We needed to go out with some friends on Sunday to pick up some supplies for an upcoming, truly important trip.  We had several things on our agenda and it seemed all we did ended up taking significantly longer than it should have.  I had no intention of being gone all day—and it turned into an all day excursion.  When I woke up on Monday, I found myself thinking about accountability for the life I want and how different I felt on Sunday.  Why did I have such a sense of urgency?  To be fair, I hadn’t planned on it taking all day, and we were behind schedule from the start.  By the time the day was ending, they wanted to go get ice cream really far out of the way and there was a line no less than 30 people deep and it was taking an inappropriately long time to complete orders.  While I was standing there I knew I was being impatient but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that I just wanted to be done standing around doing nothing.  We’d been out for almost 12 hours already and I still had things to do at home.  I don’t have someone doing my laundry, cooking, cleaning, dishes etc. for me—that’s all on me in addition to working.  But it hit me that I’m always trying to just get things done.  Why am I always trying to get to the finish instead of enjoying where I’m at?  Why not take the time to enjoy a beautiful evening enjoying ice cream with friends?  Enjoying seeing my son enjoy his first dipped cone?     

I’m trying to fit in four lifetimes in one because I haven’t transitioned to what I want to do with my life.  Not fully.  On Monday, I knew that I didn’t want to HAVE to wake up at 4am or earlier anymore to try and fit things in.  I don’t want to continue working for someone who doesn’t appreciate what I’m doing anyway.  I want to create opportunities for myself but I’m afraid they won’t come through.  I don’t want to be rescued because I don’t want to be obligated to someone else but I know I need help.  I’m confused with a business opportunity because I know it’s good but it’s something I feel wastes a lot of valuable time—we spend a majority of our meetings saying the same things about the same people and I feel we lose the meaning behind what we are trying to do by either doing the same things on repeat or jumping too quickly from one item to the next.  But I understand the only way to transition is to slow down and be present.  I love going on walks so I should have just enjoyed the day.  Finding books together in the second hand store, going to the Lego store, it was all pure joy.  Why couldn’t I just slow down and be present in that joy?  It’s ok to follow the path of what feels good—I preach that we need to do that all the time anyway.  So what was holding me back? 

Life isn’t just about getting things done.  There will always be something else to do no matter how much we check off the list.  There will always be something else that needs to be done.  And when everything is done in our lives, we are dead.  So we need to start taking care of who we are in our souls and following what feels good, wake up to what is right in the moment we are in and constantly express gratitude for that.  Do more of what we love and let the universe know we love it and more of that will come.  Life isn’t something we get through—it is supposed to be an experience filled with love, joy, creativity, connection, and purpose.  We want to make it a beautiful life and we need to be awake every moment instead of trying to do all the things at once.  We have to trust that what we do in a day is what we are meant to do and that we have done enough.  Presence is key.  No, I don’t do well with doing nothing—I need to be doing something—but I also don’t have to overwhelm myself with doing all the things at one time.  Stay aware of what I’m feeling, and when it gets tough to settle into the newness of something, just breathe and stay present.  Stay aware of what feels good.  It’s ok to slow down and enjoy a day doing something we didn’t think we would be doing.  It was a great adventure and we really did have fun with some amazing people.  If that’s more of what I want then that is what I have to do.

In doing the physical work to help improve my health, I’ve noticed that it’s created additional physical issues—well, different physical issues.  With balancing all of the hats I’m wearing, I was left with little choice but to wake up at 3am daily to work out.  This would be fine if I had been able to counteract the time I go to bed.  I quickly developed awful stomach issues which was from a combination of eliminating crap in my body and a messed up circadian rhythm.  I gave myself a single day of reprieve and realized that I still needed to maintain a work out early in the morning.  While 3AM was disruptive to my body, the working out itself felt amazing.  So, how do we balance it all?  There comes a point where we have to realize that doing something good for our body doesn’t do any good if we have to disrupt another essential function—like sleep/digestion.  It ends up counteracting the work we are trying to do in the first place. 

So where is this happy medium?  Where is the middle ground?  I know I do my best work first thing in the morning whether it is working out or writing or making decisions for my 9-5—so what becomes the priority?  Something has to give at a certain point because the body can’t keep up like that.  There comes a time we have to respect where our body is at—and our mind.  I always want to do it all and I have a tendency to overcommit at times, but the things I’m trying to do all need to be prioritized. Health is important, keeping a roof over our heads is important, productive work is important, creativity and expression is important.  I hadn’t learned how to separate those priorities and it got overwhelming.  I’ve said it before and I’m the first one to acknowledge that we can’t drive three cars at one time.  The key is to move one car at a time but to not get too far ahead of the others so we can’t make progress there too.       

Sunday was a great example of being in rhythm. I woke up at 5:30, took some medicine for my stomach, came down and worked on what I had to.  I felt the exhaustion so I slept for a couple more hours, I got up, took care of my son’s registration and some bills, called my parents and got to speak with my dad (mom was sleeping), we went to our event for the business (and learned some things about gatherings/stepping in time), went shopping for some things we had forgotten, talked with my mother, came home, I wrote, we went across the way for dinner with friends, we discussed books, history, nature, came home and went to bed.  It was a lovely day.  That was still a lot of stuff but it was nice.      Honestly even Saturday was good and I feel like this is an entire lesson on rhythm.  So if the body feels so good in rhythm why do we do so many things outside of what feels right for us?  Out of some perceived obligation?  Out of fear of not knowing what to do instead?  There are choices we have to make and until we do, life will feel overwhelming.  Things feel off when we aren’t listening/acting on what we need to do.  So take the time to find the rhythm and trust our instincts, no matter what.  It will take us exactly where we need to go.

This was on my calendar, not attributed to anyone: “Live fully in the season you are in. It is going to look different from others so quit comparing.  The lord has you here for a reason.  Spend your time asking him why instead of trying to get out of it.”  There are certain inevitabilities in life and no matter how much we fear them or try to avoid them, we aren’t able to get away from them.  We have to embrace the mindset of dealing with it as it comes and allowing.  We also need to be grateful for the time we have and learn to create presence, to be in presence wherever we go.  While the human mind is designed to protect and preserve, there is no sense in fearing the inevitable.  We need to be grateful for what we have.  I’ve watched two generations (and almost a third) of women in my family hold so tightly to grudges that it nearly destroyed them.  One died holding onto resentments so old that time itself forgot what happened. The other is currently wasting time coping with rage that won’t be satisfied.  I found myself on that path as well.  I still have anger over some events in the past but no matter how much I want to change it I can’t.  So I need to manage my present and be grateful NOW before this becomes another regret.

We miss opportunities hoping to change what happened and then we miss the present because we are trying to fix something that has passed.  I am all too well aware of how hard it is to let go of something you wish had gone a certain way, but I’ve lost too much time and I’ve seen people wasting time stuck on what happened to them.  Fine, a bad moment happened, an injustice, something genuinely fucked up—it happens to all of us.  I’m not saying ignore that hurt and pick ourselves up by our bootstraps, but I AM saying that we can’t stay stuck there.  We aren’t meant to stay buried beneath regret, sorrow, anger, frustration, victimhood, feeling weak.  We are meant to fulfill our purpose by recognizing, honoring, and acting on our destinies, on who we are.  That will always look different to everyone and we can never judge our success based on someone else’s story.  This isn’t even about being on different chapters-this is about being in different books.  We each have our own story to tell and if we concern ourselves so much with what other people are writing we will leave our pages blank.  Or if we fill our pages with the same thing over and over again we have a book with no story—it’s an event, a madness, a stuckness, repeated over and over.

The reality of this life is that we will never understand all that happens until we are able to gain enough time or perspective.  I know enough to understand that what we have is precious and we need to appreciate and live while we are here.  If we don’t know all the answers about what happens in the end (which we don’t), then all we can do is live here and now.  The point is to be here now.  Projecting fear on the future or staying stuck in anger about the past does nothing for the present but put the mind out of body.  I don’t want to put myself through the pain of lamenting a future loss that can’t be stopped when I have the opportunity to share in love and hope now.  Letting the present be taken over by that future sadness puts us through it twice and prevents us from enjoying what we have now—which sets us up for future regret about missing opportunities we have now.  I don’t want to compare myself to where others are now but I know I want to learn the lessons that came from those before me—and I don’t want to repeat those.  I am grateful for being here now and I will take every opportunity I can to live in this moment.  Living is a blessing and how we show appreciation for this life is to live it.   

Today I am grateful for taking my future in my hands.  I’ve come to learn something new about creating our futures and taking chances: the very people you think you can rely on may not be as reliable as we would like to believe.  Others do not have our best interest at heart and there are times we need to take a stand and do what we know is right.  Several months back I took a step to do just that.  Over the last week I’ve been fully reminded that people will take care of themselves and sometimes, if they aren’t getting what they want, they will do what it takes to undermine others.  So I made a decision and I went to the top of the food chain—and I got a bite.  I have feelers out there for several other things as well, but I’ve put my hat in the ring and secured an opportunity to discuss something I actually want to do.  It was a chance that should have been taken 5 years ago and I literally wasn’t allowed to—and now I’ve gone and done it anyway, and I am so thrilled that I have.  Not only is it a sense of empowerment but it is a sense of ease and alignment—I know this is exactly what I’m meant to do.  I’m taking the chance and running with it.

Today I am grateful for community I am building.  Support comes in different forms and we all need to feel some level of support in our lives.  I went through so many things alone, believing I needed to prove I could do it.  There were moments I wasn’t supported but I knew I had to do the thing anyway, and I will say, when it was over, it felt good.  But I carried around this indignation for a long time—and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy that I had to do things on my own.  I spent a long period of my life in resentment feeling like I never got help with what I asked for but people would come and do the things I didn’t need help with at all—and still expect me to feel grateful.  Then I’d feel guilty for not being grateful.  But there comes a time when we have to set the boundary with someone who does that and explain they understand the difference.  It’s not like we don’t appreciate the gesture, but if I need help with x and you do y, how is that actually helping?  So I’ve begun forming a space with people who understand this and, more importantly, understand me.  There are wolves in sheep’s clothing who tell us they are for us and we need to be aware and find the truly like-minded.  I am grateful to have that.

Today I am grateful for sticking with new habits.  I was on the struggle bus for a long time, a constant up and down of starting and stopping taking care of myself.  Something shifted.  I’ve talked about changing before and sticking with a new regime—and I was always really good about it for a few weeks.  Inevitably something would happen and put me right back to the start because I would feel terrible, or I would feel uncertain about what to do, or old habits simply crept up because I didn’t know how to react differently in stressful situations.  The process of becoming someone new is really tough but I see the more aware we are, the easier it is.  My issue was that I would find something I wanted to change and then drop it cold-turkey.  Will power would last for a while but it wasn’t an integration of who I am.  So the next time I faced something similar, I didn’t have the actual foundation to make a new choice so I would fall back on what I knew.  I’ve taken this path slower and I’ve felt that foundation shift for real this time.  It’s not like a slight change as it was before—I’ve done the work to make the choices consistently every day. Consistency, not perfection is the goal and I’ve managed to do that.

Today I am grateful for movement.  Even something as simple as walking has made a difference for me.  I had been in such a deep depression that I had barely been moving 6,000 steps a day.  It was truly difficult to even attain that number.  My entire being began to feel sluggish—like it started to even hurt moving.  And then it started to hurt staying still.  I literally became uncomfortable in my own skin no matter what I was doing—so there was no peace.  I’d want to sit but couldn’t sit for long, or lay down, so I would try to move and I’d become exhausted.  As cliché or even as superficial as it sounds, I saw a picture of myself and knew that wasn’t how I wanted to look.  I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that the outside didn’t match what I felt inside.  So I started walking more.  Then I started lifting.  Then I resumed boxing. Then stretching. Then cardio.  I have no excuse because every time I start moving I feel infinitely better—it’s just getting over the hump to create a new habit, a new response.  I am getting older and I want to appreciate myself more.  And I am grateful to incorporate more of what my body can do.

Today I am grateful for aligning.  I truly don’t know what the ultimate goal or the big picture is at present, but I know what I feel, and I feel things coming together.  As I mentioned in the first gratitude above, this isn’t about power.  I thought for a long time that I was looking for power.  What I really wanted was freedom and autonomy in my own life.  It was never about power over people, it was about power over my decisions.  I’ve had serendipitous things happen in my life, but this is different.  This was making a choice and the universe instantly saying, “YES”.  In most scenarios like this I start to feel like the other shoe is going to drop.  Not this time.  This is a moment where each step feels like it’s drawing me closer to where I need to be—not like I’m stumbling along, hoping to find the next step.  This is a stride. It feels good and it feels more and more my own with each step I take.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.  

“When you reach the end of your rope tie a knot in it and hang on,” Franklin D. Roosevelt. This is something we’ve spoken about before, but in the midst of great change, unknown, and dealing with life as it is, I think we need this little reminder.  Life isn’t meant to be stagnant and that means there will be ups and downs.  When we hit a low, we must learn to climb and garner and develop our own strength.  Sure, we need some help with the initial lift at times, but we have to go through phases that build us up—and often times that may feel like breaking down.  Life is a constant cycle of filling and emptying, endings and beginnings and not all of those are easy to deal with.  Earlier this week we talked about playing the cards we are dealt and sometimes we have a rough hand for a while.  We may not understand the purpose of all the cards in our hand, and frankly, some may truly be awful.  But even those awful, painful, challenging moments are filled with depth and show us how deep the pool of life truly is.  Behind every painful event is a chance for a new, brighter one.

Our priorities have shifted so much over the years, every decade seeming to bring some entirely new mindset.  I find it funny that the more stable things became for us the more we sought ways to create pain in our lives as some way to make ourselves relevant.  Life is tough enough, we don’t need to create any sort of drama.  Our grandparents experience shaped the world and people freak out if someone’s opinion doesn’t match their own.  Not even social opinion, but personal belief.  I think if we took more time to take stock of what we have around us and what is really important we wouldn’t be nearly so quick to anger over what someone thinks.  We’d have a different focus.  When we start eliminating distraction we remember what matters and our values shift from winning and power to living and thriving and creation. We can see the value of our cards and remember to appreciate what we have in life, that this life is a gift.  The fact we are here and cognizant and allowed to create, that we ae living, breathing beings with autonomous thought and function, is a miracle.  So don’t let the tough times stop the climb.        

The cards I’ve been dealt: being short and having my progress hindered professionally, being tortured because of how short I am, the early loss of my grandfather, nearly losing my siblings, losing my cousin, hating myself so much that I didn’t think I should live, not having true friendship or companionship early on, my boyfriend cheating on me and “friends” using me, not going away to school, fearing standing on my own, being completely misconstrued as a child, switching careers and not feeling established near mid-life.  A beautiful son, a close relationship with my parents, amazing vacations and seeing the country, hearing my dad sing at my wedding, the ability to see people from all angles, the ability to create, the ability to inspire and help people be better, the ability to solve issues and heal, putting myself through college and LMT training, the ability to sing, dance, and cook and bake, and stand up for those who need it, amazing friends who care, coming from a family of entrepreneurs, admiring the hearts of faith that I come from, a beautiful home, food on my table, clothes on my back, books upon books, curiosity, writing and sharing my words, the ability to care for my body/mind/soul.  I’ll stand.       

I had a work event this past weekend in a team member’s building in the city.  It was like stepping back in time.  After hearing the stories about family and how they gathered together making memories and the way they spent time with each other, this building and this group was the physical embodiment of that era.  I love witnessing other cultures and this was a European culture where they still focus on things like this—they don’t fall into the distractions like we do.  They still care for each other.  We try to be polite and they simply do the thing.  We arrived late due to parking so we tried to quietly stand at the back of the room to not draw attention and the people there still brought out chairs and told us to eat.  This was all direct communication with each other meaning they were having discussion, there wasn’t a phone to be seen except for transactions related to the event.  They didn’t waste any of their time on distraction.  They take care of themselves and each other and they don’t let time get away from them—if it can be done now, we do it now.  Why wait?   

We have a lot of movement in our culture but there is very little doing at the end of the day.  I’m not trying to say it was better in a different age (there were many horrible things less than 100 years ago) but there was certainly a different priority.  So communication and gatherings and work are not like they used to be.  We talk a lot, we puff, we boast, but the follow through is key.  We talk about taking care of each other but all of the things we do seem to counteract that.  We can barely care for ourselves and we spend a lot of time in survival.  There was a determination to get things done that I spoke about the other day that we truly don’t have.  We are good at appearing busy but we aren’t actually doing anything.  We are waiting for the right opportunities instead of creating them, like we can order it off of Amazon and have it show up.  We might have connection to the world but we aren’t connected to each other—and that is the difference.  They ARE connected to each other which gives them more awareness of need.

I don’t think any of us want to go back in time, especially to an era so blatantly determined to oppress and remain unaware of basic human rights.  But what I think we are looking for is a different level of connection.  We want genuine connection and support.  We are looking for community even if it’s within our own walls.  When we know we are supported we are able to be whole and we are able to live our lives.  There is freedom in that. There’s a reason that as soon as we put power aside the very thing we are looking for, prosperity and love and joy, suddenly become visible. It becomes about the thing itself and we find what we are really looking for—peace and connection.  It’s because we aren’t focusing on distractions or misplacing our energy seeking power over peace.  We go further the more we are able to support each other.  Even if we don’t have that support in our immediate family, we can create that support with our community.  It’s all about priority and the things we choose to carry.  Carry love before pride and purpose before power and see how the world shifts.  

I need to take a moment to discuss the absolute talent and brilliance of the human animal.  We need to spend more time in appreciation of the talent of humans.  I spent this past weekend watching some incredible works of art (some repeated) and my favorite thing is the absolute excitement that runs through me when listening to people perform.  I believe everyone has the capacity to share that level of talent whether it is in performing or in creating something—building with our hands, being able to speak well, gardening, cooking, baking, singing, acting, drawing, writing, playing an instrument, playing a sport—whatever it is, we all have a talent that can leave people in awe.  We’ve all had that moment witnessing something that left us breathless or so full of excitement that we had to say how amazing it was.  Doesn’t matter if it was seeing a beautiful car or watching a movie or seeing our children perform—there is that moment when we feel absolute respect for what we’ve seen. 

Going back to 700 Sundays for a moment, the sharing of that story was ultimately so good and touching because it was so personal.  There was truth in it and at the end of the day we all relate to truth.  When we feel something that resonates at the human level, it stirs something in us.  It’s a sense of security, knowing that we all have this type of experience.  And art/creation, at the end of the day, is about unification.  It brings us all together because we have that common human experience.  We need to feel that awe every day.  We need to remember that we all come from something so much bigger but that we have these gifts to share. This is why performance goes back millennia.  I watched Hamilton as well (again), and between seeing the genius that is Lin-Manuel Miranda and how he pieced that story together, and hearing/seeing that amazing New York cast is an experience like no other–it thrills me every time.  Even if you don’t like the content, there is NO denying the stunning work that was created.  We are blessed to witness that level of talent.

Even if you don’t feel the same way about those particular pieces, the point remains the same.  Immersing ourselves in that level of appreciation and talent is something that inspires the human soul.  We need to spend more time in that state rather than worrying about our status.  Instead of worrying about how much we have and how much power we have over people, we need to spend time coming together and creating.  It’s the most humbling experience while also elevating the soul to new heights.  As individuals we are quite capable of doing extraordinary things.  Coming together we are able to create something even greater than what we can do on our own.  I love directing my focus toward creative pursuits and feeling that energy course through my veins.  When I’m in a zone, the words flow, the excitement buzzes through me, and everything seems to piece together perfectly.  Even if we aren’t actively creating, spending time in inspiration is a spiritual experience.  Life is all about creation and that includes creating works like this.  I am so grateful to have the time and means to witness events like this.  Find something that makes us feel inspired and in awe every day.  Life is in creation.

I had the joy of watching “Billy Crystal: 700 Sundays” the other night—if you haven’t seen this I highly recommend it.  This is such an important work and such a beautiful demonstration of what happens in life when supported, loved, believed in, and when we have faith.  It’s also a testament to the power of living and sharing stories.  I had no clue Crystal was such a profound story teller.  I mean, I’ve loved his work and he is hilarious, but the depth and breadth and connection as well as the relatability of this story cut me to the core in the best possible way.  As we ended yesterday’s piece, I spoke about standing in our light and allowing the bloom, allowing the timing of our lives.  I also spoke about how we don’t know how much time we get.  Crystal affirms this in his piece, talking about how he lost his father after roughly 700 Sundays—about 15 years.  While it was one of the toughest things in his life, he moved forward with love and support and he saw people around him work with determination and drive, and he followed his instincts.   

The story dives deeper than that.  Life is about experiencing life.  It’s about being present and making memories with others and the things we can create together. There was a determination to get things done—if it needed to be done it wasn’t lamented, they simply did the damn thing.  Frustration existed, of course, but they didn’t let that stop them.  They found a way through it and they did what they had to do.  To be fair there were less distractions and there were more opportunities to find ways to get things done.  But today’s society is so used to having things available to them 24/7 and having instant gratification that we have truly become a generation of whiny brats.  We are so spoiled, expecting things to come to us immediately.  We’re more concerned about an incorrect coffee order than we are about people’s lives being taken/infringed upon.  We have forgotten the beauty of the complexity of human nature and what it means to live.  The magic is here and now and time moves too quickly—we never know when that last Sunday will be.      

At the end of the day we are all dealt certain cards in life, some we’d feel are good and some bad.  But that isn’t the purpose of the cards.  Life truly is about how we play those cards and how we react, what we can make of them.  While we never know how much time we get, we know we are here now.  And if we are here now as breathing, thinking, beings, we are able to do something with that time.  See, so many people look for grandeur and fame or things, the reality is life’s joys come from the simplest things—doing the things we love, being with those we love.  Following our hearts and our talents.  Now, not everyone can grow up as Crystal did—he was in the heart of the jazz movement and heavily involved in entertainment because his family was.  Sure they wanted to secure themselves but they were simply doing what they loved—being together and enjoying music. The point we can take from this is the same: do what we love and become so good at it that it becomes a beacon.  Great things happen and we aren’t even aware of all the implications at the time.  We simply live and learn and we make memories and feel and share love along the way.  Again, we never know how much time we get—and we never know how much time we get with those we love.  It’s up to us to decide to play or fold in this life or to sit and bitch about what we have or appreciate every card and play it to its fullest.  I’m all in.

I really started noticing the depth of the seasons last year.  How the buds look in spring and the beginning of life and watching the transition all the way to winter.  Now I watch the beginning of Spring again. Life emerging as it does every year, and the comfort that there is life here. I love looking at my plants and seeing them growing, knowing that they will sustain me.  I love the wildness of nature and the idea that all we need is provided to us.  We are meant to heal, we have the medicines we need provided to us naturally.  How did things get so distorted?  The greed?  The idea of worth?  Fear?  Proving?  Power? Ego?  Maybe it’s all of it.  I see the points in history where we learned about power and how we used that against each other instead of learning to harness it together.  How quickly we forget that nature has power over us all. But seeing the beginnings of spring this year has made me feel a certain coming alive, a coming into my own.  A certain rebirth if you will.

I allowed people to hinder me for too long whether it was because I thought I couldn’t challenge authority, or because I couldn’t articulate an idea, or because I put myself last to help their ideas come forth.  We only get so many years and we have no idea how many, so many springs to begin again.  It’s hard to accept the concept that we are dealing with finite in an infinite world.  Understanding this part of my mortality has made it easier and easier to chip away at the idea that I need to put myself last.  I see value in helping others, but I do not see value in helping others who would cut my legs off in the process.  There are choices we make every day and we need to make the choices that are really for the greatest good.  What good does it do to give the pieces of ourselves to others who never bother to fill their own?  That being said, I can’t expect people to give me pieces of themselves either.   It is my job to fulfill my purpose.

All the ego, greed, fear, corruption, power won’t give us more time.  None of those things can improve the quality of lives for others and it isn’t sustainable for very long.  It’s exhausting protecting power.  It’s easier to cultivate and maintain our own strength. When we tend to our own garden we become more concerned about our own bloom than what other people are doing.  We all have seasons—growth, prosperity, slowing down, death.  We go through them every year.  We have to stop allowing others to tell us how to live in our seasons.  We must appreciate each season, we must appreciate ourselves in each season.  There was something in me that feared the bloom for a long time, that feared letting myself be seen in that light.  Like there was an expectation of maintaining a certain glow once the bloom hit.  We need to learn that we are ok to simply shine.  We are meant to bloom and do nothing more than that.  Don’t let anyone tell us it’s not the right season to shine.  We all bloom in our own time.  Let it be seen in its full array regardless of how uncomfortable it makes others.  Stand tall in that light.