Choose love.  Life is too damn short to not choose love daily.  Choose to love ourselves, love the people around us, love life.  Love living and creating this life.  Love being part of this life.  We had a horrific moment the other night, one of those moments you know you can never go back from—it will forever be a before and after.  These things happen and they come suddenly and out of left field.  In that moment I knew that I needed to choose love over and over again.  I needed to choose support.  It was no longer about me and my comfort, it was about saving someone, loving someone completely.  It was about diving into the lion’s den.  While I wish to never see anything like it again, I will say the moment provided the utmost clarity about what is important to me.  Anything personal, any demands I had of life didn’t matter in that moment, it was about projecting the energy of love onto someone to hold them long enough so they could think.

Not to sound cliché, but love truly is one of the most powerful forces in the world.  It creates an energy of protection, an energy of sustenance, and an energy of wholeness.  Loving in general is used loosely, but when done with spirit behind it, it can change the course of our lives and the lives of others.  Admittedly, I have a tendency to be hyper critical of how others do things and I compare a lot.  While this may not make it any better, this behavior comes from two things: 1. I’m just as critical of myself and I hold myself to those expectations as well.  When I’m not meeting my own expectations, this behavior can worsen. 2. I spent a lot of time cleaning up after people who could have made a better choice and decided to let someone else (me) be responsible for their actions.  What I learned from this experience is that there are some moments when that shit doesn’t matter.  As hurt as we are, as much as we think we can’t keep doing it, we find the way to push through because it’s about someone else’s sanity and not our ego.

When we truly love someone, that ego tends to go away regardless.  Think of the vulnerability we have with those closest to us.  Our closest relationships know the most about us and there is very little we can hide in the way of body language and what goes unspoken.  That doesn’t stop us from trying to control them at times because we are still human and trying to protect ourselves because that vulnerability can be too much.  When we spend too much time protecting ourselves, however, we can let the other person’s needs to unnoticed.  Don’t ever let it get that far.  Take the time to stop and dwell in love.  Communicate in love. Find out what is needed in the present moment with love.  Don’t let someone slip away because we are so concerned with how we are impacted.  It may take a drastic action for us to remember what is important, but once we have that wake up call, don’t let it slip away.  Find a way back to what matters because life  and love are the most important things.          

Today I am grateful for love.  We attended a party on my brother’s property yesterday for an early July 4^th celebration.  There were a ton of people, many of whom don’t know each other but we are all connected to my brother somehow.  Seeing this group of people is truly a thing of beauty—even though some of us don’t know each other, we are still family in many ways.  We’ve known some of this group for upwards of four decades and some we’ve only known a few years—some we just met yesterday, but we all come together and we have a great time.  Hearing stories from my childhood, remembering all the times together, seeing everyone come together again is always such a gift.  Not everyone who usually attends was able to make it, and while it was sad, it makes us appreciate the time together that much more.  Love is an amazing thing and it transmutes everything. 

Today I am grateful for comfort in my own skin.  I’ve worked on self-esteem and becoming the truest version of myself for years.  Nothing ever felt quite right and I found myself falling into old habits more often than allowing my real self to come out.  But sometimes it only takes a second for things to change.  The time I’ve enjoyed away from work has been incredibly productive and has provided a significant amount of clarity.  I’ve had a certain level of discomfort at work for a long time now, and when I went back for a couple of days, I knew with everything in me that the time I’ve taken away and the things I’m focusing on now are exactly where I need to be and what I need to be doing.  Stepping in and immediately feeling all of the shame, ostracism, and fears showed me exactly how toxic the environment is—and they don’t even know it.  That’s not something I’m interested in fixing any longer.  I’m ready to move forward.

Today I am grateful for my son.  Being a parent is no joke—like, these little versions of ourselves know exactly what buttons to push from one second to the next and then they throw their little arms around you and suddenly all the anger and frustration goes away.  They can be sadistic little creatures at times.  In spite of (or maybe because of) all that, it is also one of the most rewarding things. Kids grow so damn fast and we spend so little time truly present with them that every moment I’m able to, I try to dive in with my kid.  He has taught me so much about where my focus needs to be and about what’s important.  It’s taken me several years with him to finally get it, but he has persisted with me.  I see that as much as I felt responsible for him, he has shown me what it means to really love and be aware of others and how to have fun and to explore creativity without shame.  Parenting is tough, but it is an amazing gift and I truly feel privileged to see this little human develop.

Today I am grateful for my body.  I’ve dedicated a ton of time to movement during my time away from work.  I can’t say I’ve stopped all my bad habits, but I can feel a significant difference in my body by incorporating so much movement.  We are truly not meant to sit behind desks as much as we do. We need to move and explore and appreciate what our bodies can do.  I am so grateful for how responsive my body is to movement and seeing how I’m helping myself.  I’m also grateful for the improvement I feel in my mind as well.  It’s amazing how we allow ourselves to wither away thinking it’s normal.  I personally want to become the best version of myself, and yes that requires changing more habits, but I am grateful that I’ve been able to recognize other areas I need to change so I can align with this new need in my mind and body.

Today I am grateful for connection.  I’ve always been one of those people who did it on my own—for a lot of reasons.  I still trend toward that habit, but as I’ve been stepping more comfortably and more completely into who I am, I’ve seen how important it is to have people.  It is so important to know how to connect with ourselves and others.  To learn and adapt to what works for us, to honor what works for us and to figure out a way to incorporate more of that connection into our lives.  For a long time I wanted everyone to like me and that left me searching for what I even liked about myself.  Now that I’ve gotten more clarity on that, I see the people who I genuinely connect with and those I don’t.  I also see the need for connection on different levels: spiritual, emotional, physical, and with humor, grace, and honesty.  It’s a beautiful thing, and this is a small world.  We have so much more in common than we think—all it takes is one conversation.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.        

What’s underneath the underneath?  What is really there that’s holding us back?  Why do we fear and procrastinate?  This is a bit of a deeper dive into the conversations we’ve had over the last two days.  Finding our limits requires knowing where they come from.  Hendrick’s suggests four main beliefs that hold us in place, and I would add that yesterday’s piece on not following our purpose is another way we pin ourselves where we are.  This requires shining a light on the things we would rather not discuss but it reveals not only what we are afraid/ashamed of, but the why behind it.  In some cases it’s a relatively simple thing (I said simple, not easy).  For example, we learn that what we feel about ourselves isn’t what we feel about ourselves (i.e. our parents/siblings thought we were a burden so we feel we are a burden).  Other times we learn we have to take accountability for our actions (i.e. we learn to accept that we caused issues in our live and that we are not always the victim or that we have to set and maintain boundaries with others).  Other times we have to learn and accept who we are (i.e. what we are doing fulfills no other purpose than what we were trained to do because that is what we were told we must do). 

This digging takes effort but once we get to the bottom of it, life becomes a different game.  We find our chance to connect and see how simple life actually is.  We see the complexity we’ve put in place and we eliminate that for a journey of connection that, while still complex, is far more fulfilling.  It’s the purpose we’ve been looking for.  Nearly everything we do outside of our purpose and the things we do for survival is distraction.  We treat those distractions as normal, as what normal people do.  To a degree we do need those things—but how we focus our time is key.  Anything we do should be done with intention whether it is creating work, speaking with people, or even sitting on the couch watching T.V.  When done with purpose behind it, we receive a different energy than simply distracting ourselves.  We no longer do things for the sake of doing them, but for the results we see in our lives and the lives of those around us.  Nothing holds us back any longer because we no longer operate from false beliefs, we operate with intention. 

That light we feared shining on things we didn’t want to discuss becomes a beacon for ourselves and others.  The intent with shining that light isn’t to find fault, it is to find the truth.  So often we are afraid that we will get blamed for things or we carry shame about what we did when we didn’t know better.  But the truth is we can shift that focus as well, change the energy to one of learning and sharing a common experience.  Underneath shame is fear of isolation and separation, when the reality is, sharing those experiences and learning why we do things creates far more connection that creating the illusion of having it all together.  People see through that anyway because we are all learning and guessing here.  Some people are gifted and able to operate in their genius more often than others, but they are learning too, they just learn and experiment with intention.  The more we shine light on our humanity, the more we see our personal intention and the motives behind what we do.  Nothing can stop us then.      

“It is worth everything to get out of autopilot, the limbo space, and journey back into our hearts.  When you have experienced glimpses of what it feels like to be fully connected with your soul, everything else (even when you think you feel good) can seem disconnected,” Ashmi Pathela.  The becoming of who we are meant to be is a beautiful journey.  Responding to the call and making choices and moves from our full authenticity is the most freeing experience in the universe.  This may mean approaching those limits we discussed yesterday, and that means going through anyway.  Once we stop doing things because we’ve always done them, opportunities present themselves.  The first step to eliminating any limiting beliefs we have is to identify them, but the first indicator that we have a limiting belief is when we hear our hearts tell us that we need to do something different. 

Our society glorifies the busy life, the time spent doing things that we feel obligated to do or the time we waste doing things to distract us from the things we don’t want to do.  There is little in between in the way of doing what we are called to do.    There is little in the way of identifying our own barriers and moving into something different.  There is little in the way of clarifying how we keep ourselves small because of what we were taught.  One of the most impactful things I saw was in high school and it was a sign that said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.”  How can we move forward if we constantly go back to what we know, if we constantly live in the world of what people tell us to do?  We will never fulfill our purpose or ambition if we are focusing on the purpose and ambition of others.  The more we disconnect from ourselves, the more disconnected we are from each other—and the easier it is to lose our footing.  But when we connect to our soul, the guidance is different and we find new ways to do things that produce results in our lives. 

We are trained to fulfill the business and the busyness of life and told that is how life is, that we are supposed to spend our time this way.  If we ever want more, we have to trust that we have these feelings of something new for a reason.  The dreams we have are our own and we are meant to see them through.  We are meant to share our experiences with others.  When we truly connect to our soul and our purpose, those limiting beliefs we discussed yesterday mean very little.  We know we can trust what we feel in ourselves and we know we are being guided toward our purpose.  It is a completely liberating experience to connect with our purpose.  We build confidence in the follow through and that completely shatters the beliefs that keep us in place.  This means following our hearts and acting on what we know to be true for us.  When we can imagine something different, something better for ourselves, that is when we know opportunity is calling.  Follow that calling and watch that purpose unfold.  

I’m reading Gay Hendrick’s The Big Leap and the early chapters already break down and discuss the idea of how we limit ourselves.  For those who tend to make progress and then self-sabotage, or for those who have some success and then see it dwindle away, this book dives into those behaviors in order to move forward into a healthier state where we no longer question our worth.  The entire premise of a big leap is to be able to move forward out of the zones we are familiar with and into a zone of continual true abundance, love, flow, and contentment.  Hendricks discusses how we limit ourselves from feeling this state of abundance consistently because of our beliefs surrounding our worth and what we are allowed to do and feel.  This is the first book I’ve read where the breakdown on self-worth is broken down this efficiently and tied to our progress.

We’ve discussed limiting beliefs often here but probably not articulated as clearly as in Hendrick’s book.  I still like the analogy of limiting beliefs being akin to putting ourselves in boxes to be more palatable to others or because we don’t feel we are capable or worthy on some level to move forward into something long-term.  Hendricks explains that when we know no different, when we feel we are at our limit, when we get a taste of something else, we will do something to bring us back to where we are familiar because we don’t believe we are capable of sustaining, or worthy of feeling what we do.  When we don’t know what happens next or we are afraid of our ability to maintain, we will self-sabotage to go back to what we know regardless of wanting to move forward. This is considered an upper limit.

Worry is a huge indicator that we are creating limits on moving forward.  Spending time working in the what-if and searching for the different ways we can fail directs us toward that end: failure.  When we sit with our feelings and unpack the anxiety of the worry we feel, we start limiting that emotion rather than our possibilities.  When we take control of that worry, different opportunities become clear, or even if the wors case scenario happens, we still take the lesson and move forward.  There is only so much we can control and if we have done our part to mitigate those factors, then we must chalk up the rest as a lesson rather than destroy where we are to get back to what we know.  What we want is on the other side of what we know, and that in itself is a big leap.  More to come on this topic!        

“Every illusion must crumble when you awaken to who you are,” Ashmi Pathela.  This is the core of why people fear change.  In order to become who we are, we can no longer hold onto the ideas and illusions we created as who we were.  In order to move forward, we have to let go and step into the unknown.  We tell ourselves the stories we have been told.  The beliefs of our families, friends, teachers, religious organizations, work, games/sports, any belief we’ve been exposed to, seep into us every day and impact the beliefs we subscribe to.  It isn’t until we see the reality of who we are that we can move into the life we are meant to have, the life we want.  Becoming is an unbecoming as we’ve talked about, and part of that is also letting go of our own ego.  The illusion that we aren’t seeking an outcome for any reason other than our purpose has to go. This requires total honesty. Getting in touch with purpose isn’t the same as wanting things to go our way. 

We often hold the illusion that we need to be right.  The level of humility needed to move forward is unlike anything else.  People talk about giving it to God or some form of surrender, but the reality is, most people do that with the intention of getting something in return.  True letting go is just that: allowing whatever comes to come.  Understanding we have no control of the outcome.  I’ve often envied those who seem to have the ability to make exactly what they want happen, but I’ve also seen the amount of surrender these people have.  They operate differently.  The goal isn’t to be right, it’s to do what’s right.  We can’t do that if we are only concerned with our personal outcomes or if we are only looking at what impacts us individually. Life is a web and we are all very much connected and have a purpose that is for the greater good of all.  We are meant to share that.

In that regard, the other illusion we need to release is the illusion that we are not worthy to share what we know.  We are here for a purpose and that purpose is impactful whether it is to us as individuals, to our friends and family, and to the world.  Regardless of the immediate impact we see in our world, there is indeed a ripple effect because of that web I mentioned above. The messages we share resonate with one person and slowly make their way to others as that message is shared.  Once we know who we are and what we are capable of, these things no longer come into question, and it is certainly not ego.  We are living with total purpose.  Do not mistake confidence and assurance with ego.  Ego needs to be right where confidence and assurance open the door to learning and improving as we go.  Let go and know that we are worthy and that our honesty is what is going to pave the way.  Living under any other pretense holds us back.  While letting go of what we’ve used to protect us can be terrifying, it is simultaneously the most freeing thing we can do.  Let it go and open up to the wonder of what’s coming on the other side.  

Once you realize you can do it alone, you become a very powerful person.  Last week I spoke about trusting instinct and knowing when people aren’t for us.  This is true.  There are doorways we are meant to go through alone because the universe knows that certain people aren’t for us.  Certain situations aren’t for us.  Learning who we are and knowing what we can handle is key.  We can always handle more than we thought we could, and we often don’t know it until we are in the situation.  Knowing what we can do on our own is part of that.  It isn’t about being alone, it isn’t about isolating.  It’s about trusting our own wings and knowing our capabilities.  It’s about owning our power by not relying on others to give us that which we can do for ourselves.  Of course there are times we need help—but sometimes that help comes in the form of people disappointing us and letting us know that we are able to do it on our own. 

Many times the ability to find our strengths and do things on our own comes from the decision to do so.  Deciding is one of the most powerful tools we have.  We make the choice and our actions follow because we clarified what needs to be done.  So if we choose to see what we can do, what we are capable of, then it stands that we find our power.  The more clarity we can create in our lives, the more we tap into our power because we are eliminating the extraneous details.  We find the path we are meant for and the doors open.  There is little resistance in what we are meant to do but we are trained to feel like everything good needs to be a fight.  The truth is, the fact that there is ease doesn’t mean it’s easy.  We still need to put in the work, but the work that is done in flow feels different.  Think of pushing a cart up a hill without wheels.  Almost impossible.  But when we find the tools and create the wheels, things move a whole lot easier.  The best tool is to understand what we are capable of.  Creativity breeds more creativity, so the more we stretch that muscle, the easier it becomes and the more flow is introduced to life.

It also helps to understand that more than one thing can be true at once.  We can be both independent and still need help.  We can do it on our own and still need to learn.  We can rely on others until we learn to rely on ourselves.  Life is about balance.  The point is that we need to learn how to trust our own instincts.  Trust who we are and know when we need to wear the conductor hat and when we need to sit back and be the passenger.  The ability to stand on our own two feet makes it easier for us to be there for others and to step into who we truly are.  Decide it can be done and find the way to do it.  There are so many ways to own our power—and it isn’t about power over people, it’s about ownership of our own lives.  Believe in ourselves and we will always be shown the way.

I’ve spent the last week doing exactly what I need to do for me.  After hearing Betty Reid Soskin’s story, I realized that we can begin again and do what we need to do at any time.  Radical honesty with ourselves is what gets us where we are going.  Stop betraying our course by doing what we think we’re supposed to do.  I know every day when I wake up that I want to be working on my things—yet I stop and get ready for work.  Yes, there is a reason behind that (I like to eat and I like having a roof over my head), but what happens if I spent a little more time working on the things I wanted so I could do better for myself and my family?  What happens if I spent more time creating the life I wanted instead of dreaming about it?  Soon the dream becomes the reality and that new reality supports us.  Start over as many times as needed.  Start over.  IF it isn’t working, go where it is, create where it is.  The only person impacted or suffering if you aren’t willing to give up what isn’t working is you.  Be willing to recognize it isn’t working and start building what you need to as many times as necessary.

Life isn’t linear.  We think we choose these experiences and that is it, that we have one story to tell.  In reality, we become different people over and over again, as often as we need to.  We aren’t meant to paint ourselves into the corner so to speak by choosing what we are supposed to be come at 18 (or earlier) and defining the rest of our actions by the choice we made as a child.  Life is a web, and it’s made up of what we choose to do and be in any given moment.  The key is follow through.  It’s allowing ourselves to become who we need to be in order to become who we need to be so to speak.  Life becomes what we make it and life responds best when we live.  The living is in the creativity, the creation of who we are in any given moment.  There isn’t an ending because we put together the pieces of who we are over and over again until the picture becomes something tangible.  We can change the picture by changing the focus.  The simple version/lesson in this is don’t fear starting over.  Don’t fear what the moment tells us.  Learn to take the leap.  It’s there for a reason, and so many people are glad they did.  Their wings came out and they found who they are.  Life isn’t one thing, it was never meant to be.  It’s not always tidy and there isn’t always the answer we want or expect, but there are gifts in the unexpected.  Life comes in the bend and flex of the strokes we make.  It’s never one stroke.  Everything combined makes the picture.   

Today I am grateful for life.  Things change in the blink of an eye and it’s amazing how even if we are aware of this thought, we somehow always manage to forget it.  We continue about our routines as if that is what our life actually is, as if that will save us, as if that is all we are here for when, in reality, things can change forever.  It isn’t important what we accomplish and get done in a given day—we need to remember how we feel, how we make people feel, how we want to feel.  As sad as it is, you never know when we will see someone or speak with someone for the last time.  I’m not saying this to be morbid, I’m saying this to emphasize the importance of being aware of what we are doing and to take it in while we are there.  Stop rushing through life to get things done, to get to the next part.  All we have is now.  This is the part when we are alive and we will never be as old or as young as we are in this exact moment so experience what is, as it is and live.

Today I am grateful for reminders of presence.  We experienced a trauma in my home this past week and we are still reeling from it, still on edge.  In that moment, I will tell anyone that time stopped.  Nothing else in the world mattered except pulling through and surviving.  This is now a before and after moment with my family.  At this point, the only thing I can say for the moment is it brought my attention to something that very clearly needed to be addressed on my part and something that needs to be addressed on my husband’s part.  This isn’t something we can think our way out of—we need to work through this until we have the answer, and we can only do that by being with each other, now, remembering what is important now, and being aware of now.

Today I am grateful for the utmost clarity.  I’m off of work and I have taken every opportunity to do exactly what I want to do.  I’ve worked on my writing, on my business, on my health, on how I spend my time with my son and my family.  It has been the best experience, the best gift I ever could have given myself.  The clarity I’ve gained from shifting focus is a gift.  Knowing that this is what I need to do next, knowing this is where I’m going, is a gift.  All the other crap doesn’t matter.  This is the drive I’ve needed to get where I’m going.  No hesitation, no doubt, no fear.  Certainty that this is it.  This is sustainable and real.  It’s time to move forward.  This is another type of before and after moment, the best kind.  What an incredible gift. 

Today I am grateful for support.  During this time, I have seen how important support networks are.  The human condition is simultaneously stronger than anything and fragile as anything, and we work our way through the web of relationships and independence and any number of interactions with people around us, and we see how people can either lift us up or bring us down.  The beauty I’ve witnessed is the complete rally of support for those who are down.  Without question, coming together in crisis and showing people the best of who they are because they are reminding others of the best in themselves.  Support is about remembering and witnessing and honoring the connection we have with each other.  It’s the give and take of energy and the remembering that we are all human, and loving that humanity for exactly what it is.      

Today I am grateful for learning.  There is so much beauty in this world.  There is so much to learn about, so many natural resources for us to use and tap into.  We have an even cooler way to share this information, computers at our fingertips 24/7.  I’ve been curious about natural elements for a long time, particularly mosquito repelling plants.  We went with some friends to a plant nursery today, and let me tell you, there was so much to learn.  I was only looking for one type of plant to see how it may work in my yard, and we ended up with baskets of different plants.  This world has the answers, we were all given the answers, we just have to know how to tap in and listen.  How cool is it that we have our own medicines and remedies available all the time if we learn to cultivate them?  How cool is it to be able to use these things to take charge of our lives?  Changing how we work literally changes how we see the world. 

Today I am grateful for the new opportunities coming my way.  I’m working on shifting a lot of things in my life and I am grateful for how everything is coming together.  I didn’t realize how deeply entrenched I was in my own ways of doing things, trying to balance out the impossible, trying to take on more.  Pausing and seeing that there are other ways to do things shifted a lot.  The Wait can be difficult, especially when we feel we need something or that we are on the right track and that thing doesn’t come through.  It can be challenging to accept the wait or to see that we still have work to do to pivot.  That doesn’t mean the opportunities aren’t there.  Trust. Change the focus.  What is right is coming, what is meant to happen is happening, all in due time.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead. 

“I just sucked at something but then I told myself, ‘That’s no problem.  You are good at other things.’ We gotta leave some things for other people to be good at.  Sometimes sucking is a great act of generosity,” Glennon Doyle.  I like this one.  Our lives aren’t meant to be a series of perfect moments.  I know I put that kind of pressure on myself.  I thought everything needed to be perfect in order to be beautiful, or even to be accepted.  But life just is this way, and not everything is as we want it to be.  But that IS the beauty: life is beautiful as it is, through all of our trying, through our learning, through our trials, through our failing, through our becoming.  All of those things are equally as beautiful as the successes, the joys, the fun, the wins, the longshots that pull through—and it’s even better when you can see the beauty in the failure, the learning as living.  We get one shot and if we can learn to adapt and take it as we are, what a gift.

As we weave our way through life, we will have these moments.  We have to come to terms that we aren’t good at everything.  We don’t have to be good at everything to find joy in it.  It’s also about perspective and the willingness to try.  We will find things we thought we loved that we are terrible at, that don’t fit us.  We will also find things we thought we’d hate that are a perfect fit, a natural thing in our lives.  The point is, if we can change our lives at any time, we have to constantly shift and find new ways to do things.  We have to try new things.  we need to be willing to follow the impulse and try what comes next.  We have to figure out what fits us and we do that by trying things.  Don’t ever be afraid to try.  There is beauty in trying.

It isn’t about being perfect, it’s about presence.  The more present we can be, the better.  Now, I realized with ADHD, the definition of presence may change a bit because attention can’t be divided that successfully, there’s a million things going on.  We can’t be present for everything because 1. That’s really stressful—there’s a lot that goes on in any given moment and we can’t be aware of all of it, and 2. It creates more of that “squirrel” mentality than it keeps us in the moment.  But the presence we feel when we allow ourselves to be focused on what’s happening is a thing of beauty.  It truly does become all consuming and takes over the mind and body.  There is ease in it.  It doesn’t matter how good or bad we are, we’ve created space to try and accept the result.  To try and try again.  Imperfect things exist perfectly and they thrive doing what they do.  We can too.