I want to use the events of the past few days to acknowledge all of the people who showed up for me the past week. Sometimes life throws you a curve ball and it rocks the foundation of what you thought was very solid.  It leads you to have to examine parts of yourself you didn’t think you would need to.  Suddenly the parts you thought you made peace with and things you thought were acceptable, aren’t.  And at the most basic level, like in all of the pieces I’ve written here, people change.  We have to realize that as we recognize what doesn’t work for us any longer, there are things that will no longer work for the other person/other people either.  No one tells you about that flip side.  No one mentions that other people can outgrow you too.  Other people on their journey start having the same questions you do.  Now, I know this logically.  That doesn’t mean it isn’t a shock when you think you KNOW someone and they hit you with something.  It feels out of left field and it’s very isolating.  The cool thing about that part, however, is there are still those who love you as you are—all of you. 

We all have moments when we aren’t sure who will show up when we need them. We feel alone, we feel like we can’t reach out because people see us a certain way, we feel like we have to do it on our own.  Many of us people-pleasers do so much for so many that we never form a solid relationship because it’s all based on surface acknowledgement of doing something good.  Regardless, there are still those who surprise us, and even if we feel unappreciated about who we are, there are those who support us.  Just as I was feeling incredibly low around my circumstances and about myself and my identity, people showed up.  Every person I reached out to responded to me and showed up. People I didn’t reach out to intuitively knew something was up and they responded as well.  My friends, that is a BLESSING.  As challenging as what I’m going through is, knowing these people are actually there, understand, and have insight is a gift.  It’s an odd thing to be on the other side of the table receiving the advice.  Sometimes you don’t know you need it until you get it.  And boy, do I need it. 

When anything foundational changes in our lives, it feels like the world is turned upside down.  Finding center becomes really challenging.  It feels like the universe is against you and like the people around you aren’t the same.  And when people are in the process of undergoing their own change, you need to find out if that works with who you are.  You have to ask yourself where that comes from and figure out if it’s legitimate and if you want to continue on like that.  You have to let people be who they are and you have to figure out where you fit in with that new version—is it for you?  And honestly, the more important part is finding those who take you as you are.  That means doing what I’ve said all along: the work to be incredibly certain about who you are.  Sure, there are moments we all need to bend, but we can’t let others break us for their benefit.  There are times we may need other people to hold us together for a little big.  Show gratitude to those who are there, no questions asked, for those who hold space for you, and for those who understand. Learn from them.  Remember your worth.  Like I said, there are people who still love you as you are—make sure you’re one of them.

. In a second the world flips.  You think you know someone or where you stand and suddenly you find yourself alone.  You see someone who said they loved you become cold and find enjoyment in your pain.  You question your worth all over again.  You look at the events leading up to that moment and you see what you didn’t see before: there were signs.  Indications of things first not going well and then fizzling out.  Things not turning out how you thought they would.  No, this isn’t to say that any time something doesn’t go as planned it’s a disaster.  But it is clearly to say that there are moments when you fall that you have to reevaluate who you are.  The most painful part of this is when you see your part in it.  It’s when you acknowledge the pieces of you that need to change and adjust.

We are human and we all have moments of rock bottom.  Moments we don’t see coming until they are upon us and when we look at the depths of who we are.  Recognizing our contribution to each of those moments has taught me we can’t move forward until we see where we’ve contributed to our own downfall.  Now, like any human, none of us want to acknowledge where we caused our own pain.  After one of the most emotionally painful weeks of my life, I spoke with my mentor and she flipped my view on it’s head.  I never considered my reactions to someone ego.  Especially with concrete actions like someone saying they won’t spend money and then they do it behind your back.  In my brain, that was a justifiable thing to get pissed about because they actively did something that impacted me.  I felt those actions in my soul because I believed we were working toward a result together and I had a right to set boundaries.  But my mentor stopped it and framed it around control and I’m learning this is a fine line. 

We create expectations around someone’s actions because there is a real impact on our lives.  The bottom line is that we can’t control what they do.  No matter the agreement, the understanding, whatever it may be, the other person can always do what they want.  My mentor took it even deeper and asked the question about where my need for control came from. What issue of lack am I dealing with that makes me want to control.  Initially I bristled.  I mean, it’s common sense if someone does something to you, you’re allowed to react.  The question becomes do you need to?  Is the reaction based in something more deeply seated than the action of the other person?  And even if you’re right, the other person may not have the wherewithal to deep dive into themselves to see what caused them to do it in the first place.  All we can do is the work on ourselves. 

The work involved with self-care and self-awareness to promote growth can sometimes frankly suck.  My mentor asked me how long I had been doing this work and I made the comment that sometimes I ask if it’s even worth it because it’s painful.  She reframed that, too, stating growth is painful—that’s why they call it growing pains and that it’s always worth it.  She also shared with me that sometimes on our growth journey we trigger things in people around us.  We mirror what they need to work on in themselves.  They even tell us we’ve changed and incompatibilities surface.  I also know first hand when you’re not ready, the work won’t happen.  We avoid it.  It’s hard to go through the mud and take ownership of things you legitimately didn’t do, as well as the things you did.  Because the truth of growth is that we can only play the cards we are dealt and sometimes the mess we have to clean up isn’t ours.  We may not have caused it, but in order to move forward we need to take responsibility for it.  That doesn’t mean taking blame, but it means looking at the future and doing what you need to get there.  The wound will repeat until we heal it.  No matter how painful the beginning, we can heal it as long as we are willing to face it. Sometimes the most painful discussion is the one you have to have with yourself to accept the truth.

“[Using being busy] because you’re escaping from the pain of your full life being unexpressed,” Robin Sharma.  We use busy as a distraction to avoid the thought of a life we think we can’t have.  We have these feelings of things we want to do but we associate it with a fantasy because it doesn’t align with what we are told we have to do.  And then we feel pain because we know what we want to do but we don’t think it’s what we are supposed to do.  When we allow ourselves to become the fullest version of who we are, that pain goes away because we are honoring what is inside, honoring our knowing.  I have lived a totally unfocused life.  I thought I could do everything and I thought I was supposed to.  I believed I could control everything into submission and make it happen.  I mean, if you want something, you find a way to make it happen, right?  But I took on too much and it became a distraction.  We all do that at one time or another.

When we get honest about it, we know there is more to do, or rather something else we would rather do.  There is more that our inner knowing is telling us that we need to pursue.  If we don’t allow ourselves to become who we know we are meant to, then we spend much of our time in distraction.  Distraction isn’t just time behind a screen.  It’s time spent compulsively cleaning or organizing or constantly finding people to be around, or never being home, always having projects, working late.  I want us to consider for a moment that pain is a good thing in this circumstance.  At the very least pain shows us what isn’t working.  It whispers that something is wrong and it creates an awareness that we need to examine where that hurt comes from.  It’s only when we can identify the source that we can make alterations to our path.  Of course we can always choose to ignore and stay on the path we started, but the other option is to let all that go and take steps down a new route.

What happens when you put aside the business?  At the most basic level, space clears.  An opening forms where there wasn’t one and we see that maybe there is something else.  There are other ways to accomplish things and there may even be things that we don’t need to accomplish at all.  Imagine the time you create in your life when you simply do what calls you instead of what you obligated yourself to do.  Putting aside the business allows us to dig a bit deeper, examine our motivation and ask ourselves whether that is our motivation, what we were told to do, or a distraction. Time moves differently when we are in flow and when we are aligned so I’m not talking about five hours passing doing something you love.  I’m talking about constantly moving and filling every second of your day with something.  So when you let that go, what remains?  That’s the answer you’re looking for.

Take the chance to find the things you really want to do.  Take the time to invest in finding yourself and then take the time to express it every opportunity you have.  Be authentic and real and watch how all the other stuff just falls away.  Allow the extraneous to fall away and watch the light come in differently.  Let yourself see what your soul has been trying to tell you all along.  More importantly, respond to it.  Follow that and see what lies on the other side of the distraction you convinced yourself you need to do.  Allow yourself to be busy doing the things you love, the things you are meant to do.  You will definitely be busy but it won’t feel like it.  There’s a difference in productive, purposeful business versus distraction tactics.  Let the latter fall away.  Put aside the noise for a day and hear what the universe is telling you.

“Don’t let life fuck you up.  It’s yours to drive.  You’ve got to be happy on the way to being happy,” Jenifer Lewis.   A perfect echo to yesterday’s post regarding needing permission to live our lives how we see fit.  We are the driver of our lives and we become miserable when we let someone else take the wheel.  We need to be secure enough in ourselves to express who we are and to take control over what we want to create with our precious time here.  Of course that doesn’t mean it’s all peachy or easy along the way, but when you recognize the purpose of the path, it unfolds with ease. We see the steps and we experience the knowing of what we need to do. No, it doesn’t happen overnight.  There are a lot of twists and turns and bumps along the way, but when we find the path, our path, it doesn’t matter what comes.  We are prepared.

Now to the latter part of our opening quote about being happy on the way to being happy.  We need to put some context around this in the vein of expectations, faith, and aligning.  I actually believe we can live in a state of total happiness.  I feel we can allow ourselves to accept who we are and be comfortable being that person.  I have also learned that like attracts like so in order to find that degree/level of happiness, we need to learn to be happy where we are.  Again, that doesn’t mean we feel great about every little thing around us, but we have an acceptance of it.  I’ve learned that happiness comes in accepting who we are and where we are.  When we have that, we are able to keep perspective and make accurate decisions.  As I said above, as like attracts like, we learn to align and flow and we trust that all is as it should be without making it have to be something else.

Life get’s fucked up when we open the door to everything with no discretion.  That means people’s opinions, bad news, the tragedies as well as the triumphs and then we prioritize the negative of what we hear.  There is a lot wrong with the world.  I fully acknowledge this.  But as we are the cause, we are the answer.  I believe that answer comes in knowing who we are.  The world is hurting as much as we are and I mean that on an environmental as well as individual level.  We do our best when we focus on what is right for us and that means we are able to share our best with the world.  Don’t run from the pain of what has happened.  Sit with who we are and ask what we can do about it.  People blowing smoke and sharing their views on something that you hold the reins on isn’t where you want to be.  So focus on you because that sends out the most positive ripple into the world and encourages others to do the same.   

“Life is too short to waste time waiting for other people’s approval of how you live it,” Steve Maraboli.  We know what we need.  We are born with what we need.  We are born with the remembering of who we are supposed to be.  We know what we need to do.  But we are brainwashed into believing we can’t do those things or that it isn’t the right time/place/experience etc.  We are trained to believe that we need to fulfill some obligation to a system in order to be worthy.  The system takes precedence over our gifts.  We don’t need permission to be who we are—we are only told we do.  The more time we spend in other people’s approval is more time spend denying ourselves of joy and less time the world has to experience our gifts.  As children we innately rebel against our parents when they tell us what to do.  We know the feeling of freedom and we don’t allow ourselves to be held back.  Our fear gauge is non existent and we do it anyway.

That is the feeling I want us to remember when I talk about approval.  Is there anyone else who will pay your bills?  Is there anyone else who will buy you food?  Is there anyone else who will live the days you want to?  Provide fun/faith/fulfillment for you?  No.  The only person who can do that is you, and that is the only person who even knows what you actually want.  The longer we ignore that voice, the longer it takes to hear it again.  Some of us experience a silence of that voice when we trust other people over our own intuition and that takes even longer to hear what we are saying or even feeling.  Throw in a dash of anxiety or people pleasing (often included together) and it’s far easier to believe we need to trust the outside versus the inside.

There is one thing no one ever tells you about as a child—or it’s very rare if they do.  Regret. That feeling of wishing you had done something or that things had turned out a different way and knowing you can’t change it. The most common thing people regret when they are on their death bed are the things they didn’t do.  Right now a popular audio is going around Instagram about living a life where you’d rather say, “I can’t believe I did that instead of I wish I had done that.”  There’s only so much time we are gifted and it matters what we do with our time.  It matters that we can say we lived a life that fulfilled us, that fulfilled our purpose.  If you are lucky enough to recognize your purpose, that is the direction you must go.  If not, well, welcome and congratulations.  You are here to learn to dive into who you are and express that. It’s learning to let go of who you thought you had to be in favor of embracing and expressing who you are. 

Honestly, that’s the best advice I can give in this entire piece when it comes to understanding and undertaking this idea of living your life.  Express yourself and live your life exactly as you want to live it.  It’s yours to live.  Don’t expect those who have no stake in the game to call the shots.  Moreover, don’t allow them to.  Their goals are not yours and their decisions will not create the life you’re looking to live unless you’re in alignment with your soul group (which is a different conversation).  And as far as letting other people down, I’m learning the value in doing it every time that’s a choice.  Now, I’m not talking about leaving people in terrible predicaments and ignoring it, I’m talking about those who feel the need to express an opinion every time.  Those who live on the sidelines calling the shots thinking they’re directing the game.  No.  You just do you. The more comfortable you get with that, the easier it is to move on.  And that is the definition of living without approval.

I attended a leadership event this weekend hosted by my team with a couple as the keynote speaker.  They talked about the dance of conversation as it pertains to business and today I woke up to one of my inspirational leaders discussing the dance with the universe and life.  It goes both ways.  Sometimes you need to allow the message of the universe to simply flow through you.  You need to receive and then you need to act.  You need to put out the energy to the universe to receive.  Think and Grow Rich talks about the brain as a receiver and an energy emitter.  So discussing this dance of conversation and working with people as we learn to help them, it translates to the bigger picture of the dance with the universe and getting in touch with that universal flow.

My husband and I discussed some future plans this weekend and I saw him struggling with committing to what I was talking about in regards to our business.  I saw that it went further and that he was having trouble committing to a vision of what we are working toward.  It’s totally natural, I understood where he was at.  We’ve both struggled with believing what is possible and it makes it difficult to plan for something when you really don’t believe it can happen.  But what is key here is learning who you are and knowing how to express your gifts with others.  If we are going to be in flow, we need to be in frequency and that means knowing what we are emitting at all times.  It means knowing what we intend to emit and what we intend to receive and how we intend to use it for the good of all involved. 

I’ve been gifted with many synchronicities over the last few months and I am guilty of not following them as I should have.  I’ve taken steps, I never outright ignored them.  But I am guilty of not diving in whole-heartedly.  I’m still not willing to disappoint people and I still fear that I will lose my ground/security if I don’t do as I’m told.  But I know that if there are this many signs and they are still coming even after expressing fear, then this is the path I’m meant to follow.  I know that I am dancing with the universe and at this point it’s just practicing the steps.  It’s learning to allow and flow while harnessing the power of the gift I have been granted.

“She survived because the fire inside of her burned brighter than the fire around her,” anonymous.  I love this quote in the context of both being the light and allowing our energy/purpose to burn away what no longer serves.  Echoing becoming a beacon of light for others, I’m using this quote to suggest we learn to follow our own light and become so strong that one day we hold that light and then stronger still to emanate that light from our being.  If you have any belief in vibration, frequency, sacred geometry or the like, this is where it begins.  As we turn away from the things that bring us pain and toward the things that bring us joy, we get in touch with our natural vibration and that expresses as light.  When we vibrate at a low energy frequency, we are dim, literally and figuratively.  We need to remember to harness the universal power we were given and brought into this world holding. 

In The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield, the final portion of the book explains what happens to cultures who harness and utilize their vibration for good: the become so high frequency they are no longer visible on the tangible plane.  They become energy.  Now, I’m not using this to suggest we all ascend so high we are no longer in the physical realm, but I use the example to share that vibration and energy go beyond what we simply feel.  It starts that way like everything else but it escalates to a way of being.  I believe life is a dance and there are many songs and depending on what we tune into is what we get.  We have a physical body with an etheric soul and I do believe we are meant to utilize both in this world.  There are no accidents, namely in our design.  We are magnetic in this world, and the world itself is magnetic.  We respond to resonances and tones instantly.  We have energy that needs to be expelled that just happens to match that of the universe.  I know, this is definitely a different approach to what we’ve discussed before.

The idea is we can decide to rise above the self-inflicted flames of this world in the form of the judgement of others and learn to honor the fire within.  We do that by honoring who we are and allowing our purpose to manifest in the physical reality.  As we spoke about yesterday in regards to responsibility, it means facing our demons and letting go of all fears to be willing to simply show ourselves in our true form.  It also means remembering that we DO have a purpose here and we are meant to do more than survive.  We are meant to thrive.  Our ancestors did the hard work for us and the fact that any one of us is here is a miracle.  The fact that we have access to share messages like this in the world now is beyond any realm of thought people had.  The development of a communicable language across all people is miraculous enough and now we have technology to share it broader than ever before.  That is no coincidence—and ironically noticing those coincidences and knowing that there are no coincidences sets us up to see where they come from.

So as a first step to surviving the fires in the world, honor the coincidences (this is also a Redfield premise).  Look at where they are taking you and learn to interpret them as what they are: directors on the path.  The more we get in touch with that, the more we allow our natural state to shine through.  It all goes back to that idea of allowing who we really are to come through.  Our natural state, our actual state, our purpose.  We’ve been taught for so long to fear the light inside of us.  I think that we were trained to dim that light for the sake of others.  But we are all being called now to share it with the world.  The world needs a higher state of mind.  Not more stimuli, but more connection and exposure to who we really are.  We can survive and thrive and move forward through knowing ourselves.  Through doing what we are meant to do.  We will survive because we are that source of light and we will show people the way. 

“To be responsible keep your promises to others.  To be successful, keep your promises to yourself,” Marie Forleo.  This one sent off all kinds of bells in my head.  I wanted to piggy back it off of yesterday’s post because we are working on defining the premise of success.  It flows well because if you find what feels good for you as we spoke about yesterday, you are guaranteed to flow in that arena and you can only go up.  The goal is to fill your cup so much it fills others.  Then they do the same.  I agree there needs to be a certain level of social responsibility but I do feel it’s more important to be responsible to ourselves first because we’ve spent so many years essentially manipulating for power and energy from others that our relationships are twisted versions of what they are supposed to be—all of them.  Humans are social creatures and we need each other but we’ve learned over time to take what we need from each other rather than nurture each other.  We are trained early on to behave a certain way in certain circumstances and that distorts our vision of who we are and who others are.  We learn to play a game and wear masks.  It’s all orchestrated to fulfill the need of the system.   

I don’t want to be responsible to a system, especially one that doesn’t benefit the greater good.  I would much rather spend my time developing myself and others to bring out our greatest gifts.  When it comes to responsibility, there is a big distinction in responsibility to and for others.   I detest the premise of being responsible for others.  With the exception of children who need guidance and protection, we are not responsible for what other people say/do/think/feel.  And we are certainly not responsible for managing those emotions.  We may be responsible for putting things in context to a degree as that’s part of communication (I struggle with intentionally controversial people who stir things only to play victim).  But when it comes to being responsible TO someone, that’s different.  There are elements in a relationship of any kind that we are responsible for.  We make promises to people and we need to keep those or communicate alternate plans if things don’t work out.  We also need to be socially responsible when it comes to things like driving, economics, the environment, authentic/honest education, etc. because our actions impact everyone. 

We have an opportunity to follow what Dr. Angelou said in the quote I shared yesterday: like ourselves, like what we do and how we do it.  As I just mentioned, everything we do impacts others—we do not operate in a bubble and this is where people get confused.  They think that bubble surrounds only them or they think that the bubble will burst over everyone.  And while there is a ripple we put out in the world, it’s not so extreme as the butterfly effect may suggest, however, it is enough to watch what we do.  Imagine a world where we are sharing nothing but positive images and the best versions of ourselves (and the curated, fake images, we share don’t count).  Everyone would step up.  I think we need to shift our focus from needed attention to deciding what our gifts are.  We need to shift our focus from solely making money to figuring out how to re-value what we have and what our purpose is.  The truth is regardless of what our purpose is, our purpose is to share that.

The world needs what we have to share and we find that by following our joy, not our inherited or perceived obligations.  That means being disciplined with yourself and following through on your actions, especially the things you want to do. The things that light you up.  It means facing your demons whether they are things that scare you or things that get in your way or the things that happened to you and no longer allowing them to control you or your actions.  Most importantly, it means owning up to the responsibility to be yourself and share that with the world.  Yes, that can be scary because we aren’t meant to be everyone’s cup of tea for every person.  We have to be comfortable knowing that what we share will find the right people and help those who need it and it will encourage others to step into themselves as well.  I’m suggesting that there comes a point when you need to step out of your comfort zone and take responsibility for yourself and getting your message out.  The only responsibility we need to hold for others is the promise to be yourself and to share what we have.           

“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it,” Maya Angelou.  This is a little reminder to keep true to yourself.  As we work on changing and upgrading our mindset, it becomes more and more important to interact with our true selves and learn what we want/need.  We need to trade the ideas of what we thought we needed for what we actually need and we also need to redefine what success means and looks like.  We need to start considering what it feels like.  If you’re miserable sitting in your mansion, then that level of arguable monetary success means nothing.  It’s a false symbol of success because it is taking something from you rather than contributing to you and your purpose.  Real success looks and feels good.  It’s about the freedom to live your life how you want to live it and how freely you are able to share and contribute your gift.  More importantly, it’s about feeling good doing what you do.  We’ve been trained to forget that.

Most of our time is spent doing things on other people’s behalf whether it is working for a corporation, taking care of our families, meeting social obligations that stretch our dollars, and trying to keep up appearances with those around us.  I’m telling you now, if you don’t like any facet of that, it’s a waste of time.  You can never find your purpose, your calling if you are putting on airs and being something you’re not.  You aren’t living your purpose if you’re living for someone else’s validation or to their expectations.  This requires deep work and the ability to let go of what others tell you to do.  It requires knowing what you need and the strength to see that through.  It also requires blinders and ear plugs because others will try to pull you back in at all costs. 

Finding yourself and honoring who that is can be a lonely and even stressful path in the beginning.  The people we love and who we thought supported us come out as only supporting the version of ourselves that served them.  There are people who simply won’t understand these new parts of you.  But in order to move forward, you need to put that aside and step into the authentic version of you.  All of this starts with what we talked about yesterday—recognizing stressors in our life and getting rid of it.  I’m not talking about the positive stressors in life such as overcoming the obstacles toward reaching a goal we are actively seeking.  I’m talking about the distress, the stress that drains us and feels heavy.  The things we want to avoid but feel we have to attend or are responsible for. 

So going back to what success looks like.  I’m learning as I do more research and practice more in my own life, that it isn’t so much about look.  It’s about feel.  Quite simply it’s about what feels good to us and yes, I’m talking about physically feeling good as well as mentally.  No one can tell you what that means to you.  You have to be in touch with yourself enough to know what that means to you.  Some people find joy in running, others find joy in reading, others find joy in meditation or gardening.  The key is what brings you that joy—that’s an indicator it’s something that feels good.  The other key is asking yourself what task do you take on willingly that absorbs you, that excites you, that doesn’t feel like work no matter how much you do it.  Those are good indicators those are things that fulfill your purpose and you should continue to steward your life in that direction.  When you can say you’re proud of what you’ve done and you are content with what you did and how you got there, then you’re a success.

“Stress is making us sick, stupid, and slow,” Emily Fletcher.  What better way to add to our discussion on anxiety than to talk the actual science for a minute.  On a basic level the body is in constant flux with different chemicals (hormones) being released from specific organs and flooding the brain which then interprets what’s happening.  Stress is no exception.  We have a very real, physical reaction when it comes to the things we feel and this is why different self-help guides talk about the importance of emotional control.  Beyond the social component of maintaining composure, there is the physical element of protecting your mind and body so you can determine what is actually happening around you versus your perception of it. 

The human mind and body are not designed to function under constant stress and in an age of 24/7 stimulation and drive, we are lowering our capacity for patience, broader outlook, and our health.  We have so firmly engrained the pattern of constant connectivity in the last two decades that people can’t be without their phones, TVs, tablets, computers—any source of “connection”.  While we’ve closed the distance around the world, we’ve created a gorge in connection—connection with those present, connection with nature, connection with spirit, connection with ourselves.  We’ve taken a beautiful tool, a luxury, and have idolatrized it into necessity.  We’ve created such importance around it that we’ve lost sight of what’s right in front of us.  We’ve willingly injected the electronic addiction into our lives.  Again, I’m not saying that we don’t need it—we absolutely do.  But our interpretation of HOW we need it and HOW we use it have greatly skewed. 

Additionally, we have the addiction of approval, the addiction of belief, the addiction of pleasing, the addiction of fulfillment of a specific dream.  “Addiction is defined as a treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual’s life experiences.  People with addiction use substances or engage in behaviors that become compulsive and often continue despite harmful consequences,”  asam.org.  And yes, any one of the behaviors listed above can be addictive.  We have found an external source of stimuli and validation and we feel we need it.  We feel there is no other way.  People can even be addicted to stress.  The rush they get from constantly being needed or constantly being on the move.  But what is it doing to our minds and bodies?  Cue Emily Fletcher.

So while we feel these things are necessary and we use them to satiate things like anxiety and depression (even though it only adds to anxious and depressive thoughts), they are taking their toll on us mentally and physically.  We lose reaction time and the ability to process information.  Stress hormones put extra strain on our bodies through weight gain (cortisol) and over production of the adrenals (adrenaline).  Too much of those things in your body leads to issues with the thyroid, the pituitary, the heart, the lungs, and the brain—and that is only an example from two hormones.  It has an impact on reproductive hormones and muscular response as well.  EVERYTHING is connected.  Spending too much time in anything can prove detrimental to us, and again, stress is no exception. 

The overall key here is to not allow yourself to fall into these patterns and that means paying attention to recognize when you are leaning toward stress over presence.  Check in often.  So many of us (myself included) waste too much time finding ways to stress ourselves out.  We do things that don’t light us up because we are under the impression we have to.  We misalign with our true purpose and trade it for what we think we need.  I’m not talking about being uncomfortable or trying new things, I’m talking about repeating the same pattern continually in spite of knowing it isn’t what is needed.  Please don’t discount the impact that has on your entire body. When you feel stress, pause and ask what your body is telling you.  Don’t allow it to overwhelm, but hear what it has to say and then align with your center.  It takes tremendous courage to break those habits and get out of the routine we think is normal.  We need to stand up for ourselves and do what works for us.  Disconnect with the rush of the world and center in who you are.  You will feel better immediately.