I had a moment the other day that both humbled and excited me.  My company is going through a lot of changes and one of the senior leaders on our team decided to retire, so she was asked to give a speech.  Now, we’ve technically worked for this woman for two years now and I had NEVER seen her before—you know how it goes with corporate mergers.  As much as I talk about not judging people by appearance, my jaw dropped when I saw her for what would be the first and last time.  She looked incredibly young, much shorter than I thought, shockingly thick hair, and a round plumpness to her that flattered her aspect entirely.  I share these physical aspects with you because that is what initially stood out.  This woman had a near 40 year career in healthcare and I know she was talented enough to get the position she held, but my interaction with her was so limited that all I could go on was the first appearance.

Ah, the lesson:  it is human nature to make decisions based on what we see, it’s a primal, protective instinct.  Ironically I’ve ALWAYS hated how people judged me on first sight, and here I was doing the exact same thing—but for different reasons. So what struck me about her was exactly how much like me she seemed.  My hair may not be as thick anymore as I’ve been dealing with a lot of changes in my life, but otherwise, I’m just like her.  There were a couple of things with that: 1. People who look like me can succeed.  Just because I appear youthful doesn’t degrade the lesson, wisdom, and gift that I have to share.  I’m still worth sharing that gift and it’s my responsibility to do so.  2. I don’t want her life.  Yes, it’s comforting to know that women who look like me can succeed in the industry I’m currently in.  But I’m at the point I don’t care anymore.  If it means fighting every day to prove who I am, what my worth is in this arena, I don’t want it.  I don’t want to waste my time being anything other than what I am, and if that isn’t appreciated where I’m at, then it’s time to go.

I guess the last lesson from this is that there can be value in initial judgements.  While I hate to be judged for what I look like and I try my best to not judge others, the right group will see you for exactly who you are.   Aside from the issue of primal safety, we can learn about ourselves and what those judgements say to us.  We can learn to curb our judgement or we can lean into them in the respect of understanding what they’re actually telling us.  For me, I learned clearly who I am that day.  I learned that success is possible regardless of outside experience if you create that opportunity by following your path.  I also reinforced that success is subjective.  What is success to someone doesn’t have to be my definition of success. That too comes from following my path and from you following your path.  It’s ours for a reason—follow it.

Continuing our discussion of change, let’s look at growth.  Growth can mean a lot of things, referring to things getting bigger or making your circle larger.  But talking about growth from the perspective of expansiveness is key here.  Expansiveness means making things bigger, creating a larger platform—so the bigger the circle, the more opportunity for different perspective.  Under the premise of doing things differently, growth is what takes us to the next level.  It is what brings us from where we are to where we want to be.  In order to do things differently as discussed yesterday, we have to allow the space for things to be different.  That means creating an environment of expansiveness to allow the space needed.  Physical, mental, and emotional space are the three main things that will create opportunity in your life.

Physical space creates the framework, or physical limitation to what we can do and how we operate.  It’s often said that our external environment is a reflection of our internal environment.  So if we have constant clutter around us, mess, chaos, then chances are our thoughts are cluttered, messy, and chaotic.  I can vouch that is true.  Now, I don’t preach that we need hospital grade cleanliness around us—we don’t need sanitary to create—we simply need a space that matches our intention and what we want to do.  If our environment doesn’t allow that, then consider some changes.  Consider letting go of things that fit your old story but no longer match your new story.  Leave the old story behind.  It’s not about replacing anything, it’s about matching the life you say you want.  The universe can respond when we match the intention with the action. 

Mental space is a tricky one because clearing and creating mental space is a constant practice.  We have to train our thought process as carefully as anything else in our lives.  The truth is our mental capacity is limitless so, if you’re an anxious over thinker like me, it makes it challenging to maintain positive thoughts in that space consistently.  Mental space will fill up with whatever it’s fed whether positive or negative—that’s what it’s designed for.  It takes in information and you perceive it.  So when we don’t have constant stimulation, the brain will tell itself stories based on what we gave it.  The other side is how we respond to that information.  For example, if we think with fear, then we limit the outcomes.  When we restrict our thought process to one belief, we only see things from the perspective of that belief.  An idea is easier to change than a belief, so learn to cultivate ideas and allow them to flow.

Emotional space is also about flow.  We need to allow emotions to move through our bodies  in order to not get stuck where we are.  When we have engrained beliefs, we have feelings around them and the body reacts to them.  The body will store them exactly where they are and that will express in pain, disease, and even outburst of emotion.  We don’t need to attach an emotion to a belief because once we do that it becomes our identity.  If we allow the experience of the emotion, that is the space it needs to alert us to what’s happening but we don’t cling to it.  And as we expand our idea and belief system, as we understand the experiences of others, we allow the space for the perspective and emotion of others. 

Growth means letting go of the safety of what we know and moving forward into something different.  Whether it’s a different stage in your journey or more along the lines of expanding ourselves as we discussed today, it’s still different.  It’s going from what is known to what is unknown.  The plant emerges from the seed and through the dirt after putting down roots.  The same is said for us.  We can either stay in the shell, in the comfort of what we know, or we can allow ourselves the space and grace to bloom.  Not to add another cliché, but it’s true that growth and magic is always on the other side of our fear.  We instinctively know when it’s time to grow, to let go of old patterns.  The time comes when choosing to stay the same hurts more than venturing into the unknown.  Take the chance.

The universe gives us signs and hints all the time.  Signs about the path we should take, instinct about what’s coming, messages confirming our thoughts, coincidences that answer our inner thoughts.  Naturally it’s up to us if we follow them, to understand them.  I’ve never hidden that I struggle with follow through.  It goes to what we talked about the other day—sometimes it’s easier to see the answers for others than it is to believe you can make the same changes yourself.  I understand things conceptually but some integrate into action far easier than others for me—and I still have a lot of fear of loss.  If I start down a negative path, then I only notice negative things. I recently noticed that many of the negative thoughts I was having started coming true in rapid succession—I’m talking within minutes of thinking it.  At first it felt hopeless, an affirmation of how bad things could be but then it hit me: I’m still manifesting—and it’s happening REALLY fast.

Even if it felt negative in the moment (and it did), I realized that there was still power behind this.  If the things I was thinking were coming true, then something I was doing was working.  Now it becomes a matter of shifting the mindset toward the things I want versus the things I DON’T want.  It’s applying the same energy to a different thought process—if the energy works, then apply it to something else.  I believe with all of my heart that we are creators.  I know it’s easy to get stuck in what we think we know, what we think we have to do—I’m guilty of it every day.  I’ll wake up thinking of different ways to avoid what I have to do but then I end up doing exactly what I “have” to do.  Repeating patterns out of fear, while understandable, is still showing fear.  It’s showing the universe your level of expectation is what you’ve always done.  That leaves no room for the new to manifest.   

This is something I’ve said before, but I have immense gratitude to the universe that the signs keep coming.  I said above that I don’t always believe things are possible for me.  That’s what the universe hears.  It feels the vibration of someone who expects the negative and only hopes for the best.  Hopes, not feels or integrates or operates from their best.  I can’t tell you how many coincidences and opportunities I’ve passed because I either got too scared or didn’t realize they were for me.  How many times I’ve said I would go for it and didn’t, even how many times I said I would call someone and didn’t.  I’m not talking about life getting in the way and forgetting, I’m talking about fearing the outcome.  In order to feel different, in order to achieve something different you need to do something different.  Whether it’s changing a belief and truly feeling it, or finding that confidence and owning it, it all comes down to what you emit to the world.        

We talk about alignment, vibration, and action here a lot—specifically aligning action with vibration.  We can’t say we want something and not take the action to get it.  The universe can give us all the materials but we still have to figure out how to put it together.  Sometimes we have to learn the language the directions are in, but the good news is, that language is always a vibration.  When we allow things to come together how they are supposed to instead of forcing it, things will come together and they will make sense..  And when we follow that path then it all flows and we see the answers—magic happens because we understand what it’s meant to be instead of what we think.  So doing things differently is what gets you something different, not wishing it, but actively changing it.  You don’t need to ask—if you’re ready, simply take the leap.  At the very least, pay attention to the signs.

I had a dream about a c-suite person from my job.  It was such a maudlin expression of what I can imagine people view/viewed me as.  As I’m shedding layers, I see sides of me that were probably pretty obvious to others.  I used to be impressed by people/power/title but not for the reasons you’d think.  I’d try to be in the same room, I’d try to be heard in front of them, I’d try to be seen.  It wasn’t about being power hungry, it was about being an energy vampire and feeding off of it.  It was about finding validation from people in positions to tell others my worth.  It was about being rescued by someone who saw something in me.  From the outside of course it looked like I was a suck-up, someone trying to hard, maybe even a social climber. 

I’m not proud of the fact that I couldn’t see that perspective until very recently.  I thought I was doing the right thing by doing what it took to be seen and heard, and (not to play victim) I thought it was going to protect me in the long run.  Discussion of self-worth and value were non-existent in my house growing up so I grew up learning that I needed a savior.  That I wasn’t allowed to live my own life, that I needed to do what I was told, keep my head down, and if I was good enough then something good would happen for me.  I don’t blame my family for the lesson because I understand what they were dealing with as well—they didn’t know until much later on what it meant to not need permission—or that they could make the decision to not need permission. 

It took me many years to learn that standing in our own power is enough.  That a title doesn’t really mean anything unless you use it for good. It’s about knowing our own worth and doing what is right for ourselves.  We are trained to live our lives a certain way, forgetting that we are beyond asking for permission.  We don’t need approval or to prove our value/worth to others.  Doing what’s right for ourselves doesn’t make us selfish, it guides us to where we need to be.  When someone shows you what they think of you, believe them.  When they show you who you are, believe them.  Know your worth and when you’re not welcome at the table.  People will make their feelings about you very obvious and think they’re smooth or subtle.  What you tolerate and allow is what you get.  Don’t tolerate that disrespect any longer.

When we focus on our own path, the opinions of others has zero impact on our lives.  That’s the point of knowing. Power is about co-creating with the universe and mastering the gifts inside of us.  It’s the ability to stand firm in who we are without interference from the outside.  Power has nothing to do with exercising control over situations or people we were never meant to control.  Focusing on our path, our energy, our thoughts, and our expression is the ultimate control.  People can’t sway you from who you are as long as you KNOW who you are. Title doesn’t mean anything in the scheme of co-creation.  That’s the beautiful part: it’s available to all of us at any time.  I’m glad for this reminder about being intentional in the life I live.  It isn’t about how I appear to others, it’s about what I feel about myself.      

Today I am grateful for epiphanies and understanding.  We are all hypocritical at times.  I don’t think it’s intentional—I know it isn’t for me.  I become a hypocrite when it comes to follow through and practicing what I preach.  It isn’t about people doing what I say, it’s more about external vision for others and fear.  It’s easier to see things from the outside so sometimes the solution is more visible when it comes to other’s situations.  And letting go of fear is hard.  The same eye that sees the answers for others may not believe it’s possible for them—and that’s a big thing  for me.  Reconciling loss means dealing with the fear of loss.

Today I am grateful for love and friendship.  My husband nailed it with Christmas gifts this year and he planned this day months ago.  We went to breakfast with our neighbors at this cute little diner.  We’ve lived in this area for nearly 5 years and haven’t ever been there until a few weeks ago.  It’s the epitome of everything you’d think this area is supposed to be—they literally know your name when you walk in, the food is delicious, they know your needs before you say them.  My neighbor and I share common interests so one of the gifts was to go to the Harry Potter Experience.  What an unbelievable gift and an amazing way to fully embrace having fun and joy. 

Today I am grateful for remembering myself.  This has been an intense week filled with lots of drama, emotion, and intensity.  While we were at the Harry Potter experience, all of that literally melted away.  I felt completely at ease, totally in my element, and a real feeling of joy swept through me.  Life can be like this.  We can allow the joy and ease back in and we can simply have fun.  It’s ok to find that childish part of you and let it out—and I let my inner child out today.  I see how play is absolutely essential and when we take ourselves too seriously we get lost.  I didn’t feel one ounce of shame today while going through the exhibit and playing.  This is what it’s like to be yourself, when you find that inner essence of happiness.

Today I am grateful for remembering myself (part two).  The things I’ve been struggling with aren’t mine to carry.  Nonetheless, I’ve carried that burden.  I’ve become an emotional powder keg, unclear in thought and focus, unmotivated in action and follow through, eating my feelings away, feeling heavier and heavier.  I saw myself today and I don’t appear as I want to anymore.  So while I was the happiest I’ve been in a long time (and that is visible on me), the damage of sustained trauma is also apparent.  I don’t need to continue to punish myself for anything.  I can put that away.  Today is a new day and I am able to decide right now that I can take responsibility for myself and do what is right—that is the follow through I talked about in point one. I know I am capable.  I’m sorry I continue to forget it. 

Today I am grateful for acceptance.  Sometimes initial encounters don’t go well.  We misjudge or something in particular happens and we carry the wrong impression of someone or something for a while.  I had that experience shortly after we moved to this house.  I struggled to get along with anyone because I felt so alone.  But after honest and open conversation and real talk, I found how much I have in common with people.  There was recently a publication about social health and it includes the various components of being with people, managing our lives, and how that impacts our health/happiness.  Learning to accept the reality of situations and letting people in draws us closer and gives us support we may not realize we need.  I can tell you, I’ve realized I need it and I am so grateful to have it.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.  

The universe never says no—It’s yes, not now, or I’ve got something better.  I just wanted to throw out a quick reminder that the universe isn’t vindictive or vengeful.  It’s operates on frequency and the big picture.  This means that sometimes the things we think we want aren’t what we need.  The more we fight the flow of what is meant for us, the more difficult it is to adapt and learn the lesson.  It also means that we need to understand what we are emitting at all times, the type of person we really are, and how to reconcile the two.  We need to have the courage to keep going when we don’t get what we want.  We have to have the resilience and persistence to see the lesson and take the redirection.  We have to have the courage to strip away the story we’ve told ourselves, the story we were told about who we are and get to the root of our true purpose.  The only real desire we need to have is to fulfill that purpose.  Once we learn how to do that and to share our gifts, the rest comes easily.  The universe knows our role in this game, and of course it’s up to us if we choose to engage.  But playing the game of frequency and vibration makes it go a lot smoother.  The answers are clearer, and we move through life with ease.  The universe doesn’t make this about the joy in saying no, it’s in the joy of finding what’s right for us.  What a gift!

Sometimes we have to approach a problem from a different angle.  This past week we’ve talked about recognizing where we are the issue, how we can be our own hero, and how we need to slow down enough to recognize the problem so we can redirect to experience life, not run through it.  Sometimes when we are stuck, or seeing the same issue repeatedly, it’s because of a pattern we can’t let go of.  Or it’s because we use the same solution we’ve always run to for a problem that needs a new outlook.  We carry things with us.  Knowledge keeps us safe and it opens the door to new things.  Humans are creatures of habit and we will go with what we know, the path of least resistance every time.  It serves us to make decisions quickly and efficiently, a gift from our primal brain. 

Some times those habits become like a raft.  One of my favorite parables in Siddhartha is about approaching the river and it’s too wide to swim across and it’s unknown how deep, so he fashions a raft and uses it to cross safely.  Once on the other side he has the choice to carry the raft with him or leave it behind.  What happens if he reaches another river?  How can he move forward through the forest carrying the raft?  Sometimes what served us doesn’t serve us any more.  That which gets us here is not necessarily what is going to move us forward.  How we cope, how we approach life, sometimes holds us back and we need a new way.  We have to release the raft of emotional safety to trek forward. 

Sitting with the problem isn’t about finding the quickest solution.  It’s about finding the solution that addresses the issue at its core.  For things like emotional weight it means understanding why we do things like engage in addictive behaviors, emotional eating, staying in unhealthy relationships.  We want to address the eating when really it’s about our self-worth.  We self-destruct because we are afraid of success.  We stick in a relationship because we don’t want to be alone or we fear we can’t do it on our own.  But those habits and patterns are the raft.  They may have made us feel good in the moment, but they are only holding us back.  We need to learn to develop strength and confidence rather than stuffing and over-consuming to feel better, or engaging in codependency.

Leaving the raft behind means taking ownership, another concept we talked about this week.  Sometimes it’s as simple as seeing where we create our own obstacles and putting them down.  Other times it means doing some deep digging and taking a new approach.  It means slowing down and evaluating where we are.  We aren’t stuck, we are familiar, and when we are familiar, it’s harder to let go.  The brain doesn’t like the unknown—we have to learn to make the unknown a friend.  We do that by doing hard things, by being honest, and by learning to let go of the raft.  Often times the situation is much lighter to carry than the mechanisms we use to feel better about it.  So face the issue head on instead of dodging it.  You have to let it go to move forward.

It’s appropriate to throw in a little piece about the human spirit at this point.  In all the talk of magic, finding who we are, alignment, remembering worth, and being our own cheerleader, sometimes we forget the balance in our lives.  We become obsessed with proving a point rather than living in our fullest expression of who we are.  Or we tie our worth to the external things or to other people’s validation.  That is the quickest way to be out of balance because the barometer is outside of who we are.  We’ve given the reins of our happiness to something outside of us.  Yes, I speak of purpose and magic and the endless supply of the universe, but even that has some limitation.  What I mean is that there are times we have to replenish ourselves for the sake of replenishing.  We need to operate on all cylinders so to speak.  Balance is about novelty and routine. Rest and challenge.  Learning and creation.  It’s an appreciation of all that makes life whole.

In the grand scheme of balance we can talk about how we live: work/life, health/nutrition, diet/exercise,  obligation/play.  But balance takes on more than that.  Balance is about knowing what balance looks like for us.  It’s about what living well looks like for us.  Here we are back at knowing ourselves again.  Clearly this is a theme.  I spent years under the guise of doing what I was told thinking I was doing the right thing—because I was told it was the right thing.  I never realized the damage it would do as an adult.  I never realized how disconnected I was from that inner knowing.  All the time I felt those flashes of inspiration and even fell into flow and then snapped myself out of it because I was told it was selfish or not worth it created a negative connotation to creation.  Production was key, and the only valid production was working on someone else’s dream or doing what I was told.  Life is about serving and creation.  Assisting and independence—and also being assisted.

We aren’t meant to handle it all.  We aren’t meant to create all.  We are meant to exist in the place between.  Life is a give and take that requires both boundaries and limitlessness.  It isn’t about using all of our energy to serve any more than it is about taking in all the energy around us.  And it certainly isn’t about deeming any one person’s goals or dreams as more worthy than another’s.  Our job is to remember our value and to share that with the world as equally as it’s our responsibility to recognize the value in others.  We are all worthy of our dreams and of attaining our purpose.  That is the sole reason for being here.  When we find the sweet spot in flow as we talked about yesterday, when we know that energy is limitless from outside, we are better able to run our battery and recognize when we need to recharge it.  Finding that flow is about knowing when we are functioning in which capacity.  That is balance.   

“Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t slow down every once in a while, you could miss it,” Ferris Bueller, in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (John Hughes).  I couldn’t sleep.  Thoughts swirled in my head that had no business popping in my mind.  I was as wired at 1am as I normally am at 3pm.  Worry, anxiety, fear—all the things I’ve been trying to crush came around to crush me.  As the thoughts of debt, failure, past mistakes, future worries, and death and every other macabre form of twisted torture trod the familiar ruts in my brain, this quote from Ferris Bueller popped in my head.  I heard it earlier in the week during a meditation and I wanted to do a piece on it regardless, but this seemed the right time.  We spoke yesterday about no one saving us, how we have to take the keys to our own kingdom.  How often do we slow down enough to understand what we need?  How often do we follow through on it?  How often do we sabotage our dreams by repeating the same thing over and over again?

Living an intentional life of purpose requires awareness.  It requires a willingness to look at ourselves with honesty.  It requires knowing whether our actions do or do not align with our intentions—and being honest enough to change those actions if they don’t align.  This means slowing down to see what we are doing.  Slowing down to understand what we are truly thinking and feeling.  There are some patterns so engrained we do things without thought, and slowing down enough to recognize them feels so unnatural.  So why were those thoughts running a marathon through my brain at 1am?  Because I haven’t been acting in alignment with my purpose, not entirely.  I’ve lived with a foot in both worlds, just on the edges of both.  I know what I feel I need to do and time is moving quicker than I want to admit.  I’ve already missed so much—the sacrifice of doing what I’m told at all costs.  I can’t do that anymore.

Let this go to show a few things: 1. Even with over a year of extensive work toward a goal, things still may not fall into place. 2. Even focusing on negative self-talk and working on negative thought patterns consistently for a year, negative thoughts can still intrude.  3.  Desire will never win over action—desire needs to be coupled with action.  4.  Fear is a liar, it’s rude, it’s intrusive, and it will show up when you least expect it, when you think you’ve accomplished something.  5.  Just because life moves fast doesn’t mean you can’t move forward from where you are right now with a new outlook, a new plan, and a new focus.  It takes work, but you can slow down your thoughts enough to keep you grounded right here so you know what to do, so you see the truth of the thing.  6. Thoughts create our reality.  Make it a good reality.   

“Nobody is ever going to save you-you need to do that on your own,” Rob Dyrdek.  I used to love the idea of a princess—a Disney princess.  When I was a kid, I loved Cinderella because, while her life was unfair, she got the best in the end of that story.  When I got a little older, I loved Belle.  She knew who she was and knew what she wanted and she fought for those she loved—plus she had the ability to see the good no matter what things seemed.  Her belief in others also brought her the good in the end.  I used to disregard the fact that they went through a ton of shit—I just liked that it always seemed worth it in the end.  Life comes with a lot of harsh truths, the least of which is that none of us are princesses and sometimes things don’t turn out in the end. 

That isn’t to say there isn’t merit in believing fantasy, but it’s more important to remember the truth: we all have power in our lives to change the outcome of where we are.  We are able to choose to become our own hero.  I wrote yesterday about how sometimes we need to see the best in every situation.  I want to add that sometimes we need to choose to do something different in the situation.  We need to see our patterns and know what’s causing the issue in our lives.  No one is going to come through a reward us with the keys to the kingdom.  Sometimes we have to make a new door.  Sometimes we have to make our own kingdom.

Taking the keys to our own kingdom means accepting things about yourself.  Knowing what you’re good at, what you like, what feels good, knowing and understanding your purpose and knowing how to fulfill it.  It means acknowledging what fits.  I’ve tried all my life to be palatable, and with the amount of practice I’ve had over the years, I’ve become quite good at it.  I don’t want that to be my superpower.  I don’t want to survive or make a name by being the chameleon, the one that changes to fit with whomever she’s with.  I don’t want to die having never really lived MY life.  I’m no longer interested in what looks good or sounds good to others.  I’m interested in finishing this healing and stepping into the next phase.

Decades pass in a blink.  I woke up and over two decades of my life are gone and I don’t remember much about them.  My son is six, no one has come to save me, and there are still moments it feels like I’m stuck on repeat.  We waste so much time.  Time on social media, time with TV, time fighting, time stressing, time hiding who we are.  Time is the most valuable asset and resource we have and we squander it as if it’s a renewable thing.  Everyone has a moment where they get to decide what comes next.  Move forward as is and stop complaining about it.  Or.  Move forward into the unknown and make the leap into what feels right.  Nobody is going to save us.  Make the choice.