“Tactics are different than standards,” Matthew Hussey.  Hussey’s stated this in regards to something he went through with his wife, so even though this is in regard to a romantic relationship, it applies to all relationships.  This beautifully explains a situation I’m dealing with at my 9-5.  As I’ve shared, I struggle with a few individuals who constantly seem to be lurking around, waiting for me to drop the ball.  They’ve put a significant amount of work on me, hoping I will fail.  They’ve offered me help and when I’ve told them what I need they’ve said they can’t help me but I am accountable if anything falls through the cracks.  I’ve taken it all in stride and they haven’t succeeded in getting a reaction out of me. They’ve been progressively becoming more and more direct, deceitful, and dishonest in their attacks.  Claiming some kind of disappointment in me, stating I’m not a team player.  The truth is I am at my limits, and I keep coming in and getting it done because I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of saying I couldn’t handle it, or that something fell through that I was responsible for.  This is work I’ve been forced into and then blamed for creating, and then threatened that if I don’t do it there will be consequences.

This entire situation would be different if I saw my peers, people with my title on my team, treated the same way and held to the same standard—or if they genuinely offered assistance.  What is happening is the select group isolates with each other, closes doors, and then blames you for not knocking.  Those few people are able to walk in and miraculously there is never a problem, but when I knock, she’s on a phone call or can’t speak with me at that moment.  She will make me wait an hour before responding to something that takes 30 seconds to answer—but if I don’t answer immediately, I missed something.  Have I made mistakes and missed things?  Of course—I’m human.  So now they’ve begun gaslighting in some insidious ways.  They do offer to help, but then never follow through, or they state they can’t help with that particular thing.  Again, if this was a standard and we all were held to it, then it wouldn’t be a problem.  But this is manipulative and chess-like in the steps that have been taken.  As humans there are times we are so focused on our own agendas that we end up manipulating people.  We don’t intend harm, we are just excited about a topic or it’s something that weighs heavily on us so we’re fixated.  But there are the climbers and those who like to make moves.  I am not one of those people.

So, instead of making this nothing more than a complaint session, or martyring myself, I will use it to remind myself that people have their own agendas—everyone does—and that I can focus on my goals just as they have the right to focus on theirs.  I can recognize the tactics they are using—isolating me, gaslighting, overworking—and know that it’s a double standard.  And I can make choices to make moves of my own.  This isn’t to say that I’m wonderful and they are horrible, but it is clear that I have standards that don’t align with theirs, I have goals that don’t align with theirs.  I can’t do a damn thing about how they treat me, but I can take care of what I need to and hold my head high knowing I did what was right, knowing that they can not take that away from me.  I can focus on my work, and keep going with building the life I love and I can work around the behavior.  I know all will come back in its own time—that isn’t my job to validate what comes to them—so I can keep going in my energy and do what I know works for me.  And when the time comes, I can move on, and they can keep their secret club.  Real leadership isn’t about manipulation, it’s about development and growth.  I can hold myself to that standard and know that I’ve done my best. Be aware and don’t let anyone take you away from what you are meant to do.   

Today I am grateful for making one of the biggest moves in my career during my duration at my 9-5.  I’m going after what I want and getting it done.  I’ve always had a tenuous relationship with my 9-5.  The main reason is that I simply don’t like being told what to do or having my life dictated and my time spent doing things that aren’t serving my purpose (like to a pathological level) but what I despise is being told what to do by hypocrites and bullies.  The writing has been clear for a while that I will not get the help I need in a particular circumstance.  The hope is likely that I make the decision to leave.  As much as I hate being told what to do and I’ve thought I wanted the money all along, the truth is I simply want freedom.  There is one facet of my job that I absolutely adore and it has a ton of potential for the organization and the community—and it is genuinely fun for me to do.  I recently took the opportunity to bring it to the president of the company.  This is something I’ve wanted to do for years to garner support from the hospital and to help unite the teams, and I’ve been told no by a certain individual the whole time, that the department was on its last breath.  The president thinks otherwise.  It was terrifying to make the pitch to him because it means a lot to me and I did this quietly.  But the information was received and now it’s a matter of hashing out what comes next.  I will tell you it felt amazing.  I felt empowered and articulate and heard.  There are times you have to take the future in your own hands and secure your own steps—and it’s scary—but it is the most freeing feeling in the world.     

Today I am grateful for finding strength in myself.  I never wanted to be a princess in a relationship where someone takes care of everything for me.  I always dreamt of a partnership where we split it 50/50 and on the days one of us needed a break, the other picked up the slack.  That is not what I got.  I truly am not complaining because I’ve remembered that we don’t always get what we ask for, we get what we need.  And for me, I know I needed to develop strength to get through things, the ability to stand on my own, and moreso the emotional fortitude to handle what comes my way.  I needed to learn confidence in myself and to understand my worth.  I’ve literally spent a lifetime being undervalued, hoping someone would see me for more, fighting those who want to dim my light.  I’ve struggled for decades to get out from under people.  The truth is I’m still not where I want to be, but I understand more now that I’m still not entirely sure what that means.  I know I can stand on my own, I know I need to maintain boundaries, but I know that I am worth taking care of myself and going after my dreams.  And when we have big goals, a big purpose, we need to know we can manage it—and we need to do it.  Sometimes we have to dig, but it’s there, and I am grateful for it.    

Today I am grateful for discipline.  I have been working extremely hard on maintaining my health.  A friend of mine recently made a comment about my eating habits, telling me that I don’t eat well.  This is completely off base, especially from this person.  Do I eat perfectly all the time?  Absolutely not.  But is 90 percent of my diet appropriate?  Yes.  I have also been working out and maintaining a strong walking regimen.  She’s been agitated and made comments about the time I’m working out and talking about how she would do things—but she does nothing.  She even mentioned that she wanted to walk with me and when I went, she stayed behind.  I’ve stuck with what I said I was going to do with my body.  I’m feeling a bit isolated and lonely because everyone around me (my husband and friends) constantly talk about getting healthier and I’m the only one doing anything about it.  I need a channel for my anxiety and I’m working on it daily.  And I’m seeing results.  I’ve been 40 for just over a month now and I vow to continue making moves in my life.  I’m sticking with it even if it’s upsetting some people.

Today I am grateful for recognizing what I need and what I need to address.  I’ve had this string of events in my life where I get really close to a goal but then never quite get it—always second best or missing one piece to complete the puzzle.  I still don’t know what that means—did I not want it bad enough?  Did I miss a step?  Was I not clear enough?  Well recently things have become overwhelming again—even with a plan to sort things out, they still feel too heavy to manage.  And I had this moment of thinking that I don’t want any of this.  I’m working so hard to maintain this home when I need to put me energy into creating.  I’m working to pay taxes and grocery bills and utilities that continually go up while my salary doesn’t because it’s based on one person’s opinion of my performance.  And I’m tired of people being able to dictate what I have in my life, telling me I need to work harder, that I need to give up more time, that I need to hand over more of the money I earned for whatever bullshit reason they come up with.  See, I didn’t mean I don’t want my home, that I don’t want my books, my family, my animals, the actual things I like doing—no, I’m tired of feeling this revolution in my heart and not being able to do anything about it.  I have so much anger and I’m tired of trying to keep it bottled in and keep up with those around me.  I want to live my own life at my own pace and do the things I love with the people I love.  That’s what I need to focus on.   

Today I am grateful for love, family, and friendship.  As I’ve spoken about growth and time, I know that the people around us and how we share that time together is the most important thing.  I am so fortunate to have a group of people to support me (even if I will stubbornly do it on my own) and people I can learn from and rely on.  Community is important, sense of self is important, and finding the group of people who support and love who we really are is essential.  As much as I’ve struggled with imperfection, anxiety, OCD, more anxiety, self-doubt, whatever it is, I still have a group of people to support me when I need them.  That is a blessing.  I am grateful to be a mother, to have my mother, and to be surrounded by all types of mothers to help me get through this crazy life.  Support is so important and I am blessed to have that in my life. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.  

“No matter how difficult and painful it may be, nothing sounds as good to the soul as the truth,” Martha Beck.   I want to share a short reminder about truth.  The soul knows what it wants and we can cover that up with tons of activity and staying busy but if we aren’t doing what the soul wants, we will feel it.  We need to know the truth.  We need to express truth.  We need to align with truth.  If we don’t then we are out of sync and we lose touch with what we are meant to do.  We often speak of painful truths coming from other people as if their words are what will cut us down.  That may be true if we let that happen, but the most painful truth is the one we have to face in ourselves.  We need to know where we have lied to ourselves, where have we hidden true desire with comfort, where have we hidden the key to what we want and who we want to be.  We can only mask who we are if we allow it, and if we are really honest with ourselves, we lie to ourselves all the time.  It doesn’t matter if it’s about breaking habits or wasting time or how we care for ourselves, we always convince ourselves that it isn’t really us doing it.

The most painful sound and the most glorious relief come when we face our truth.  We are the ones who hold the key to change our lives, all we have to do is step through the door and learn to acclimate to something new.  The more we align with that truth the better we feel.  The easier it is to express who we are.  The less we feel like it’s a chore to get through the day to day.  Life is no longer a grind or something we get through—and there isn’t an end goal where we feel like it will get better when it goes a certain way or when we achieve a certain goal.  We simply live and we are happy in that existence.  We need to get honest about who we are, what we want, who we surround ourselves with, and how we spend our days and ask if that matches up with what and who we want to be.  Stop pretending someone has tied a blindfold over you when it’s you who needs to simply open your eyes.  The world opens up as soon as we remove that veil.  Life won’t always be comfortable or predictable—all we can do is learn to get comfortable in our own skin and trust that we will make the right decision for us and we will end up where we need to be as long as we are aligned with our truth.       

I was scrolling through IG the other day and I came across an old friend and former colleague.  This woman has always been so confident and I used to be a little intimidated by her.  She held herself to a standard about how she wanted to look, how she wanted her life to look, the things she wanted to experience, and the things she wanted to build.  She has gone after every one of them and has achieved every one of her goals.  I’m not saying her life is perfect, this isn’t just the social media comparison, but I found myself thinking deeply about how she got there.  It was from the support she has in her life, the team she has around her, the family and the love.  She was able to find clarity in who she is because she was supported no matter what her choice was.  Maybe that’s the lesson I need to remember for my son.  No matter what, just support him.  I know that I am still in the process of building my community, my network, and there are moments it’s scary.  I’ve been trying to be a certain way for so long, trying to project an image instead of simply being. And now I’m at the precipice of something potentially great and I find myself asking for clarity, to determine what it is I actually want.  Is this about proving a point? Is this something I actually want?

One thing I noticed about my friend is that she never second guesses herself.  If she wants something she goes for it and she doesn’t look back.  I stay fixated on where it went wrong.  She also relies on the people around her—she can count on them.  Generationally, in my family that isn’t how it works.  We’ve been raised to do it on our own.  I don’t know if that is a remnant of shame and trying to prove our worth, that if we do it on our own we have this perception that we somehow made past mistakes better.  I see how all the way from my grandmother we were always trying to prove we were worth something.  We were always out of place, out of time and trying to prove that we belonged.  She passed that to my mother and my mother’s humanity was condemned because of what that would do to her mother.  Mistakes became life sentences and we lamented that things didn’t go our way.  The rest was so out of control that we wanted to make sure that things looked perfect.  So the work is about acceptance and building support.

I know that I need to break some habits and allow people in more.  I need to trust that I am supported.  I also need to maintain boundaries and clear direction.  I allow myself to take on too much and to get too distracted.  I have to stick with what I know I want and allow the people who are supposed to be in my life, into my life.  I need to trust my instincts to know myself enough to do what I want.  I need less of what I should do and more of what feels right to me.  It’s a hard transition and I do spend too much time worried about what people think of me.  Like if I walk away they will say it’s my fault and that I couldn’t hack it.  But does it matter if that’s what they think?  I need to focus on what makes me happy and finding a better fit for me rather than trying to make me fit in their mold.  I want the exterior of my life to match the vision I have of myself and what I feel inside.  I am who I am and I can’t experience the greatness of my life if I’m trying to be someone else.  See it, believe it, do it.  Take the option when it comes our way and enjoy it.   

I realized that some of the anxiety from Sunday was not knowing what’s coming next in my career.  I have this vision of what I want to do but it isn’t quite coming together.  I still don’t fully trust myself or that I will get what I want.  Maybe my vision is quite clear enough.  But I know the anxiety was from things not going as I expected and then having to deal with the same routine the following day—waking up and having to do it again, face it again, because I don’t have an option at the moment.  Truly, if I want something different then I need to do something different but I don’t know exactly what that is.  I want to have this insane freedom to not worry about the things in life that I worry about now.  Finances, relationships, trust, joy, spending time how I want, being healthy.  I can see all of that but I’m not quite sure how to make it all happen.  I need to stop self-sabotaging and trust my instincts.  I’ve been really good about that for a while and then I get to this point where I don’t know what to do next because the expectation of the following day is the same as it always was—I find myself dependent on what I hate.  But at the same time I know things are unfolding at work as well and there is a lot of potential to have a single focus again.  I can make it happen.  So what now?

As I spoke about yesterday, I know it’s a matter of slowing down enough to be present and acknowledge what I really want in life.  To take the chances on what feels good and take the opportunities that come my way.  I’ve been around so many people who have used me for so long and so many people who distract me away from what really matters that finding and following my instinct is still a challenge at times.  Even if I’ve started to adapt to it and do it that way for a while, it’s hard to keep it up at a certain point.  Again, I need to stop self-sabotaging because it’s falling to a familiar behavior.  What feels familiar and safe is the same pattern I’ve repeated over and over again and it doesn’t get me where I need to be.  It keeps me further from the life I’m trying to create.  So instead of getting frustrated when things seem to be taking too long, just breathe and enjoy the moment.  We were in a really cool place yesterday—seeing some awesome stores and then having a nice ice cream.  There was no reason to not fully immerse and enjoy it.  I know I may have seen something other than fear had I just let go and trusted that all would be well in the moment.  And there were beautiful moments.  Seeing my friend able to walk and have fun in the stores, seeing my son enjoy his first dipped cone, seeing him enjoy being at the mall for the first time and all of the different places and activities he could do. We had a great time. 

So now it is a practice of surrender. Allowing the moment to be what it is and seeing/feeling the beauty of flow.  Life is a series of moments and no it doesn’t always go how we want.  But it isn’t just about getting what we want, it’s about enjoying the magic of where we are when we are there. Stop looking to the future and hoping for something different.  Just be where we are exactly at the time we are there.  If we are to express faith and believe everything happens for a reason then we need to trust that the delays are for a reason as well, that the detours are all part of the plan, that people come into our lives to teach us no matter what the lesson is.  When we are calm and present we see things differently than we would if we are fearful and trying to control things.  We see it for what it is, and life is beautiful.  No, it isn’t perfect but that isn’t the goal. Let go of our training and belief that we need to be perfect or that we need to show off how successful we are, let go of the ideas of what success is and do what feels right because if we can live a life we are proud of, a life we enjoy, that is the greatest success in the world. 

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.