it more difficult.  We can’t live in denial.  So I’ve been determined to focus more on integrating and accepting who I am so I can be the person I need to be.   

Today I am grateful to reconnect with my husband.  We’ve spent a lot of time emotionally and physically apart over the last few months.  After I lost the baby, I started resenting everything he did and judging every move he made because I felt so alone.  He didn’t understand what I was going through and he shut down, went into his own world.  We could be in the same room but we could not have been farther apart.  I started to feel like I didn’t recognize him—and I realized I couldn’t recognize myself either.  I had to stop and take an honest look at who I am and who I want to be and it was my sanity and my marriage on the line.  Once I started looking at what was at the core of my anger and judging (spoiler alert, it’s control and fear of losing control), I knew I had to shift.  I’m still working on it, but I feel better.  We’ve been talking and figuring it out—and it isn’t perfect, but we aren’t alone together anymore.   

Today I am grateful for miracles.  Finding houses, being able to move forward, spending time with my son, spending time with extended family, watching my son let go of every care he has and live his life to the fullest—today was a great day.  As challenging as it is to see the good in everything, it really exists—and there is a reason for everything.  It feels amazing to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.    

The last few months have sucked for me on so many levels and I found myself feeling victimized again, wondering why things were happening to me and wondering if I would ever be able to break free.  I found myself sitting and waiting and thinking over and over again. I’m a really good thinker.  Over, under, through, around, and in-between, I’m adept at thinking.  All of that allows for creative expression but it doesn’t produce anything without action. 

I thought that the antidote to feeling like a victim was to change my thinking.  Focus on positive thoughts, focus on goals with positive outcomes, and to speak positively.  None of that got me out of my head so all I did was end up with more thoughts.  Better thoughts, yes, but just more thoughts and that became just as overwhelming as the negative. 

I found myself making excuses to not take my son out or to do things with him and we spent a lot of time watching TV.  Then we got busy with getting the house ready for sale.  And, in all honesty, I got tired.  Working most of the day and then entertaining a little human as well as maintaining a house, packing a house, looking for a house, and taking care of our animals all while trying to start a business started to get too heavy.

We ended up outside one weekend and I watched him playing on his scooter and he just laughed and laughed.  At first I felt guilty because I had been denying him a chance to release some of his energy and to simply enjoy being four.  Then I realized that I had been denying myself the same things as well.  I had been denying any flow of joy in my life.  Not only was I restricting the flow of joy, I didn’t even know how to find it anymore.  I started playing with him on the scooter.  An amazing thing happened—I started to feel lighter.  I felt a genuine laugh coming out of my belly. 

I immediately recognized the need to feel like that again.  Joy isn’t something that just happens—we have to create it.  The reason anger and fear and anxiety feel so natural to me is that I have practiced it for a long time.  I go to those reactions because I have the most experience expressing them and the most experience recognizing them when I feel them.  So I’ve let them run rampant and I couldn’t even recognize what I needed anymore until I felt it.  Now I know I need more joy.  I know I need more love. 

Learning to seek joy is a different experience for me.  It means looking at myself and getting really honest about what I enjoy.  I’ve adopted yet another schedule at work and I’m trying really hard to incorporate something that makes me happy every day.  I start my days with connecting with source and with guidance by pulling cards.  I’m writing as I need to.  And, even though it isn’t what I’m planning on doing forever, I’m diving into work more as I’m learning new things.  Embracing what is going on around me has made it so much easier than fighting it, and I feel like I’m progressing. 

Seeking joy also means letting go of the previous things I thought brought me joy.  Not that I don’t enjoy those things, but that there are other things that are closer to who I really am.  I also used to look at joy as something frivolous.  Now I see it as a necessity.  It is when I feel joy that I feel like I’m living.  I feel like I’m connected—to myself.  Joy has opened up a new path for me.  Even though I’m still learning, I’m leaning into trust and believing that I will find my way as I go.  Through what feels right, and yes, through what brings me joy. 

Kristen Hubbard wrote, “We are changed not only by what we see, but by what we allow to see us.  Open, Love.  There is a whole new world out there anticipating your arrival.”  AMEN.  Life isn’t about what we passively experience through observation, waiting until the moment is right to make a move.  Life is what happens when we move.  It’s vulnerable and it’s scary but it is in the doing that we allow ourselves to break free. When we allow ourselves to be seen we are showing the world that we are comfortable with our magic and our purpose.  We are showing the world that it is safe for them to do the same.

When we take in the world around us we are shaped so it is silly to believe that we don’t also shape the world.  It is what we are meant to do.  The trajectory of my life has been about taking in and repeating back what I thought I needed to in order to survive, hoping that would eventually help me thrive.  That was merely the echo of other people’s lives.  I sank myself into other people, my family, my friends, my relationships.  Like a chameleon, I would change, taking in everything.  I honestly didn’t think I had anything of value that people would want to see.  Then I became afraid of showing myself.  Then I became a wife.  And I took on that identity like a cape, wrapping it around myself.  Then I became a mother and I spent the majority of my time either keeping a human alive or making sure I was developing said human into a good person. 

It never occurred to me that people would look to me as well or that they NEEDED me.  That they needed my gifts.  It never occurred to me that I could be more than one thing.  We don’t have one identity, nor do we have to be.  We are trained to decide early on who we are and that we have to stick with that.  The beauty of the universe is that it is vast and, as we are part of the universe, so are we.  We are made up of all the parts of our experiences.  We can change from day to day with fervor.  And the world is waiting for that spark to ignite so you can become who you are meant to be.  It’s in the allowing. 

Change happens whether we like it or not, whether we are ready for it or not, whether it is how we plan or not.  Sharing our authenticity is what the world needs.  We have become so uncomfortable with accepting who we are and with being who we are because we feel like we need to be who we were told to be.  Marie Forleo talks about creating before consuming and I agree.  The act of creating causes a reaction of flow that brings about massive change because we line up with who we are.  It also brings about change for other people as well.  So release the fear and allow yourself to be seen.  Even if it’s only by yourself at first, allow your magic to flow.  The rest will fall into place.

I’m working on releasing the frightened child inside of me, and maybe turning that skill onto my own son.  Learning to give him the confidence I didn’t have.  In teaching him, I am recovering myself.  Heal the wound of fear and the wound of insecurity.  Learning to love myself for those who don’t know what to do with me.  What to make of me.  I let myself be molded, shaped like clay into what you needed me to be.  And adapt I did—I conformed and bent to whatever you needed me to be.  Anything you wanted. The shiny, exactly-as-you-need-it, always on girl.  No one asked what I wanted to be.

They handled my perceived mental fragility like a bomb, moving me with care until I could be safely ensconced on the next level or with the next person and they could say they did a job well done.  Got what they needed and mission accomplished.  It didn’t register until very recently that NO ONE knew what to do with me because they were afraid.  The potential radiating off of me burned their skin as I walked by.  The power choked them even though they wanted to taste it.  Did I need to be harnessed?  Could they harness it?  Did I need to be tamed?  Or developed?  My mind moved far beyond my body and they got confused as I tried to make my way as they served their purpose with my talents.

All I needed was a hug.  Love.  Acceptance.  No expectation for self-soothing the abandonment I felt as I grew without a support system.  No chastising the ideas I had that were beyond what they saw as possible.  No shame in the body given to me as I felt no shame.  I was never meant to be handled, certainly not by the hands I let touch me.  No one was ever meant to make me.  I needed to make myself.

I was meant to be unleashed.  To be myself.  To heal the fear of loving every imperfection.  TO LIVE.  I knew a way they never dreamt of and it frightened them to the core because it challenged every belief they had.  So they dismissed it, and dismissed me.  I’m remembering the way myself as I learn to let go.  As I bless who I was and as I honor a past both beautiful and painful, both complete and lacking.  As I welcome a future, simply made of ME. 

That is the point.  I never needed their permission, I never needed to ask to do the things I wanted to.  I just needed to welcome a way to do it and to understand that I could do it all along.  It was mind to do with as I saw fit—not for them to say I could.  We aren’t meant to tame ourselves for someone else’s comfort or for their belief.  It’s simply to exist and fulfill our purpose in the moment.  And they have always been my moments.  

Following up on yesterday’s talk regarding the job of being ourselves, I found a gorgeous page on Instagram called Jasmine’s Garden.  The video she put up discussed purpose and redefining what purpose is.  Understanding that we are already walking in our purpose as well as why we limit what we think our purpose is.  She spoke about how we limit our purpose to a particular goal or a moment and she said that our purpose can change from day to day just like we do.  My mind was blown.  I have ALWAYS thought we were here for one thing—to find one thing and do that.  Jasmine talked about how we are so much more than a moment. She used gorgeous examples like one day listening to a friend, then trying a new recipe and that some days that one thing is ENOUGH.

I try to spend as much time as possible with my family and my animals but I am always rushing.  I’m always trying to fit EVERYTHING in.  I work full time and the house needs to be taken care of and the animals need attention, my son needs attention and I allow that to become a burden rather than a gift.  I have lost sight of being in the moment and learning from it in favor of pushing through what I “need” to because I allowed myself to believe that I needed to be working toward a grand moment of fulfillment.  That’s a bullshit story.

On the cosmic level, we are so miniscule that we barely register.  Our presence matters regardless of how small we are, but I think we need to understand that we have a tendency to let our egos get in the way.  We need to be more gentle with ourselves—at least I do.  And perhaps our purpose isn’t to change the entire world but to change the world for someone.  To learn to work together.  I don’t need to complete a check list to make myself worthy or to “earn” the time to spend with my family.  I have a family and I can prioritize the time I want to spend with them right NOW.  I have here NOW.  This is all that is guaranteed.  I don’t need to be worthy of something to stop and love them.  It’s already here and my purpose is to be with them.

Finding ourselves and being who we are allows us to find our purpose and to experience the moments that come our way with ease.  It allows us to be intentional and to live with the idea that the experiences that cross our paths are meant for us.  We don’t have to live life as if it’s a quest, constantly fighting and discovering and peeling and DOING.  All we need to do is experience.  Live intentionally and with presence and the rest takes care of itself.  With intention, life happens.  With experience we learn more.  With a new perspective, purpose reveals itself.

 “It’s your job to become the person you’re meant to be,” Mel Robbins.  Not who you were told to be, not who you were shown to be—who you’re meant to be.  It’s an important distinction.  I’ve trudged through life believing I was flying, not even realizing my wings have bene clipped and I’ve been in a cage the whole time.  We are brought up in a box believing the top is as high as we can go, not recognizing it’s a ceiling.  The sky awaits just outside.

Several key events over the last few months have triggered a chain reaction in my life.  I got pregnant, I had polyps removed during that pregnancy, I ended up losing the baby, we lost a dog, my 9-5 is going through a huge transition, we decided to put our house up for sale again, and we’ve been trying to find a house in a fast moving market.  When it comes to discomfort initiating change, I dove in head first.  It feels like life has been on pause and now it’s in fast motion.  Then again, maybe I’ve always been living at slow speed and this is just normal.  I honestly couldn’t tell you.  Regardless, I’m certain that everything that has happened has opened the flood gates and I can no longer hold back the events that were meant to unfold in my life. 

I’ve always logically known that I needed to unleash the true potential and power of who I am.  I’ve spoken about it, I’ve felt it logically, I’ve even tried (and thought) I was doing it—but I’ve never allowed myself to experience it.  I still clung to the latent control of what I thought I needed to do and how I wanted things to be and I thought it was my responsibility to make it exactly as I believed it should be.  All I needed to do was put down the bullshit I was telling myself and just allow myself to experience things as they came.  Make the decision and learn from it.  Because the decisions didn’t have to be permanent.

I was brought up to believe that a decision was like a scar on my life, where if it didn’t work out, it somehow meant I was a bad person.  I thought we were supposed to get everything exactly right and that any imperfection meant I had to throw the whole thing away.  It wasn’t until very recently that I understood decisions aren’t scars and there really are no wrong ones—just the ones meant for me.  The scars aren’t damage, they are stories.  They are the weavings of my life and it’s a story that is uniquely mine.  I could have spent a time making a copy of someone else’s life (and for a long time I did) but I want to create something that is my own.

Freeing that potential I’ve held in has felt unbelievable.  I’ve felt overwhelmed by how powerful it is and I still feel like I’m being carried along by the waves more often than not.  But I also feel more comfortable when it comes to recognizing what works for me and what doesn’t.  On Sunday I wrote about how uncomfortable I was at a family gathering.  It was incredibly embarrassing that I couldn’t keep it together and ended up leaving in a panic attack, but I am also grateful it happened because THAT was a clear limit for me.  I knew I had to go and I clearly spoke it to my husband without hesitation.  Speaking what I need and not leaving room for misinterpretation is huge for me. 

So I will take the discomfort as a sign that I am stepping in to who I am.  I am doing the work, I am fulfilling the role of the job that I am meant to have—unleashing who I am.  There are a lot more chains than I thought, all self-created.  The weight of other’s opinions, the “shoulds”, the perfectionism, the fear of failure, the indecisiveness, the paralyzing “what-ifs”, the “could-have-beens”.  Why am I carrying them?  I can’t recreate the past and I certainly can’t stop what is coming.  But I can put down all of the bullshit.  I can pick up what is mine and move forward.

“It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not,” via soul guidance.  At the core of everything I haven’t done has been the belief that I can’t do it.  How cruel is that?  I’ve started many adventures in my life, always feeling the same excitement of beginning something and then I’ve found myself lost in my own thoughts and finding a way to sabotage what I’ve wanted.  At work I’m learning a new area and I’ve felt myself hiding behind the fact that I’ve never done it before.  I started thinking back and I can’t think of a time where I’ve honestly jumped into something unknown.  I’ve either been afraid of not doing it, of not doing it right, or I’ve been afraid I would be taken advantage of and end up responsible for something I didn’t want to do.

Now, I’m asking if that is who I want to be.  Perhaps the “nos” I’ve said were really missed opportunities and me hiding behind something I didn’t know prevented me from knowing it sooner.  What does that say?  Do I think I’m incapable?  I think I’m the person who can’t do it in spite of evidence to the contrary.  THAT is what holds me back.  The underlying thought that I won’t succeed is deeply engrained and it often makes itself known in the form of stopping me before I start. 

The good news is that this is a matter of changing perspective.  It’s remembering the wins and the successes and the ventures of things I never thought I could do—and then did.  All of the things I did are things that have moved me forward.  They were things like starting to share my writing that brought me closer to who I am.  It made me feel most comfortable in my skin and it made me feel accomplished to share.  THAT is who I am.  Hiding behind the things I wanted to do and wishing for things to be different—that isn’t me. 

I no longer want to be the party in the room who feels like I’m trying to keep up or who doesn’t know what they’re doing.  I may not know everything—no one can know everything—but I know I can bring what I DO know to the table.  I wouldn’t be there if they wanted something else.  I wouldn’t be there if they didn’t think I could do it—and the truth is I am that person.  I don’t need to devalue myself and my contributions to look for accolades.  I just need to perform.  Doing the work has never stopped me from getting anywhere—but pretending I couldn’t for whatever reason has stopped me.  I thought I was keeping myself safe when I was preventing myself from getting what I needed.

This is another reason why authenticity is so important.  It will get you exactly where you need to be every time.  it may not be comfortable and it may not appear in ways you thought it would, but it will always be exactly what you need.  Authenticity is what moves you forward, not being what other people tell you to be—or being what you think other people want you to be.  If you have to change who you are to be accepted anywhere, then you don’t belong.  True acceptance means everything about you is welcomed and valued.  We need that in order to be who we are—and anything we are not needs to be shed.  Look for those who encourage your greatness, not those who make you be something else.  And always make sure you know your worth—it’s more than you think.