Last week I talked about being alone in the house.  I never realized how loud the quiet is.  I’ve never felt the weight of someone’s absence in that way.  I’ve never noticed the weight of the person’s presence in their absence either.  So often I wanted time alone—like entirely alone.  I wanted to breathe without worrying about someone interrupting me.  I wanted to relish in the things I wanted to do.  I wanted to be able to sleep how I wanted to and to not have to wake up 3 hours before everyone in order to work on the things I enjoy.  I couldn’t get through a day without a million thoughts interrupting me let alone the people who actually interrupted as well.  Or a plan going awry because someone was at my house after a 10 hour day and 2 hours of commuting.  My frustration built and built and that’s when it became resentment.  When I couldn’t even get a thought out. When I started locking my door just so I could shower.  When I sat in the car a few extra minutes after I got home.  When I noticed that my husband didn’t even want to talk to me and would spend his time on Tik Tok or with our friends instead of me—like he could have a full conversation and support them but he didn’t have the time for me—always brushing things off.

So I needed space desperately just to separate my thoughts because I could feel everything crashing down and no one wanted to address it—they didn’t want it to fall but didn’t want to deal with it, content to let me hold it all up.  I needed space to hear the thoughts and differentiate what was mine and what wasn’t.  I needed time to disconnect from people and time to stop taking them for granted and to stop allowing myself to be taken for granted.  But when we finally get that silence, it hits like a ton of bricks.  The silence means something else when those people suddenly leave.  I’ve often heard that silence can be deafening.  I’ve experienced that myself, waiting for people to tell me what I needed to hear only to get an answer that I decidedly didn’t want.  I’ve felt the weight infiltrate the silence where something was conveyed with no words at all, the weight of waiting.  Sometimes we don’t know what the people around us contribute to our lives until they are gone.  Sometimes we don’t know how they hinder us until they are gone.  Sometimes we don’t see what we’ve done until the noise is gone.  Sometimes we don’t see what we’ve been trying to really drown out until we get rid of the extra noise.  We have nothing to face but ourselves when it comes to the silence—and that can be a tricky thing to navigate.      

The silence shows us who we are.  It’s the clearest mirror we can hope for, certainly the most honest as long as we can distinguish the truth.  In that time we may learn that the things that drive us nuts about those closest to us come from a good place.  Or that they don’t know what they’ve done because they don’t understand it the way you do.  Or that they really are doing their best.  We may also see that they are fully aware of what they’ve done and that it’s up to us to decide what we will tolerate.  We may see that it’s us who has created the monster.  Or we see the monster we’ve become.  And the version of us that needs to heal and be released.  I’ve run the gamut of all of that in my time alone.  Truth be told, I could probably use even more.  It’s made me more aware of what people need and what they are going through.  It’s made my own needs clearer.  What I thought I wanted isn’t exactly what I needed.  I’ve learned that when I hoped I could have silence what I really hoped for was the ability to cope.  I needed to know who I was and to understand what I am capable of.  I couldn’t do that codependently anymore.  I’ve learned that I need to stick with my boundaries and it is going to mean pissing some people off.  It means that there are parts of me from 23 years ago that no longer exist and that I need to let them go.  It also means that I need to make space for who I am now and that may mean letting go of what used to give me comfort, people included.  There is no anger in it, just an acceptance of fact.  Silence doesn’t have to be scary if we welcome it.  Welcome what comes with it.  In silence we may just hear exactly what we need.

Today I am grateful for confession.  I’m not talking in the religious sense but I am talking about sharing something with the hope of absolving a feeling.  I’ve been feeling a certain way toward several people for a while now and I’ve been upset because they aren’t responding to my signs to essentially keep away for the time being.  I found myself super annoyed that they were always around in spite of my behavior.  I got even more annoyed that they would then seek out my husband so I wasn’t even able to discuss much needed things with him either. I finally was able to pull a few of them aside and explain what was going on.  In discussion I things started piecing together in my mind.  I was hurt because I wasn’t being respected but I was also hurt because there was a different kind of bond I saw developing that I was losing with my husband.  And he wanted nothing to do with trying to repair it with me.  I wouldn’t have realized that if I didn’t start to confront the issue with other people being around. I was able to express my jealousy as well as the deeper need I had in my relationship.  Truthfully nothing has been done on either side (I’ll get to that next) but it still felt good to get it out there.    

Today I am grateful for time alone.  I refuse to use the cliché that absence makes the heart grow fonder because I feel like it’s trash.  But I will say that time alone offers space for a lot of things.  Appreciation for what’s gone.  Appreciation that it was there.  Appreciation for what we want.  It makes space for clarity of what the heart wants, what makes it beat.  Solitude isn’t an easy thing.  I think this time alone has made me appreciate the challenge of doing it all alone.  There are times I’ve felt like I had to do things alone and I ended up making myself the victim.  But having to truly do it alone is another story.  It doesn’t feel weak in this aloneness.  It feels strong.  It feels reassuring that there are things I can do on my own that I previously thought I couldn’t.  I am strong enough to do it.  I can be strong enough to make the choice and do that too.

Today I am grateful to make peace with silence.  In the beginning of this time alone, the silence scared me.  It was too quiet.  The irony is I had been asking for quiet for a long time—and it was a moment of be careful what you wish for.  Not just the physical surroundings but the heaviness of everything being on me, every thought, uninterrupted time.  Sometimes silence can be a dangerous thing for people with a brain like mine—always active, slightly compulsive, definitely obsessive, creative with destructive tendencies.  The silence needed to break me down, though.  I needed to make peace with the ticking of my heart.  I would think each beat was a second gone, unsure where to go, desperately trying to cling to something to find meaning—that was even before this time alone.  Wasted time scares me, and I wanted this time apart to be worth it.  So I had to make peace with that quiet.  Let my heart set the rhythm instead of the chaos of my mind.  It’s ok because we are here and now and that is all we have.  Breathe. Let the heart tick.  Let that beautiful noise fill the silence and appreciate it.  We need it to. When all goes completely silent it’s over, so be grateful for each beat.  Let the silence tell you what your mind cannot.  The mind lies—the silence does not.      

Today I am grateful to slow down.  I’ve had to slow down this past week.  I’ve had to find what needed to be done and simply focus on that in the moment.  All we have is that moment.  We may feel like we have everything that we’ve done and the moments that lie ahead but the truth is we are all one and we are that moment perpetually.  It’s not really gone and it will never really be here.  All that is, is what is here right now.  My creativity, my mind in general, my ADD is a blessing and a curse.  A blessing because I constantly have ideas running through my mind—a curse because I can’t always act on all of them and I struggle to get them out of my mind and also because my mind lies a lot.  In slowing down, I’ve been able to focus on finding what really works for mem the right thing to do for me.  How I spend my time, what’s important, and to develop a sense that I am able to go after whatever I want.  We may not be able to do all the things and we certainly can’t do them all at once.  But we can put all we have into the thing that makes the most sense to us in the moment, the thing that calls to us.  So slow down and find that rhythm we talked about in the silence and move forward. 

Today I am grateful for progress.  Changing our mindset and our lifestyles is not an easy thing to do.  Understanding the responsibility and taking accountability is a tough decision as I mentioned above.  But when we choose that life and continue to choose it every day then that is something.  That’s all we need to do.  Make one choice at a time and make sure we stick with it.  That involved being comfortable in my own skin and working on me.  We don’t miraculously develop issues overnight (like issues with weight, smoking, drinking, codependency).  All of those things start off innocently enough—one more bite, one more cigarette, one more drink, I just want to know what he’s doing/I have to check with him first.  Then they can quickly turn into something more.  Breaking those habits is never easy and the process of change can be ugly.  But it’s important to continue on the path to change no matter what we do.  We can either work toward the changes we want or work on accepting who we are.  I am grateful for the progress I have made and I am proud.  Choosing me every day has made me more able to help other people versus the selfishness I felt when I did everything for everyone.  The latter made me a martyr and hungry for attention.  The former makes it so I feel comfortable and confident contributing what I can.  I am grateful for progress in accepting who I am.

Today I am grateful for taking the steps necessary to get out of my comfort zone and push me toward a new way of living.  I took my personal business to a local market yesterday and it was an incredible experience.  It’s different being on the other side of the table, offering a product or service.  I learned a lot.  It requires a different level of comfort and confidence in self in order to sell.  It was fun to set up my booth and to speak with people about something that can help them.  I loved putting all the pieces together in a way that made sense to show off the stuff.  It was fun to learn how to make new connections and watch how others sell their business.  It was great to speak with some really nice people both on the customer and professional side.  It was awesome to make a sale. I’ve made sales before and it always feels amazing but it was something really cool to offer someone a sample, have them step away and then come back to get the product.  You never know how something will go until you try it and it was definitely something necessary to advance where I’m at and what I’m doing.  I’m grateful for that chance.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.   

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.  The fears are paper tigers.  You can do anything you decide to do.  You can act to change and control your life.  And the procedure, the process is its own reward,” Amelia Earhart.  How often do we stay put?  How often do we not act for fear of judgement or even our own judgement?  How often do we wait for the right time?  To be good enough?  How often do we convince ourselves that we have to stay where we are for the benefit of others?  I am the first person to say we do not operate in a bubble, that our actions have impact on one another.  I am also awakening, specifically to the fact that at some point we have to stop worrying about what is good for other people.  We have to stop worrying about what we look like (see yesterday’s post).  We have to stop preventing ourselves from living because we fear we will never attain what we want or that we will offend someone or prevent someone from getting their dues.  We create all of these obstacles disguised as standards and they all rest in our head.  The reality is they are as flimsy as the paper tiger.  Perhaps fearsome in appearance, but can be destroyed quite easily.  Why do we chain ourselves to the plastic lawn chair?  Because we fear movement.

I’ve spoken before about how taking control of our lives means assuming full responsibility for whatever may come and that is a lot of pressure for some people.  What we forget in that pressure is that we have the option to create.  We can make responsibility about improving ourselves.  About finding a hobby.  About finding independence.  About believing in ourselves.  Once we establish who we are to ourselves, we can take on anything.  Responsibility is a scary thing because the outcome hinges on what we do.  But it’s also the most liberating thing because we can change it as we see fit.  That is the beauty.  We can change direction at any time.  The work to get to the point where we understand what we want to do is the hardest part.  Many of us have to dig through layers of previous junk, preconceived notions, beliefs.  Some of them don’t even seem like they would hold us back.  But once we manage to quiet those voices, we see the truth of what we want.  The biggest paper tiger of all is the voice we have in our own heads.   

Once we act we can’t undo it, that much is true.  But that doesn’t mean it needs to be perfect in order to move.  There are times we simply need to move.  Progress, not perfection.  If we waited for that perfect day, no one would move.  We put too much stock in the opinion of others and he goals of others.  We don’t all have to want the same things, we can simply acknowledge other people and move forward.  While it gets complicated because we are a social society, we do not have to make our dreams contingent on what other people think.  We were given free thought and free will to act as we see fit, not to repeat the actions of others.  All we need is the idea and the courage to do it.  Then we need the fortitude to continue to pick ourselves up every time we fall.  We need to make sure our mind is strong enough to understand that there is no failing, there is only learning.  Keep going because that diamond is within reach for all of us as long as we stay on the path.  Forget the fears, the opinions we create in our own mind, take the chance to learn and rip that tiger apart. 

“Success is not about believing in yourself.  It’s a comfort with embarrassing yourself,”  In the vein of permission and a slightly different take on success, let’s talk about putting ourselves out there.  There are so many things to learn out there we can’t possibly know them all—and we can’t learn them until we get our hands in there and experience it.  If we want to go for something and we’ve made the decision to do it (see yesterday’s piece about permission) then we need to allow ourselves the experience of learning.  Expecting perfection on the first time out is unrealistic and mistakes don’t mean that we need to give up.  We need to incorporate the lesson and try again.  And fail.  And learn.  And stumble.  And fall.  And pick ourselves up.  And keep going. 

I personally feel like success is measured by an extreme belief in oneself, more specifically a belief that we can figure anything out even if we don’t know all the answer snow and we can’t see all the potential issue of what is to come.  But I thought the quote was still an interesting take on what it means to be successful.  We don’t start out successful, we start out with an idea.  That idea doesn’t even have to be really well founded—it just needs to be tested.  We have to be willing to go through that experimentation to learn how to make it better.  So moving into success isn’t paramount on that initial belief.  We can foster belief as we go no matter how silly we look.  At the end of the day it doesn’t matter how we look on the journey—it’s developing comfort in discovering where we are going and how we feel when we get there. 

“The question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me,” Amy/Ayn Rand (found attributed to both).  In the funny way the universe works this quote popped in twice for me and I took that as a sign I needed to follow the insight as well as talk about it here.  I have a coloring book for stress management filled with positive affirmations.  The last time I colored in it was over a year ago and I remember leaving off on the picture stating “Start where you are.”  I felt like picking it up again last night to work on it.  The back of each piece has a quote and I noticed it said what I opened this piece with.  I loved it, I wrote it in my journal and I was thinking about working it in this week.  I woke up this morning and I pulled my cards and they talked about surrendering, trusting the universe, forgiveness, etc.  It got me thinking about where I’m at and what the next steps in my life look like.  What happens next.  I turned my calendar and today’s quote says the exact same thing as in the coloring book last night.  My jaw dropped and I got full body chills.  There is no way that wasn’t meant to be, for me, for me to share, in this exact moment.

So let’s dive into it.  I was definitively raised to do what I was told.  To ask permission.  To listen to the teacher.  To listen to the adults in the room.  Not that I didn’t rebel against it, but I always followed that rule on the major stuff—curfew, homework, going where I said I was going, asking before I did or joined anything.  Recent events at work and home have led me to believe that this may be something I need to work on.  I wrote a few weeks ago about taking a chance and going for something I wanted at work.  I haven’t heard anything about it so I feel like I lost a little steam in that regard.  My husband and I got into it and he brought up confidence in general.  My husband is confident no matter the situation—he believes he will be able to figure it out no matter what it is.  I have confidence to speak my mind and voice my opinion and step up for others but when I face resistance I tend to back down.  I revert to asking permission again.  This has been a point of contention for some time now in both my personal and professional life.  There comes a time when no matter what we need to stick with our gut.  It doesn’t matter if we’re 22 and starting out on our own, 16 trying out for a team or group, or 40 and changing careers.  I have a voice, I just need to use it consistently and believe it.

All of the things that have taken me furthest in life have been borne of taking a chance and stepping out of my comfort zone.  The rest has been formed with practice and dedication to a task.  But the things done with passion and zeal were always from a different place, deep in my gut.  I know in those moments I didn’t question anything—and I certainly didn’t ask for permission.  I figured it out.  No one has power over us—we are the only ones who allow it.  Even if it’s a thought festering in our minds from something someone said, that is our choice to replay it.  Our mind will hold us hostage if we let it.  We need to decide and once that decision is made we need to keep going.  There is no allowing in this world, it is only the perception that we need to be allowed to do something.  Once we find our purpose we need to go for it, it doesn’t matter what other people think and it doesn’t matter who thinks it.  We are responsible for our lives, for our happiness, for where we go.  The only person that can stop us is ourselves.  Even if it seems to be for a good reason, it is only us who says we can’t do something.  Taking that step can be terrifying but I’d rather be scared for a minute than feel regret for a lifetime.   

There’s this misconception that people who stand up for themselves are bold and brash and the loudest in the room.  Sometimes that is true but more often than not, this type of resolve is experienced in the quietness of our minds and the ability to follow through, articulate what we are doing, or in walking away from what doesn’t align or support who we are.  I don’t need to be loud to feel strong in who I am.  I also don’t need to be tested and pushed in my boundaries.  It’s ok to walk away from what doesn’t work.  It’s ok to decide to try something new.  It’s ok to make the right choice for ourselves no matter what.  We have one chance here and it makes sense to make the most of it for what feels right to us, not what someone else says is right for us.  What have we been waiting for?  What are we asking permission for?  Where can we put aside the weight of someone else’s opinion and simply be content to go after what lights us up?  No one can stop any of us from that.

We are not contingent on what others think of us.  Sometimes a chance conversation, a moment we didn’t plan reveals more than we expected, another level.  Sometimes the last person you expect to understand ends up seeing right through to the core of the issue—they see something you’ve seen too.  They speak your language in a way you’ve been looking for.  This person says something just so we understand that we aren’t crazy.  Someone who sees what we haven’t said, what we have been trying to say all along.  They cut to the core, the root of the issue, not to make us bleed but to cut away all the other crap people have made us feel about ourselves.  It takes a certain level of understanding to see that those who are hurt and desperately looking for an answer can sometimes come across a little feral.  They can see that those who don’t share all they feel may be hurting the most, or protecting themselves.  They also cut through the bullshit and see that even if we feel scared or angry or if we have trauma that prevented us from incorporating and understanding how to make a lasting, genuine, accepting human connection, that it doesn’t absolve us of the responsibility of owning our shit. 

I don’t want to continually spend the rest of my life on the precipice of what if, the limbo of does this person want me or do they not?  Am I good enough as I am?  Are we too different for each other?  How do we resolve this if we can’t talk about it?  Why doesn’t this person want to talk about it?  What about owning their mistakes makes this so difficult for them?  Is it because when they’ve made mistakes before they were shunned?  Is it because the key people who were supposed to be there for them couldn’t accept them and couldn’t help them be who they were meant to be?  I don’t need to be someone’s all—I want us to be all on our own.  But I also can’t settle for being someone’s maybe.  It’s the maybe that hurts.  The waiting that hurts.  I’ve spent most of my life waiting for someone else to make a decision and then I would make my move.  Ever the people-pleaser I needed to make sure they were happy with their decision so then I could make mine.  But now it makes me feel different.  The waiting makes me feel less than.  And I can’t make someone take responsibility for their role in a position they accepted but no longer want to work for.

I’m learning to accept that when someone makes us the option, we are to remove ourselves from the situation.  We will never be able to make them love us a certain way, or feel any particular way about us.  If they don’t have the desire to work with us or to own their portion of the relationship, then as challenging as it is, we need to remove ourselves from the situation.  If we are an option to them, we can’t treat ourselves as an option.  We all have so much light to offer and we can’t let if fall into the abyss of someone who runs hot and cold, someone who doesn’t even know who they are.  Someone who went along for the ride, accepting the life built together only to discover that they didn’t want it at all.  It’s painful to discard that type of work after that many years.  We need to find strength in who we are.  We need to hear what someone on the outside says and take it to heart.  Sometimes we are too close to the forest and we can’t see the trees.  Sometimes the ones we thought planted us really only buried us, or they trimmed the bloom when it got too big.  I have a lot of light and a lot of growth to share—and still more growth to come.  I don’t need to wait for someone’s approval to grow.  We just need to grow, we need to be that voice that tells us we aren’t crazy.  Know our worth.  Know when to walk away.  Know what is worth nurturing.         

I am an Aries, born to two Aries grandfathers.  One I knew, one I did not.  I am part of the one I did not know in that I am creative and entrepreneurial and driven and stubborn.  I am like the one I knew in that I am determined, I am hard working, and I love and accept people and want them to succeed.  I am both of them in that I have my limits—I will give chances until I can’t do it any longer.  I had no say in the matter, this is truly a part of who I am.  In relationships there is an acceptance of life—accepting friends as they are.  I am who I am.  We can’t change anyone.  We can’t fight anyone on their natural course, their path.  But when it comes to boundaries, we need to question if we are staying because we are familiar or if we are avoiding some other form of rejection.  I faced a lot of rejection as a child so I struggle to maintain boundaries because I want to be friends with people.  I am flimsy with them, wishy washy in decisions, always wanting the other person to make the choice first so they aren’t upset.  That is not the trait of an Aries person. Believe me when it comes to temper I am all fire and venom and rage.  It passes quickly but you will get burned if you get too close.  I love as fiercely.  And sometimes, even in love, if you get too close you get burned.  Even a fire sign can get burned if they stay too long in their own flame.

We don’t have much choice in the matter when it comes to how people are.  People are capable of changing depending on their goals and where their focus is, but they will never change for someone else.  We are responsible for our own happiness, our own reactions.  We are responsible for who we allow in our lives.  Relationships mean accepting the responsibility for allowing others to be who they are and not expecting them to be anything else.  We can’t expect people to be who they are not.  We can’t make them do what they do not want to do.  We can’t make them feel a certain way about us or agree with us on a specific topic.  If all of that aligns, then great.  But when we disagree we have to practice allowing.  We can’t turn people away if they aren’t 100% on par with us.  That isn’t how life works.  We must accept all of people.  It’s far easier to work with people if we understand and simply allow them to be.  If we allow ourselves the same grace.  I tried to make people be a certain way with me for a long time because I didn’t want to get hurt and I thought controlling how they behaved would control how they treated me.  But we have to surrender and allow that person to be who they are.  Just as we have to surrender and allow who we are.      

So in those moments when I don’t know where to go, when I am trying to run by standing still (like in yesterday’s piece), I feel that fire leeching out of me and I am hurting.  I am sensitive.  I am struggling to find the balance between ego, boundaries, flexibility, and giving.  Perhaps some of my boundaries are too stringent.  I protect my heart and I am sensitive to whether or not people accept me so I am quick to cut people off who make me feel a certain way.  I can tolerate some of what they do, but what is done to me, I put up a shield and it is virtually impenetrable.  What happens when a heart of fire turns cold?  It doesn’t know what to do—indecisiveness is also uncharacteristic of an Aries.  Indecisiveness will get the best of any sign but for those signs based in action,  it is particularly frustrating and draining.  There are times when we need to either move or we need to slow down.  The question of which depends on the situation.  When are we hurting through non-action and when is moving creating friction? I often wonder about where I come from because these genes, and this does come from someone.  I wonder how they would handle some of the same situations I have faced.  I wonder if they ever felt as I did.  As I walk their footsteps in so many ways, as I forge my own path, I feel less alone knowing these things came from somewhere, as unchangeable as other people are.  It’s inevitable.

“Some people run away by packing their bags.  Others run away by staying in the same place too long,”  Richard Gadd (Baby Reindeer).  I’ve heard and read some incredibly powerful quotes and they often give me pause—a few have stopped me in my tracks.  This one was full stop, slap in the face, reality is here.  Certain things resonate with us at certain times in our lives and this is one of them for me.  I needed to hear this in the midst of the circumstances going on between work and home right now.  Doing the same thing, being the same person every day only gets us more of the same.  If we are happy in that regard then it isn’t an issue.  If we aren’t happy or if it seems the weight of holding up something not meant for us to hold in the first place becomes too much, then we need to consider why we stay. 

The human brain is an amazing thing.  It can convince us that we aren’t capable of changing the circumstances.  That we are meant to stay where we are.  That is too scary to move forward whether on a goal or on what to eat.  It is capable of showing us the most beautiful dreams and tearing us down.  I’ve experienced both kinds of running away.  The kind where we think the answer always lies somewhere else, anywhere else but where we are.  That we have to know it all and that if we let down our armor we will be vulnerable so we can’t stay in one spot.  I’ve also been the one to stay where I am for an unhealthy amount of time, both out of stubbornness, and out of fear, and out of hope that things will change.  Right now I am in the same place. 

I’ve created so much work for myself saying that it’s all for my family, that I’m trying to build a better life for them.  That is true—but how much of this is also so I can avoid the reality of the differences building in my home?  How much of this is trying to control what’s going on around me because I have no control over some major portions of my life (events at work, thoughts/beliefs from other people).  I’ve said before the human brain isn’t designed to stay in limbo, wondering what if, what’s next.  So we create a response and either flee or root.  When we flee we still take the baggage of the situation with us if we don’t figure out where it started.  When we root, we like to think we are sticking out but we are avoiding what we can do to help ourselves.

The statement immediately begged the question of what am I avoiding?  It wasn’t a matter of running away through leaving, I knew instantly I was running away by staying.  By thinking I couldn’t do it on my own.  And worse, I know that decision, my behaviors and actions have mad other people stay where they are as well.  That was never my goal—that was my brain protecting itself by trying to be in control.  We have all done this at some point.  So how do we stop?  How do we stop running at all?  Facing ourselves is by far one of the hardest things to do.  Once the mask is off there is no where to hide.  There is a reality that we can’t avoid in that particular mirror.  I know that my legs are getting sore, both from the days I move, and from the days I hold myself hostage to whatever I’m going through in my mind.  We can move the mind—it shouldn’t move us.  So it’s time to unleash the chain and see how far I can go.  Will you go with me?    

Today I am grateful for catharsis.  I’m not sure how much of the story I will eventually share because it is still in progress, but my husband and I have had a tumultuous several weeks to the point where we knew we were going to have to make a decision about our marriage.  He and my son are on a trip with my father, my uncle, my brother, a mutual friend, and a group of my father’s friends and when they left I felt my whole world shatter.  The people you love leaving on uncertain terms is such an unsettling feeling.  I had a lot to process in those first few hours.  I went about my normal business, cleaning and organizing.  As I was putting things away, I couldn’t contain the emotion.  I started howling and crying like I hadn’t done in ages.  It felt like part of me had been ripped out, I felt nauseous with uncertainty about what we do next.  I cried for about 2 hours.  Once I pulled myself together, I finished planting some of my seeds and working in the dirt.  Then I did the dishes.  Then I worked out for over an hour.  Then I made myself some food—I hadn’t eaten all day.  That was my first meal alone in ages.  I went upstairs and I put laundry away, organized my son’s drawers.  Then I drew a hot bath with bubbles and salts and I sat in it for over an hour listening to healing frequencies.  I almost fell asleep a few times.  It was after that when I felt the weight fall off of me.  I can’t control what comes next, what decisions we will make individually and together.  But in that moment I could feel some peace. 

Today I am grateful to have a wish granted.  There are times they say be careful what you wish for—and it is true.  But even if those wishes don’t turn out how we expect them to, there is still something to learn from them.  I’ve often spoken of needing to be alone to figure things out.  I haven’t been without my husband and son for the last 7.5 years—we haven’t spent one night away from each other.  I haven’t spent one night away from my husband in nearly 17 years.  Even if people drive each other crazy, we get used to their presence.  So I have been looking forward to some peace being by myself, time to process and reflect while they were on this trip.  The circumstances of them leaving left me wanting and sad.  When you have that level of uncertainty, the not knowing makes loneliness a dangerous game.  Dark thoughts took over for a while regarding the state of my relationship and what I needed to do about it.  Fear.  Anger.  But as I processed through it, I realized that all couples go through rough patches.  Maybe not as bad as this one built around as much history, but they do.  As I was alone, I realized that I hated this kind of quiet.  That if I kept up my end of this bullshit I would be alone forever.  So I got my wish to have some solitude and quiet but it came with a heavy price.  A lot to work through.  We will see where it goes.

Today I am grateful to have the opportunity to learn about myself.  I’ve spent literally decades doing everything I’ve been told.  I’ve spent the last 7 years, moreso than in previous years, trying to keep our heads above water.  I’ve spent the last 3 years torn in so many directions, uncertain about which way to go, future projecting to see what the best path would be, splitting myself in no less than 5 pieces.  That kind of division leaves anyone empty and fearful.  It also leaves them exhausted and unable to process the day to day, to make their own decisions.  In the course of finding out about the quiet, understanding I am not a victim became key.  Understanding that I’ve repeated a pattern I learned about from my mother is key.  I have NO resentment toward my mom—she worked her ass off and she did what she could.  She repeated what she learned and she expressed what was done to her from my grandmother.  My mom took all of that shit and still is one of the most supportive and generous people I know.  But I can’t keep going down the victim path.  I didn’t realize how bad it was until I sat in the quiet and until a friend pointed out that this is where I come from.  All the splitting was my choice.  Yes, it was done for a reason, but it was a reason I thought I had to do at the time—I didn’t have to keep doing it.  I am grateful to see where I can change that behavior.  Make a decision.  No longer be the victim.

Today I am grateful to slow down.  Women in particular have the brunt of multi-tasking.  We are taught to wear the ability to multi-task like a fucking cape, like we have some super power.  They never tell us the long term consequences of lack of focus.  How it starts to feel like you can’t even complete a thought.  How it feels like you will never get everything done.  The frustration of starting and stopping things a million times.  Missing details and events and deadlines because of shifting priorities—then feeling guilty about missing details and events and deadlines.  The pressure to say yes and not knowing how to say no.  The anxiety of forgetting something, the clutter of sticky notes, notebooks, calendar reminders on the phone, actual calendars.  We are more than enough without having to be everything for everyone.  We lose pieces of ourselves as we try to maintain some image of what we are supposed to be—the idea that unless we can do it all without breaking a sweat that we have somehow failed.  The anger that comes when the stress wins—and it wins often.  The impact on our relationships, the resentment when it feels like the other isn’t doing enough.  The realization that it’s all a choice.  When we are forced to slow down, we are forced to reevaluate where we are—the choices we’ve made, whether or not it’s something we can change.  Our role in it.  What we really want.  We think we can take on the world and all it’s parts when all we need is to take on our part of the world.  Sometimes we need to slow down to remind ourselves that we only need to take one step at a time.  And that step simply needs to be in the right direction. 

Today I am grateful for connecting to myself.  I don’t know how to maintain it yet but I am aware now that accepting ease and allowing ease opens the doorway to allowing life, allowing what we truly want and who we really are to come to fruition. Embracing surrender and honesty about who we are, what we want, our capabilities, our ability to change—all of that is a state of what is.  Ther is nothing more we need to do than be with who we are in this exact moment. Being who we are will bring us exactly where we need to be.  When we allow what is, we allow life to flow, and as we’ve discussed many times, flow is where life actually happens.  It is here that we connect with who we are, knowing what we like and what we don’t like, what our preferred pace is, what we want to accomplish in life.  Ther is no pressure here.  There is no need to be and do a million things at once—to be all things for all people.  No, we simply are who we are and we are firmly grounded right where we are.  Sometimes we have to see the dark and embrace it in order to learn to step toward the light. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions,” Oliver Wendell Holmes. Ironically this was on my calendar as well as in The Leader Who Had No Title on the same day.  They say the timing of the universe is impeccable and everything happens for a reason when it is meant to.  Clearly this message is meant for us now. When we talk in terms of inevitability and creating momentum that can’t be stopped, we need to know that once we have opened the flood gates, we cannot close them again.  Once we have seen the other way we can’t unsee it. We aren’t meant to play small once we have seen the expanse of our imagination and our place to use it.  We are designed to grow and create and it is for that reason that once we see other options and know what the possibilities are that we are forever changed—unable to go back to what we once knew.  It is new experiences, new thoughts, new actions that shape and mold who we are.  Why would we ever want to step in the puddles when we know there is an ocean that awaits us?  That isn’t to say there isn’t a time for everything, a time when we need to walk even though we can fly—but this isn’t about discernment.  This is about continuing the path of progress and not forcibly shutting our eyes to drown out what we now know exists. 

The very point of growth is to experience new things—new is the catalyst for growth.  Big ideas don’t come from small minds so we need to ensure that the goal is to constantly learn and explore and find new things to be curious about.  That curiosity leads us to possibilities.  What is this world without possibilities?  How do we know what is out there, what we have the option to become if we are repeating the same experiences every day?   For those who are content on their path and find their purpose/fulfillment in a particular pattern, it can be challenging to discover new options.  Not only is this about frame of reference, this is about shifting belief.  Stretching the mind means being open and learning to accept not only our fallibility, but the fallibility of the entire construct we’ve been raised with.  It requires letting go of fear and taking steps to find comfort or trust in something new—or trust in our ability to handle something new.  There are the lucky few who truly find contentment on a particular path, they are aligned with a goal and they continue to expand on that front.  That’s how we create the masters we spoke of the other day. 

The real test of growth is when we continually and consistently seek out those opportunities to stretch the mind.  We seek the experiences to create growth.  So not only are we allowing change, we actively seek it because we know we will find more opportunities as we go.  We seek growth because we know it expands our foundation.  This isn’t to say we are seeking to destroy what we have built—we are simply working on new ways to add to what we’ve built.  We always have the choice to ignore things we’ve learned.  But making the choice to stay small not only prevents our growth, it can inhibit the growth of others.  We are meant to be a light for each other and if we keep our light dim, then others won’t find their light.  Once we see that light we can’t go back to the dark—we want to expand the light.  Once we know there is more out there, we feel the hunger for it.  We can only feed it through new action.  I hope when those tests come in our lives that we all choose to grow.  I hope we all choose to keep our eyes open and I hope we all choose to believe that we can handle whatever comes our way.  Embrace the shape of the new and learn to fill the space we are given—learn to create the space we need.  There are no limits.