“It might take some friends and a warmer shirt, but you don’t get thick skin without getting burnt,” Tyler Joseph.  I shared a bit about what’s happening with some relationships with people I considered friends recently and I want to share this next stage of the evolution in that group.  And this is where I’m at: the burning is done.  There is no more active fire on this situation so it’s a bit less reactive and the wound is no longer spreading.  That’s in large part to the realization that this is just a stage—a matter of building thicker skin.  People will be who they are and it’s on us to believe them when they show us who they are.  I let them in, I shared with them.  And it hurts to be let down in that manner but the beauty of it is that it shows the people who really care.  There’s no acting, there’s no pretending, there’s nothing forced about being a certain way with certain people. There’s freedom in walking away from anything that doesn’t serve but there is a particular feeling of walking away and into what is right.  It suddenly fits and makes sense.  It becomes easy.  I know that at times when it’s easy we tend to not trust it.  We are so used to difficult that we second guess it.  Life has challenges, but it’s never meant to be so hard we can’t move.

The people we invite into our circle matter just as how we do our work matters.  Where we direct our energy matters.  When things get hard, we have to change. We have to shift that focus.  And sometimes the hardest things to do are the things we KNOW we have to do.  We have to let go of the familiar because we know it’s suffocating us and taking away from what matters.  The things we know have become too small for us and that includes the people in our circle.  If that circle isn’t advancing us then we must ask ourselves what it is for.  Above all, healthy relationships don’t burn us.  The people who love us don’t hurt us.  Love doesn’t hurt. It’s perfectly reasonable to walk away from something that hurts.  Every human being goes through some level of learning this lesson, that’s unavoidable.  But as I’m entering a new era in my life, I see that I’m less and less tolerant of it.  I’ve always been fairly intuitive of people and their character and I used to deny it.  I used to talk myself out of what I felt only to be proven right.  I’d tell myself over and over again that I’d trust myself the next time only to fall back into old habits and give someone the benefit of the doubt.  The simple truth is this: we aren’t for everyone and not everyone is our friend. 

Relationships are tricky work and the dynamics change constantly.  Even the strongest of relationships go through trials and changes—that’s how we grow together.  Some relationships grow apart.  Some relationships make us grow up.  Keep the saying about people coming into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime and know that everything has its purpose.  The last couple of years taught me about strength in a way that nearly broke me and I have promised myself that I will never let myself get pushed to that point to learn a lesson again.  It’s only recently that I’ve truly understood the depth of my programming and how damaged I’ve been.  I didn’t know any better until I was given this opportunity.  The things I endured felt like shit and I knew they were wrong.  I knew I was being used every time it happened and through some sick sense of self-worth I felt like I deserved it and I never felt strong enough to stand up to it effectively without losing my cool.  Now that I’ve gotten a taste of genuine appreciation and been given the chance to live a life conducive with what I wanted, I don’t understand HOW I put up with it that long.  I can only believe it was my training.  I’m proud I broke free of that pattern and have learned that I don’t need to be chocolate and have everyone love me.  I am me and the right people will accept that—so I will too.  Thick skin to deflect the crap, open heart to learn, and intuition to know the truth.  That’s how we put the fire out.

“Whatever you’re feeling it will eventually pass.  You won’t be sad forever.  At some point you will feel happy again.  You won’t feel anxious forever.  In time you will feel calm again. You don’t have to fight your feelings or feel guilty for having them.  You just have to accept them and be good to yourself while you ride this out.  Resisting your emotions and shaming yourself will only cause you more pain and you don’t deserve that.  You deserve your own love, acceptance and compassion,”  Lori Deschene.  One of the first steps toward finding our purpose is the complete acceptance of who we are.  Every single one of us is flawed so I set a reminder here that perfection was never and will never be the goal. We will feel it all with the experiences we have, and as I wrote about a few weeks ago, going through it is simply part of the process.  I never said it felt good all the time.  Self-discovery/acceptance is raw and painful.  But it’s also cathartic and healing and transformative. 

We are allowed to feel what we feel but we are not meant to stay that way.  Some of us were taught that we were burdens, that our feelings were too big, that we were irrational for feeling what we did or that we couldn’t trust what we knew in our bodies.  So we need to understand what it is to love ourselves and fill in those gaps we all have.  We have to understand that those gaps aren’t a bad thing—the human experience is varied and deep and beautiful in all it brings.  We have to take it all in so if there is something we perceive as a “bad” thing, we have to ask if there’s a chance to reframe that.  That’s where the ticket is: the reframing. That is where the mind is the most powerful.  For every negative, we can create a positive.  It won’t last forever because this life isn’t forever.  We are here as part of this grand experiment we really don’t know the purpose of so we can stop taking things so seriously.  Have some faith in ourselves and enjoy.  This is a moment—life is one grand moment.  Relish it, appreciate it, love it.  Don’t take it for granted and don’t waste it getting stuck in something that won’t matter in the end.  It’ will all be ok.  It always is.

Today I am grateful for connection.  I tend to fall into distraction a lot and when my mind starts getting carried away, it’s easy to fall into my old habits.  I know I’m not alone when I say that I have the best intentions to follow through on my plans and to stick with them yet I get distracted and don’t always follow through.  One area that tends to get neglected is my relationship with my family and another is my home.  I have so many projects going on because I’m still an over-committer, that I still fall into the habit of checking things off the list rather than focusing on the purpose behind them. It’s not that I take them (my family or my home) for granted, it’s just that sometimes it’s easy to push things off until later. Doing that makes some of the easier tasks overwhelming because what would have taken a few minutes out of my day no takes longer because more of the same task has built up.  But what I’ve found is taking the time to connect, listen, be present, and really hear what the other person is saying creates more value than ignoring and pushing past anything. Hearing others and understanding is key.  We all need that reminder every now and then.

Today I am grateful for surrender.  My relationship with surrender both as a word and concept is complicated to say the least.  I guess it’s complicated for most people because at our core, the human psyche/ego and survival instinct don’t like being forced to do anything.  The concept of surrender implies a giving up and any of you who’ve read my work over the years knows how much I hate that. I’ve come to realize that a lot of my distaste for the word has to do with the tendencies to not finish things.  I see the projects I’ve started and stopped and the concept of surrender reminds me of the things I’ve wanted and gave up on.  But right now, if this world has shown us anything, it’s that there is very little we can do in the way of preventing circumstances that are simply meant to happen nor can we force something to happen that isn’t meant to be.  People have to learn their own lessons as well and we have little say in swaying someone from their path—it’s their journey.  So surrender can suck, it can leave us feeling helpless.  It can also free us because we can arrive at the understanding that there is no alternative than what’s happening in front of us.  Surrender can take the pressure off.  There is no forcing anymore.  Sure, it means we may have to give something up but it can also be about letting go and clearing the way of what prevented us from getting what we wanted.

Today I am grateful for awakening.  There is a coming to my senses feeling as I type this.  It feels like a film is being removed from my eyes and I’m seeing clearly.  I’ve lived under the impression that we can control anything we want to.  I need to be clear about this: I still fully believe that we can achieve whatever it is that we want but I want to clarify that we can achieve that which is meant to be.  We need to have some purpose/skin in the game and those things we’re doing just to check off our list won’t hold the same meaning as something we are meant to do.  We aren’t meant to control everything and we aren’t meant to be everything, we aren’t meant to do everything.  The world is open to us and we all have options and we have the prerogative to change our minds and pursue other things.  That means we also have the opportunity to see things as they are and see the reality before us.  It really is a bit like The Matrix where we’ve been living in a simulation building these lives when the reality is we are functioning as a source for something greater.  But even serving as a source, we aren’t meant to be blind.  We are meant to work in conjunction WITH that source.  We are meant to be aware and to be aware is to be awake and to live with intent.  It feels raw at first, like every nerve is exposed, but that’s how we know we are seeing what’s real.

Today I am grateful for authenticity.  A continuation of all the pieces of today’s gratitude is authenticity.  Through connection, awakening, and surrender, we find authenticity and it is in authenticity that we find connection, awakening, and surrender.  The world is simultaneously far less and far more complicated than we make it.  Perhaps not complicated but intricate.  Things get really simple when we live our truth and when we accept ourselves and others.  That acceptance is one of the hardest things to do because we are constantly told to be something, anything different than what we are. We were made to be who we are, not who others tell us to be, not who others want us to be. The path of free will is available to us all and that means we can choose the versions others lay out for us or we can stick to our own destined path.  It also means that sometimes we have to watch people choose things we wouldn’t.  All we can hope for is that we wake to find what is right for us.

Today I am grateful for the reminder to love.  No matter what happens in this world, all we have to do is operate in love.  Believe in love.  It can be painful to watch someone go down a path you know is hurting them but knowing we all awaken in our own time, knowing we have free will, we must also know that the same applies to those we love.  Love is a presence that says, “I’m here.  We don’t have to do anything, but I can sit in this mess with you.  I can sit in joy with you.  I can sit in the chaos or calm.  And I can let you sit alone when you need it.”  The idea of being alone has scared me for years so I scrambled to keep those I love near, to have them behave in ways I thought were safe.  But their safety wasn’t always my responsibility and some people aren’t meant for safe—they are meant to care for themselves and they push the bounds of their reality.  Sometimes that care can turn to suffocation if we don’t relax the grip a bit.  Love what we have and enjoy it while it’s here.  We will never be this young or old again, all we have is now, so love.  Love big.  Love plainly.  Love freely.  Love life enough to connect to that source and trust we cross paths for a reason.  Breathe. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead. 

“Stop looking for your purpose-be it,” Dr. Wayne W. Dyer.  Right now this world needs the helpers.  It needs the kind ones.  It needs the visionaries.  It needs the ones who support.  It needs the ones who create.  The world needs exactly what we are and it needs us to be that.  In a world that moves faster and faster, in a world determined to misunderstand itself in the name of victimhood, in a world filled with endless beauty and opportunity we ignore, in a world where we have options to do whatever we want yet choose not to use, in a world of self-made chaos and drivel—it needs purpose.  We need to be reminded of our purpose so we can choose to step up and fulfill it—so we can be it.  There are a lot of fucked up things happening right now in the US.  Some we are numb to because it happens all the time.  But we are living at the precipice of falling into chaos or salvation and the choice is ours either way.  We created this mess so we are the ones who have to fix it—and we CAN fix it.  We do that through being who we are meant to be.  It’s as simple as that.

We convince ourselves we are lost or confused but the truth is we are only confused because we aren’t being true to ourselves.  That latter part I don’t blame a single person for—we are all taught to play the same game and it’s hard to break the chains.  It’s easy to go with the flow and repeat what we know and we only know what we are taught.  That truly is the way life is.  But there comes a point where we have to consider the lessons we teach next.  What are we showing our kids?  What are we showing the world?  Right now we’re encouraging a dangerous precedent with anger and self-centered/attention seeking and ill-informed platforms portrayed as truth.  We are taught that reality isn’t real.  Look, anyone who has followed me for any length of time knows I HIGHLY encourage getting in touch with the mind and being aware of how we feel so we can navigate our actions.  What I don’t advocate for is delusion.  Dream big, live big, think big.  Do it all bigger than anyone before, that’s fine.  But don’t pretend that our whims are the reality other people seek.  When we serve our purpose we no longer need the light on us, we feel content to do the work quietly.

Here’s the thing: There’s a lot of negativity in the world and we need to address it—that isn’t something we can sweep under the rug any longer because that type of repression is part of how we got here in the first place.  I’m not ignorant enough to “feel” that away from the world.  I’m also not ignorant enough to assume that everyone has the capacity to turn their lives around on a dime.  It doesn’t work like that and we all have very real healing work to do.  But I’m just crazy/hopeful enough to believe that if we shift our focus, even a little bit every day, that we can make some real change in this world.  I’m crazy enough to believe that we have a choice in what we share with people and that some day we will tire of the energy it takes to keep up with what we’ve created and we will settle into who we are.  There is peace in who we are.  There is peace in letting the mask down and putting all the crap away, put it down.  There is peace in coming together in collaboration and community and love and joy. But we can’t do that until we are willing to look deeper and start asking if we are really doing what we know we are supposed to.  Stop pretending we don’t know what we know.  Take back the power and BE that person.

“You push through and laugh the entire way,” Jack Lawrence.  There’s a difference between pushing things down and ignoring them versus pushing through.  When we ignore the lessons of growth and internalize what went wrong we hold ourselves back.  Pushing through is about perseverance and dedication, not about stopping what we’ve done or ignoring what we’ve learned.  Life is a game of sorts, we get to call the shots, we determine the moves, and the results.  It’s all a matter of what we believe we are capable of and follow through.  Life 100% has its ups and downs, that’s just the nature of it.  But when we push through and understand there are reasons for it and we have forged real connection to self and source, we will get there, the outcome is always guaranteed.   

What we do matters and how we do things matters—a task is what I’m doing right now, the purpose is why we do it.  I saw a clip of a Disney employee who was tasked with cleaning the park.  Rather than just clean, this person took the opportunity to create art, using their tools and water to create Disney characters on the ground.  This person easily could have just picked up and gone about their day.  They would have gotten the task done and collected their check—they did their job.  But this person wasn’t just there to do the job—they were there to create magic and they understood the full magic that was part of their role.  When we choose what we do, we must do so with purpose otherwise we will never fully engage.  The results won’t matter.  If something matters to us, the details should matter.  We all have tasks to do throughout our day—why do we do them?  What drives us to complete them?  We all have to clean the bathroom at some point—but is it a chore or is it an experience in creating a clean environment in a place that isn’t always pleasant?  To do that we have to go the extra mile, add some fragrance, clean under the sink and toilet. 

When I was in massage school, we were taught about the little things.  Having a table set up with folded sheets is a great first impression but what about folding that sheet down to make it look more inviting, almost like a bed?  The purpose of the massage is to relax and heal so there is no reason we can’t take a minute to do that extra little fold.  We’re doing it anyway so make it count.  If we are to make any sort of positive impact on this world, we always need to be cognizant of our why.  Remember there is a reason for what we do, not just to check something off the list.  Sure we want to finish what we need to, but if the goal is merely completing the task, people feel that.  When we care about what we do, we carry that in all we do.  We see what resonates with us and that’s just how we operate.  There are things I’m doing right now that I may not see results from for a decade.  There are things I might see results from next year.  Both are important.  I’m not just trying to check off the list, I’m trying to build something sustainable.  There are tons of sayings like anything worth doing is worth doing right, and it’s true.  To be clear, we’re not talking about perfection here, things don’t need to be perfect to have significance.  But if we execute the task with care and thought and intention, we’ve done something perfectly. 

Find the thing that matters and don’t let go.  Find what matters because when you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.  You’ll find joy in the little things, you’ll find ways to make the mundane seem extraordinary.  We realize that life is extraordinary when we look at what we can do.  And when we operate from authenticity, suddenly time opens up, creativity flows, and we are driven—we become hungry for more.  We can do more, but this isn’t about quantifying it—it’s about putting more into what we do.  We don’t need longer lists of things to do but we need more meaning in our lives.  The meaning is magic.  We all have the opportunity to be that person for ourselves—remember The Leader With No Title.  Anyone can be a leader and everyone has the opportunity to bring their best to what they do.  The little things add up and the more we prepare and offer ourselves, the greater success we see in the long run. Anything with purpose creates longevity and meaning.  What mark are you leaving on the world?

I was watching a debate between a 30 year old and a college student between 18-22.  This was regarding a hyper-sensitive topic and the student asked the man if it felt good as a 30 year old to challenge students to these debates.  Not moments before that same student had talked about rights and knowing what their rights are, how autonomous they were etc.. Not even 30 seconds later, they’re implying that because the 30 year old has more experience that person shouldn’t be challenging kids, that they’re being bullied when hearing the truth. My friends, we can’t have it both ways.  You’re either adult enough to take the action and deal with the consequences, or you’re young enough where you need guidance.  Because the one thing that is severely lacking today is accountability.  We can’t be the villain and the victim on the same topic, switching between the two when it’s convenient. That to me demonstrated exactly what is wrong with this generation.  They feel bold enough to enter a debate with anyone and when they are challenged on their point of view using straight fact, they claim they are being bullied.  There’s a life lesson in that for everyone: we can’t be both villain and victim.

There are people out there who want the world to be what they think it is at all times. Those who believe in perception as reality.  We’ve had this conversation so many times before and it’s still a hard one for me.  Perception and opinion on a matter are not fact so we can’t say it’s reality.  We can say our perception is perceived as reality—that’s fine—but what we believe isn’t necessarily fact.  People take discussion of fact as violence and an implication of oppression.  The problem is we aren’t taught how to be who we are supposed to be.  We are taught that life is a struggle while not having to work for anything so we never develop the skills to actually figure out who we are.  We create scenarios of the utmost ridiculous nature to the point it can’t even be taken seriously. Life is hard, there are challenges, not everything is fair.  But we don’t get to be entitled enough to think we are victims because someone doesn’t agree with us.  Disagreements aren’t violence—they’re a platform for discussion.  As a society we’ve lost the art of discussion and debate as the rise of keyboard heroes rises.  Everyone has an opinion and a platform to discuss what concerns them and, to them, that is sacred.  We’re brave behind the screen.     

“Life begins when excuses end,” Loren Ridinger.  Short and sweet.  If we are ready to begin a new venture, we have to put away the old.  We have to cut ties with what prevents us from getting where we want to be.  When we pick up the pen and start giving direction, our story unfolds.  Living for someone else under their rules and working toward their dreams is like living in a dream state.  We are there and present but we aren’t in control.  What is the point of having a beating heart and a functioning body if we aren’t going to listen to the very thing that sets our rhythm in this world?  If we constantly choose to do something other than what we want to do, we prevent ourselves from experiencing those possibilities. 

We come alive when we listen to ourselves so we have to carefully consider what an excuse is.  There are legitimate circumstances that may prevent us from getting what we set out for but we have to be honest and question what it is that stops us.  Is there something we are afraid of?  Are we believing something that isn’t ours to believe?  When we stop telling ourselves we can’t, suddenly we can.  The life we want is on the other side of what we told ourselves before and that can only start when we are willing to stop what didn’t work.    

“Using an alarm clock makes us a prisoner to someone else’s dreams,” Loren Ridinger.  This may be an over generalization to a degree but the sentiment caught my ear.  How much time do we spend building a routine based on someone else’s needs?  Even if we make a choice for a reason and we have a plan knowing what we are doing is temporary, we still adhere to what someone else tells us.  Most jobs today don’t offer the flexibility of working whatever hours we need to.  We work during their operating hours and sometimes beyond that.  Our time is dictated by what someone else tells us.  There are instances the needs may align and we can satisfy our needs and someone else’s at the same time, but more often than not, we book our calendars based on what someone tells us to. 

Until we are able to define our dreams, we will always fulfill someone else’s.  Sure, we have a need for specific functions as a society, but we also have a need for the creative freedom to thrive in a way that satisfies our needs as well.  We don’t all share the same dream so why do we force ourselves to work on someone else’s goal more fervently than our own?  We can set the alarm based on what works for us.  We choose when we take action on what is important to us and if we are abiding by what others tell us to do, then we aren’t working on ourselves.  I want to be clear that no one’s dream is a burden and it isn’t always a prison to work for/with someone else—but it becomes that way when we are working toward something we don’t care about.  We free ourselves when we take ownership of our path.  We can set the alarm any which way we want, we know the markers and milestones we need to meet and it’s up to us how and when we get there.  Just don’t let so much time pass that we miss the opportunity entirely.  Be aware of what markers we set and make sure they are of our own devising. Only we know our true rhythm.   

“Go out of your head to use your mind,” Loren Ridinger.  Isn’t it ironic that it’s often the tools we have that get in our way?  We have brains compiled of billions neurons that fire thoughts that inspire all kinds of action. It takes a lot to navigate through those thoughts and we do it, often without a moment of hesitation.  At the same time we are inundated with so much stuff, so much otherness, that it’s easy to let those thoughts get in the way and add on unnecessary junk to something that may otherwise be straightforward.  This is a reminder that sometimes we simply need to connect with the core part of ourselves—get out of our heads and listen to how we feel.  More importantly, FEEL how we feel.  The mind can’t always be trusted because it so often gets jumbled in the mix of what we can/could/should do that we forget what we NEED to do.  We forget the goal.  In getting out of the rote patterns that reflexively fire in our brains, when we step into how we are feeling, it may tell us a different path to take.  The path doesn’t always present itself in a logical manner—sometimes we see it’s there when we feel a certain way.

The mind is our greatest ally, it truly is, even if we don’t think it is.  Speaking as someone who has dealt with extreme mental health swings, I can say first hand that I couldn’t always trust what my brain told me. Breaking the habit of listening to it felt damn near impossible at times.  It wasn’t until I understood that messages came from everywhere, not just inside my head, that I was able to make peace with the fact that I was responsible for what I took in.  The thoughts I consumed either through reading stories, what I watched on TV, what the people around me talked about, all of that impacted me (just as it impacts all of us).  We have to let go of what we see around us, we have to let go of what our “routine” response would be to something and we have to ask if that is what we really feel.  Is that what we really feel or is that just how we always respond?

Something unlocks in the mind when we know we can trust ourselves.  The mind functions differently.  We see other alternatives and opportunities where we may not have.  We learn to process and do things in other ways.  The world has a funny way of bringing us exactly what we need when we need it—even if it doesn’t appear how we thought it would.  We can’t operate something new by doing what we did before so that in itself makes it necessary to get out of our heads and feel our way into the mind.  Finding the truth of how we feel is key.  We spend a lot of time regurgitating what others have taught us instead of actively questioning if that is a genuine belief that came from us.  If we want to forge new paths we have to start with the paths in our head.  There is no should in the way of the mind (outside of survival instincts)—there is only possibility. Be ready for it and know how to welcome greatness into our lives by feeling it more every day.