Today I am grateful for reminders of balance of the human ego.  It’s been a tough week in the family as we’ve been navigating multiple health issues.  We’re trying to deal with these things miles apart and with varied degrees of strain in our relationships with specific members of our family, each of us learning to assume a role.  It hit me that ego can be the death of us in so many ways.  For the sake of proving she’s “worth it,” one would rather literally bankrupt another for the sake of proving their value—or reminding this person of their value.  So to get the attention you’ve been wanting, you’re willing to destroy your own future?  Seeing that put it in perspective how ridiculous the human ego can be for the sake of validating ourselves and proving we’re right.  I realized that’s not a battle I care to fight personally and I certainly can’t fight that for someone else.  I’m grateful for the reminder because I’ve felt myself get to that edge many times, looking for someone to tell me how worthy I am and how willing they are to sacrifice for me.  I wanted to see their actions match what I’d done for them…and it was a total waste of time.  I’m glad it’s been a long time since I’ve felt the need to do that, but I know where that urge comes from.  I’m grateful for the reminders to keep that in check.     

Today I am grateful for reminders about boundaries.  I’m increasingly aware of my inability to do it all.  I had a habit of taking the reins without letting anyone know because it was easier to do it and it made me feel like if I could carry the burden for others, perhaps they’d appreciate it.  In some cases they did, in others they felt like I was just trying to be controlling. But I realized in all the running around, in prioritizing my family (because I have a younger child), that I can’t nor do I want to continue to do it all on my own.  I can play my part and we can divide the work in a way that won’t drive us crazy.  We still need to do a better job of communicating what needs to be done but the act of dividing the work made it all the more tolerable to deal with.  It made me appreciate my own limits and the realization of what I did and didn’t want to (or was able) deal with.  It’s ok to have limits, even when it comes to helping.  Perhaps it’s most important when it comes to helping. 

Today I am grateful for sorting out and clarifying priorities.  These last few months have flown by (most of this year has flown by if I’m honest) and it put me in a position of total overwhelm.  Things started to come faster and faster and I wasn’t sure how to keep up.  I wasn’t sure how I found myself at this time of year already.  In all the chaos of transition this year, even with being sick, I still managed to get the house ready for the holidays.  Now with circumstances being what they are, we’re not able to host the holidays here.  My ego, heart, and soul went through some stages of grief with that, however, it has shown me something: time doesn’t have control over us if we don’t let it.  This year wound up like a freight train gathering speed and pulling me along with it because of all the things I wanted to do—and forced myself to do.  I have this cycle where there are years I feel like I’m totally on it, a powerhouse that can’t be stopped, and then there are times like this where I can barely remember to put the dishes away.  I’m tired of allowing outside circumstances dictate and distract and even derail the overall goals I’ve had.  So, I’ve realized that my energy needs to be more carefully and purposefully managed.  If I don’t want time to get away from me, I need to pay attention to what I’m doing and stick with what I have laid out as the goal.  And don’t misunderstand, I love the holidays and I would have decorated regardless, however, feeling like I did this year, I likely would have toned it down a bit and expected others to be ok with that.  It made me realize that certain messages I have aren’t received the way I intend them so it’s best to focus on what I need to do and let people do what they need to.  With that shift in focus and priority, I feel like I will stay on track in the game.

Today I am grateful for moving forward.  This was such an interesting year for me—and I will review that more as I get to the end of year stuff.  I truly have so much to be grateful for and I’m working diligently to keep that at the center of my focus.  There was a lot to celebrate.  I’ve also realized that I don’t always deal with transition very well and I have some things to work on there.  With all of that being said, this year was a MAJOR shift for me in so many ways—professionally with changing careers, personally with different relationships (familial, friendship, romantic), and inner-personally with dealing with mid-life and the reality of who I am, what I’ve done, and what I still want to do.  In order to move forward, we all have to learn to adapt to change.  Even change we ask for.  I had longed for the moment my life would look closer to what it does right now.  It took me longer to acclimate to the reality of it than I thought (especially after playing it out in my head for so long) but with those changes came the reminder that sometimes the things we want impact us in ways we didn’t see coming.  There are challenges even in the good, even in the things we ask for.  As I said above there were moments that felt like they blindsided me and moments I felt on top of my game.  That’s life.  But now I know that in order to move forward we have to be fully committed and fully on that train.  It’s time to purge again.  It’s time to get really honest about a plan forward.  I see the goal, I see the vision of the end goal but it’s time to shed the extra pieces I’ve been carrying under the guise of “What if.”  It’s time to stop preparing for every inevitability in life and start preparing for what’s needed to achieve the goals.  It’s time to focus on what’s wanted and take steps in that direction and leave the rest behind.  THAT is moving forward.

Today I am grateful for courage.  In spite of feeling weak in the past year due to changes in friendships and other relationships, I’ve found strength to move forward in ways I didn’t know I had.  I made choices to change the overall trajectory of what life looks like for me because I wanted something more conducive to the big picture.  It was scary and it created a stir in my routine and habits and it didn’t go exactly as I anticipated but I kept moving forward.  Change, even desired change, takes courage.  With all the stressors, both internal and external over the last few weeks/months, I’ve seen over and over again that change takes courage, clarity, and confidence.  Even desired change can be challenging.  Change means letting go of the familiar in favor of something new even if we don’t see all the nuances of what’s new and what’s to come.  We are fast approaching 2026 and I am determined to not get sidelined or sideswiped or dragged along by anything this year.  This is about eyes on the prize and clarity.  This is about gratitude for how far we’ve come and our willingness (my willingness) to continue to move forward no matter what it looks like. This is about a new degree/level of balance and focus.  I’m not saying it will be easy and I’m well aware that not everything goes to plan.  But moving forward knowing the plan will at least give us a course to stay on.  I’m truly ready to move forward.  I’m ready to leave behind the things the universe is telling me to leave.  I’m ready to let go of the idea of potential or the nostalgia of what was in favor of the effort to be who I’m meant to be.  Picking up the full mantle of who we are is one of the most courageous things we can do.  In these last few weeks of this year, I’m making peace with those pieces of the past that still linger and I’m preparing for the move forward.  That is one of the biggest leaps I can take and I’m grateful for it. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.    

I’m not sure where the sense of needing to be the best, needing to be responsible for it all, needing to ALWAYS get it right, needing to do everything alone, needing to do it ALL comes from.  WE can talk about pressures and distraction and how everyone is “on” all the time.  We can talk about how connected everyone is even though we’ve never been more disconnected from ourselves.  We can talk about survival and worth.  The thing is there has always been something innately in the human animal that makes us strive to be on top. Of course there’s the survival mechanism, that’s obvious, but this is more than that.  We set expectations on ourselves that no one could possibly attain and we get angry at ourselves if we don’t make it.  We act as if we are some all powerful being who should be above any type of human limitation.  I’m not talking fantasy world, I’m talking about the expectation that our calendars are filled and we somehow have to balance our schedule with our family’s lives all while looking cool, calm, collected, and leaving the smallest carbon footprint with our homegrown organic food and meal prepping and working out every single day and running multiple businesses because a single 9-5 doesn’t support us any longer and if we take any time off we’re falling behind. 

I found myself churning through some pretty disparaging and mean thoughts with increased frequency lately because it felt like I couldn’t get through the day.  I couldn’t complete a single task that I wanted no to. I struggled to keep my word to myself even for the things I WANTED to do.  I looked at my schedule and saw that there were a lot of conflicting things, there were some vague notes about what I had to do, lists of what should be done with no real task assigned.  Life felt chaotic and I was trying to do everything at once to keep us afloat.  I could barely find time to clean the house let alone create this free-flowing success living the dream all the time where everything is in its place and everyone plays their role.  I found myself constantly repeating how I should be able to do this.  I was the one who said yes, I started all this, I agreed to it, I even wanted some of it.  But I had no thoughtful or meaningful plan for execution and no clear goal in sight.  I know that’s a problem, however, I convinced myself that I was on top of it all and I found ways to push through and get it all done even if it meant giving up my sanity and the actual goal.  Which I did give up.  I don’t know what made me think I could do more than the average person or that I needed to.  I mean, I have an idea but that’s an entirely different piece.  I cried out asking for help, begging for a way to keep everything afloat, to get to the next piece of dry ground, frustrated that I couldn’t seem to get it together. 

I heard something tell me to stop apologizing for being human.  Nothing, no higher being had asked me to do all these things.  No higher being, no other person had said I needed to do all the work I’ve been trying to do.  No one said that I needed to say yes to everything.  No one said I needed to do all that work as some sort of penance.  No one said I needed to be super human and do it all.  None of us are held accountable to being more than human.  I don’t know when our culture deemed being human and expressing our humanity was a weakness as if we needed to be extraordinary at everything we do in order to be worthy.  There are thousands of moments and opportunities throughout the day that show us what a gift it is to simply be alive.  We’re the ones who decided the way to find meaning in life was to constantly do something.  I fully agree that we all need a purpose—but our purpose isn’t to do everything or to fill every single moment with doing something.  We need to recognize that humanity is nothing to apologize for.  If we were created to be a certain way then that is all we need to be.  It serves better to do what we are meant to do well rather than stretch ourselves to the breaking point doing everything half-assed and overwhelmed.  There’s a lot of life to live and we can’t regret who we are because we miss the boat on an impossible standard.  We have nothing to apologize for in regards to our capacity.  Our best is enough.          

“It’s ok to have a season of separation,” Kevin Duong.  I would amend that to say a season of separation is necessary.  We have to extricate ourselves from whatever it is that holds us back, whatever it is that creates that feeling of constriction in our chest. Even if it’s from the people, habits, or things we know    I can talk about this in the context of a million things because it applies to a million things—a bad job, a negative mindset, a habit that doesn’t serve, the people who treat us poorly, distraction, whatever it is.  The question of what we may or may not need separation isn’t really optional.  We all carry baggage or SOMETHING we no longer need.  We need to ask why we’re holding onto it.   Truly, I know that we don’t always know what we’re holding onto.  That weights heavy on me near the holidays because my life shifts at that time of year: I want to make everyone happy.  I want to bring back the nostalgia and emotion and joy of what we all felt years ago.  I want to create magic.  But in holding on so tightly to what was, I eliminate what IS or what could be.  The old image I have in my mind is highly romanticized and I want to bring that back to those around me, those I love.  But I need to separate from the idea of bringing back old memories because I’ve learned that their memories aren’t the same as mine.  They feel differently than I do. 

I also understand that separation can be difficult because we are often taught to stick with something until we can’t.  It’s hard to let go of the familiar.  And truthfully sometimes we don’t even know what’s holding us back.  But I will say if we continually say yes to things we haven’t thought through or things that serve someone else’s goal and not ours, we will get buried.  If we constantly say no we will end up wiping out all of our opportunities.  That may be a habit we have to stop as well.  We need to recognize that we need something different. Knowing we need something different opens our eyes to the things we need to let go of.  Life can be heavy enough as it is.  We’ve designed so many systems that benefit a select few on the efforts of those we decide have to fall in line.  If life feels heavy like we’re buried then that’s a good indication there’s something we need to let go of.  People we know will balk at the change and wonder why we’re no longer playing the game the same way.  They will say we’re different.  To that we must say, “That’s the point.”  We will never get anything different if we’re always doing what we’ve always done.  We won’t change if we are constantly trying to live the same memories over and over again to capture feelings we thought were better than the present.  Try putting the burden down.  Try letting go of what we’re told we need to carry.  Separate from what we knew and see what we learn to welcome the new.  Sometimes all it takes is a little separation to get clarity.  We don’t need all we thought we did.  Welcome the separation to welcome what we’ve been waiting for.   

“A no changes nothing but a yes can change everything; No is only two letters, Yes is three–why are we afraid of hearing the smaller word? Here’s the thing, when someone says no, we have nothing to lose.  I’d be in the same exact position and situation and it’s even better because I have less stress from no longer thinking about it, I’ve removed that stress.  But if they say yes and become a director that can change your life.  We have nothing to lose with no except maybe pride or ego,” Marc Bernacchi.  I was listening to a conference the other day and this perspective on “no” came up.  When we put it in perspective, it is kind of ridiculous how we allow fear of hearing that word dictate our actions.  If we never take the chance then we will never have the opportunity whereas if we go for it and hear no, at least we opened a door or a potential door to something else.  I love the idea that “no” changes nothing.  In that regard it solidifies the idea that there’s no reason to NOT go for something, to not take the chance, to not give it a shot.  Worst case scenario, we end up where we are and in the best case, we end up where we’ve always wanted to be—or on that path.

Words are powerful and will form a pathway in our minds.  The words we repeat create the ideas and beliefs and systems and values we follow.  It’s important to keep perspective on our words and to remember that we are in control of the thoughts that go through our head.  The reasons we wouldn’t go for something are based on our beliefs in or abilities or what those around us think just as much as the things we’d take a chance on.  The perspective is always are.  Sure, there are scenarios we need to weigh to determine the best odds.  We have to know when there is risk involved and if the reward is worth it.  We also need to remember that there is no point in suffering over something that we have every bit of control over and if we continually build the anticipation, eventually that pressure will be too much.  So instead of thinking we need to know all the answers or that we need to know the outcome 20 steps from now, just ask ourselves what’s the worst that can happen from taking a chance right now.  Even if we don’t get exactly what we were hoping for, there is still a reward because we gain confidence to go for things that matter to us.  We learn to trust ourselves and our abilities and our beliefs and we learn to see possibilities others may not.

The point is this: it’s always up to us.  The actions we take are either bringing us closer to our goals or further from them.  The more we say no, the more doors we close to the potential paths that would lead to a desired outcome—or something even better.  There is a time and a place to say no, but if the goal is to create change or to spark some inspiration, then no isn’t going to get us there.  We have to say yes to the experiences we want and start saying no to what we don’t want.  And the truth is we so often put more pressure on ourselves because we think we have to have all the answers when sometimes the only way we find the answer is to go through it.  We deny ourselves that chance every time we say no.  So learn to take the chance on what we want in life.  It really does come down to this: we are often one decision away from changing our lives.  We are either staying the same or evolving and it’s always right at our fingertips.  You never know when inspiration will strike or when things will align just right and all the pieces come together exactly as we need.  So be clear on what we want and decide to go for it, decide to welcome it.  “No” may be what we know—but “yes” can be the beginning we’re looking for.   

Note, this isn’t mine but I don’t have an author to attribute it to.

REMEMBER:

What you do in private is seen in public

What you read is seen in how you speak

Who you spend time with is seen in your personality

What you eat is seen in your energy

You turn into who you are when no one is watching

When your habits change your whole life changes with them

“Silence isn’t empty.  It’s where your real clarity waits,” Uriel Maksumov. Silence scares me.  The brain is designed to protect and it is designed to take in input, process it, create understanding, elicit an action or response of some kind.  The brain is designed to move and is constantly trying to solve problems so to find answers in silence seems a bit counterintuitive.  Also, with the elevated frustrations over the last few days, asking for help into what feels like nothingness felt particularly futile. I could see where people feel the emptiness of it.  I mean, I hate having one sided conversations and I’m nervous in silence with others so I will always find something else to talk about.  I hate the awkwardness between topics where you’re trying to figure out what to say—I prefer to keep it going and learn now things.  I’m also an excited talker so when I have an idea I tend to just spit it out—it truly isn’t meant to be rude, I just love sharing ideas. At the same time I’m a proponent of listening to find the answers within and I’ve talked about that many times—but when you start to not hear the answers you’re looking for it can feel like there’s nothing there and the panic sets in so that makes it difficult to find quiet again.

I’ve had those moments of clarity where it felt like lightning striking and everything kind of just fell together as it should.  I’ve had the moments when I felt the tension leave my body because flow took over and I KNEW there was nothing to worry about, all was on track and exactly as it should be.  But I’ve had days when it felt like even opening the door was challenging, where the problems from yesterday were solved but now led to something else that I didn’t see coming.  I heard nothing in those moments.  I felt alone and confused in those moments.  And the truth is there were some of those moments that I never got the answers I was looking for.  Some days the noise is loud and we’re inundated with too much information and advice and talk we don’t need and others, even when we’re asking for help there’s just nothing.  The silence seems louder than anything as we wait to hear something back.  I’ve had to consider in those moments that there just might be something telling us to hold on, to dig deeper, to look at a different side of ourselves to find the answers we seek. Possibly cliché, I know.

We all experience times when we feel we fell short of something.  As suggested, introspection is an important part of finding the truth.  A few things—we are often far harsher on ourselves than anyone else and we think of ourselves far more often than anyone else.  So our opinion and mindset matter most because we spend the most time with ourselves.  We’re used to noise internally and externally and it can become addictive to the point where we can’t handle being quiet or slowing down.  Silence doesn’t have to be a scary thing.  We may not like what we hear but we will always find the truth, especially when we filter out all the noise and unnecessary crap.  We know far more than we give ourselves credit for and need to trust that what we intuit and understand is real.  Silence can lead to the realization that we are with the wrong group of people or that we are exactly where we need to be.  It can show us where we need to grow.  It brings out the things we didn’t want to talk about because it has a chance to surface when nothing else is around.  Face it and embrace it and block out everything else.  To learn more, to get more, to understand more, we need less.     

“The greatest breakthroughs whether in science, art, or personal growth often come in moments of stillness.  When the mind is quiet,” Uriel Maksumov. Along with the theme of quieting the mind and the benefits of slowing down is the idea of pressure.  Perhaps I’m sensitive to this topic because my mind is naturally loud and busy.  Throw in the daily responsibilities and daily distractions and my mind is never really settled.  I work on a schedule with tasks and demands, checking things off the list, and when anxiety sets in, I find other things to do.  As I’ve been working on transitioning to a more creative lifestyle, I’ve learned that I can’t checklist creativity, it doesn’t work like that.  Creativity doesn’t flow/turn on simply because it’s scheduled on the calendar.  Operating in both worlds is challenging because they conflict with each other and the timing of either doesn’t align.  I’ve noticed that in itself (the idea of putting restrictions on creativity) creates a lot of noise. 

How do we get new ideas if we demand them?  Creativity has curves and edges and doesn’t travel in a straight line—it’s rare that we would learn something new forcing that creative urge down the path we expect it to be on.  We have to let it guide us.  Creativity is a living thing and, like all living things, it doesn’t do well when it’s weighed down.  There’s a time for pressure as it develops strength and refines the idea but it can crack or break under constant or increased strain.  It’s like water through a hose—if we squeeze it the water will come out harder and faster.  If we squeeze it too hard, it will cut of the flow entirely, the idea being that when we release some pressure, things can flow better instead of constricting.  Pressure is noise and it prevents the spontaneous ideas and answers that may come when we are in flow. 

If we’re in need of a new idea, a revelation of sorts, a good method to encourage it is to work on something else.  Respect the boundary our creativity sets when it says we need to focus on something else.  This is different than distraction which are those things that stop us from doing the work we need to do.  Whether it’s guiding or quieting the mind, it requires discipline.  The point isn’t to focus on a specific new idea, rather to allow it happen naturally.  It’s often said you never know when inspiration may strike.  It’s in those moments when we aren’t desperately searching for an answer where the pieces can fall together and it all makes sense. We are the result of millennia of breakthroughs.  We’ve created new understanding and each new person is a chance to expand that even further.  We have to hear our purpose and what we are called to do in order to create—mindset is everything. Quiet the noise and let lightning strike. 

Today I am grateful for understanding the breakdown.  Much of my life has felt like trying to hold sand in my hands, trying to keep it all together while all the pieces fall from between my fingers, slipping away.  I tried to do so many things all at once, all over the place, totally unrelated but with the same goal in mind.  Essentially trying to ride both sides of the rail where it splits.  Truth be told I thought I was doing really well.  I thought I had it under control and thought as long as I took small steps through each process I wasn’t going to break, as if I could ease myself into stretching the miles between the goals.  I never learned my lesson and I certainly didn’t practice what I preached.  I continually said yes to everything, piling on and on to the load, and no one offered to help.  I mean, that’s fine in degree because I was the one who said yes, so I get it.  No one should have to commit to something they didn’t agree to.  But there was another weight that came with that pressure (self-induced or not) and that was loneliness.  The more I took on and the more people were involved, I had hoped that we’d be able to tackle somethings together but what ended up happening is people found a way to simply add their “things” to my pile and walk away without even looking back.  It wasn’t sustainable and the inevitable happened—I broke.  I broke over and over again, so stubborn where I would rebuild myself only to fall into the same habit.  But now there are some pieces that won’t go back together.  There are some pieces I don’t WANT to put back together.  And I’m still putting them together on my own.  Relationships aren’t about one person carrying the burden while the other gets whatever they want with no cares in the world.  Our job is to ease the pressure by approaching things together and it wasn’t until total breakdown that I looked at the relationships around me to discover the punching bag I allowed myself to be.  So for that particular breakdown I am grateful.  I was lonely with people and struggling to keep my head above water.  I’d rather be lonely and be able to save myself rather than stay in water where I will surely drown.  At least on my own I have a chance at survival and a chance to find the right people to reciprocate what I’m giving.     

Today I am grateful for persistence.  Look, I’m the first one to admit that I haven’t gotten as far as I want to when it comes to achieving my goals and I am 100% aware of my responsibility in that.  There is no reason or way to be a victim of circumstances we put ourselves in.  The point of this particular piece of gratitude is that no matter what has or hasn’t panned out in my life, no matter how many directions I’ve been pulled in, no matter how many times I’ve been turned around, there has always been a singular flame that still pushes me forward.  There is that constant ember that won’t die.  I have moments where I legitimately think that letting it go out would be the easiest thing to do—perhaps even the smartest.  I never do it.  There is some force within all of us that keeps us going.  It keeps us moving in those moments when we want to throw in the flag.  The beauty in persistence is that if we keep going, we keep possibility going and eventually we will find where we are headed and the directions all make sense even if we had to take a few detours.  So as they say, rest if you need, but don’t quit.  Persist.  Keep going.

Today I am grateful for growth.  Growth looks different for all of us and the ingredients necessary for growth are different for all of us. What motivates one may paralyze another.  What’s needed for one may not be needed by another.  We spend a lot of time avoiding certain things—the human brain is wired to protect itself and to take the path of least resistance so given the option to do what we know versus learn something that seems more challenging, we will choose to go with what we know every time.  Sometimes those things we avoid in life keep showing up until we have no choice BUT to face it and it’s interesting the impact that happens when we face those things we don’t want to.  Sometimes the biggest change is spurred by simply accepting reality.  That doesn’t mean we can‘t have an eye on the future—we need to have an eye on the future—but to get on the right path to where we need to go and sometimes to even find the path, we need to face what’s there.  Once I understood the differences in my experience versus other’s, it made me realize that even if we were at the same event, people can walk away with an entirely different lesson or outlook.  That’s their outlook and it isn’t up to us to make their lesson ours or make them see the experience through our lens.  Sometimes growth is a slow evolution and sometimes it happens in an instant.  Either way it changes everything.  We just need to open our eyes and see the light.     

Today I am grateful for coming into a beautiful season.  Even if this season means something different to those I love, it still means what it means to me. It’s still an important part of my life and holds a huge part of my heart. The memories I have from both sides of my family, the traditions as had in our own home growing up, the traditions I’ve started in my home with my son, it all means something very special to me.  It doesn’t have to mean the same thing to everyone else because it means so much to me.  My heart is full and I love sharing the love I have for this time of year with those I love.  It isn’t about how I feel necessarily—it’s about how it feels to share that with them.  This year looks different than it has before and it will continue to change as time moves on.  I have to accept that.  But I can still find my meaning and my joy in it and that isn’t contingent on anyone around me.  That’s on me and what matters to me.  I may have to change a few things moving forward and reprioritize but I don’t have to give up how I feel.

Today I am grateful for finding happy.  This has been one of those off putting roller coaster years in respect to what I planned and how I thought things would be turned out completely opposite.  It’s been disorienting on so many levels because what I had in mind didn’t come to pass and the effort I put in seemed to fall flat.  Plus I spent a majority of the year in mental chaos with all the work we’ve done around the house and the changes I’ve made in my 9-5.  I don’t regret any of it, it was all necessary and timely and it has proven to be what I needed on so many levels.  But it was the shedding of what I knew and we are in a very different place than we were before.  This coming year I want to focus on making sure those I love are secure and taken care of and that we have a set goal in mind for what we want to accomplish.  I want to make sure we know what we are doing and what we want moving forward—we need clarity.  We had a lot of hard lessons this year about those we can trust and who we should let into our lives moving forward and that isn’t something we are taking lightly.  There’s a lot we’ve had to recover from and we will need to keep that in mind.  Things change quickly and unpredictably at times and we will no longer build our plans on what others say we should be doing.  We tried to be accommodating and we ended up losing sight of who WE were and what we wanted for OUR family.  We almost let them convince us that we were wrong for protecting our family.  We will find our place and we will keep our goals prioritized with our vision on mind. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“The more you slow down, the more life starts to make sense,” Uriel Maksumov.  The ability to slow down is predicated on trust.  We slow down when we feel secure and safe enough to halt the rushing whether it is physically or mentally and that feeling of security comes when we trust our surroundings or our ability to navigate through whatever comes our way.  The more I dive into various aspects of my 9-5 as well as my personal work, I realize how crowded the mind becomes even when we have the best of intentions.  As we are in holiday mode from now until the New Year, there’s an additional layer of pressure and busy-ness on top of all the usual clutter and movement.  The truth is we can’t make sound decisions if we are navigating at top speed 24/7.  Cars aren’t designed to make a 90 degree turn at 80 miles an hour nor are they meant to do 30 miles an hour on the highway and we certainly can’t drive multiple cars at the same time—in any scenario someone is likely to end up very hurt.  We need to know how to maneuver each situation safely and we need to find the pace that either keeps up with traffic or that we can sustain and we certainly need to focus on the conditions in front of us.  It’s the same for our minds.

We are behind the wheel at all times when it comes to our minds and, like driving a car, we need determine the route we take and the speed and what we pay attention to.  We know we’re supposed to drive with hands-free devices and pay attention to the road yet people are behind the wheel with a phone in their hands responding to text messages while on a call and trying to hear the navigation while the radio is playing a crappy song so we’re trying to change the station/channel.  Just reading that back it sounds ridiculous yet this is how we operate EVERY DAY.  Driving 80 miles an hour (or more, be honest) while doing all these things at once.  We can praise our ability to muti-task all we want but at some point that isn’t sustainable and it is NEVER safe—PSA: STOP DOING THAT CRAP ON THE ROAD.  Just as we can make the choice to pay attention to the road, we can navigate our thoughts as well.  Our minds operating at top speed seem pretty good but unrestrained thoughts will simply fly through familiar neural pathways and the same old junk will repeat and continue to bring us to the same places with the same results over and over again.  In that regard it isn’t just feeling safe to slow down, sometimes we have to slow down TO be safe.

We’ve made busy-ness and distraction our safety net.  If we’re in constant motion we aren’t addressing anything beneath the need for activity—that root of pain or sadness is always there and will continue to fuel the need for distraction.  We keep up with the distraction for so long we either forget the root or why the root even bothered us and the speed becomes the new norm and we forget how to slow down.  Until we hit a wall and we either start burning the tires out or we simply are so exhausted we can’t start again.  When we’re young, we think we can handle it all—and the truth is we can process a greater variety of things at once when we’re younger.  But the more we push through life and take on new roles and responsibilities, we start to feel the sludge build up, the load is heavier and the transitions aren’t as smooth as they used to be.  We need to slow down so we can see the finer details and fully understand what we’re seeing and what we need to do.  It’s at that point we realize that the security and safety we feel comes from knowing what to do rather than how much we do.  Sure we can equate this to stopping and smelling the roses to see the richness of life—but it’s also about recognizing we brought ourselves to those flowers for a purpose in the first place.  We brought ourselves to a place where we could find peace and safety.  We learned that life comes at us at the pace we make it and we need to slow down to take in the richness it has to offer.

“Sit alone, you will hear every answer you’ve been looking for,” Uriel Maksumov.  How many of us are willing to sit with those alone feelings?  I know I hate them.  I constantly need something—in this moment I have 5 screens in front of me and music going while I type and monitor my 9-5.  I’m desperate for answers but I’m so anxious I can’t sit still long enough to hear them.  The answers are within but so often we don’t talk about the impact of the unexpected on the answers we expect.  What do we do when we’ve followed our intuition and somehow still end up falling flat on our face?  I’m one of the first to say get up and keep going to anyone else but when it comes to myself, my instinct gets rattled to the core.  Every mistake seems to be a crack in the foundation and the last thing I want to do is sit where I can hear everything breaking.  Or at least that’s my fear.  I’m also afraid I won’t hear anything.  I’m not sure which is worse to be honest—seeing the breakdown of what you know or finding out there is nothing to guide us anyway, not even ourselves.  The point is I know I’m not alone when I share that fear. 

With that being said, however, I will also admit the validity in sitting alone.  There are times we need to eliminate bits of what’s around us because we can’t process everything at once.  The more we simplify the easier it is to get a true read on the situation and to hear/feel/understand/intuit what needs to be done.  There comes a time when activity is just that: activity.  It isn’t serving any purpose other than creating movement and movement without purpose can cause destruction and chaos.  Think bull in a China shop.  To that end, learning to tame the beast is necessary. The skill of sitting and reacclimating to our own senses takes time especially when we’ve already trained ourselves to be so desensitized to the reality around us along with our own knowing.  Maksumov is right—the more we sit in silence we find the keys to what we’re looking for.  It doesn’t matter what it is.  And truthfully there may not be a huge breakthrough or any type of revelation needed—we may simply need some time for our minds to reset from all the chaos we put in there every day.

Sitting in silence is scary—as I said there may be a point when we aren’t sure if we hear everything we’ve done wrong and our being seems to be coming undone or if we hear nothing.  I guess if we hear nothing that may mean there’s nothing to be done in that moment, but that fear is that there isn’t anything to guide us.  If we can’t do it ourselves, then what?  The thing is I would never suggest this to anyone, so the question is why do I allow that thought to enter my own mind? That’s something I’d need to be willing to sit in silence with.  These have been a rough few months and I know I’m feeling the edge of some burnout so I’m not entirely in my normal mindset—that should be one of the greatest reasons to stop and sit in the quiet.  There are certain walls that will only break when we are willing to let them crumble instead of beating our heads against it.  Often times the answer is subtle and it’s only in the quiet with focused attention we’ll hear it.  So breathe, shut down the screens, learn to let go and just take in what needs to be heard.