Do less of what burns you down and more of what lights you up.  Whooossssh.  That’s a big one.  This goes beyond feeling good, beyond feeling joy, beyond following our path.  All of those things are incorporated, but there is more to it.  This tacks into the depth of the why we do things.  I’m a people pleaser, born and bred.  Raised by generations of women who didn’t want to rock the boat in spite of the fire they felt inside telling them to jump overboard or turn the whole damn thing over.  Strong women with valid opinions and amazing ideas who kept quiet because they didn’t think they could do anything about it and that they didn’t want to be disliked.  But my Lord, for me to still feel it, I can only imagine the fire they held inside.  Fire isn’t meant to be tamed, it isn’t meant to be restrained.  Fire is the destruction that comes before creation and if we don’t learn to work with it, it burns us instead.  So why do we pretend it’s our job to harness ourselves when we need to learn how to harness that creativity and put it toward the good? 

Looking at the why, that’s where the feelings come in.  Yes, it’s natural to do things because they feel good or that we are curious about, but those are surface level motivations.  We could jump from distraction to distraction all day taking the dopamine hits, thinking we feel good, but it’s only temporary.  We will always need something else to make us feel good.  But if we learn to harness that curiosity and understand what “feeling good” means, we can uncover something else: purpose.  There’s a reason we are drawn to it and a reason it feels good.  We are meant to make something of it and follow it to something bigger.  We are meant to share a message.  We are meant to become beacons in new ways of doing things.  Instead of letting the fire burn us, we can let it ignite the path before us and give light to those behind us until they forge their own path.

We are given that spark and told if we let it grow it will burn us but that is a lie.  The spark is meant to ignite us and inspire us to action toward what we are meant to do.  We were given this internal guidance system and told that it would hurt us, that it would lead us astray, or that we were selfish to follow it.  We were told that the system needed us to feed it more than we needed to feed ourselves and fulfill our own purpose.  But that spark never died.  It was always there telling us that there was something more.  Once we let it take over and start seeing it for what it is, the fuel that moves us to be who we truly are, people get afraid.  They say that we aren’t who we used to be or that we changed.  I say, no, I haven’t changed, I’ve become exactly who I always was.  It might look like change, but there is freedom in becoming, in the shedding of what we’ve been told.  It isn’t so much a change as an embracing and welcoming of who we are.  Suddenly we see the fire wasn’t dangerous to us—ever.  It was dangerous to those who sought to control it.  Let it light you up and don’t ever let anyone diminish it.

“Life is not in the doing.  It is in the being,” Eckhart Tolle.  Most of Tolle’s work revolves around presence and the awareness of now.  In a particularly harried moment, I came across this quote and it gave me pause. What am I doing all of this “doing” for?  I’m trying to transition into new things and here I am, repeating the same patters again, still looking for permission to follow where I know I need to go, still trying to prove I’m right, trying to prove my worth.  It hit me the other day that I will never get where I want to be staying where I’m at.  I know, common sense, we’ve talked about it—I’ve preached it, but this was different.  The thought almost came out of nowhere.  I was working on a frustrating case, doing all I could, and this still came back around to what I had done wrong even though exactly what I had warned people about happening, happened.  They did what I told them not to, and somehow that was my fault. Instead of getting angry, I felt completely resigned.  They were going to do what they wanted and find a way to make it my fault no matter what because THAT was their goal.

No one deserves to feel that way.  Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I accepted that this is how they are and that cemented that, not only do I not fit in/they don’t like me for whatever reason, I don’t need to put up with that bullshit.  I asked myself if I really wanted to continue to feel that way for the rest of my life, like I need to defend every action, every decision I make.  Do I want to feel unsupported in everything I do?  Do I want to feel condescended to on a daily basis?  I know the latter is about ego, but it’s still a fair question.  Do I want to feel like I’m fighting an uphill battle with people who won’t give me the gameplan, who like to stand at the top of the mountain and laugh at those working their way up?  The answer was no, to all of it.  So, now I ask, why am I doing all of that doing instead of simply being present in myself?  That’s the key in Tolle’s statement.  It isn’t about being lost in the busyness, it’s in the ability to stop and get in the presence of who we are.  Knowing we are enough.

Healing from people pleasing presents a challenge at this stage in the game, but I see the rules have shifted now.  Some people are meant to be where they are and they find joy in what they do—and that means letting them enjoy it.  My goal wasn’t to climb a corporate ladder, it was to lead people into their own sense of being.  The people who want to stay where they are, who are determined to judge others for seeing things differently, need to be left alone.  There comes a point where the tadpole becomes the frog and leaves the pond (to continue our discussion of frogs and tadpoles 😊).  It’s not my job to convince the tadpoles to embrace change and be kind and nurture others—it’s my job to become the best frog I can be and leave when the pond is no longer big enough for us.  I/We can only do that in being who we are.  That’s how we know when it’s time, that’s how we follow our intuition, and that is how we “be”.  Intuition tells us all we need to know, and once we stop all the moving and doing, we can hear it.  Listen and heed the call.  

I mentioned the tadpoles waiting around the perimeter of my brother’s lake yesterday.  Without exaggeration, there were easily 10,000 of them, if not more.  There were piles of them all around, in puddles, in the deeper portions, in the little pools on the man-made beach, hiding in the cat-tails—they were EVERYWHERE. Naturally I take that as a sign.  I’m sure a few of you know a tadpole is a sign of transition and change.  That certainly felt appropriate to see them as we gathered together.  The entire family is going through transition.  The truth is my parents are aging and passing the torch, my siblings and I are now holding the reins so to speak, and now our children are old enough to begin exploring on their own and trusting themselves to find who they are.  I never realized how hard that was to witness.  I never realized the strength my parents had enduring the family and the business and making decisions—things they always seemed so assured of but they probably didn’t have a clue.  I never realized how much strength it takes to let go and trust your kids. 

There is not a second that goes by that I don’t think about how quickly my son has grown up.  How he has gone from a baby needing constant protection to this little boy, pushing every limit, learning who he is, and boldly stepping into himself.  I know I was never that brave.  I talked a lot, but I always stayed on the edge, never wanting to get in too deep.  My kid has no fear of diving in without even knowing how to swim.  He’s been that way forever.  He pulled himself up to walk at 6 months old and mastered walking by 8 or 9 months.  I’ve felt the same way with everything he’s done: super proud and in awe but also terrified.  Now I feel like I blinked and he’s already telling me he has no need of my assistance.  I honestly didn’t want that for him.  I spent my childhood trying to prove I could do things so I could keep up, I wanted to grow up so fast.  I wanted my kid to have the chance to be who he is.  But I’ve realized that this is who he is: bold, fearless in some regards, and ready to take on what he wants. 

It’s also interesting having that revelation on growth and being ready to take on different things, because frogs have to demonstrate focus to move between water and land—they are designed for both environments.  They are ready to jump or swim as needed, and that requires intuition.  My son knew he was ready and I hesitated because we didn’t have the proper safety equipment with us.  But he knew, and he pushed himself enough to go where he felt comfortable.  When I saw that, I knew it was time for me to let go, and rather than protect him, let him discover his own abilities and trust that intuition more.  I was afraid of him feeling the pressure of growing up too fast, I never considered he had a say in that timing as well.  I never want to hinder who he is, I want him to know he can trust himself.  So, for now, my job isn’t to protect him, it’s to let him explore and discover what he can do, fall a little bit and learn to pick himself up, and to feel what life has to offer.  We don’t learn until we push that edge.  It isn’t up to me to stop him, it’s up to me to allow that expansion—and maybe learn it for myself.

Trusting our kids, watching time pass, all of it, it’s about trusting ourselves as well.  It’s knowing we’ve done our best and that it’s ok to move on when the time comes.  We can’t hold onto the past or will ourselves into the future.  All we have is now and each of us is at a different place on that journey.  Sometimes we come together and we have some lessons to learn, and then we go our different ways.  We have to trust that we have learned enough from each other and that we have the ability to do things on our own.  Know that we have done our best and that we were brought to these places for a reason.  We were brought where we need to be for a reason.  Enjoy the moments.  Feel the sun, the water, the air, the Earth.  Make those memories and know it’s enough.  Know we can make the leap when we need to or we can dive in when we need to—be like the frog. 

My kid didn’t even look back at me as he slyly worked his way into the lake, thinking I was going to stop him from going further, like I didn’t know he would soon soak himself in the water.  He watched his cousin for long enough and he waited for my words to give him permission to finally go in.  I watched him nervously at first, he isn’t a great swimmer and we hadn’t planned on going in the water so he didn’t have his life vest.  But as I watched him stretch a leg over the tadpoles waiting at the entrance of the water, I knew it was the right move.  He needed to get in there, to feel the messiness, to feel the water.  He needed to laugh with his cousin in the water, swimming with tadpoles and bass, on a gorgeous pre-summer day on his uncle’s property.  He needed to laugh with family and learn to push his own limits and trust himself.  Maybe I needed to learn to push mine as well, and trust myself too.

Life has a way of telling us when it’s time to change.  When it’s time to look at things differently.  When it’s time to try something new.  Life has a way of showing us exactly what it’s about.  We just need to be open to the signs and know how to trust enough to follow them.  No matter how many fears I have, no matter how much I may still hold myself back, I can say with 100% certainty that I know the magic exists on the other side of all of that.  I’ve seen it.  I’ve also treated it with a tenuous grasp, like it’s something that goes away.  It never goes way, although it is ironic that the harder we try to hold it, the faster it seems to slip.  The key is to flow.  And trust.  The more we find that special space, creation takes place and shows us directly to our purpose.

The purpose of life is to live.  I spent way too many years on the sidelines, too much time waiting for the right moment, always afraid to jump in.  Life has a way of teaching us, and for me, I needed to learn to let go of my fears and trust what comes next.  Life happens in these moments:  My kid dirty in the water.  My family gathered around the table with good friends and food. Laughing at everything.  Holding each other.  Feeling my body move as we walked the property.  Feeling my feet on the dirt and in the water, the wind through my hair, and the sun on my face.  Saving tadpoles.  Giving the new kittens and their mama love in my brother’s office.  More laughter with friends.  How amazing is that?  How perfect is that?  Life is messy at times but my God is it beautiful.  What a gift to have this time, to be here, to feel these things, and to know that this is it.  This is how we live. This is living. 

Today I am grateful for presence.  I’ve become more comfortable in my own skin lately, more comfortable in my own home, more comfortable in recognizing what I need.  I still feel some of my old training where if things don’t follow the traditional path I get a little uncomfortable.  I still even have moments where I’m trying to figure out if I would ever fit in.  But the more I realize that those things, that standard may not be for me, the easier it is to let go.  Lean toward what feels right.  The more I fill my life with what feels right to me, the better I feel.  The less afraid I am.  The more sure I am of what to do next.  I’m grateful to be where I am and to feel that love.

Today I am grateful to realize where I need to surrender.  I spent so much time fighting where I was that I failed to see where I was going at times.  As soon as I paused long enough to truly accept both the good and bad of the current state, things started to align a bit better.  Things seemed to fit easier.  Pieces fell into place.  As soon as I let go, answers literally came out of nowhere.  I see possibilities because the possibilities showed up.  I let go of when and continued to follow the course of taking my steps one at a time.  That’s all I needed to do.  One step at a time. 

Today I am grateful for planning.  I’m getting back to some roots in planning an event for my best friend.  The universe works in amazing ways and I just so happened to find these materials in the last place I expected.  It was like the universe aligned and wanted me to have these things to make for her—it was magic.  They were all things I thought I wanted to put together for her and, bam!  It was definitely an ask and receive moment. 

Today I am grateful for organizing.  I mentioned above that I’m starting to feel more comfortable in my home.  When we moved here, I had a combination of excitement, nervousness, fear, and maybe even a little dread.  There was a part of me that struggled to believe that we were here.  I’ve been taking the time to slowly put down more roots, to make decisions about how I want things to look, how I want my house to feel.  I’ve been finding the pieces of me that I want to share and show.  Some people want things a certain way because they are trying to reflect something about status or their lifestyle.  I just found this medium to use to find me.  We were gifted some furniture and I’ve been putting my things on how I like them.  I’ve been going through things and purging.  These are things people normally do and I denied myself that for a long time.  It feels like home.

Today I am grateful for love.  As communal creatures we all look for socialization, connection, and love.  It’s important for our health and well-being, and it’s important to establish those feelings and make sure that connection remains, especially in long-term relationships.  My husband and I were speaking about where we are now and I reminded him of something that had happened several years back—nothing we couldn’t get past, just something that made a circumstance difficult.  It was relevant to the conversation, we weren’t digging for negativity.  Without any provocation, he apologized.  I NEVER expected that, not for a second.  There are certain things I’ve held, real traumas from our past that I wasn’t sure he understood the full impact of.  In that moment, I knew he knew.  And I knew he meant what he said about being sorry—and he loves me.  It wasn’t so much the validation, it was the understanding. That for me is love. 

Today I am grateful for momentum.  Things are unpredictable—that’s nature and the way of life.  It’s even the way of the universe.  But if it all plays out for a reason, then this is the season of things moving forward.  I’m ready.  I’ve been waiting for answers for a long time and I’ve been getting consistent messaging that things were in the works for even longer.  In the last week, however, things truly started pushing forward.  I feel what is no longer a good fit more strongly than ever, there are things I am not able to motivate myself to do any longer.  That feeling isn’t healthy or productive.  So on the heels of that, the fact that there is movement and answers are coming is highly appreciated.  It feels good, it feels right, and I trust all will turn out as it’s meant to.  I’m grateful, I feel protected, and I await the outcome that is meant to be. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

Ashmi Path shared a piece discussing interacting with the world and the friction that can be generated from living.  There comes a point where you have to let the universe know what you want and you work for it, but the how becomes irrelevant.  We learn to let go of the need for things to unfold a certain way and we learn to accept what is and what we are able to do.  That is how we heal.  When we interact with the world, we learn to let go of the heat and the anger or letting things dictate how we react.  We don’t let it stick to us.  We learn to put up a guard of sorts, Ashmi calls it oiling the mind.  We don’t need to hold onto the thoughts and perceptions of others, we simply need to maintain our own.  We learn to be in this world but not of it.

Oil consciousness becomes more about allowing the outside to be outside.  We don’t need to internalize anything people think or believe about us.  We don’t need to make their beliefs ours.  Not only is that boundary setting, that’s also good mental and spiritual hygiene.  It takes an incredibly strong will but it makes it easier to move through the muck and determine what is our own.  Yes, there is always the possibility that we create our own muck, but we have complete control to clean those thoughts.  WE also have complete control on what thoughts we allow to resonate and sit in our mind.  When we make that decision to stand in who we are, the rest of the world kind of slips around us.  When we try to be multiple things or take on too much at once, that causes more friction.  This is why it’s so important to know who we are. 

I still live with a leg on each side: the world where I need specific things to maintain where I’m at and one leg in the world of allowing it all to happen, simply being who I am.  My soul, my heart demand that I jump fully to the other side and listen to the flow and my fear attaches to things being a specific way.  That specific way is the known and we attach to the know—I know I do.  The known may be safe but it isn’t what we truly want.  The soul craves adventure and purpose and the soul doesn’t find that type of fulfillment doing the same thing day in and day out, like some record on repeat.  We are meant to dance to our own rhythm as we discussed earlier this week. I make an effort every day toward trusting my way toward ease, oil consciousness, and purpose.  It feels so much better to live without friction.  How do you protect your thoughts in that regard?

In speaking of obstacles earlier this week, I found myself considering sacred geometry.  I know nothing of the subject but it is something that has always drawn my curiosity.  I am highly attracted to the symmetries of ancient structures and how things line up with the stars and the patterns in nature.  While there is a science about it, the fact that our natural element adheres to these unspoken rules fascinates me.  I followed the path to the bear minimum and started seeing the path of life as a type of geometry as well, not just the things in it.  Sometimes it’s linear and we follow one point to another. Others it’s circular and we wind up where we started.  Others it’s a spiral where we go back to the same scenario repeatedly until we learn the lesson.  Others still it’s like a diamond with so many facets it feels like we can fall right off.  The beauty of this is it is all perfectly choreographed for us—it’s our job to find the rhythm to see which dance we are doing in the moment. 

Abundance lies in the bold steps we take along our own trajectory.  The frequencies of the rhythm we follow are meant to harmonize into our own unique song, the song of our lives. While this may seem far fetched or overly poetic, it is the truth.  Watch a video on sound frequency and the impact on salt granules.  Watch a video on the sound and frequency of voices. Watch a video on the electro-magnetic impulse of our hearts.  We are the living embodiment of this geometry.  We all have an impact on this world and it quite literally puts things like the Butterfly Effect into a reality.  Our vibration has the power to project and attract energy from other frequencies and vibrations. We move the energy of the world, and something always comes back to us.  No matter where we are in the dance, we need to find our footing.  That’s what this life is about: finding our song and keeping our rhythm.  Once we are on the frequency of us, nothing changes that until we do it ourselves.

So considering obstacles on our path, I think it’s more of a redirection in the dance.  Sometimes we have to level up and others we need to slow down, sometimes we have to leap a little bit.  It’s never about stopping because when we stop, we create stagnancy and the same can be said for repeating patterns.  All of this serves the purpose to pull us where we need to be, to encourage us to find our own flow.  Think of the beauty that comes when we find our flow.  Suddenly there is less pressure because we know the steps, we know where we go next.  It becomes less of an obstacle and more of an adjustment.  The quicker we are able to do that makes it easier to continue the flow.  Consider that the next time something seems to get in our way or like it’s stopping us.  Make our adjustments and keep dancing. Soon that dance will emit its own power, the power of who we are.  That is the point.  Keep going.

I watched a reel of a couple getting married.  She wore her white dress, full sleeved, fitted then flared and it suited her so well.  I thought to my own wedding.  I wore a dress that was given to me.  I buy clothes that don’t entirely fit and I have always hate the process of trying things on.  But as I saw this woman, something clicked in me: she is perfectly comfortable and at ease in herself.  This outfit fits her.  I suddenly realized that I have spent most of my life settling for things that don’t fit me, trying to make them work.  I took what came my way.  I always thought it made me amenable and agreeable, easy to work with.  I never considered it took away any opinions I had.  It took away any chance I had at knowing my own intricacies.  I never knew me.  I was always trying to be anything but myself.

I never got the chance to settle into my own skin.  Shit, I didn’t (and still don’t) even like trying on clothes.  It drives me nuts—if I couldn’t be bothered to make things fit my outside, how would I figure out what fit my soul?  As I’ve gotten older, I know now that I want what fits me.  I don’t want to try to make it work any longer.  I don’t want to live off of the dregs I’ve settled for out of desperation.  Now, please don’t misunderstand, I’ve created a life with a lot of beautiful things and I am so grateful to have what I do.  But there is a deep part of me that is rising to the surface that needs to be seen.  There is a part of me that knows I would be living a very different life if I had been making decisions from my talent, from who I am rather than my fear.

See, living a life based on the things that we accept, and when we accept the things that come our way instead of making the life of our dreams, means we are settling.  We are depriving ourselves of the joy of creation and we are depriving the world of our light.  Our only obligation here is to live a life of joy to spread that light throughout the world.  We create that joy by leaning into the things that make us feel good.  In order to know what feels good we need to live our lives to the fullest.  Create experiences instead of collecting things.  THAT’S how we know what works for us.           

The other day I was speaking with my husband and he kept getting distracted and we were continually interrupted by our six-year-old.  I tried to get the same thought out four or five times before I started to feel frustrated by the situation.  This is key for a few reasons: Due to stress and anxiety and several other factors, I struggle with short term memory, so when I have a thought it’s pretty critical that I get it out in the moment.  With constant interruptions chances are I will either forget it or get swayed to a different point that had nothing to do with what I was trying to convey—and then I might remember it later and the whole cycle will begin again.  I have also recently been put on new medication to assist with some of these factors and things are slowly improving, but I notice I still feel that frustration when I’m not able to fully articulate a thought.  That’s when it hit me:  this may not be chemical, this may be emotional as well. I need to be heard to heal.

Earlier this week I spoke about the seen and not heard environment from my grandmother.  I want to be clear that it wasn’t like that all the time because I wasn’t with her every day and she also wasn’t like that when it was a small group of us (like just us or the two of us and my grandfather).  But I was gifted with a lot to say and a lot of opinions and thoughts and questions as a kid so in those moments I had to hold back, it felt like I had no value to those around me.  That’s hard to deal with because I grew up with a large family, so to have family dismiss me, it truly felt like rejection.  I felt unheard.  People also made assumptions about me because of my appearance so I spent a lot of time spoken over, ignored, and dismissed.  I only share this to demonstrate where the need to be heard comes from, I know I’m not alone in this.

The truth is I think a lot of us need to be heard to heal.  I’m not just talking about hearing the words or speaking, I’m talking about hearing and seeing what’s underneath, what is really needed.  It is about being seen and connecting with others so we can validate that we are not alone   It’s in those moments that I truly feel seen when I think the healing part of being heard is the being seen.  It was never just about talking or hearing my voice and I don’t think it is for many of us.  We need connection and it’s so hard to find real connection these days.  We are always going, always busy, always distracted, and everything needs to be done in 10 seconds or less.  There are days I feel like I don’t even understand what people are trying to say, it’s like another world.  This is about a deep feeling of being out of place—so I truly need that connection where I can find it.

Life happens and we will always have something get in the way of what we try to say and there will always be someone who misunderstands us, that is human nature.  When we have the opportunity to be seen, take it, but make sure it is by people who truly care and love us.  The people who understand us carry us and teach us how to love ourselves as well.  If we see someone struggling with a thought or someone who seems extra distant, that is the time they need people the most.  I eventually told my husband how important it was for me to be heard and to have real conversations together.  I also explained to my child that we have to work on interrupting.  It won’t always be that easy and there will be times we need to walk away from a group that isn’t for us.  Keep going until we find the ones who are for us.

“Make decisions from talent, not desperation,” Katt Williams.  This was shared by Candice Denise and the full story is about Leslie Jones speaking with Katt Williams and Leslie says she is desperate because she’s broke but Katt adds, “You’re not broke you just don’t have any money, you have talent.  You need to start making decisions from your talent, not your desperation.”  Our situations often lie to us.  We create a story or a feeling about a temporary thing and we cling to it, but how we frame our experience is what reflects back to us.  We all have gifts.  We all have talent and it needs to be shared.  When we learn to make decisions from what we can offer the world, energy responds differently and new doors open up, doors we didn’t think existed.

I’ve felt that fear of not having enough.  My husband and I went through the lowest of lows and had to rebuild.  We fought and we disagreed about how to use our tools and money and it led us to the bottom of a path that neither of us wanted.  I share this because it is the direct cause of a lot of my anxiety and stress so I have a tendency to still operate from that place.  Even if I’m thinking that energy is helpful because I’m being practical, all the universe is hearing is fear.  And yes, I am still afraid.  I never want to get back to that place, I want to move forward.  So when we make decisions that involve a financial crunch, it scares me.  But in that place, I’m not thinking clearly.  I’m not seeing the possibilities.  It is truly a feat to change that mindset in the thick of it—it’s hard to be practical under pressure.  But it’s a necessity.

When we create a strong enough foundation of who we are we know we can weather any storm.  It goes back to the bird and the tree again—trust our ability to fly rather than the branch we sit on.  Circumstances change and most of what we experience is temporary.  So don’t make decisions out of fear, or based on the immediate circumstance.  Always try to keep the big picture in mind.  Know that this too will pass and try to at least have faith that it was for a reason.  The reason may be messy and it may feel like falling apart, but the truth is that it is guiding us and giving us the strength we need for the next stage in our journey.  Don’t let the dark take over our light and learn to keep that light at the front so the shadow falls behind us.  Our talent shines brighter than fear so focus on that.  Remember the energy we are trying to attract and keep your focus on what we can do, what we can offer.  The rest will take care of itself.