“You can give without loving but you can’t love without giving,” Amy Carmichael. In the context of last year in particular, I understand where I need to change my relationship habits.  I am a perfectionist, yes, but when it comes to relationships I’m not as much a perfectionist as people think.  Do I like things a certain way, yes.  But I also allow for people to have things the way they like them and I do not interfere with that.  Their homes, their interests, their quirks are all theirs.  That isn’t something I ever use against them and I never ask them to change that.  When their habits and patterns start hurting other people, that’s a different story.  It took me this long to understand that most people don’t have that level of understanding about others.  That’s part of why we tease each other or outright despise each other.  But I had to start asking if this belief of mine was actually conditional to have a relationship with me.  I started to expect people to have the same open acceptance of me.  I expected them to have the same understanding of my habits and beliefs that I had for them.  Like if a friend kept a messy house I literally said nothing but if they came into my house and started putting things away I’d bristle and get angry.

Because of the ups and downs in my relationships this year, I really had to start looking at that habit and that belief. I still don’t feel like accepting people as they are in their own environment is a bad thing—it is their space and we all have the right to have our space.  But we can’t make people adapt to us if they don’t understand that concept of acceptance.  I had to learn again this lesson about compromise in relationships and I had to learn about perception.  People will misunderstand even the most well-intentioned things if it triggers something in them—especially if it triggers their insecurity.  My ability to be open and allow people to be who they are triggers a lot of people.  They see how I live my life and because I struggle with ADD and anxiety, I need to keep things a certain way or my brain goes to chaos.  They assume it’s perfectionism or that I’m trying to be better than them—I’m trying to keep my mind sane.  My love for others is complete no matter what I give.  The relationship needs to be reciprocal.

There has been a lot of growing over the last few months—time apart, loss, limbo with work/home/health.  All of it has led to the realization that sometimes things don’t work out because they aren’t meant to.  We can try to hold it all together but that doesn’t mean it’s meant to be together.  I said it the other day—sometimes we are trying to hold smoke together.  We are trained to have this certain vision, this belief about the way things should be and we often forget what we want it to feel like, what feels right.  We operate based on acceptance from others rather than learning to accept ourselves.  Once we accept who we are, the rest can fall into place.  We aren’t here to meet other’s expectations, we need to live up to our own expectations and that is how we develop that acceptance.  The more we accept ourselves the more we have tolerance and acceptance for others.  We can learn to love and give of ourselves without wasting our energy because we are giving from the core of who we are.  We know how to replenish ourselves and we operate from there.  Our gift is infinite and the more we give, the more we love.      

Today I am grateful for music.  They’ve said that music is the language of the soul—I’ve heard many things described as the language of the soul—but music stands out.  One of my favorite teachers from high school said that the highest form of expression is song.  Music speaks in melody, harmony, tones, vibration, and poetry.  Poetry is it’s own type of song.  Music resonates with its sound, it reaches something inside of us in a way we can’t explain.  It triggers things—emotion, memory, and movement.  It draws people in.  Since ancient times music has been used as a way to commune with ancestors across time and space, a way to connect each other, a symbol of life events/milestones, as a way to connect with nature and spirit.  I feel gratitude for this today as it helps navigate and guide me through some complicated residual things in my life.  In a stage of clearing, we need to release and music helps us achieve catharsis in so many ways.  It stimulates joy and healing even if the trigger was sadness.  There is no higher expression than song because it speaks for our soul when words alone won’t do.       

Today I am grateful for words.  I can’t leave the words out of this—I thrive in my words.  The more I work with words the more I understand the complicated relationship we develop with expression as we get older.  As children we have such limited means of expressing what we need that determining how those needs is actually pretty easy—as infants we need basic needs met so that cry has to do with hunger or discomfort or pain, as toddlers we may have bumped our knee or we get frustrated if we can’t get what we want.  As young children (prior to entering school—and maybe those first few years of school) we still feel pretty confident about expressing what we want because we haven’t learned the masking skills of speaking in codes, hoping someone will figure out what we need—we are still able to state what we need.  The older we get the more we hide our needs and our true selves and I found that it became increasingly difficult to verbally express what I felt/wanted/needed.  But I could write about it.  Even if I couldn’t say it verbally, I could write it.  I love the artistry of words—the stringing them together, the way we can describe things—the way we can make something jump out at us visually using words-words sink directly into the mind and create a show entirely in our minds.  There is power in words—power over our minds, our souls, our emotions, power over others—words have meaning we assign socially, personally as well as what we feel viscerally with them.  That’s part of the magic of words—they mean as much as what we assign to them.  While their power lies in the meaning we give them, the way we feel with the tone/undertone etc. is all from vibration and energy in delivery.  People are cautious with yelling and aggression, they are empowered with speeches given with hope and love.  There are many things words stir in people.  Love or hate, they create connection, and I appreciate this expression.

Today I am grateful for non-verbal connection.  I’ve been missing my cat a lot this week.  Monday will be three weeks without him and I am still reeling from the course of events that took him from me.  I bring up the cat because I realize what I’ve been missing is the connection I had with him.  The way he simply understood me.  I still feel the weight of his absence, not just because of how recent it has been, but because of how he was everywhere for/with me.  Cats are fairly creatures of habit and we definitely had our routine—every day from the time we woke up to the time we went to bed.  He was always near me whether I was working, cooking, watching TV, reading, writing, sleeping, showering.  He knew how much I needed him—and I think he needed me too.  I understood his language and he understood mine and I miss that feeling of being understood that deeply.  I feel the change in our last cat as he is alone—he waits for me differently, he sits with me differently, he cries differently. We all feel the loss and we haven’t had to say a word about it.  From what I had to what I have, I am grateful for that level of love and understanding.  That connection is a gift, and even if it isn’t song, or words, it is an energy and a gift to be able to feel that.

Today I am grateful for emotion.  I struggle with emotional regulation with a variety of reasons and contributing factors.  But I’ve come to understand that emotion is an indicator of life, an indicator that we are alive.  We feel things to gauge where we are in the universe, what our standing is with other people, to tell us which way to go.  The gut-brain connection is incredibly powerful and as we learn to interpret what it tells us, we navigate the signs based on how we feel about things.  Emotion is a powerful tool designed to point us in the right direction.  Uncontrolled emotion makes it difficult to function and relate to others as much as overly controlled emotion.  But how we feel is a form of proprioception in the world and tells us what we need to do next.  Allow the connection to what we feel and learn to follow those emotions as guideposts.  Follow the triggers and learn what we can control and what we can’t.  Make sense of how we feel and what steps the emotions reveal to us.    

Today I am grateful for all of the things that make us understood.  As I was writing about the things above, I realize that they all come down to connection and being understood.  Understanding is one of the greatest quests of humanity—we seek answers to all of the mysteries of the world: what is in the greatest depths, the highest highs, what is beyond our planet, how does the body work, the function of everything in the universe from the microscopic to the macroscopic, why do we feel, how does the brain work, etc.  We seek to understand the world and we seek to be understood because it is when the mind is able to make sense of things that we feel we are able to work with it.  We feel we are able to master some facet of it.  Understanding is power, and when we grasp concepts both seen and unseen, we feel secure in ourselves.  Understanding also means survival.  There are infinite complexities in this universe and we seek to know all because we want to be known as much as we want to know.  When we understand, when the deepest parts of us are understood, we feel safe—and safety is a different level of power.  For all of the things we seek to control, big and small, we ensure our survival.       

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“Sometimes what you’re trying to hold onto is exactly what you need to let go of,” Ironwill Project.  There are things in life we love, sometimes more than ourselves.  We think nothing is wrong with that, because how can love be wrong?  Those things/people infiltrate us and become a part of who we are—and this is where it gets tricky.  Sometimes we forget that those things we have integrated into who we are, are not ours and that the things that we are trying to make others integrate aren’t theirs either.  Trying to force each other to hold on to things that don’t belong is like trying to hold smoke together.  It’s futile and as helpless as watching sand flow through our hands.  We can’t build a foundation on what will not stay together, on what can’t support the weight of the structure we are building.  In order to find what is strong enough, we have to let go of the ideas, beliefs, thoughts, things that we think we need.  The thing we are trying to protect may not belong with us in the next phase.

As humans we like the idea of permanence and solidity—we like to know what comes next.  This, too, is another primal instinct because we need to know if danger lurks around the corner.  I think we are kind of funny as a species because as we have evolved and found more and more ways to be safe, we seek ways to make ourselves afraid—thrill rides, jumping from planes (or anything else), watching scary movies, doing things that can harm our bodies (smoking and other bad habits, etc.).  So for a species that needs continuity and security, we do a lot to find ways to NOT feel safe.  We allow ourselves to interpret things in a way so our emotions are front and center.  There was a time when there was literally no time for emotion because we had to survive.  I will admit that when I’ve been in crisis, I have appreciated the clarity that comes with it.  All the other bullshit I’ve held onto, the drama, the fear, the anxiety all seems to slip away and the immediate scenario and what steps to take become crystal clear.  That isn’t to say I want to live in crisis—not by a long shot—but I don’t need to seek things that hurt me in order to appreciate my security.  All of this is to say that we hold onto things that don’t necessarily serve us and we need to alter our perspective—we need to understand that life isn’t permanent, the choices we make are meant to evolve, yes, even the good ones.

When we allow ourselves to be stuck in the pattern of keeping things as they are, it’s like trying to pause time—and we all know that doesn’t work.  We all have our reasons for holding onto things whether it’s security in knowing the familiar or even fear of what happens when we let go.  But we are all meant to come to the conclusion that holding onto things isn’t necessarily effective or what we should seek to do.  I prided myself on maintaining tradition for a long time—I liked that it made my parents feel good, that they were nostalgic for how it was and they found comfort in it.  I’d feel stuck in the middle because I know my siblings didn’t always enjoy that, but the truth is, I also found comfort in keeping things how they used to be.  I did that with my job, with my family, with my husband—and suddenly realized that when we hold onto how things were we aren’t allowing for things to grow.  It doesn’t take long for what gave us comfort to become the thing that stifles us.  Release becomes easier the more we know ourselves because we understand where we are at now, where we move forward rather than trying to hold onto how things were.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a thing, a habit, a place, or even a person, we understand that it doesn’t fit with where we are any longer.  We know we need to let go—and we can do that with gratitude for what it was, and gratitude that we get to move forward with something new that will support us on our next step and be an even better fit.  We let go of the smoke, and we relax into who we are in this moment. 

“You will never get what you want until you’re grateful for what you have,” Ironwill project.  This is a tough one for some people to swallow.  The distractions and consumerism and even selfishness of this world tells us that we always need more, that we always need to be going for the next thing.  It doesn’t teach us to be content with what we have let alone grateful for it.  We are brought up to compare and to see where we lack.  I don’t ignore the primal purpose of that which is that we need to survive and if we aren’t aware of where we need to improve, then we will fall behind.  But what we need to start emphasizing is that we don’t all need the same things to survive.  I know that we know this on some level, but most people allow themselves to fall into the habit of comparing and we competition and we think we need the most instead of what is the most of who we are. 

I’ve worn a thousand different skins in my life, believing that each one was the “real” me, that the next one would feel better, that the next one was right.  I’m not saying that I’m any different than any other person who went through phases of trying to find themselves.  But my home, my entire life, is indicative of all the ways that I tried to be something other than who I am.  I’ve held onto the success and the pain.  I’ve clung to the ways I lived, the ways other people wanted me to live, the ways I allowed others to tell me who I was…and I have the pieces of all those stories.  The thing is I got really good at telling stories—better at telling them than living them, and I realized that it’s easier to tell a story than it is to live it.  Wearing the skin of who we are and learning to be comfortable in it takes far more grit than we give people credit for.  I continue to stand by the importance of standing in our truth, but even I admit that I’ve been relatively flippant about it over the years—it truly is easier said than done at times.

As I look around me, trying to piece together exactly who I am, trying to clear the clutter, trying to understand what works and what doesn’t, I do see where gratitude comes in—and that is something that I practice every week.  I focus on one day of it in particular because I can quiet my mind and really share it.  But gratitude is something we need to practice every day.  There are things we need to be grateful for simply because we have the opportunity.  There are moments we need to slow down and be grateful for who we are, grateful to understand who we are, grateful to breathe, that our bodies function.  When we start there, we build momentum because we create an energy of attraction not only to the life we want, but to the source of that life.  When we are connected to that source it’s easier to understand and bring in what we want—and when we are connected enough we better understand what it is that we want rather than what other people want or what our culture of comparison tells us we should want.   Gratitude is so much more than saying thank you—it is a state of being that opens doors to who we are and what we are meant to do. 

I came across a post from Radhi Devlukia that discussed what it means to receive and what we do with our time when we are waiting for something to manifest for us.  She said a friend of hers told her, “Sometimes we need to slow down and get clear on the vision, we have to slow down enough to receive.  We prepare ourselves for the prayer.”  Manifesting isn’t about begging and receiving on hope.  It’s about feeling our way to who we are (like we spoke about yesterday in regards to killing doubt) so we know clearly what we need and what we need to do.  It isn’t a wishing well with the hope that things appear out of nowhere simply because we want them.  This is about being clear on the want and what we can do with it and then preparing for it in the physical. When we pray we are asking for clarity and understanding what we need to do to receive it.  As we talked about a couple weeks ago, receive is a verb—we need to be actively ready to do what we have to in order to acquire and act on our gifts. 

So when we pray that too is receiving—it’s receiving a message of what is aligned with who we are, what our purpose is, and what we are meant to do with it.  It’s also a way of receiving the instruction for what we need to do to fulfill that purpose, how we can help the world with our innate gifts.  It is literally a preparation for what we have to do and how we are meant to live our lives.  We can get all the answers if we are quiet enough to hear them and diligent enough to listen.  That means we have to slow down and quiet our voices, we have to slow down to allow the message to catch up, we have to slow down to integrate the next steps we are given, we have to slow down to see the big picture, the reality of what is, and mostly, we have to slow down enough to receive/catch the package.  Be ready, be alert, be attentive because the truth is, what is meant for us will not pass us—but they never said that we wouldn’t pass IT if we keep moving before we allow it to arrive.  There are times we are waiting for the package to arrive, but if we leave the house before it gets there, it just sits.  And then there’s the chance of it getting stolen or damaged while waiting for us.

The other advantage of slowing down is that big picture I just mentioned.  Time gives us perspective and experience allows for foresight when faced with a similar situation to what has happened.  So when we use our time to find our answers, rather use our time to allow the answers to come, we learn.  We understand on a different level and we see new things that we wouldn’t have if we were rushing about trying to make things happen.  Manifesting isn’t making things happening, it’s creating space to allow for whatever it may be to arrive.  And when we are in tune with our purpose and we act based on that information, we are set to receive exactly what we are meant to do right on time.  If things feel too hectic, too much, too chaotic—that’s the state of the world now because certain powers out there benefit from confusion.  So when we take the time to slow down and really connect with who we are and what we are meant to do, then those answers come and we open the gateway to receiving exactly what we are meant to, exactly what we want because it makes sense with who we are.  If prayer makes you uncomfortable, prepare through the pause, through connection, through meditation, whatever works—prepare through whatever silences the mind enough to hear the truth.  And the doorway will open.

“Doubt is a killer.  You just have to know who you are and what you stand for,” Jennifer Lopez.  In the concept of going for it and pulling the trigger, it makes it far easier if we know who we are and what we stand for.  When the opportunities arise that align with those values and that identity, it makes it easier to take the shot.  When we doubt who we are or our capability, it’s easy to convince ourselves that we can’t do it.  Doubt stops more people than actual circumstances do.  And the more we deny ourselves the opportunity to try things, the more comfortable we become with not doing.  It becomes easier and easier to convince ourselves that it’s safer to just not go for it, that it wouldn’t work for us, or worse, that it wasn’t meant for us. No one is perfect out of the gate.  Not to say that innate talent doesn’t exist—it really does—but even that talent needs to be honed and developed.  So we need to get ourselves to the point of having enough confidence to take that first step.

Doubt and fear kill more dreams than closed doors.  Impatience, people pleasing, and perfectionism are all part of that too—cousins, close seconds, I’m not sure, but they all prevent us from moving forward and contribute to keeping us right where we are.  And here’s the thing: as much as we believe that we are playing it safe, sometimes the very thing we think is keeping us “secure” is the very thing strangling us.  We build our homes and our lives around a concept of security, still trying to buy into a mentality of decades ago.  And we know that isn’t the reality any longer—so if we don’t know who we really are, it’s easy to let the world fill in the blanks.  That’s when we start missing our shot, that’s when we feel the so-called safety promised by others is safe instead of building our own foundation. The only person we have with us our entire lives is ourselves—so that is the standard we need to live by.  What is our strength?  What can we bring to the world?  How can we do good by being who we are instead of assuming a role in a machine that would spit us out anyway? 

Identity isn’t about deciding on something and trying to fit the mold.  Identity is innate and something we simply accept.  It’s when things feel right, like they fit.  I won’t say that we can’t change who we are because it’s always possible, but the successful change comes down to the things that FEEL right.  Identity is about wearing what fits.  It’s easy to know who we are when it feels right, when the outside matches the inside—then we know the steps.  When dealing with doubt we need to remind ourselves that it’s only us who stop progression.  While that can be a comforting feeling because that means we can always change the narrative, it’s also a sobering feeling because anything we’ve wanted to do becomes fully our responsibility.  And that’s a good thing.  This isn’t about being perfect, it’s about doing what is perfect for us.  And even if something feels right, it can still take some time to break it in to the point it becomes natural.  Some level of self-doubt is natural because from a survival stand point we have to make sure we don’t end up dead when we try something.  But we are meant to squash that voice that tells us we aren’t able.  Break that self-imposed barrier and be who we are meant to be—give ourselves and the world no doubt about who we are.

“I learned a long time ago that there is something worse than missing the goal and that’s not pulling the trigger,” Mia Hamm.  Wasting time waiting for the right moment rather than spending time learning to perfect our aim.  I know there are some people out there who don’t understand that feeling—when you really want something but it never feels quite right to go for it.  The bold ones who never let anything hold them back.  But there are those who struggle with even knowing who they are let alone what they want, and even if they do know what they want, there are things inside of them they let hold them back. But if we don’t go for it then there is no chance of it ever happening.  So we learn to go again.  We learn to take what happened the first time and shift it for what happens the next time.  When we don’t even try there is the loss of the opportunity.  When we build momentum and take that initial shot, we create space to try again, to learn more and come back and make it right.  Not pulling the trigger keeps us exactly where we are.

I was one of those “try” people for a long time.  Now, don’t get me wrong, there is value in trying—it’s why we sample things, why we dip our toes.  But trying really doesn’t get us anywhere.  It keeps us on the edge checking the conditions rather than jumping in and learning to swim.  I’ve tried a million things—I was a professional try-er. And it was fun!  There was always the thrill of something new, the moment where I felt like “this is it!” followed by the inevitable crash.  I was really good at starting things.  I was even pretty good at planning things.  Not so good at executing them.  I became even better at finding a way to not commit because the next thing sounded better.  Trying has its purpose in that it really can show us different experiences that may work for us.  But if we are stuck in trying and not doing then we end up not learning anything of any depth—we never move beyond the practice field.  Or, better yet in the case of ADD, we are constantly changing the target so we never learn how to hit the goal.  In some cases, even with rapidly changing the target, at least we are building skill, but if we never go for it, then we never learn.

I know a lot about regret for a variety of reasons.  Spending too much time on the wrong things, not spending enough time on the right things, not taking time to find my “thing.”  The biggest regret we all have is wasted time and not using our time to our advantage.  I hate the saying that we all have the same hours because that isn’t true.  First of all, we don’t even all have the same time—we never know when our time is up, so automatically all we can do is our best.  But as far as our day to day, we don’t have the same hours because our hours are all allocated differently and for different reasons—we can’t compare one person to another because there is always something that we don’t know about.  And I’m learning as I get older just how arbitrary time is.  It’s a man-made construct in order to keep us on some semblance of social graces—but the time of nature is what we are all made of.  So when the feeling strikes us, that is when we need to act and pull the trigger.  We are the only ones who know when that time is.  Don’t let it pass us by.  It can be a scary thing to pull the trigger but it’s even scarier to think about what happens if we don’t—if we miss we can try again, if we don’t go for it, time moves on.        

This morning I saw the story of a woman, a former radio engineer, who fell ill and nearly died while being treated.  Upon her release from the hospital she returned to the store where she constantly dropped off treats and goodies and the story expanded to how she had done this for other organizations, offices, and businesses as well and these places all shared how this woman was the one who took care of them.  She was always uniquely herself and sharing what she could with the world.  She said that when you judge others you miss the good stuff and she simply is herself.  She is her own person, allowing life to unfold as it should and she is changing lives one cookie at a time as her daughter says.  I spent so much of my life believing that in order to have any real impact, it was about quantity—how many people I could reach, how much I put out there, how much I received, how much work I did.  I forgot the impact of the pebble in the pond and sought to be the one who scooped up the entire pond. 

We don’t always hear the stories of the ones who initiate the spark, but they are just as responsible as those carrying the torch.  This story demonstrates the importance of knowing ourselves so well that we do what we must no matter how insignificant it may seem to others.  Small acts add up and they really do have an impact.  We may not be meant to impact every person we meet, but the people we do impact will potentially get enough to be of some impact to others as well.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a cookie or a word or a shoulder or just helping someone pick up—all of those things make a difference.  With the losses I’ve faced lately, I can tell you the seemingly little things have absolutely had a huge impact on my life, and the weight of them being gone is profound.  Sometimes all it takes is a steady heartbeat with us, a presence, someone willing to listen, a shared meal.  As someone who spent a lot of time pushing through and thinking those things weren’t necessary, I can tell you they are.

The passion we feel for things, especially the passion we can’t explain, is what guides us.  I’ve let the chaos run wild for too long and I love stories like this because there is steadiness in trusting who we are.  That is the solid ground we come back to: the essence of who we are.  I spent too much time trying to stop chaos and loss when I should have been working on stabilizing myself and centering myself in who I am.  It doesn’t matter what other people think, we will have the impact on the right ones and the right people will be brought into our lives.  The only thing we need to be is ourselves because that is what gives us the power to get through whatever this universe throws at us, it helps us learn the lessons, it helps us determine what is next because, as I spoke about the other day, we are never really “there.”  There is no “there.”  All we have is this time, this journey and we aren’t meant to be anyone else but ourselves. 

Today I am grateful for nudges.  I wanted to take a break from believing in signs for a while because I feel I spent a slew of time misinterpreting what was meant for me.  The things I was excited about and wanted to do never really came to fruition and I felt jilted because I didn’t want to do the things I was less passionate about.  It seemed the doors were often closed to the things I felt genuine passion about.  It took a lot of effort to keep the door open to the things I liked doing and it often seemed that the things I didn’t want to do were wide open.  On some level I still believe there are hints from the universe that I’m on the right path.  Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to put my spin on it and learn to stay present until I feel compelled to move—or maybe I need to learn to jump on the moment even if I’m not entirely confident.  There are still things the universe shows me and I’m working on trusting them again. 

Today I am grateful for inspiration.  This follows nudges because the nudges in this case referred to a specific dream I have.  My ADD has made it really challenging to complete any of my goals and I recently made the decision to slow down and focus on one thing at a time—it’s been so hard to not feel like I’m falling behind in other areas.  But I recently saw that three of the people I follow regularly are publishing books again.  It was the clear indicator that at this time in my life, I need to focus on my writing.  I had bene so preoccupied with generating income that I let the more creative side, the urges, fall to the wayside because I have a potentially lucrative business forming.  Each endeavor has benefits and amazing potential to be honest, but I can’t do both at once.  Right now the writing is calling to me, sharing my message keeps repeating in my mind.  And to see all of these people putting out multiple books and repeating their success is a great reminder that I am in good company and need to be honest about what dream I want realized first.  This is where I’m at now and I am following the inspiration. 

Today I am grateful for the life I have been gifted.  It’s our 23^rd anniversary and after the year we’ve had, I wasn’t even sure we’d be together.  I can’t say that all we’ve done is bad because I’ve seen in the last few months how it was all a comedy of errors of sorts—we both thought the other wanted something and we acted as if that was the case instead of speaking with the person to identify what the other really wanted.  We each took each other for granted in certain aspects.  We’ve endured and we’ve grown.  And we are still here.  It isn’t perfect, we are still trying to get our bearings, get our feet under us. And no matter the pain we’ve been through in the last year, I can’t say I’m not grateful we’ve made it this far.  No relationship is perfect, and we have a lot to work through on both of our parts, but I am grateful we’ve built this life together and I’m grateful we are learning these lessons together because we are still safe enough with each other to learn who we are all over again.  It’s a scary feeling but I appreciate coming to clarity together and doing the work together.  I can’t believe that someone would simply stay together for 23 years for no reason other than personal gain—neither of us were giving that much.  But now we can acknowledge where we were, be grateful for what we’ve done, and get honest about where we want to go.  We can work on actually building a dream together.  I’m grateful to have this life with him because it’s still teaching me to this day. 

Today I’m grateful to learn.  I prided myself on my intelligence for years. It was my staple throughout my entire childhood—I could remember and recite most any bit of information you gave me and I could put it into context so it was clear I really understood my stuff.  I never looked at how it was a defense mechanism.  I also never looked at how that inhibited me from learning.  If we think we already know it all then there isn’t anything left to learn and we close ourselves off.  There were lessons about myself that I really didn’t want to admit I needed to learn.  Things I didn’t want to address head on or believe about myself.  But I knew that in order to successfully move forward, I would have to drop what I thought and learn all over again.  Learning was always a fun process for me, going into the depths of what needed to change in my life could be viewed the same way.  The more we learn the better we can be at expressing ourselves, at serving our purpose, and understanding others.  I am grateful to learn where I can improve and where I can serve.  I am grateful to let down the defense and be open to learning what I need to.

Today I am grateful for persistence.  If it wasn’t for stubborn persistence I’m not sure I would still be going right now.  Look, I’m fully aware of all the advantages I have—I have a comfortable home, a family, friends, a secure (ish) job, additional work that can help my family, I have free time to do things I enjoy, and I have choices.  We are all in different circumstances and we are all different people so, based on our experiences, we all react a different way.  It took me decades to learn that there was a degree of safety in full expression of self.  Call it ego or stubbornness (maybe both at times) I would have given up.  There was so much in me that knew from day one that I was not meant to carry someone else’s yoke—I was the one to free people from it.  We didn’t like what we were doing and it bothered me that we blindly kept doing it so I talked about the issues.  I talked myself in circles and then I learned the lesson in trying v. doing.  And getting honest about what I’m really doing and if that is enough.  But most of this life comes down to the fact that we just keep going.  Keep going.  We never know what comes next, so we keep going. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“It’s the fear of the unknown that cripples every step we take,” Tyler Joseph.  I think this is part of the problem when it comes to us searching for power.  We don’t know what comes next and our primal brains are still trained that the unknown is dangerous—and it can be on some levels if we enter into something we don’t know enough about-so we want to exert as much control as we can to keep ourselves safe.  We feel it will help us avoid pain, and pain/discomfort have become the new indicator of survival.  Like, our physical being used to be threatened and now a threat to ego or to our comfort is seen as a threat to survival.  We need to know how people feel and what they will do in our lives.  Will they leave us?  Will they be a good partner?  How can we know who will stay forever?  Will we be able to maintain what we envision?  Are we on the right path? 

We are meant to be creative and social beings but we’ve been pitted against each other in a weird competition, thinking there is only so much for everyone.  But we have the capacity to create the life we want and the universe provides the means to do just that because when we create what we are meant to, we share that with the world. Not many of us are trained in how to follow those instincts and bring those ideas to fruition so when we see others doing it or when we manage to do it ourselves, we inspire others to step forward in their light.  Creating what we think we see and living it are two different things because we have to go against the training, against the grain of what we have been taught and forge our own way.  Not seeing the way to go, especially on an unknown path brings up all sorts of fears. Becoming what we feel instead of what we’ve known brings up fears as well.  Shedding what we were and stepping into a new skin takes time because we have indoctrinated that in our lives.  We have to work our way into feeling secure on our path—into trusting.

As contradictory as it sounds, we have to learn that we can trust the unknown because it is known on some level.  We’ve been taught that following the same path as everyone else is safe and we can do it but that conventional way isn’t meant for everyone.  OUR way is what’s meant for us and that path was laid out well in advance of us being here.  All we need to do is take the first step because once we do, there is no stopping it.  It’s inevitable, destined.  We can trust that we will get where we are meant to be even if we don’t know where “there” is.  We will know when we get there.  I just finished Michael J. Fox’s book Always Looking Up and he references this in the end—we often look for the destination, but when we get to that destination there is always the next one.  So we are never really “there” anyway.  We can be content with where we are and take the appropriate steps when they present themselves because we don’t have to fear the unknown—we can trust we received the instinct for a reason.  Take the step.