Today I am grateful for moving forward. Sometimes you just have to keep pushing through no matter how much you feel stuck in the mud. You just have to keep going.
Today I am grateful for change. Sometimes you need to move things around you to move things in you.
Today I am grateful for movement. The body is designed to move and we should never take for granted that we can.
Today I am grateful for fun. If we can move forward in a fun way that promotes change, that makes any transition easier.
Today I am grateful for help. We all need a hand sometimes no matter how much we think we “got it.” Sometimes we don’t realize we need a hand until someone lifts us up.
The universe seems to love delivering lessons in the most in-your-face, take that, oh-yeah ways sometimes. But the lesson sticks I will say that. Last week was tough due to some issues I’m having with an employee. At first it didn’t bother me but as more information came out, she started throwing some inflammatory words around that cut me. The things she was saying were beyond false, and I didn’t want to have to go through the exercise of explaining myself all over again. I didn’t want to take the time to prove again and again that I wasn’t the things she said I was. I felt emotionally drained and abused, confused, and unsure of what to do next—this was all on the word of another person so it essentially was a game of he sad-she said (She-said she-said?). I got home and my husband wanted to play darts. I legitimately was not in the mood given the circumstances at work and he pushed a bit. I finally told him I didn’t want to play and have this turn into something that isn’t fun anymore. He understood but I could tell he was upset—he (and I) love playing darts together—it is a bonding thing for us—so I didn’t want to ruin it but I also didn’t want to disappoint him in that moment so I changed my mind and said I would play a round with him.
He annihilated me—I mean, the game wasn’t even fair. Playing 901, he had nearly a 300 point lead—I knew I hadn’t been in the mindset to play because if this happened I would freak out—and I did. I took everything personally, feeling like I just couldn’t get it together. I don’t begrudge him his games, his on night, but when I struggle THAT badly, the games quickly loses its luster. On top of the fact I was already emotionally tapped, this was quickly becoming a recipe for disaster. Next thing I know, I’m incredibly frustrated with just how poorly I’m playing and telling him I didn’t want to play in the first place, and freaking out a bit…it was a total woe-is-me moment and totally unnecessary. Literally out of nowhere, I start to catch up—after yelling at him for doing well, asking him how come he couldn’t do that when he plays the tournaments—I was vicious for no reason other than I felt shitty. I got embarrassed, then I won. Again after yelling at him for having a really good game, I just couldn’t keep up, I couldn’t get my mind on it. I started to cry, feeling exhausted. It was never about fucking winning the game—I want him to do well. It was never about him—it was about me missing my target and thinking it was indicative of something else going on in my life—like I would always fall short or miss my mark.
I had been feeling so unsupported by the universe, unsure of how to move forward with work, concerned for my reputation because of the things this woman said about me, I lost track of what I was doing and completely took it out on my husband. And now, after making a scene and putting on a show filled with dramatics and darts thrown through insulation, I won the damn game. I felt like it was a cosmic sign to calm the fuck down, the universe has everything in order. There was no reason to get that upset while playing darts, specifically not get mad at my husband—and I knew that prior to starting the game and even in the middle of my meltdown. For something that was ultimately my husband trying to calm me down (doing something that would calm him, not me), I still wanted to do this together, I wanted to bond with him and have fun. So…I guess it was also saying when I think something is going to go a certain way or it can look like it’s going a certain way, there are always surprises. There is always something else and we can end up coming from behind in some Cinderella story and win the whole damn thing. The universe has its own plans, we are literally just here for the ride. We know very little of the universe and the way it works—sometimes we learn through trial and error, sometimes we learn through darts.
I’ve struggled with relationships lately, not understanding how people can be so quick to exclude others when it was one central person who brought them together in the first place. Not understanding how everyone can be so casual about like being together and then feeling close enough that we’re saying, “I love you,” and then turn around and not invite you out to something. Or how we think there may be a casual introduction amongst friends when suddenly the group is now getting together without you. But as the universe has shown me time and time again, there was a lesson there. I fully admit I get protective and possessive over my relationships—I value people close to me in my life and I am sensitive to their feelings toward me. If we seem close, I treat people a certain way. I have an expectation that my presence would be valued as much as I value theirs. But I learned that looks different for some people.
One of my friends, and I do consider this person a friend, is extremely powerful with her energy. She is a force, magnetic, and she knows how to make things happen in her life. I value being around her because she has this amazing energy and we have a lot in common as far as drive—she has just shown me that putting that drive into action and achieving those goals is possible, a reminder on taking action in my life. So after a summer/fall/winter of dealing with being left out from some of my other friends during some of the hardest times of my life, I struggled with thoughts of what relationships meant and understanding how people function together. No, we’re not in high school so the petty drama I felt about being left out didn’t feel appropriate, but at the same time, the feeling left out didn’t feel appropriate either. That familiar sense of propriety over the group kicked in as I felt a certain ownership/entitlement to being included in the group. And it hurt when I wasn’t included.
So when this friend started using a friend of mine for a different service (through this mutual friend’s business) I was put a little on edge. When I found out the kids were invited to an event for one of my friends, I felt that familiar jealousy grip me. But the same insecurity didn’t pop up—it made me think differently as far as the intent behind the relationship . Shortly after that, I was with my friend and she explained something going on in her business and it turned into a mutual thing we enjoy so we planned to go out. That’s when it hit me: relationships serve different purposes. We can all mutually be connected (and many of us are connected in ways we don’t realize yet) but that doesn’t mean we serve the same purpose to each other. I started thinking about the people in my life and how I have different relationships with them, even in my family. So why should I feel that sense of propriety? What really hit me is that why should I feel so disappointed or left out or fearful when I have different relationships with those around me anyway?
We all serve different purposes to different people at different times in our lives. We all have a reason or a season with people and it isn’t for us to interfere with that in any way. Our relationships are supposed to look different. A real relationship doesn’t involve that kind of power dynamic. It also doesn’t involve intentionally hurting others in order to assert a power dynamic or hurt someone else. But it is often going to look different depending on the purpose. We don’t have the right to interfere on the purpose of a relationship because it looks different than ours. People can create a mazing things and we don’t want to get in the way of that-I don’t want to get in the way of that. We need to let it be. Let it be what it is and see what amazing things come of it.
“What if you experience a miracle and it all just works out? Stay open to that energy,” Dr. Claudia Thompson. We can’t make our delusions a reality if we aren’t open to the possibility of them working out. For a delusion to become reality, we have to be open to some pretty crazy/interesting alternatives. Doing anything new requires us to do something different, possibly things we haven’t done before. It may feel awkward or even a bit scary, but as long as we are open to the idea that those steps, no matter how scary, will work out, then we are on the right path to things happening that will take us where we want to be. Things get dark sometimes, that’s just the way life is in certain moments. But it is often in those moments that life has a way of working out. When we try to control everything, to make sure every little detail is how we think it should be, we restrict the flow of life. I’ve talked about that many times before. Sometimes we just have to take the leap and go for it, even if it doesn’t seem to make logical sense.
I will be the first to admit that sometimes life hits us upside the head with a 2×4—it isn’t always pleasant and it takes us by surprise. The thing we never want to experience happens, we lose what we thought we never would. But we always come through on the other side. Just because we look different than we imagined doesn’t mean that wasn’t how it was supposed to go. It still worked out. Miracles look like many things. For every time we get caught in traffic, that email doesn’t send, we don’t get the job, that person breaks up with us, a friendship turns sour, or we lose someone or something we love, we also manage to be right where we are meant to be with the exact people we need, doing whenever we need to. I have a story that I will share in a few days about this—and when it happened, it hit me like a ton of bricks: sometimes the universe gives us NO CHOICE but to let go. There is nothing to hold onto. And that’s what is supposed to happen.
I guess in some ways what I’m saying (even as a reminder to myself) is that everything ALWAYS works out. No matter what has happened, we are still here, we have made it through. No matter what it looks like now, we have made it through. No matter what we lost, we made it through—and chances are we gained something in that loss as well. No one ever said change was easy or painless or pretty. No one said getting what we wanted was what “things working out” means. We need to tweak our definition of miracle a little bit so we always keep perspective on what a miracle really is. In its simplest definition, a miracle is a sudden or unexpected outcome turning in our favor. Doesn’t mean it was pretty or how we thought it would be—it just means it turned out. If that doesn’t work for you or you’re struggling to believe it, then try and get comfortable with the idea that whatever happened is exactly what was meant to happen. The fact that all of these things aligned to bring us to this exact moment, to the moment when it all comes together is itself a miracle. The fact we exist is a miracle. The fact we exist means that it’s all working out and coming together as it was meant to anyway. Be open to it all.
“May all of your delulu come trululu,” Dr. Claudia Thompson. I wanted to share something short and sweet so we never forget that everything/anything we think can become true. A little wish or hope for the world that we need to remember our magic and that we can make our magic a reality. Our entire world exists in our heads, so what we think and how we feel matters. And when we can align our dreams with our actions and if it feels right, then we can make anything happen. It isn’t delusional just because we can’t see it yet—and if we never take the time to see if those “delusions” can become real, that is the only certain way that they never will be. I want the world to have delusional faith and hope that what they want can become real. I want their dreams, the things we think are an impossibility, to be brought into this reality. I want everyone to remember their magic because those things are meant to be brought into this world. Wishing you all a delusional, delightful reality.
Every day we are guided to learn and grow. Corey Talbott shared an image of a plant with a bud in the shape of a heart and the caption said “He’s in the small details. If you move too swift, you will miss them” and it got me thinking about the small details in life. Again, the magic of the universe and its timing played out as there was a reel that immediately followed discussing making intentional decisions. In this instance the reel was talking about a business and how the choices we make in representation and how we treat our employees matters and will essentially infiltrate the entire business and how we run it—and how people perceive and receive it. Like, if we have an idea, and we want something to thrive, we need to take the time to nourish it down to the littlest things. Specifically, we take our mission/vision/values and apply it to everything we do. We allow the little things to be the driving force so to speak. So often we are told to not sweat the small stuff yet here are back to back reminders that the little things matter.
I think the context of the little things matters, speaking from experience, that if we spend too much time on the little things, we get stuck—and if we think EVERY little decision is going to have long term consequences, we will never move. We have to learn to evaluate what we have in front of us and to use discernment for what has impact—the choices we need to pay attention to versus those we can decide and then move on. We have to look at what matters and why. We worry about our image and I think we need to remember that our image isn’t the determining factor in success. Image is an illusion, it’s what we want people to see/think/feel about us. Image is a manipulation. When we work from the little details as a part of who we are and what we are trying to accomplish, it becomes about embracing our lives, who we are. That authenticity can’t be faked. That is felt. In the spirit of growth, patience is key and we will nourish the little details.
We can’t get so stuck on the big picture, the ultimate goal, that we miss the small things that give meaning to the whole thing, the little things that teach us what matters in the grand scheme. We have choices every day, choices that tell us who we are, choices that change who we are. As long as we are connected to who we are at our core, we will catch the little things and see them for the signs they are. There’s a saying along the lines of not getting so caught up making a living that we forget to make a life, and I think that applies here as well because we can’t get so lost in the big picture that we miss the gifts we receive daily. The small things give meaning. And there is another saying that the days are long but the years are short—so we need to remember to be present because someday all the things we felt were the same are suddenly going to be very different and the time we thought we had will have shifted. Be aligned, be in the moment, be appreciative and aware of what we have right in front of us. Be intentional, purposeful, and alive. Take time to enjoy the details that matter, the time to enjoy what we have now, relish in these moments, this long, infinite now. Learn, grow, love, and live.
“Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement,” Golda Meir. The human soul knows what it needs on so many levels and it constantly feeds us signs and reminders through feelings and thoughts. When we feel an excitement for something, when we feel strongly about something, we need to take the time to dive deeper into it—is this a temporary thing? Is this a different type of calling? Is this a sign of something more that has a bigger purpose? The other day we spoke about how we don’t always feel ready and that we should take the chance anyway—that chance, that feeling often starts with these little flames, the sparks we feel. The result comes with action, the fanning and encouragement of those flames. We learn through doing. We are so worried about what we look like that we fear looking like a novice even when we are novices. We can’t get to the end before we’ve walked the path. Everyone has to begin at some point—we all start at step one. So why do we want to look like we know what we do not know? Perhaps it is some old fear, some old worry about appearing vulnerable. But we can never take the next step if we aren’t willing to admit what we need to learn.
So with the understanding that all we have is now and that the only way to experience growth is for us to follow through on those feelings of potential, then we must accept that we have to be willing to learn. We have to be willing to be that novice so we can become the expert. Learn the most we can and see where those little sparks can bring us. Learn what we are meant to be. No one begins an expert, knowing everything about anything, not even the things we are drawn to. We have to learn and sometimes that means taking a path we wouldn’t think to take. Often times what we think something appears to be is not what it actually is or the option in front of us seems far from what we think we need to do, but we have to do it even if it doesn’t feel quite right—like we aren’t quite ready. We must allow the universe to surprise us and teach us, perhaps both, and become what we are meant to be. We learn in doing things we haven’t done before. It’s when we learn that we can take on our responsibility. Sometimes we fear the fire that burns inside of us because we don’t want to be erased or we don’t want all we knew to disappear because the unknown is unfamiliar. But sometimes we have to burn away the excess, the extraneous so we know what is real and what life is trying to bring us. The spark can be intimidating/scary if we’ve been burned before—sometimes it does burn. Other times we burn away what is no longer necessary and we reveal who we are. Either way we learn, either way we become who we are meant to be.
Today I am grateful for a new level of understanding. I’ve carried guilt with me my entire life—guilt for making decisions for myself where someone gets hurt—all the while never considering that I was making allowances for people who didn’t consider me. I’d find myself making plans, doing what I needed to do only to be told things like “Oh, I would have gone with you” with the undertone that I should feel guilty for leaving them out when they’ve left me out previously with no regard to my feelings. The level of understanding is this: people choose when and where to include you, they show you what they think and feel about you with their actions, not their words. Don’t let them manipulate and twist the reality based on what they say—you have to trust what you feel. My direct lesson is that I am allowed to do what works for me and I don’t need to make space for people who don’t make space for me. If I’m going to build the life that I want and love, I need to stop making space for those who want to be there when it’s convenient for them. I am worth more than the time someone deigns to spend with me. I am worth someone’s time, attention, affection, planning, and purpose. And my dreams/desires/opinions are just as worth being heard as someone else’s. For someone who has a lot to say, I’m awfully quiet in crowds. I need to find my voice again—not let them keep me quiet.
Today I am grateful for another trip around the sun. I recently celebrated my 41st birthday. It wasn’t a big to-do or anything and that is ok. When I turned 40, a switch flipped in me where my health became the priority. I got myself back in line and I introduced new habits into my life, things that improved me greatly. I learned about what I liked and what my capacity was, what I enjoyed, what I wanted to make space for, and I dug deeper into what I wanted my life to look like. I understood it was no longer about what other people wanted and trying to find a way to fit myself in—it was about me taking the reins of my life and steering it where I wanted it to go. When we celebrate life, it’s about the life we live, it’s about letting the potential out—celebrating is about living, doing what we need to. So ringing in 41 meant something different. This wasn’t a milestone year, I didn’t need a celebration—I needed to celebrate myself. I needed to do the digging, do the work of what I wanted to do. 40 was the foundation, the turning point. 41 is the work. 41 is owning the plan, the life, the doing—and following through on it. Set the goal, focus on it, do it–and I know I can follow that pattern because I did it to get my health back. So I am grateful for another year and the years to come living the life I am meant to have. It truly is a blessing.
Today I am grateful for unexpected turn arounds. The world/universe really does surprise us when we least expect it. I received an unexpected return of something I’d worked on a long time ago and it shifted my perspective on some things. Sometimes the return on investment is greater than we anticipated. I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to use what I had done previously to take care of some things I have in the present. To understand that even if we are afraid of something we decide on now, the universe has ways to take care of us that we don’t always see or expect. We all face moments in life where we are scared to take the leap, to make the choice because we don’t know how we will handle it in the future. Fine it seems like a good idea now, but what happens when x,y,z happens and we aren’t able to sustain it like this? But there are times we have to take that leap anyway and it turns out just fine. I don’t know all the ways of the universe and I do struggle with trust at times—but there have been moments I’d be an idiot to say that the encouragement didn’t exist. I don’t understand the conflict between ideas at times—like if I know something is meant to happen, why do things get in the way? But I know that at some point the answer will be clear.
Today I am grateful for a boundary. Something clicked in me the other night where a repeated pattern reared its ugly head—a pattern that I’ve tried to break for the last 24 years. One that comes back every time a specific series of events happens. Like, I trust someone, they push the boundary a little bit, I give them another chance, and they push the boundary again—and then it happens a third time and I get really angry—and then they act like they are somehow the victim or like I’ve been crazy. It hit me that I truly didn’t care that this pattern made me look a certain way—I finally understood that if this is something that has bothered me for this long, then it is the other person who needs to stop engaging in that behavior or I need to stand firm in my boundaries—or maybe it’s both. When people care about each other, they don’t do things to hurt someone else, especially someone they care about. They respect us enough to know that certain things are a boundary and that they shouldn’t engage in that behavior. So my boundary is you don’t get to say one thing and do another. That isn’t how it works. We work together, we respect each other, we build together—or frankly, we have nothing at all. This is the year to turn it around—and I have no exceptions for that.
Today I am grateful for encouragement. Sometimes we all need a little reminder that we can do it. That we can believe in ourselves and accomplish what we want to do. Sometimes we need the reminder that making the right decision can be tough—and just because it’s tough doesn’t mean it isn’t right. We are only here once on this wild ride so it’s time to find the cheerleaders—and if we don’t have them, we need to be that cheerleader for ourselves. I’m not talking about needing constant reassurance on something—I’m talking about having the confidence to find the rooms that support us and walking away from the rooms that don’t. Find the spaces that fill us up instead of constantly relying on us to fill them.
“No matter what, you are ready. It might not seem like the right time, but it never will be. If you have thought about creating, starting, trying, or launching—do it! You will learn in the simple act of just starting” unknown—uncredited on my calendar. This was followed by a reel on source junkie that said “It’s already yours.” Funny how the universe aligns to remind us of what we are meant to do. We just need to remember who we are and take the chance to let the greatest version of ourselves free. That’s all the world is waiting for. We so often don’t regret the chances we take, we regret the chances we don’t take. What we want is within reach as long as we allow it to be and follow through on the details to get there. I’ve said it a million times before that we know what we need to do—truly. We feel it in our guts and we spend more time convincing ourselves not to do it because we are afraid of something. Afraid of what we will lose, that we will get in trouble, that people will think something/a certain way about us.
We need to start looking at what we will gain if we take the chance and what we will lose if we DON’T. Start looking at the good we can unlock by trying something different—especially if it aligns with who we are—understand that through honest expression we can’t be wrong. And people will think something anyway—no matter what we do they will have an opinion one way or another. Like I said yesterday, we will always be the villain in someone’s story and we could spend a lifetime trying to shape other people’s perceptions of us or we can simply live our lives as we are meant to. I’m not saying it’s easy to let go of what we know or that accepting the consequences of our actions isn’t scary or even that it doesn’t hurt to find out what people really think. All of that is true. But it’s also true that none of it matters. We are responsible for our lives and our choices and we can’t let our best guesses of what people think determine our actions. There is no other time beyond right now.
We could spend an entire life doing what we are told, all the while knowing there is something else we are supposed to do, knowing that there is something greater we are meant to fulfill. The energy we spend convincing ourselves to do otherwise is astounding compared to what it would take to actually follow through on what we wanted to do or the energy that would be created from following the momentum of such a dream. The greatest asset and detriment to our success in this world is our use of the word “no.” It’s an asset in setting boundaries—saying no to what doesn’t work for us allows us to say yes to what does; and it’s a detriment when we say no to what we know we need to do in favor of anything else. Life throws us enough things that we can’t say no to—loss/natural disasters, death (our own included), those curveballs we couldn’t plan for. So for all of those events we have no control over, why wouldn’t we say yes to what we do have a say in? Why wouldn’t we go for it? There will never be any other time than now. Do it.
We create many identities for ourselves. We will be many different things in our lives—and we will be a different character at different times. We will have to take up the role at certain times. Right now, I’m in a villain-esque role with someone. I’m not getting support from the higher ups in spite of being in the right. And at this time, it’s becoming ever more clear that I will be named the villain no matter what I do, no matter what evidence I produce. I’m frustrated and aggravated and concerned that the implications at this point could have long term effects for me, but this is something I clearly have no control over. The fact will remain that someone’s perception will win out over the facts. And that’s fine. We are all the villain in someone’s story at some point. We aren’t perceived the same way by every person we encounter. But I don’t need to tolerate it—especially if it ISN’T true. None of us need to tolerate it. We can’t control how people perceive us or what they believe—and right or wrong the fact is they may believe we are the bad person. We are still responsible for our own narrative and we are able to leave those circumstances.
We do that by stopping the game. We stop playing the game. If it was never winnable in the first place, what is the point of even trying? It’s ok to let go of a lost cause. When people have their mind set on a specific definition of who we are, the sooner we realize it, the easier it is to adapt and move on. The hardest part to swallow/accept is that it’s ok to be the villain in someone’s story. We know our truth, we know THE truth of what happened and that’s all that matters. We can literally experience the exact same thing and come away with to entirely different experiences. The same is true for how we are perceived. It’s our friends, the cat and the canary again. Sometimes we are the cat and others we are the canary—and in either circumstance someone will favor the cat and someone will favor the canary. We all have the capacity to be a monster to someone because, to the canary the cat is a monster. And we have no control over that definition. Trying to be everything to everyone, trying to control how we are received and perceived is a complete waste of time and an impossible task. So stop playing the game.
I used to think that if I couldn’t get my way, if someone didn’t see me in the light I wanted to be perceived in, then I was wasting my time. I’ve learned that it’s only a waste of time if we don’t learn from it. If we continue to force the point/issue after it’s over. And the reality is, if our authentic self-expression is a threat to someone, that’s their problem. That has nothing to do with us. Why would we want to waste our time convincing people who we are when they’ve already made up their minds and defined us according to their story? We have to learn to let it go. Don’t let ego force us to try and make ourselves to appear a certain way. We will feel better the more we stay in our authentic selves and allow ourselves to shine through no matter what. We can’t change someone’s definition of who we are, we can only be what is right, what we know in our hearts.
The Intentional Dreamer 