Don’t let the past be a burden to the present.  Always be honest, because honest is how we create change.  I heard this and I don’t remember from who, but it resonated.  The way we frame the past is what makes it a gift or a burden.  We can see it as a series of lessons that directed us where to go or we can see it as an anchor. We can pretend we had no say in where we have ended up, that it was a series of mishaps and unfortunate events that brought us to wherever we are, or we can admit that we made choices that didn’t always work out.  And it’s ok to admit that something didn’t work.  It’s ok to admit something that DID work isn’t working any longer.  It’s ok to admit that something we purposefully worked for isn’t what we want any longer.  I spent a whole lot of time trying to make things how they sued to be, to bring people back to how we used to do it because I wanted to recapture a feeling, an essence of a time gone by.  It never occurred to me that there were different feelings in some of those experiences—just because it brought me joy didn’t mean that it was joyful to them.  I had to learn to be honest about what certain events meant and what it meant for me moving forward.  I had to get honest about the need for change.

I’ve seen so many ways the past becomes burdensome: when we use it as a way to justify not doing what we want to do (because something happened a certain way we can’t do what we want to do).  When we try to repeat it over and over again never allowing life to unfold and adapt as it’s meant to.  When we constantly try to shift other people’s perspectives of an experience/when we try to change their experience of it.  When we specifically try to change other people’s beliefs about us and what happened.  When we try to prove that what we did was the right thing either in cases where we want it to seem like we made the right choice, or when we keep trying to make something that doesn’t work, work.  One of the heaviest burdens of the past can be when something DOES work and we have to admit that we don’t feel the same way about it anymore.  We’ve invested so much time with something/someone and we may have even fought like hell to get it and when we see it worked but it brings no joy, guilt can take over.  It can feel selfish to shift direction on something that works, something that anyone else would want and decide we don’t want it any longer.  That doesn’t mean it’s wrong.  

We have to see when we use the past as a shield, as something to hide behind and we have to know when we need to step out from behind it and let the world see us as we are.  All of the ways we make the past burdensome I listed above are shields in a way.  No matter the reason, continuing on a path that doesn’t work creates unnecessary strain in our lives.  It drains our ability to be present and adapt as needed.  We miss the creative opportunities to develop something new, to try something new, to find new ways of doing things or even to find what really calls to us if we continue to say no to what we feel.  The only way we can focus on the change we want/need or even to find the ways we need to change is to be honest about where we are at, what works, and how we feel about it—and then decide where we want to go with it.  The past isn’t meant to be carried around like some bag filled with every event that ever was.  That’s a lot to sort through even on a good day.  No, the past is meant to be filled with moments that stand out, both good and bad, that guides us to the purpose/future we are meant to have. We have to stop every now and then and take a few things out, realizing that they served their purpose and now they’re just adding weight to us.  Let it go.  It’s ok to put the bag down and pick up again when we’ve removed what is no longer necessary.  Trust ourselves and keep moving forward.     

“Don’t let someone’s timeline become our deadline. Wake up and keep going even if we aren’t seeing the full results.  Do it all over again, every day knowing exactly what you want, showing up every day until you have it and continuing to fight like hell to keep it,” Bishoi Khella. In that same clip, Khella talks about how that process is a sort of delusional patience—even when we don’t see what we are looking for, we keep going for it because we know there’s a possibility that it exists.   In general he is saying that success requires this delusional patience to keep going even if we don’t yet see the result.  I realized that he wasn’t just talking about a delusional patience, he was talking about faith.  Having faith in ourselves to keep going, that we will find the results we’re looking for if we just keep going.  That even if we don’t know the answer, we will find it if we keep going.  That we will find what works for us if we just keep going.  It may take time, but if our core tells us there is something more around the bend, we keep going knowing it will be there for us.

Life happens as it’s supposed to, on its own timeline.  We make the choices we make and we yield the results from those choices—it is the largest game of cosmic cause and effect.  Just because it doesn’t happen when we think it will doesn’t mean it won’t happen and we need to keep that in mind in regards to this delusional patience.  No one can tell us the exact moment our work will pay off.  Even if it worked like that for them, it doesn’t mean our circumstances will play out the same way—even if we do the exact same thing.  We must learn to do for the sake of doing, for the fact that it feels right and that we find some joy in it . When we get to the point where there is no joy, when we have pushed beyond our limits even for the sake of that “keep going” mentality, if there is nothing that brings us joy (if there is no longer a reason to keep going) then we must stop.  The purpose isn’t to have a delusional patience about learning to like something.  It’s to have that patience to incubate our creation while it grows.

We put enough pressure on ourselves to succeed or appear a certain way that we don’t need the added pressure of having things by a certain time.  Even I, someone who struggles immensely with time and making sure things are done according to when I’m told they should be, even I know that a deadline imposed by others doesn’t help bring the result we’re looking for any sooner.  I’m not saying that we don’t occasionally need a fire lit under us at some points, but we have to keep finding that joy in whatever it is we are waiting for.  We have to want to fight for it—we have to want to keep it, period, in order to do what we have to to keep going for it.  We have to find the value in it over and over again, knowing that it will be worth it.  The worth comes from us—not from when we get it.  I remember wanting things quickly so I could have as much time as possible with it but I’ve learned that the reality is there is no less joy in when we get something if that thing matters to us.  Faith is a test at times—that belief in a reality no one, not even ourselves can see.  Regardless of when, if we love it enough, we keep going until we find it.        

Part of what started the thought process for yesterday’s piece was me sitting in my closet.  I have lost nearly 40 pounds in the course of a year and it has been a struggle to fit into the clothes I have—clothes I’ve had and have worn for years now.  There were some pieces I loved, but as I looked around the closet, I realized that so many of those pieces were bought to fit where I was.  The majority were bought out of desperation, trying to find anything that fit, not something that I really wanted or that represented me.  Their purpose was to cover the truth about what I looked like—and sometimes they were simply bought because they didn’t make me feel awful when I wore them—they fit, or at least worked for a bit.  I’ve always had an issue with clothes fitting properly—like if the waist worked, they would be way too long on me etc.  Now with the loss of so much weight, a majority of those clothes no longer fit at all—either hanging on me or falling off my waist.  So as I sat amongst my clothes, I thought about the power of transformation, the fact that I have to buy new clothes. 

It seemed like I had/have to find a way to fit in my skin.  It isn’t just the clothes and finding things that fit me—it’s about fitting into a new body.  Fitting into a new life with a new mindset.  I’ve been tempted to keep some of those pieces even though I have NO intent of allowing myself to get that big again—it feels like a safety net.  Even at my heaviest, I had kept some of my favorite pieces from when I was thinner in the hopes that I would fit in them again—and I do fit in them (some of them even better than I did before).  But it struck me that’s why it can be daunting to begin anew—not only are we familiar with what we had and what it felt like, we don’t know what will fit moving forward and it can take some work to find what works in this new form.  The things that used to work, to fit suddenly hang on us, too big, the shell ready to shed.  Or perhaps it was too small and we break open and shed it that way.  It means effort put into finding what fits.  The fear hits when we put in the work on a version of us and seeing it come to live, realizing what we left behind, that we don’t really know where we are at.

The same can be said when we decide to move into a new place, to get a new job, to try a new sport, to go to a new restaurant, or even get a new car.  The new is exciting, yes, but it doesn’t always feel quite right.  It takes some time to get used to.  When I put on the weight, it was such a gradual process that I didn’t notice any discomfort in it.  Sure, I knew when I had to go up a size and I wasn’t necessarily happy about it, but it wasn’t painful.  Shedding the weight was a process and I’m still not quite done with it, but it was a different mindset, a different focus and determination than doing the same things over and over again that kept me gaining weight—it was a subconscious decision in so many ways.  I just did what I always did, the same routine.  I knew I had to change that routine if I wanted to change and it took many starts and stops.  And now partway through this metamorphosis, I can see the physical changes and I have to let my mind catch up a bit.  No, I have no intention of going back even if that is the familiar, even if I bought things that seemed to fit at the time. The fact that those pieces hang off of me now are a constant reminder that that life doesn’t fit me anymore either.  They are a reminder that I can change, that I need to change, that there is the possibility of finding something that fits better—and that I NEED to find something that fits better.  I can’t be afraid to try on new things to find who I am.     

One of the “guides” (for lack of a better word) I follow talked about ways to find ourselves.  As I spoke about yesterday, all we have is the present moment and we can make that moment about support or doom in so many ways.  We need to know ourselves well enough to see when we have to shift that mindset and know when we are truly about to sink versus a shift in course.  We also have to be flexible with our definition of self and understand that we are always adding to the story.  We aren’t supposed to stop growing.  We aren’t supposed to decide who we are at 15 and be that version of ourselves the rest of our lives.  That puts a cap on all potential we have and we miss all the facets of who we are—because we aren’t just one thing.  We aren’t complete—and even if we do have a solid foundation and know who we are, what we want, and how to get there, there still may be something that doesn’t quite fit how we thought it would.  It’s ok to see what needs to be shifted—we can step into completion in new ways—try new things to find new things, to find new ways/paths to who we are.  The more we try, the more we learn, the more we determine what will and will not work for us. 

We have to try new things to see what fits us, to try on a new skin and see who we are because that is the other side of this: we aren’t meant to be the same person for our entire lives.  Sure our core may remain steadfast and firm in its identity, but we are evolutionary beings with the capacity for thought and direction and the ability to change it.  It may not even be a matter of feeling like we HAVE to change (although that is a good motivator) but it may feel like we need to do something else, that we need to try something else.  It doesn’t have to have the intent to alter our trajectory or shift the entire path of our lives—it can be as simple as needing a little something different in our lives.  Those moments can satisfy that itch we have to scratch or they can show us that we need more.  They can open a doorway into pieces and possibilities we didn’t know existed.  We will only know if we take the time to try on new things.  We try to define ourselves as early on as possible and that’s ok—we need to know those core pieces of who we are.  But we can’t live our entire lives (nor are we meant to live our entire lives) in the same box.  We may get lucky and be born into a place that fits right from the beginning—but even if it does, there are still things we need to learn and sometimes they come in the forms/lessons we would least expect—we just have to take the opportunity when it comes to us.

As we spoke about yesterday, we always have a choice, not only in how we view things, but in what we allow in our lives and what direction we follow.  When opportunities arise we can always say no—we can stick with what we know.  That is fine—it’s our prerogative to choose and knowing who we are and what direction we want to go in helps us make those decisions.  But I can speak from experience that sometimes even if things feel like they are going right, we know that there is still something more.  The intent isn’t to change our entire lives, it’s to add a little something extra to it—we won’t know what fits until we give it a shot.  It’s sort of like trying on new clothes but the store is the infinite universe.  I do have some regret in forcing myself to live the same life starting from such a young age.  I was determined that I knew who I was and I didn’t need to try anything else—I was comfortable.  But comfort doesn’t encourage the type of growth that opens the potential of who we are.  This world, the entire universe, is a game of sorts. It’s a giant experiment in creativity and purpose—and we are the only ones who can ultimately decide what that is.  So keep trying on new things until we find what works.  Even if we have to create our own piece in the end (which most of us do), we won’t know what we want to incorporate without trying new things.  Don’t be afraid to try new things..    

“Believe the universe wants [us] to succeed.  Don’t give up.  Keep what happened in the past in the past.  Focus on what’s in front of [us],” Kyle Fuller.  The day to day life wears us down if we let it, if we live in a way that isn’t reflective of who we are.  We have a choice to believe that we are destined to succeed or fail, that we have the ability to change/decide that outcome, that we can pivot, that we have a relationship with source that allows us to connect with our purpose—that we have a purpose.  We also have the ability to choose that we are somehow a victim of our circumstances, that we have no choice but to sit in the muck and confusion.  We can believe that we are meant to fail, that he universe doesn’t want us to be happy, that we are perpetually the victim in life.  The results of each are vastly different yet they come from the same source: our minds.

I know from experience that it isn’t as easy as snapping our fingers and we suddenly believe everything is perfect.  It takes a lot of work to reframe the mind and to actually believe it.  Sometimes it takes even longer to see the result of that belief.  But the point is what we believe, whether we think we are set up to succeed or fail, that we can turn the tide or not, it is up to us and the results will be a direct reflection of what our true belief is.  We have a skewed definition of what challenges are and that means at times those learning opportunities, the events that help us make decisions about what is right/wrong, what feels good, can stick with us and make us feel a certain way if it didn’t go how we planned.  In those moments when things seem a little dark, it’s easy to believe the odds are stacked against us.

But when we look at what’s right in front of us, we see the truth: we can only deal with what is in our lives at that moment.  While the past may be an indicator of what our foundation is, it is by no means a guarantee of what will happen.  Past failures don’t mean the future is doomed by any means—as long as we know how to frame the experience into something else.  We can take any circumstance and shift perspective on it.  To others it may be deemed a failure, but we can still look at it as an opportunity.  All we can do is work with what we have in our present state.  We can’t push the clock forward or backward—we only have this ever present now and that time can be filled with angst/anger/anxiety about what’s to come, or we can learn how to work with those circumstances and change it into something else.  The choice is always ours—we just have to remember the outcome is vastly different, and that is dependent on those choices. So choose wisely—no one else is responsible for the outcomes of our lives.

Today I am grateful for character.  I’m proud of myself for allowing people to be who they are and for allowing them to be who they are in different circumstances, to be with them through different phases of their lives.  I’m also glad to know their character and to understand their patterns.  Some people are who they are no matter what we do.  They say a leopard never changes its spots and in some cases this is true.  We can’t be upset at the scorpion for stinging.  People aren’t all bad, but we do need to realize that no mater what we do, sometimes it’s just their nature to sting.  Once we fully grasp that, it makes it easier to be who we need to be—who we are. I never considered it a bad thing to allow people the benefit of the doubt, to give them chances.  But there came a point when I realized that my nature to give people a chance to be who I thought they were wasn’t serving.  There comes a time for all of those with a soft heart to understand it’s ok for them to walk away and it will be necessary at some point to put up that wall.  That doesn’t mean we have to harden our hearts—we are simply recognizing when someone will sting again.  It took a long time to realize that keeping people at bay so to speak wasn’t about being hard and it didn’t make me a bad person. It means we accept those people for who they are and we stay true to ourselves.

Today I am grateful for new beginnings.  For both the beginnings we plan and the beginnings we don’t.  I’ve had an unsettled feeling for years now, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on but it was basically like I didn’t fit anywhere I went.  In certain situations it felt like I was a rock being tumbled around, forced to blunt my edges, other times I needed to sharpen them, but the overall sensation was that no matter where I was, I didn’t quite fit in.  Constantly a square peg in a round hole.  For so long I felt like I had to immerse myself in some specific identity, some version of me that was true but not complete.  A constant battle between too much and not enough, the common factor being me looking for something to tell me what I was and where I belonged.  Needing someone to tell me my value, that I was welcome.  There comes a point where we no longer need to be invited to the room because we own the room.  We take control of our lives and we no longer seek approval or invitation—we simply move through life. When something doesn’t fit, we need to remove it or remove ourselves from the situation. Sometimes we have to say fuck it and just start over.  We get the feeling that something isn’t working—we need to trust that.

Today I am grateful for my son.  I call this out specifically because I’ve had the opportunity to sit and work with my son on some emotional healing and development over the last few days.  My son is a sensitive soul like me.  For as fiery as I am, I am indeed sensitive and I react quickly.  He feels just as heavily as I do and I witnessed the true weight this beautiful boy carries and I understood to the full extent where my role is to ease that burden for him and to teach him how to carry what IS his.  I’ve talked about how quickly time moves in general and I’ve even brought that up about the time I have with my son and I know now how determined I am to make sure that I get the most out of this brief window I have with him before he decides he’s too cool for me and wants to play video games for longer, or he goes out with his friends more, or that inevitable moment when he decides he wants to leave for college and all the millions of moments in between that tell me he’s growing up.  The moments I witness every day.  So when he wants to snuggle with me, I’m going to take those few extra minutes to let him.  I’m going to soak it all up and love him as much as I can and I’m going to make sure he knows he is loved and capable and important and strong.  When we have the opportunity to experience life, I’m going to take it, not push it off because I have some checklist of things I need to do.  All of that can wait because I have right now.

Today I am grateful for breaking patterns.  I’ve struggled with patterns at times because there is a fine line between routine and a rut—we need routines but we can’t let them become ruts.  We form habits based on our actions and the actions are borne of our goals but what happens when we see the tide shifting? Or when we have to learn new ways to achieve the goals we were looking for?  We have to be able to let go of what we knew and welcome the new.  Patterns serve to build the foundation but they quickly become walls/barriers to something new if we keep building the same layers over and over again.  Shaking things up is good for the brain.  It can be a bit disorienting at first but it’s ultimately exactly what we need.  Break the patterns, break the mold, be ready to say no and do what works for ourselves—be ready to say yes to what works as well.  And be willing to admit when we have to know the difference. 

Today I am grateful for camaraderie.  This is different than friendship.  My son has started a team sport and it’s a whole new world for us.  I’ve always loved athletics and playing games—even if I couldn’t play them very well 😊—but I never understood what it really meant to be part of team.  My entire life I’d either been too competitive or the team I was part of was too competitive (internally) and we didn’t know how to work as a unit.  Watching these kids function together and move as a unit, each one playing their role and even shifting roles as necessary is a beautiful thing.  Watching them celebrate their wins and even learning from their losses is really special to witness.  They learn new things about themselves and when they accomplish what they set out to do, seeing the satisfaction on their faces is like nothing else.  The pride they feel when they set a goal and achieve it is a nice reminder that sometimes we need a group to support us to hit those last few feet—someone to set us up so we can carry it home.  And other times we need to be the support and that is just as important.  Camaraderie isn’t about who wins, it’s about how we function together and when I see the teams I’m part of not functioning, it shows me that there is value in finding the team that does.  There’s no point in chipping away at the pieces of ourselves to make things work—we need to help each other shine. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead

“She’s a lot; You’re right.  I am a lot.  With a lot of layers, a lot of personality, a lot of dreams, a lot of ideas, a lot of strategies, a lot of emotions, a lot of love.  So. Yeah.  I’m a lot.” Unknown.  The world needs this reminder right now.  I feel like it’s trite and belabors the point to say anyone who says you’re too much can go away/isn’t for you/doesn’t matter etc.  I’ve never been shy on my stance in regards to self-worth and I have always found it funny that people tend to encourage us to be all we can be until we get to the point of too much—well their definition of too much.  But it is in the farthest reaches of to much, the biggest expansion we can manage that we find who we are.  So how is that we want people to grow and still tell them it’s too much?  Or we tell them they’re doing it wrong?  I struggled (and still struggle) with the idea that we are somehow responsible for meeting other people’s definitions of our lives.  I struggle with it because I fell right into it, I let them drive and I had no idea where the hell they took me for a long time.  I had no idea how to get back.

Humans were never designed to be single dimensional creatures.  If we were, we wouldn’t have the capacity for all the wonders this universe can afford us that we are capable of taking in and making sense of, of creating.  So with that being said, mathematically speaking it doesn’t even begin to make sense that we all need to be the same.   And by that logic, it makes no sense that any human on this planet would be the one to determine what too much/too little/too anything is.  The fact of the matter is we have a lot of emotion in a little container, a powerhouse of energy brimming with potential.  We are like siphons, channeling that energy into something productive.  So why would we want to produce the same things? And why would we presume to listen to someone be critical over us when it’s likely they don’t have the ability to do what we do?  I work with some people who get angry when you help them with something and then angry when you don’t, they want explicit instruction on something but when you give it to them it’s micromanaging—and that is the way of humans in this world.  We have the capacity for infinite … anything…and here we are trying to lord that power over each other. 

I want to be a lot—there’s a lot to do here.  There’s a lot to experience.  There’s a lot to feel.  There’s a lot of places to go.  In order to do those things, I need to be a lot.  I need to know who I am and I need to be clear in those expectations and the path I’m following.  Believe me I learned that first hand from years of NOT doing it. It took me a long time to realize the audience will change its view of you depending on who is in it.  We make each other think we have to somehow perform for each other, that we need to be what the other person wants.  The reality is there is no stage.  If we were honest, I’m not entirely sure the world could handle that, but if we are at least honest with ourselves, we can get closer to the truth.  We can learn to embrace the too much.  We can embrace the entire thing.  I don’t want to reach the end of my life and say I lived small.  Because shrinking takes away not only from the experience of who we are but the experience of what the world can really get from you.  We are meant to taste this life.  To feel it.  We need to be big enough to take a bite out of it.  So let them say you’re a lot.  Chances are they want to be a lot too and they haven’t figured it out yet.  And when someone says you’re a lot, simply say, “Thank you” smile and move on.

“I found my rhythm when I realized that even the steps backward were part of the dance,” unknown.  We all feel like we take steps back every now and then.  Like no matter what we do we can’t catch up. That is the nature of life, it ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes just like the moon.  The natural rhythm of life is a filling and emptying that happens all on its own.  Everyone gets on the back step every now and then.  Some of us are just better at turning it around than others.  We learn to make the move into a step rather than a fall, and suddenly we understand what life is telling us.  Our balance relies entirely on our ability to pivot and in order to dance well, we have to learn to understand the rhythm.  We have to FEEL it.  Our hearts beat on their own every day, carrying out their cadence and keeping us alive.  It’s a series of impulses that keep moving, that keep going no matter what we do.  We have to do the same.

Sure, there are hiccups along the way, we all stumble.  But how quickly we rise and move allows us to keep moving.  Some people stop dancing even when they still hear the rhythm.  That is a life wasted, that is a life where we miss the beautiful sounds and feels of living.  Sitting out is always our choice, always an option—but that option leaves out the core of the experience.  Life gets messy, life isn’t meant to stand still.  The essence of life is in movement.  We can look at steps back as mistakes or we can look at them as simply the next step in the dance regardless of which direction.  Sure, we WANT to move forward, that truly is the goal, but we must often pivot and that involves coming at things from new angles. We can only see new directions if we move—even if that means moving backward.

Quite simply, we must remember that moving backwards isn’t a bad thing. The only negative connotation we have with it is how we define it.  And sure, stepping backwards can feel crappy at times, but moving forward and taking the leap is an even better feeling, especially when we can bounce back from where we are.  As hard as it is to accept, those steps backward often aren’t personal.  We must learn the lesson involved and in order to move forward we have to learn how to handle the steps back, what our weight feels like as we shift our feet and our balance.  The only way we can learn that is to actually take the step back.  Again, I don’t pretend that is easy or comfortable.  But if we look at it from a different angle, we can at least see how it is useful.  When we stop carrying the stigma of a backstep as a bad thing, it all comes together into the exquisite performance of our lives, one in which there are no missteps—because there never were any.   

“Just because you were born in the desert doesn’t mean you don’t deserve the ocean,” unknown. Sometimes we are born a bit out of our element.  Sometimes we have to find where we are meant to go.  There are places where the sun is always shining yet some people stay rooted in the dark.  Some people live in the dark places but they know the light and they choose to be the light for other people.  The natural state of who we are calls to us from the time we are born.  For those who believe we choose our mission before/when we come here, that is exactly what I’m talking about.  We KNOW.  Some people are fortunate enough to have been born in the exact right circumstance for what they want.  Others need to find their way to it.  We must always remember that even if there is a struggle to become who we are, we must follow that knowing because it is a beacon. 

People can be multiple things—people ARE multiple things.  Some of those things are just more clearly defined than others.  It can be tricky to put together the puzzle pieces because it may not make sense where they fit at first—but if we turn them over and we start seeing the big picture, it all comes into focus.  Sometimes the things we are looking for aren’t right around the corner—we need to venture out and learn by answer the calling of our souls by responding to what feels right.  And we have to remember that no matter what current circumstances never dictate the destination.  Where we are at today is no indicator of where we will be tomorrow—but what we DO today is a good gauge.  Where we are today is not an indicator of worth by any means—it’s a reference point to show us what we need to do to get where we want to go.  The choice is always ours, whether we stay or go, whether we follow through on what we know we have to do or not.  But where we start is not where we end up—so keep going.