Today I’m grateful for self-awareness.  I went to a family gathering yesterday and I haven’t been in a group of people for over a year.  My chest tightened as the event moved indoors because of rain and I ended up having a complete panic attack.  I couldn’t think straight and I started getting angry and frustrated and lashing out.  I reverted to fight or flight mode—started as fight and then ended in flight.  I looked at my husband and I told him that we HAD to leave.  I ended up having to take some medicine to calm down.  I realized that while it can be valuable to push ourselves, it may not work before we are ready.  I can’t make it work or feel comfortable if I’m not ready.  That isn’t to say that we need to be 100% certain before taking action, but it is to say that I know I need to do what feels right to me.  The peace came in after I rested and really thought about it.

Today I am grateful for understanding.  While I was having the panic attack, one of our family friends and my brother pulled me aside and I realized that I was also being triggered by the number of things coming at me at once.  I wasn’t comfortable with that many people, we just put our house on the market, we are trying to find a house where things are moving REALLY fast, my son is asserting his independence at every turn, I have had a tumultuous two months with a lot of loss.  It felt comforting to be seen and heard in that moment—even though I still had to leave—it felt nice to know that someone understood. 

Today I am grateful for my husband’s support.  I’ve been a perfectionist for so long that I forget some people just don’t look at things as I do.  My husband is one of the most laid back people I know and he has been carrying the burden of preparing the house for sale and dealing with my insanity for the last few months.  He hasn’t been perfect, he’s still done what he wants to do, but he hasn’t left my side for a moment.  And he hasn’t judged me or resented me for anything the entire time.  Even when I’ve been in the heat of an “I told you so” tantrum, he has held my presence and taken it with grace and ease.  I admire his ability to do that—and I’m often jealous that I struggle with it.  But I know I wouldn’t be able to get through the day without his presence, even when I’m irritated. 

Today I am grateful for new possibilities.  I have been dwelling in this place of memories and of what things should look like for a while.  I felt myself trying to cling to some old mindsets related to what I wanted things to be like and I got caught up in the emotion of what things are NOT.  Plus life has sped up considerably over the last few days so I’m dealing with making very quick decisions when I like to take my time and weigh things out.  But they say that growth occurs in discomfort and I recognize that this process is making me see that there is a big world out there and sometimes when opportunities come you just have to leap even if it isn’t how you planned.  There is a whole world out there that is waiting for me to claim it. 

Today I am grateful for my body.  I’m honoring everything my body has been through and I am so grateful to be alive.  When I take the time to look at everything I’ve done to myself and that has happened to me, I am so appreciative of the strength and resilience I have been shown over and over again.  The body is a remarkable machine, a biological computer tapped into the energy of the universe and, as I’m working on stepping into the next step of my life, I’m really grateful for everything my body can do.

Today I’m grateful for the next step.  One thing I’m proud of is my ability to adapt.  I may go along kicking and screaming while things are changing, but once I’m there, I’m on board 100%.  I’m proud that once I get over the hump I am present and accounted for.  My anxiety makes it difficult to completely let go of intrusive thoughts of what I may have wanted, but I have the ability to keep a firm ground on how things are once the change has occurred.  The challenge for me is often deciding (on anything) because I want to know how things will turn out and no one has a crystal ball that tells them what the future will look like.  As I said above, discomfort encourages growth, so next steps are the only way to see what adventures come our way.  I have the opportunity to view things differently along the way.  So here’s to the future.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“Don’t try and be happy all the time—that’s stressful. Instead, practice being awake to whatever is:  then we get something better than happiness.  We get unconditional confidence and relaxation, and yes, a sort of fundamental joy, “ Waylon Lewis.  We have all heard the value of being present.  Eckhart Tolle speaks of the power of now.  Beck talks about the feeling of safety living from minute to minute.  The truth is there is a fundamental release we get when we stay present and understand that, in any given moment, the thoughts we have are simply that: thoughts.  Nearly 90% of what we think about, chew over, repeat incessantly never happens.  I’d like to say that thoughts can’t  hurt us but I know all too well the personal hell that is created with a mind left to its own devices. 

Like when we aren’t paying attention behind the wheel (which you should never do btw!), we overcorrect when we see we’ve gotten off course.  When our minds run rampant, we tend to pull as far in the other direction as possible, either shying away from the thoughts or forcing an unnaturally positive thought in its place.  Neither of those does any good.  We have to learn to sit.  To recognize it is only a thought.  Not to say that I don’t believe in things like premonitions or clairvoyance (anything can happen and I’ve had my own experiences—that’s for another time), but NOT every thought is an indicator of what will happen and it is certainly no indicator of what IS happening.  If you give yourself the presence to pause, your emotion will tell you about what IS.  And more often than not you will see you are fine. 

To the opening quote, we also can’t spend our time in a forced state of positivity or happiness.  It doesn’t exist and it is EXHAUSTING trying to keep up or create an emotion that isn’t there.  You will find it’s much easier to stay present than it is to overcorrect or experience something that isn’t real.  The mind is a powerful thing and it’s challenging to discipline it.  I struggle with that every day.  My mind goes in a million directions because I manage four separate departments that have nothing to do with each other so I’m switching gears from moment to moment.  I often feel like I have no control because my internal responses are largely based on external events—I’m in healthcare so we need to respond.  But if I didn’t respond to what was happening, if I was in my own world ignoring what was going on, really bad things would happen.

So there is a middle ground.  Staying focused.  Being aware of what is and taking it at face value.  We attach a lot of emotion to events and we take things personally.  Logically we know this isn’t the case but our mind tells us something different.  We think we can control events that we have no say in and that causes stress as well.  As Lewis says, we find peace in surrender.  We find true confidence and joy in taking what is.  Our mind tells us we can do more, but the truth is, all we ever have is now.  Play the cards you’re dealt.

I’m a recovering control freak.  I know I will never let go of all my tendencies but I am working on one thing at a time.  I’m also focusing on the things I CAN control—and that shift has made a tremendous difference.  That perspective is also about what IS rather than what we want it to be or what we think it will be—or should be.  Addressing inner demons, taking a pause before responding, establishing firm boundaries, and sticking to goals are all things we can control.  Those are all decisions we can make.  You will find that the more you live in your own world versus the world of interpretation (or obligation or fear or anywhere but here) that you are much happier than believing you are happy pursuing something not meant for you or controlling something that you have no power over.  It’s in letting go of the search for happiness that we are able to find what truly makes us happy.

“Most people do not really want freedom because freedom involves responsibility and most people are frightened of responsibility,”  Michael Roddy.  I don’t completely agree with this statement, but at the same time, I am guilty of this.  I believe people really do want freedom, we just haven’t been taught what it entails in an honest fashion.  So many people’s stories from Bill Gates to Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs have been romanticized to the point where people believe there will always be one magic moment where things take off and their lives change.  Yes, there can always be that one thing that completely changes the game, but we look at the work as an endpoint.  Meaning we have been trained to believe that there is a finite amount of time that really hard work needs to be done (long hours, long weeks, etc.) and then it changes.  We aren’t trained to understand it never stops.

The other idea that is romanticized is the ultimate passion project.  For Gates, Bezos, and Jobs in particular, their lives revolved around a central project for years upon years until they garnered enough funds to branch out, and even then, they still had their one main focus.  The consuming nature of a passion is glossed over.  To be clear, I am NOT saying passion is bad, I am saying we aren’t taught what passion really entails.  When you have a real driver, your live gets very clear but it also gets very singular for a time.  There isn’t much else that you focus on. 

The part I agree with is that people are afraid of responsibility.  For myself, I know making decisions weighed heavily on me for a very long time.  I couldn’t take the pressure of not knowing what my decisions would yield down the road, whether they were “right” or not.  So I stopped making my own decisions.  It was easy to let people decide for me.  But it made me miserable.  I started to feel like nothing was in my control.

Freedom takes work.  I wrote the other day about the effort it takes to live the languid lifestyle.  In order to be able to call the shots or do what we want we have to decide what we want and we have to do what it takes to get there.  It is terrifying.  Suddenly the results are yours.  Everything that happens, or might happen, comes down to your decisions.  It is a heavy burden.  So you have to choose what burden you want to take on.  What is your goal?  What are you willing to do to achieve it?  What is really worth it to you?  Getting clear on what you want is the first step.  Maybe all you need is a few weeks to yourself a year for a nice vacation.  Maybe you want to build an empire.  Both are your decision but both require different work. 

Speaking from experience, it isn’t necessarily the responsibility I feared, it was failure.  It was the feeling of wanting something so badly and not getting it after putting in the work.  It was not knowing if I would be able to be consistent enough to maintain the work through the ups and downs.  In short, it was having little faith in myself.  I know I want freedom, I just don’t want to make the error that would put be farther behind, hoping for that moment where everything changes.  I agree with Roddy but I think it depends on the motivation.  I wanted the guarantee of success before moving—which got me nowhere.  But my lack of initiative had nothing to do with not wanting responsibility, it had to do with making sure I took on the right responsibility. 

I’ve learned that it’s really about putting aside fears.  It’s about garnering faith and taking on the responsibility that aligns with our path instead of taking on what we think will give us the ultimate success.  We all want meaningful work.  We want a meaningful life—and we can have that if we don’t get distracted by what we think we should have.  I want responsibility because I want to create a life I enjoy.  I want to take on the things I enjoy because I enjoy doing them. That is key.  Do it for the joy of doing it and the rest falls into place. You may surprise yourself with what you can do, and with what you want to do.

“Don’t let the fear of what could happen make nothing happen,”  Gabby Bernstein.  Looking through my old journals as I’m cleaning up the house and I am taken back years, transported to my late teens, early twenties, mid twenties, and my early thirties.  I skipped the late twenties and I honestly don’t remember a lot of what I went through from 25 to 30.  My skin crawls as I read the words repeated like a cycle, over and over, from year to year, wanting to change, starting to change, allowing myself to be derailed, sinking into some mental funk I can’t quite place, hating myself, and then trying to change again on the next venture that seemed like a good idea.

I noticed another pattern as well—I would allow myself to only get so close to a goal.  Each time was a bit closer, but I never allowed myself to really see things through to the end result.  I jumped from thing to thing whether it was a new job or a new hobby without putting in much thought, I just knew I needed something different.  Naturally when no thought went into it, the results were nil.  I feel so much disappointment in myself and realize how much time I wasted.  I allow myself to feel overwhelm at the slightest inconvenience and I have repeated it for years. 

I guess on some level I should feel grateful because I can at least recognize the pattern.  As I’ve been addressing the things that I need to, seeing how I’ve held myself back has been cathartic and painful.  It’s cathartic because I know I’ve done it to myself and I can change that moving forward.  I can make a conscious effort to change and do things differently.  It’s painful because I know I’ve done it to myself and it’s really hard to not feel regret over time I’ve wasted for no reason.  I am working on strengthening my faith to trust that divine timing is real and that everything happens for a reason—which would mean that all of my self-imposed delays were for a reason as well—but I’m struggling to reconcile my inaction with purpose.

As timing WOULD have it, I came across this quote which I have to take as some sort of synchronicity.  Bernstein cut right to the point of what I was doing:  I was afraid of what would happen (or wouldn’t happen) and I stopped living.  I started living the same day on repeat and I did it for over a decade, hiding behind the minor wins and helping others so I wouldn’t have to focus on my own issues or make a decision about what I wanted to do.  I didn’t know how to take responsibility for what I wanted and I let the fear of a non-existent failure lead me directly to failure because I never even tried.

The last year has brought about changes and I’m no longer able to hide behind what I’ve always done.  Honestly, I no longer want to.  I no longer want to pretend that what I’ve been doing is living.  I want to let go of my death grip on life and let it flow.  I want to see what is in store for me and I want to learn to enjoy my life before I have no life left.  Time is so fleeting and I learned that when I had my son, and then he is suddenly four years old, and then the world shut down, and suddenly another year has passed and when I wake up and it’s another Monday and then it’s Friday and I’m still wishing to do what I want to do.  And then I find an old journal and I see I’ve been asking for the same thing for so long as I speak to you about taking action. 

Please don’t misunderstand, I am proud of the action I have taken because I’ve had immense growth in the last year.  But I see how much more I need to do.  Even as I type those words I know I’ve spoken them before as well.  But they hold a different meaning this time because time holds a different meaning.  Life is meant to be enjoyed, not endured.  Experienced, not feared.  And it can be whatever we want it to be.  In spite of my inaction to the contrary, I truly believe that.  Even if it’s sparking the light in others, that is an action to make the world a better place.  For me I want to see this world differently.  Release the weight and enjoy again and see the steps as they come.  And I’m ready to release the fear and take those steps.

“Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you have to do it,” Victoria Labalme.  We are taught that anything we are innately good at needs to be what we do with our lives as long as it is within the prescribed safe venture zone.  People suffocate under the weight of what they should do and they feel if they get some semblance of certainty and safety in their lives they need to do that.  They repeat the same day over and over for years and call it a life only to wake up and realize that 90% of what they did with their life was not their own.

We are obligated to do nothing other than to fulfill our purpose.  I didn’t say society’s definition of purpose—I said our purpose.  We’ve trained people to go along with the program and we still force it to some degree even seeing the cracks in the system.  Hell, even seeing the blatant flaws in the system we cling to it because it’s familiar.  It’s amazing how we will suffocate in the illusion of security but we will shrink away from the things that give ups true freedom.  I include myself in that as well. 

I was really good at doing what I was told for a long time.  I did really well in school.  I mentioned just the other day that I was quite adept at taking in facts and regurgitating them.  Where did that get me?  Was I going to be a professional student the rest of my life?  Was my job going to consist of sitting at desks and taking tests all day?  No.  And that is where I failed.  I lost the ability to generate unique thought for a long time.  I realized I wasn’t good at anything because I never spent the time honing my own craft or listening to my own ideas because I thought there was some endpoint, some master test where I would be granted what I needed.  If someone didn’t tell me what to do I didn’t know which way to go.  I thought someone would magically tell me which awesome and fun thing I was meant to do all day.

I repeated this pattern for over a decade in my job in records.  My days consisted of filing documents where they needed to be and I was incredible at it.  I worked my way up from a tech to a lead and I knew the ins and outs of every document in the hospital.  But I was bored.  There was no where else to go because my boss had me to do everything for him so he was comfy in his position.  It certainly wasn’t fulfilling.  I could have easily stayed there for 30 years repeating the same thing every day, getting by, taking the occasional vacation but that would have been stifling to the point of death.  I wanted to live. 

Being good at something doesn’t mean it’s for you.  Knowing how to take a test does not a future make.  Filing papers all day gets the job done but it isn’t the spark in life.  You can be good at a multitude of things but if the work doesn’t call to you you’re wasting your time.  Reserve the right to change your mind at any time.  If it isn’t working try a different avenue.  But don’t repeat the same thing over and over again until it’s too late.  Take the chance on something you love rather than waste your time in perceived security with something that’s just ok.  Life is a gift and we can make it a magical experience.  We are meant to feel the magic and we have to remember that sometimes, in order to feel the magic we have to create it. 

Anxiety runs through my veins and my shoulders tense up as I take in the disaster that is my home.  Clutter litters every surface and it feels like I’m moving pile to pile achieving nothing.  There is no dent in this mountain.  I briefly consider torching it all but that wouldn’t solve the problem.  The clutter is a manifestation of the real issue in my brain: I’m unfulfilled and lonely and lazy.  I’m skilled at hiding behind things to make it look like I’m accomplished but I can barely keep up with the things I’ve accumulated in my life.  Instead of bringing me joy, I feel buried under the weight. 

I tackle cleaning the litter box and it hits me that I’ve spent my life believing it was meant to be easy.  I never put any thought into the fact that creating an “easy” life is work.  I relished in the languid days of waking up and taking a walk or some other exercise, getting some work done, eating, then being able to read a book or do whatever else I wanted to do.  I wanted my hours to be mine to waste away.  And it never hit me that that’s all I was doing—wasting away the hours.

Now I’m fixing up the house and the overwhelm of the burdens I’ve created hits me and for a moment I feel no way out.  I see I’ve been holding onto useless junk as a memento of moments I wanted to relive over and over again for fear I may never experience it again.  And it hits me again that I’ve been doing it wrong.  I’ve been holding onto trash for fear I would forget when I had the memory available to me all the time.  There comes a point where the mind needs to clear—and so does the space—otherwise there is no room for anything new.  That is when you stagnate.    

I experienced a lot of loss at a young age so I spent a lifetime trying to create security with the illusion that things never go away if you take care of them.  All it did was keep me stuck.  Life isn’t meant to be the same.  We are meant to experience the highs and lows as a means of creating value to the days we live.  It took me a really long time to even consider that life isn’t meant to be easy.  Easy is nice but it isn’t real.  We aren’t meant to bury ourselves in things of days passed.  I spent a lot of time trying to recreate the memory and the feeling of my childhood because, for me, it was an easier time.  In spite of the losses, I was well cared for.

I wanted to relive that over and over again and to create those experiences for my child as well.  In order to get that, I need to accept that it is work to make an easy life.  There is no room for laziness in going after the things you want.  And that isn’t a bad thing.  It’s far easier and more productive creating a life you want than it is to try and relive the past.  With that being said, I’m committing to letting go of the things that no longer build the life I’m working for.  I still want those moments of languidness but I can accept the work that’s involved.  I can also accept that it’s time for new memories and it’s time to let go. 

The first step was recognizing that I no longer want to feel this way and the second step is admitting the cause: my own insecurities and fears holding onto crap is NOT healthy.  So the last step is letting go.  It’s eliminating the distractions and honing in on what I really need.  I needed to learn to honor my experiences and I had to learn to accept my experiences for what they were, not what I wanted them to be.  I can love what happened and I can learn from what happened, but I can no longer hold onto what happened.  So, with ultimate bravery, I grab the garbage bags and tackle the first pile.  

“Stop leaving and you will arrive.  Stop searching and you will see.  Stop running away and you will be found,” Lao Tzu.  I leave all the time.  I’ve never allowed myself the experience of being truly present.  I’m also constantly searching for something that will tell me who I am.  I adore reading and I’ve been going through a kick of teaching myself how to get in touch with who I am.  I’ve bought a ton of books and I may not even get to them.  But it’s a security thing—I have them and I can teach myself how to “get better.”  I’m missing the key component of actually applying what I’m looking at.  I can’t say whether or not an idea or concept is really working because I flit so quickly from concept to concept.  I want to get better, but I rarely have the patience to see it through. 

It’s uncomfortable to sit with the truth of who I am because I’ve lived my life looking for other people’s approval.  It’s easy to hide behind doing what people tell you to or to adapt to who is around you.  It’s far more difficult to stand firmly in what you believe in, to stand in your own identity.  Being a chameleon has it’s benefits, yes; being adaptable to the group you’re with, learning new things, seeing multiple points of view and understanding them are all valuable qualities.  But it’s lonely taking on the traits of those you surround yourself with because they aren’t yours.  I’ve been the chameleon my whole life.  I’ve had some fabulous experiences and I’ve met amazing people—but I was never fully engaged in what I was doing. 

I moved from group to group, always looking for a way to fulfill my need to be accepted.  I never bothered asking what others needed or what value I could bring to the table—I just wanted to be a part of something that would have me.  I was a selfish child, maybe a bit entitled, and I was terrified of being left out.  Like every teenager trying to prove how hard it is, I pushed away all the people who genuinely accepted me.  The ones who really knew me.  I isolated myself and then cried victim.  Not that this story is unique, just that I know I carried some of those traits with me into adulthood. 

Now I know it’s time to let go of fear and do the work.  More importantly, it’s time to apply the work instead of hopping from one idea to the next without seeing it through to completion or giving it the chance to succeed.  We will all die and there is no time like the present to do what feels right to you.  I’ve been running and searching and looking everywhere but inside to find my authentic self.  I mean, I’ve touched on that person but I haven’t fully integrated her yet.  It’s time to ask what I’m really bringing to the table. 

Today I am grateful for a truly beautiful start to the day.  I woke up to the cats milling about and the dog obsessively licking herself and I rolled over thinking I would have some time to stretch and wake myself up.  I was planning on getting work done and starting to clean up the house after I fed the animals.  Then my son woke up.  His little face popped up at the end of the bed and I knew none of that would get done.  For whatever reason, I didn’t freak out and I told him to climb up in bed with us and he was so happy.  I realized that my little boy is now four years old and someday that type of Sunday won’t happen.  It felt totally calm as he laid down with us and knew that I was meant to spend that time with him.

Today I am grateful for a truly relaxing weekend with my family.  We’ve been doing so much work around the house it was nice to take a day off and have fun—it’s been a really long time since we’ve had fun with each other, especially after the last few months of loss and illness.  We spent Saturday outside in the beautiful weather, playing on the scooter, laughing, feeling the wind, feeling life again.  My son had a blast learning how to ride his scooter and I had so much fun falling over and over, feeling my body move again.  The human spirit is resilient and moving my body connected me to the moment, exactly where I needed to be.   

Today I am grateful for the work I’ve done.  I am seeing results in my life.  The main thing is that I’m feeling more and more like me.  It feels like I’m stepping more and more into myself, like I’m waking up from a really long sleep.  It’s a little disorienting, but I feel the more I step into my authenticity the more I feel alive.  It is a slowing of the mind and a quickening of actions aligned with who I am.  I’m excited to see what else is in store and what else I can co-create, but for now, I feel amazing recognizing that I’m progressing and that I’m shedding the layers I’ve created over the years.

Today I am grateful to be moving forward.  We are moving on to the next chapter of our lives and we aren’t holding back.  We are awake and taking these steps consciously and purposefully.  Yes, it’s still scary and I have moments of worrying that it won’t work out but I am telling myself repeatedly that what is meant for me is coming my way—and I take the next step.  I know it’s time in my life to go on to the next thing and to create the life I really want.  It’s time to release all of the things and fears I’ve been holding onto like a crutch because they were familiar and it’s time to embrace the unknown. And for the first time, I feel ready.

Today I am grateful for a sense of peace.  The day started with one of those fleeting moments of happiness, and I do not take that for granted.  There were a few moments of tension today and we were able to take our breath and work through it.  Not once did it feel like the world was falling apart or like we had to be doing something else.  We were totally present and with each other.  We were up so early this morning that we had a really early lunch.  We just got up and went instead of waiting for the “right” time.  I know that seems little but that is a big thing for us.  We finished up some of the work we wanted to do and then we napped.  We’ve been doing that a lot lately—listening to our bodies and working as much as we can and then slowing down as needed.  It feels good.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“Fear: who am I to do this?  Love: Who are you not to?” Gabby Bernstein.  The beginning of any venture is often met with fear.  For me, it’s fear of failure, imposter syndrome, and even fear of success.  I tear myself up with the ideas of spending time on something only to have it fall apart, or worse yet, never really come together.  I fear that people will see through me, like I’m not really meant to be there in the first place.  And, yes, I fear succeeding.  I fear that I won’t be able to maintain the same level of success once I achieve it. 

I logically know that success or failure are moot points—we are meant to have the experience to get us to our purpose.  So what am I really afraid of?  Maybe it’s what people think of me, of my work, of my experience.  What if I don’t present the perfect life?!  There is no perfection—again, I logically know that, but I fight for it to find worth in myself.  It’s so easy to forget we are inherently worthy.  We let life get in the way and we assign value to how we’ve behaved in our given experiences and we label ourselves “good” or “bad” depending on what we’ve been trained to believe.  THAT is where I lost my self-worth.

From a young age my worth was tied to everything external.  My grades were the indicator of how well I was doing.  When I struggled with a class in junior high, my world started to fall apart.  I see how ridiculous that is, but it is the perfect example of why we DON’T tie our worth to something we have little control over.  We all have strengths and weaknesses, and I was taught to hide those weaknesses.  The reality is that a grade is the most arbitrary indicator of who we are and has no real weight in life.  I spent the majority of my education simply puking back facts to get a good grade and that was no real measure of success.  In fact, it kept me stuck because it started the cycle of proving that I could do something instead of teaching me to make something of my own.

We are meant to create.  We are meant to express life in all the ways I can be.  Fear served a purpose at one point and honest fear still serves the purpose of keeping us alive.  But self-imposed societal fear means nothing.  We are here for a blip in time and there is no reason why we should not express ourselves to the fullest.  There is no reason why we shouldn’t love life and experience the things we want to.  The universe is a really big place and so much of what we do has so little consequence in the end.  Man started telling stories of a heaven and a hell disguised as a moral barometer when it really was designed to keep people in line.  I’m not saying that we shouldn’t treat people well or that we should forgo all social niceties—but I AM saying that we need to realize that it doesn’t matter what kind of fork we use to eat a salad. 

Everyone has an opinion but that is all it is: an opinion.  The important thing is our integrity.  Martha Beck talks about integrity not as a moralizing word but as a structure in our lives.  When we live our lives in integrity, we are in tact and living in our authenticity.  That is how we know what matters to us.  And the truth is, fear has no place there.  Often times fear won’t even show itself when we are living our truth.  So it doesn’t matter as long as we aren’t hurting people or the Earth—do what works for you.  Fear is a liar and the last indicator of what we should or shouldn’t do.  So take the leap.

In another show of synchronicity, I came across this today: “People tend to feel stuck and stifled when they’re not expressing the fullness of who they really are,” Marie Forleo.  I’d like to add that people also feel lost when they aren’t expressing who they really are.  So maybe the anger I’ve been feeling really wasn’t anger—it was feeling stifled.  It feels like you’re always looking for something, like what you have isn’t complete.  So you look for external validation or external things to make you feel better.  We are trained to ignore everything inside of us that tells us who we are—the answers are all there just waiting for us to acknowledge them.  But we tell ourselves, we tell our children repeatedly, “You want X, you should be Y, you can’t be happy without Z, It’s supposed to be A,” and that is the mindset that we perpetuate.  Then we get older and we look around and we feel a certain emptiness.  It’s the emptiness that comes from time passed that we wish we had spent better than we did.  It’s the missed opportunity or the frustration that what we were supposed to do didn’t bring us what we want.

When it comes to our likes and dislikes and how our brains function, we are different.  I’m not talking on the biological level where we are essentially the same thing (except for maybe the combination of hormones and other triggers we have).  I’m talking about the parts of us that make us who we are.  THAT is where we are different.  It doesn’t stand to reason that the same path is going to make every person happy.  It isn’t statistically possible for everyone to enjoy the same thing.  So why do we continue to push the belief that we need the same things to be happy?  We need to teach introspection and how to get in touch with those pieces of ourselves that we are told to ignore.  We need to stop raising robots and accept that we are raising humans.  Perfectly flawed, thinking, breathing beings who are capable of anything if we get them out of the box.

I’ve said before that the box is what kills us but we forget that we created the box ourselves.  That means we can destroy it as well.  It’s a matter of getting past the fear of what life looks like when you realize you want something different.  It’s getting past the internal conversation between heart and brain that says, “Hey this really feels good,” “No, that won’t get you what you should have.” “Oh, you’re right, that must not be for me.”  REPEAT. 

Destroying the box can look like leaving work on time every day.  It can look like turning off the TV (or not even turning it on) so you can read.  It can look like going for a run.  It can look like signing up for that class you wanted to take.  It can look like anything that answers that little voice in your head that tells you to go for it.  The only reason we started telling people what to do is so it would serve the purpose of fulfilling the system.  There was a time that was mutually beneficial (you know, after the industrial revolution and the implementation of fair hours—haha).  But the longer that went on, the more we evolved, the more connected we became to the world, we started to wake up and realize we were looking for more.  That we needed more.  

We are blessed to be given internal cues that tell us what is for us.  THAT is what we need to sit with.  That is what we need to learn to listen to.  That is what we have to stop fearing in ourselves and others.  There was a time when different meant dangerous but we are not there anymore.  With a little shift in perspective, those differences become advantageous.  I’m reading a book by Mark Manson and he states that we aren’t all special at everything but we can be special at something.  Those are the things we need to learn to focus on.  It isn’t about being the best at everything because that makes us mediocre and miserable.  It’s about diving into the things that drive us and make us whole. 

I had a great example of this:  I saw my boss interacting with a customer the other day and it hit me: she is SO good at her job.  She loves her work and she knows what she is doing—because she loves it and invested the time in it.  I found myself thinking, “Wow, that’s what it looks like to love what you do.”  And I realized, I don’t want to be her (not that I don’t like what I do—and not that she isn’t incredible) but I want to have that feeling of loving what I do.  I want that passion.  I want to feel joy in the work I do where it doesn’t feel like work.  The best part of that: we can ALL have that feeling.  Not that everything wouldn’t look incredibly different and not that it wouldn’t take a lot of work to shift that perspective, but it’s doable.  In fact, that is what the world is crying for now—passionate people who are awake who can bring something new to the table.  I know I’m in.