Perfect for a follow up from yesterday.  I struggled with the word toughness as it came to mental health.  The more I wrote yesterday, the more I realized that being tough is what caused me massive anxiety and ADD and that’s really why the word toughness bothered me.  I think the message I was trying to convey outside of strength and resilience was discipline.  We absolutely need accountability and firmness in our lives and that boils down to one word: discipline.  It isn’t about being tough in the manner of intimidation or being rude or cut throat to get what we want.  We need to assume responsibility for our lives, our decisions, and our goals in order to get what we want and see our purpose through.  It’s through daily habits and discipline that we get where we need to go. We build the content of our character through who we are and what we do shows who we are.  I’m not saying that it’s easy.  We often have to make choices between the now and the long term.  

One of my goals is to spend more focused time with my kid and to be more present for him.  Like any other person in our society, I have a lot of time conflicts and I often find myself getting short with him because I have things that need to be done so there isn’t much time for playing.  But I’ve realized that I have goals I want to achieve and many of those goals offer the opportunity to have limitless time available with him—but that means giving up some time now.  I won’t give it all up because I love witnessing the moments he is growing up and I need to be present for those.  But I also have to have the discipline and accountability to say no to his wants every now and then, including playing games, if I need to work on something that is going to give us a long term gain.  Discipline means letting go of the perception that I’m hurting others by doing what needs to be done for myself now.  The key is knowing what needs to be done now and the rest falls in line.       

My other issue with the perception of toughness was the idea that we had to carry it all and do it all on our own.  Being tough meant handling it all.  That was a real show of strength.  We never asked for help until we were officially drowning.  Ironically we were also the first people to tell each other and others to reach out if we needed help-but we never did so ourselves.  I know that I can’t cry victim with every little thing if I want to move forward successfully.  I can’t choose to carry the entire load when there are opportunities for help and then complain that I can’t move forward.  Discipline is knowing what needs to be done, knowing when and how to do it (including asking for help), and seeing it through.  The more we practice discipline, the more clarity we have.  It’s not about being tough or being perceived in a certain way—it’s how we perceive ourselves and how we hold ourselves accountable to the things we say we want.  Are our actions aligned with the person we say we are?  Being that person is the greatest gift we can give ourselves and the world.  We don’t need to be tough, we need to be aware, and when we are aware, we are free to be who we are.

I heard one of my team mates talking about mental toughness the other day.  She spoke in terms of resilience but she kept using phrases like we have to push, keep going, make changes, deal with it.  I understand what she was talking about and I know her intentions were good but I found myself thinking about toughness.  The word implies an armor we wear to protect ourselves.  A means of not getting hurt again.  A means of pushing when we don’t think we can get there.  Before I go any further, there is a time for that, we just need to be more aware of it.  Force isn’t always the answer.  Ok, so the conversation was about how to push forward when we don’t want to and how we have to keep picking ourselves up when we fall.  I don’t always want to be tough.  I want to allow myself to be soft enough to accept who I am and strong enough to honor that.  The toughness comes in defending who we are and standing up for ourselves when we think we can’t.  I want strength and resilience and the drive to keep going—but I don’t want to have to carry the weight of that armor with me.

Society tends to value toughness and we make it a priority, something to wear as a badge of honor.  Again, there is a place for being strong.  But we don’t talk about what happens when we take the time to stop and navigate who we are.  When we take the time to honor what the truth is.  We don’t often praise those who say they will not tolerate what is considered the norm and go off on their own.  We need to celebrate the softness and the self-awareness as much as we do the drive to push.  We also have to learn to accept the basic fact that there are times we need to refuel.  There is no shame in taking the time to stop if it’s the time to stop. Sometimes toughness looks like maintaining a boundary.  I don’t want people to go through life thinking they need to maintain a persona that isn’t who they are.  Rather, I want people to understand that dropping the persona and being vulnerable is one of the toughest things we can do.  Toughness and resilience naturally develop when we consistent and aligned—so don’t confuse toughness with aggression.  Be firm and consistent and maintain the boundary of respect for who we are—that is the toughness we need to keep going.  So.  Keep going.  

Who you are should define what you do—not the other way around.  I think the essence of alignment is exactly that: who we say we are matches what we do.  This isn’t how most of us are trained to operate. Many of us spend our time trying to make people feel a certain way about us.  So often the discomfort of our lives is because we are trying to be something we are not.  We seek approval that we don’t need or that doesn’t exist.  We seek to validate our worth with things instead of actions.  We equate value to a dollar amount.  When we bring all we are to the forefront of our lives, the decisions get easier because we know who we are and we know what we need to do, we know what we are willing to do and the actions we need to take.  We know the person we want to be and we behave as such, making decisions comes with ease.  So much of our time is spent doing what other people want us to do or trying to fit in—much like I spoke about yesterday.  When we try to force ourselves to fit in places we don’t belong, we lose sight of who we are and lose direction.

I’m the first to admit that making the decision to approach life with ease and alignment in who we are over constant doing is a huge adjustment.  I’m a constant do-er.  I rarely want to sit still and even if I’m sitting, my mind is highly active with planning, writing, reading, etc.  I’m never not doing something.  I started that habit as a way to prove my worth.  People’s initial reaction to me was that I wasn’t capable of doing something because of how I looked so I would go into hyper-drive and do all the things, pretending I wasn’t exhausted and that I could do more and do it better than anyone.  It worked for a while.  But I still found myself behind the 8 ball—people were moving further ahead of me while I continued to do the grunt work.  Even though I proved myself, they simply piled more on.  Moving into who I am and accepting who I am means new boundaries.  Environments that seek to treat me that way and do not align with honoring who I am are low on my priority and I will get comfortable walking away. 

Our time is too valuable to spend our days worrying about other people’s opinions and waiting for their approval and their judgement of when we are ready and what we deserve in life.  Sometimes we simply have to move forward and take what we know is ours.  When we align our actions with our words, being who we are meant to be is easy.  We know what we need to do.  We get lost in the shuffle if we are constantly trying to make people see us a certain way. We jump from thing to thing rather than knowing what we need to do next.  Life slows down when we are in our element, in our purpose.  Assuredness and confidence grow when we know who we are and don’t allow the noise to sway us in a different direction.  There is certainty in following our purpose.  We just need to believe that we know the answers and that we can trust the answers we have inside of us, know that when we ask an answer will come and we will understand the guidance.  Don’t be afraid to stand in who we are, bring light to everything we are and dive into it fully. 

I have this massive desire to take everything from Christmas down already even though we haven’t celebrated with the family yet (sickness has delayed us getting together).  Yes, I adore the holiday and I love all the things that come with it, but I’m looking forward to the new.  I’m looking forward to taking action on my goals.  I find myself not wanting to sit in the reminder of the holiday right now.  Yes, the holidays have always brought me comfort and joy—and the holiday was absolutely beautiful in spite of not being with family how we normally are—but I find myself needing to purge, clean, and organize.  I find myself looking forward to cleaning up not only my space, but my habits and actions.  I find myself wanting to clean up my soul and understand why I want things and where that desire comes from.  I am ready to begin anew.  The last straw for me aside from all of us ending up sick at the end of the year was seeing how many things I wanted to accomplish and how much further I needed to go.  This isn’t a bad thing—but it was a sobering thing.

I spent so much of the year wandering on a personal level.  We had an amazing time, a busy time, but there wasn’t really focused time.  There wasn’t clear time and there wasn’t actionable goal time.  I thought I had a few times toward October but I still couldn’t quite get things through.  So I’m ready to put away the things I love about the holiday because I find them more of a distraction than anything at this time.  I’m ready to take clear action.  Plus I feel the call of change in general.  I feel the desire and the drive to do something new.  I’m ready to move my body and connect with spirit and soul instead of trying to repeat the same patterns over and over again.  I’m ready to put aside fears about failing and start making moves towards what I want.  I literally feel the old dying and stripping away.  The difference is I’m not afraid of it this time.  I’m ready to let it go.  To be grateful for it and let it go.  I used to be afraid that letting go meant forgetting or not having that feeling ever again (the feeling of safety).  Now I see that it’s burdensome to carry things that are no longer present with us.  We can always be grateful for it, but we don’t need to carry what was with us.  Especially if it has different meaning to those around us.

So I’m ready to admit and acknowledge and work on the things I need to change in my life.  That change will allow who I am meant to be, who I really am, to shine forth and guide me the rest of the way.  I don’t have to do it all on my own.  But I need to be honest about what comes next and stricter with myself on figuring out how to navigate that journey.  Break the habits.  Be the person I am meant to be, and I need accountability to do that.  I’m consistently amazed at the process of evolution and change because these are all things I’ve spoken about for years, things I’ve actively practiced—and still there is room for more.  There is need for more release.  There is need for more trust and acceptance.  There is need for more time and care.  There is need for more boundaries.  It’s constantly flexing, releasing what doesn’t work.  The more we hold onto things, the more stagnant and heavy it becomes.  So this is a good time to clean and release both external and internal clutter.  When we get rid of the old, we see who we are.  Clear the mess, welcome the new. 

I find myself thinking about this New Year in a new way.  I’ve never been one of those new year, new me type of people—well maybe a long time ago.  But this year I’m seeing the patterns I need to break and where I need to be both harder and softer with myself.  While driving home last Friday, I saw that I parked really wonky in the driveway.  There had been a car following close behind me so I pulled in quickly and didn’t correct to pull over more.  That simple action made me realize that I’m always looking behind me, adjusting to those after me, or I’m giving into other people’s opinions and trying to adjust to meet their needs.  I never took the time to accept myself, I took the time to make myself palatable to anyone around me.  I love the space I take up.  I love that I am allowed to take up space and I will continue to do so.  I become myself by honoring myself.  This year I want to work on continuing to embrace me and welcoming those little nuances of who I am. 

There is beauty and simplicity in accepting who we are. There is an ease in accepting who we are. I want to make my plans and work on that without letting other people derail me.  I want to plan and execute and allow the good in, the sexiness, the creativity.  I want to feel it all.  I want to dance my own dance and feel my flow.  I’m done being pushed into things I don’t really want to do or being made to feel wrong even when I’m right.  I’m done trying to fit into places that aren’t me, or having to make myself jagged to fit into the hole cut for me.  I am more than ready and more than capable of making decisions for myself and honoring them, of seeing them through and becoming who I am meant to be.  It’s not so much about becoming, it’s about shedding what I am not.  Seeking comfort is giving into the idea that our safety is more important than being who we are.  That we can’t be safe in who we are so we have to create and wear armor.  Our safety comes from being who we are and trusting everything about ourselves.

For this new year one of my goals is to simply embrace.  I’m done trying to force an outcome, a certain way of being.  I’m tired of rejecting myself because I haven’t lived up to the arbitrary and unspoken expectations of someone else—so not only have I “failed” in their eyes, they never even told me what I wanted.  I’m done playing games and staying in environments where mind-reading is a requirement.  I’m done with equating my value to someone else’s ideas about me instead of who I actually am.  I want joy to take precedence.  I want quality time with the people I love to be priority.  I want my purpose to drive my days.  I want love and acceptance to be my baseline so I feel peace in who I am.  All of that comes with acceptance and love.  So this year is about opening and accepting instead of all the doing.  Don’t get me wrong, 2023 taught me the value of doing, of getting off my butt and starting the damn thing.  But life isn’t about that constant push.  Sometimes it’s about slowing down and asking if this is what we need to be doing in the moment.  Now it’s about aligning and being—the rest falls into place.  I’m ready to simply be.  Whatever comes of it, I welcome that with open arms.  

Today I am grateful for knowing the truth.  2023 has been a beautiful year filled with love, laughter, new connections, clarity.  Toward the end I know I got derailed because my focus wasn’t very clear and I know now the level of clarity required to move forward.  Specific idea followed with specific vision and steps to get where I need to be.  We have to be honest about who we are, what we can handle, what we want, and what we are willing to do to get it.  The truth is simply this: it’s all in our hands.  No matter what happens, no matter the distractions, the result is always up to us. It isn’t a matter of pointing fingers and feeling bad that we didn’t accomplish something or that we got derailed, it’s acknowledging that we are accountable for our lives.  We are responsible for everything that comes into our lives.  We always have the choice of what we focus on. 

I’m grateful to let go of ego and control.  I’ve been so focused on the goal that I had, the vision I had in my mind thinking that I was honoring and fulfilling my purpose but not understanding why it wasn’t happening.  Not understanding that my vision wasn’t exactly what the universe had in mind for me.  I put my feelers out there, I made my intentions known, I found my purpose, that is all true.  But the path there isn’t the same as I thought because it required me to give up everything I knew.  I would make bold statements about not wanting to be a certain way or not following a certain person’s expectations, but then I’d fall right back in line and do it because I’d get scared.  That fear was ego, thinking that they wouldn’t like me or I’d get in trouble and ruin everything. Instead I should have trusted that I would be able to fly when I set those boundaries and walked away.  it isn’t ego to honor the truth of who we are.  It’s ego to give up who we are because we think we will get something better out of it. 

I’m grateful to set authentic goals this year.  I’ve been through a series of setting goals year after year only to have poor execution or to get distracted and not follow through.  My goals this year: a reminder that a hiccup isn’t a failure.  A bump isn’t a failure.  Even if something doesn’t work out how I wanted it to, that’s still not a failure, it’s a chance to pivot.  The point is to keep going and, more importantly than that, to get clear on where we are going.  Setting a vague goal doesn’t provide the benchmark so we know what we’ve achieved.  Setting specific aligned goals lets me know what’s next, the steps to take, and shows me when I’ve gotten where I wanted to be.

Today I am grateful for new goals and a new approach.  Part of why I’ve failed before (or not met goals) was because I tried to do all the things at once.  I tried to eat the entire whale so to speak—without even realizing that I don’t like whale.  It’s ok to do things one at a time as long as they are honest and as long as completing them creates a result aligned with who I am.  My timing doesn’t matter—my timing is another facet of ego.  As long as I’m doing what I’m meant to do, what brings me joy, things I can share with those I love, that’s what matters.  Doing what I love, what we all love is how we know we are successful.  Do what we love and we will never work a day in our lives.     

Today I am grateful to release.  Yes, it may seem cliché to discuss letting go and embracing the new on New Year’s Day, but the truth is this is a symbolic day and it is effective as long as we follow through on it.  I spent a lot if time in nostalgia this year, specifically at the end of the year.  Things didn’t turn out as far as spending time with family because everyone got sick.  But I found myself ready to let go and clean up and put the holiday away this year.  I saw that within the traditions of what I was trying to hold onto, while beautiful, there were things that needed to be healed.  There is so much to be grateful for in the present that we don’t need to spend time rehashing and reliving the past.  We can be grateful and accept it and keep moving forward.  There are new traditions to make, new life to live, new friends to celebrate. New goals to go after.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead and a fantastic start to the New Year!

I’m reading Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book Be Useful.  He says, “Look in the mirror. It’s uncomfortable to look ourselves in the eye because the person in the mirror is often a stranger who looks nothing like the person we see when we close our eyes and picture the person we want to be.”  That hit hard.  I have this vision of myself doing the things I love and supporting myself and family, healthy, in shape, put together, someone who takes really good care of myself.  What I see around me is chaos.  I put a lot of things together (like I really started getting my shit together) and was going strong and then I let myself get distracted.  I lost clarity.  I realized that I wasn’t clear to begin with.  Arnold also talks about clear vision and he stats that most people either start specific and create the steps or we start broad and then take steps that get clearer and more specific.  My vision was extremely broad and covered a lot of things that would seem unrelated.  I knew they fit together but I was never sure how.  I can say now that as I continue to walk forward, I do see it clearer, but I let myself get distracted.

When I read that line I realized instantly that it was something that applied to me.  In the beginning of my journey, I wanted to simply exert my power/control over myself and prove that I knew what I was doing with my life.  I wanted to prove that I knew best for myself.  I know now that was all part of proving my worth.  I realized that I skipped some steps in the middle like actually learning about myself, what I liked, what I was good at, and basic things like APPLYING the lessons I was so good at absorbing and regurgitating—absorbing and regurgitating but not doing.  Understanding that we are allowed to form our own goals and dreams made a huge difference in my life because I was under the impression that I needed to do what my parents did—it worked for them, it made them happy to see me that way.  When I started to feel like I needed something different there was a split—I couldn’t differentiate my goals from theirs.  I felt the need for something else but felt like I would disappoint them if I didn’t do it their way. But that version didn’t line up with what I felt inside. I eventually went the other way with that and went through a phase where I was pretty narcissistic and made it all about me so that was another kind of guilt.  But it was all a projection—there was no real action. 

Plans without substance or action to back them up are simply words/thoughts/dreams.  We need to make sure we have the foundation beneath us and the action to support it.  Schwarzenegger also talks about how we can paralyze ourselves when the plan is too big—and I realized that was actually part of my problem.  My grand plan had so many facets to it that I couldn’t do enough to make progress in any particular direction.  I felt like it all needed to be done so I ended up doing nothing.  But the cure for that is to slow down and do one thing to completion.  Schwarzenegger talks about the drive and energy he has—and not everyone has that—but we all have the ability to get specific and take action.  We have the ability to match our dreams with our actions and to align who we are with who we want to be.  Even if it is a really small step, that feels better than pretending we are something we aren’t, or saying we are something we aren’t.  It’s aligning—and remember, the best gift you can give the world is to be your authentic self.  Take the time to find who that is and do what it takes to be that version.   

A few weeks ago I was listening to a podcast and they were talking about how we have friends at different stages and different purposes in our lives.  Right now a lot of my friends are my son’s parents and we have a common experience with our kids being in school together.  It’s been such a beautiful thing to have our relationships develop alongside our kids.  But we need something more than that.  We need the friend we can be real with.  In both circumstances we are relating on common ground, but we need someone who understands who we are.  We need the friend who just shows up or who we can just show up to their place.  We don’t even necessarily need to talk or do anything, we just need the company and the support.  My husband and I were reminded of that the other night.  The week was a bit rough and I think we all knew we needed a break.  Our friends invited us over.  Normally we do something like play a game or have a few cocktails, but instead we ordered some pizza, sat on the couch, and watched some movies.  My son cuddled with me and we all ended up pretty much dozing on the couch together.  Nothing really needed to be said, we just needed to unwind.

I haven’t felt that level of trust in a long time. It may sound silly but it’s true—I often feel like I have to wear a mask around people or keep up a façade—I know I certainly do it until I know someone or until I know how they will react to certain things about me.  There are still certain things that I don’t share with specific groups of people because I either can’t tell how they really feel or because I know it wouldn’t go well.   While we were with our friends the other night, being vulnerable, not necessarily sharing anything other than what actually happened, it felt like I was letting my guard down and it felt amazing.  It was simply nice to have a night to recover and not put on airs.  So the truth is the value comes in the full acceptance of who we are and our ability to be comfortable wholly in that state.  In my lifetime I’ve experienced some not so pleasant things in my family and I’ve done some not so pleasant things myself, so I have learned two things: I have a high tolerance for what I accept from other people and I have a low tolerance for myself.  Plus I was fairly well trained to keep it all inside anyway.  But we need more than that.

This entire piece is about nothing more than connection and acceptance.  As humans, that’s what we need more than anything in this world next to sustenance, water, and shelter/clothing.  Finding those types of people is a remarkable gift because we get the connection we need but we also learn to accept parts of ourselves.  Most of the time we are taught to hate ourselves and that we always need to be something else so it’s an incredible feeling to shift into taking care of self, accepting self, and knowing that who we are at our core is ok.  We are all fundamentally ok, we just go through various stages of our reality getting twisted.  Sometimes we need some help bringing that reality back to the truth.  As cliché as it sounds, the truth is we are all inherently worthy as we are, we all have value as we are, and we all have gifts/messages/purpose that needs to be shared with the world.  Sometimes it takes a night of simply sitting with friends exactly as we are, where we are in that moment.  THAT is something to be grateful for.       

The best gift you can give the world is to be yourself—fully yourself.  People will like you or dislike you no matter what you do so align with your authentic truth and do what makes you happy.  If you don’t make a stand in who you are, you will fall for anything—and no one can stand for you if you are for everyone.  Now, that isn’t to say that you need to isolate people who don’t agree with you, rather it is to say that we can love everyone and let them be while still being who we are.  Anyone who likes the version you pretend to be but doesn’t like you’re authentic self isn’t meant to be in your life.  Let them go.  We are trained to think we need to fit in and be like everyone else and end up losing the understanding that our uniqueness is necessary in this world—it is actually needed.  We don’t need more copies.  A few weeks ago I talked about Gary Brecka’s work on authenticity, specifically his understanding/interpretation of the SPANE study.  Authenticity is the most powerful frequency emitted by the body.  Why would we need to be anything other than ourselves?  Who we are as individuals truly is a gift.

The world will judge no matter what.  The important part is that we know who we are.  One thing for sure is that I personally didn’t understand how much work and how much time it takes to get to know ourselves.  The impressionability we have as children is remarkable.  If there was a way to transmute all of the knowledge of the world in childhood, knowing there is no limit, then we would never waste a single moment being something we are not.  We are trained to think unique is shameful or something that we need to hide.  By the time we figure out that we need to share it and stand out a bit, it becomes so uncomfortable that it takes real effort to step outside of our comfort zone.  If we learn to be comfortable it shifts how we operate.  I’ve learned recently, especially with how this past year has moved, that time moves unbelievably fast.  We have to make the decision to do what works for us regardless of what others think—we have to go with what we know.   

No need to be perfect, just need to have perfect faith.  There was no coincidence in those signs I spoke about yesterday.  There was absolutely a reason why the universe confirmed my thoughts and assuaged my fears.  It’s because I was exactly where I needed to be when those signs came and I needed to let go of fear and trust.  That’s how we move forward.  We need to trust the signs, our instincts, enough to move from what we know and into what we are meant to do.  We will never know all the answers but we need to know that we are capable of whatever comes our way.  That’s all faith is.  It isn’t seeing the other side or seeing the entire path.  Rather, it’s seeing where we need to go and filling in the gaps along the way until the way is clear.  That vision, the result we are looking for should be sharp in focus, but how we get there isn’t always clear.  Ther are lessons we may need to learn that we have no clue about until we start the journey, and it’s only through the journey that we learn them. 

The goal can’t be perfection because we have no idea what we are perfecting until we take the steps to get there.  I’ve spent a lot of time curating a life that I thought other people wanted to see.  I was an absolute wreck even though on the outside it looked like I had things together.  It was a life that other people wanted, it wasn’t necessarily what I wanted.  I filled my home with other people’s things, grateful to have them, but I never took the time to curate my own style.  I felt guilty every time I brought something in that was mine alone. I’ve learned that guilt is a huge sign to the universe that we aren’t ready for what we say we want, especially if it is the very thing we want.  We have to be willing to accept it and that means accepting it as it is when we get it—and knowing that when we get it is the exact right time for it.   

It’s about trusting that we are always at the right place at the right time.  There has been a lot that was thrown off schedule this year and it scared me a bit because going into the new year, I like to think that I have a plan that all will turn out—and for me that means that it goes according to that plan.  So when things are already off course, it seems like it may not go that way.  Instead, it’s an opportunity to realize that even though it looks different, it is still exactly how it needs to be.  It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be what it is.  Our job isn’t to seek perfection like I said, it’s to go with it and have faith that all is well.  Knowing it’s exactly how it needs to be and that we are equipped to handle anything that comes our way.  It isn’t easy, but when we have faith we know that whatever comes our way is meant to be.