Today I am grateful for time together with those who matter.  My father is currently experiencing a major health issue and it has been emotionally draining waiting to make sense of the answers.  We have all the results but we haven’t had many people tell us what they mean and what next steps are.  Some seem to treat it quite lackadaisically frankly and it has put a strain on all of us, my siblings, my mother, my father.  But what it has also done is brought us together to work on solving a common problem.  I literally watched my father’s blood pressure drop when we were all together.  Rallying around someone during their time of need is so important and it is so good for their mental health and their overall improvement.  Attacking any problem is the same.  Go for the problem, not for the person.  We haven’t been this unified in our efforts probably ever.  But now we come together to collectively find a solution and heal together, and to heal my father physically.  It’s been a beautiful experience and, as scary as it has been, as tumultuous as the road ahead may still be, I feel comforted knowing that we are all doing this together.  That we are all in this together.  That we are all capable of addressing this as a team.  I’m grateful for the reminder that we are still family in spite of our differences and how far apart we are, how much we try to do it all on our own.  I am grateful to have this time to remember what we love about one another.

Today I am grateful for understanding what lies in my hands.  I’ve allowed myself to be confused for a long time.  I started and stopped a million things, I started too many things at the same time, I gave up with the most insignificant of setbacks, I let my awkwardness and insecurities get in the way of my own advancement.  I let all of those things stop me from making a decision about what to do and, even if I managed to get that far, I let it stop me from following through on it.  I see very clearly now that doing all the things at once isn’t going to work for me any longer.  I enjoy the work I do and the end result of all those goals is toward the same thing—but the problem is I’m allowing myself to get close and then let it stop.  I have too many pots boiling at once and some things are undercooked, some are too gummy, some haven’t been hot enough, and some boiled out and dried up.  So what lies in my hands is the entirety of my goals.  All the things I intend on doing and want to do don’t rely on more movement and effort.  They rely on me making focused effort and completing the damn thing.  No one said I couldn’t achieve all of those goals—I just can’t live all of them at the same time.  My days, yet again, need to look a little different than they normally do.  It’s about the focus. 

Today I am grateful for some changes in perspective.  There are certain things about my relationships with people that have always been a sticking point, a particular pattern I followed that I understand I need to break now.  All of my relationships started off with the idea that I constantly please people in order to bring them into my life.  Make them like me at all costs.  Then I would become that yes-person and do whatever they said—and it would be fun for a while.  They would reciprocate a little and help me manage some of my things.  Then that would start to dwindle and I’d start to get aggravated and feel a little pushed.  Then I would feel a lot pushed and then steamrolled.  I’d end up blowing up at the person or just not talking to them again.  Now I understand that this is MY pattern and I need to stop it.  I used to be so afraid of being alone, doing what ever anyone wanted of me so I could have them in my life, that I never took the time to find me.  I’d adapt to the next person and the next person.  Now I see that 1. Being alone isn’t the worst thing if people really don’t respect me and 2. Taking the time to find myself will help me find the people who accept me for who I am, not what I give them.  I don’t need to harbor anger toward people when I sent mixed messages in the first place.  Follow through and be who I am meant to be and let those who can’t accept that fall away.  It’s ok.   

Today I am grateful for peeling away the extraneous.  I lived my life in the vague, gray, area for too long, and as I said above, I created confusion for myself.  As I work through prioritizing what’s next, I understand that it hasn’t been healthy holding on to so much.  I packed too much in, and as grateful as I am to have those experiences and resources available, it has been overload trying to carry all that around all the time.  I’m talking about mental and physical clutter, the self-created confusion and the daily routine of saying that I don’t understand and don’t have time when all I need to do is find some focus.  It sometimes takes a major life event for us to prioritize what really matters and stop telling ourselves a story—and then to change that story into one of empowerment and application of purpose.  The extraneous distraction is a waste of time and we should all be grateful to cut out anything that takes our precious time away from us.

Today I am grateful for humility and boundaries.  I’ve struggled with navigating some family dynamics during my father’s health issues.  Some of the frustration is related to ego and some is related to genuine anger at not being understood and disregarded at 40 years old.  I’m the youngest but I have been in healthcare for 20 years, and while I’m not clinical, I do have a very solid knowledge base around healthcare and treatment plans.  I also know my facility and basic rules about visiting patients etc.  While I don’t begrudge my family being involved in any way, I struggle with the implication that because I am the youngest I would need to defer to them for anything or that I would somehow need to find permission to be included.  This isn’t to say that my family doesn’t have valid points in their questions and concerns, I just have a different focus on the treatment and goals of the discussion with the team.  I am grateful to let that go and simply be myself, stand my ground, enter the room like I need to be there, and ask the questions that are appropriate regardless of who is with me.  I know that I don’t know it all.  I know that I don’t want propriety over my father—but I know that I need to be in there and speak up as well and that I do not need to let them talk over me and my knowledge at any time.  I meant to be in the room—and so are they.  We can do this together and get the best outcome for my father. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

“All [life] goes up and down and you can’t bat 1000 all the time,” Attributed to Julie Andrews on my calendar.  The interesting thing is right after I saw the calendar, I came upon a post from Steven Pressfield about the long view.  We do the work we are meant to do and not everything is a winner every time.  We have to learn the lessons and move on and we accept the responsibility for our learning process.  He even used the example of Bob Dylan occasionally putting out a bad album or Derek Jeter going down swinging.  We aren’t meant to win all the time.  We are meant to develop and learn and part of that is taking the time to see the point of the lows.  To understand that a single low doesn’t mean that we aren’t meant to have what we are seeking or that it will always be a struggle.  I shared with my son the other day the quote about falling 7 times and standing up 8.  We can’t look at all of those hiccups as dark nights of the soul—sometimes they are simply hiccups.  Not all is forsaken.  And even if there were facets of what we did that prove to be a waste of time, we still learned how to improve for next time. 

I know the perfectionist in me cringes at that concept and I often say to myself: I’ve wasted enough time in my life, every action means something.  The truth is that mindset is limiting and it puts unnecessary pressure on our role in the grand scheme of things—which we won’t ever really know anyway.  If we can learn to role with the punches, find joy, find presence, and ease into the moment, all will flow and make sense as it is. I know I have a tendency to make all my life hinge on these specific moments (like getting an answer on a job) instead of taking the time to decide what I actually want and focusing on that.  Scattered attention makes for scattered results.  We waste more time throwing darts at a target than practicing a specific aim.  The point in all that is it’s ok if things aren’t always in high season.  We aren’t meant to operate like that anyway.  We all need rest and time to incorporate and bloom again.  Take the long view.  Accept the idea that there is a point for everything, a reason for everything, a season for everything.  Sometimes that downward trajectory is building momentum for the next climb which is even greater than the last.

“You lack nothing.  You have everything.  You are the reason someone smiles.  You are a role model for people you’ve never met.  You are a masterpiece,” Richard Miller.  Not much else needs to be said about this one.  I think we are going to keep it short and sweet today so here is what I want to hit home: If we understand what we spoke about yesterday in regards to the power we have to shift reality, then we must remember at the most fundamental level that we were born entirely whole.  Nothing to prove.  No one else to be other than who we are.  We are magic and just because someone can’t see that doesn’t change that fact.  We aren’t missing anything—we were lied to.  We were told that we had to be a certain way and do certain things to earn that worth.  That we needed to fill the space we were given even if it was too big, or worse, that we needed to cut parts of ourselves away if it was too small.  We were never taught that was a lie, that there is no space to fill other than the space we occupy.  See we were mistaken in thinking that we were meant to control and manipulate others, that this world was about power over others.  That we demonstrated that by acquiring things and having control over some made-up dominion.  Friends this life is temporary and we will all lose everything including the most precious things we have: our very life. 

During our time here we are meant to do nothing more than live to the fullest capacity of who we are.  Don’t get caught up in the should of what someone else tells us.  Don’t let someone else convince us what our dreams are.  Don’t let someone diminish the magic of who we are because they can’t see it themselves.  Don’t take on the burden that other people want us to carry because they bought into the same lies when they were kids and now they don’t know what to do with themselves.  Our existence is absolutely miraculous—we are a living, breathing, walking, talking, biological computer capable of reasoning, logic, and communication.  Our hearts beat on their own, our lungs take in air without prompting, our brains generate images and create stories and take thoughts and make them real.  What the hell else do we really need to prove that we are meant to be here?  What else do we need to prove that we are enough and capable of whatever we want to do?  We have these desires and thoughts and dreams and inspirations for a reason.  The fact they are there, the fact that we are breathing, the fact that we sustain and create life, and the fact that we can create things just for fun is enough.  We have all we need ready-made in this package we come to this planet in.  Don’t settle for the fears someone else gives us.  Don’t settle for serious in terms of goals.  Get serious about love.  About hope. About joy.  About peace. About creativity.  About cooperation.  About fulfillment.  About purpose.  About drive.  Those are the pieces that make us whole.  We already have everything we need.  How beautiful is that?  Don’t ever let anyone convince us otherwise.   

“Your presence shifts reality just by showing up,” Richard Miller.  Our energy constantly interacts and impacts the physical plane.  We are part of this existence and our being generates a pulse, a charge, a vibration that is tangible and very real to the Earth and the entire universe.  We are all part of the universal rhythm.  So how can we not impact where we are simply by being there?  Our energy emits no matter what we do.  So why not choose to manage the energy we give out?  Our hearts have their own rhythm that runs free of our thoughts.  Our brains generate electro-magnetic waves.  Each of those things are no more than a different vibration and vibration is a physical force that can change when impacted upon by an outside force—in this case we are talking about managing our own thoughts.  If we want to change the course of anything, we must change the course in ourselves first.  Managing our energy is key—and that starts with managing our thoughts and emotions.  It means understanding the power of our being and the very real premise that we have control over what we emit—and by controlling what we give out we have a modicum of control over what we receive.  We are both an emitter and a receiver.  Our job is to tune both correctly. 

Stick with me on this next example: As children we learned to play games and these games taught us the real ways of the world in subtle undertones.  My son is learning about Pokemon and I see the moves, the discussion of energy, the connection with these creatures, the reverence for life and the powers that we have and this is a very real application to life in general.  We forget these basic things as we age because we are taught to stop playing games and get serious.  The problem with serious is that man created it.  Man decided that we need to be a certain way at a certain time and produce certain things/goals.  None of that is to suggest I think we should live aimlessly without goals.  What I’m saying is that we all have our own vibration/frequency and that we aren’t all meant to have the same goals.  We should take play seriously to learn about our goals, to learn collaboration and cooperation and new ways to adapt and achieve goals that benefit others.  We aren’t meant to all operate on the same vibration/frequency.  The world needs harmony.  That’s why we each have our own rhythm: to complement the entire song of the universe.

At this time we are living amongst so much distraction that it can be hard to hear our own thoughts let alone remember how to manage them.  It can be difficult to remember our own power because we are often told how powerless we are.  We are told to give in and sacrifice our goals, our dreams, our plans for the sake of others rather than learn how to refine those things for the benefit of others.  How can it be good for the people, for the universe to give up our talents rather than share them?  Why would we sacrifice what we can do in favor of what people tell us to do?  No man knows the greater good or the overall goal/scheme of this universe.  We are all human.  No one can tell us who we are or what our gifts are: those gifts are meant to be actively received by us and used to the fullest of our abilities.  Why else would we have them?  They weren’t meant to sit in a box and looked at while we struggle to become something else.  So this is a reminder that we are enough as we are.  That we are meant to be who we are at all times and honor the greatest version of ourselves.  We have the power to shift reality—and we are meant to do just that.

“Your true self is going to shock you because it’s far more powerful and beautiful than you ever imagined,” Richard Miller.  I’ve been experiencing a lot of fear reactions lately.  Much of it is because I’ve been in limbo too long.  I’ve made my future contingent on someone else’s decisions—things my husband wants, what my child needs, whether or not I get this role at work.  I’m waiting to show who I am and what I am capable of based on where I am accepted.  I’m determining my life based on someone’s decision if I am worthy of moving forward.  I have a lot of interest in multiple things and they are all good things.  But my attention is divided and I haven’t spent as much time developing myself as I should.  I’ve been focusing a bit here and there on different avenues and things that pique my interest, but I haven’t declared what it is I want.  Just when I think I have, I notice that my energies are still scattered.  As we get closer to a decision, I am aware of the feelings I have around it—I have reasons for wanting this and not wanting this new opportunity—and I am fortunate enough to have other opportunities as well.  But if I’m being fully honest, I know I’m afraid of making a decision because it’s riskier.  I’m afraid that if I make the decisions then they won’t happen anyway so it’s best to allow myself to be rejected rather than fight for something I’m only luke-warm about.

With all of that being said, I am very well aware that taking the time to find my true self, to find my own identity (much as I’ve been describing for years) that another person’s decision won’t matter. I see my former employee and the clarity she has in making choices and following through and I admire that so much.  But I still have that fear in me that if I declare I want something that I won’t get it.  I’ve been treating the universe like it can “grant” every other person’s wish but that my real desires will always be tested and that the opportunities I seek won’t happen.  Admittedly I’m stubborn and there are things I have refused to do that would probably have gotten me closer to my goals faster, but I also think that’s fear of not getting what I really want.  I felt like if I didn’t control every action and that if things didn’t go according to my plan then it wasn’t meant to be and it wouldn’t work out. 

Being our true selves is about ease.  It’s about honor. It’s about connection.  It’s about peace.  It’s about joy.  We will never have to fight to be our “True” selves—we simply are.  Taking the time to slow down and connect and really understand what it is we are feeling and when we need to guide those feelings, mastering our minds and emotions is key.  We will never have to fight to be who we are—that should be one of the most natural things in the entire world.  We have to stop accepting who the world tells us to be and simply be who we are born to be.  The close we are to that version of ourselves, the less we worry about tailoring and controlling anything about how people look at us.  As soon as we honor the fullness of who we are, we see the full spectrum of our color and embrace all of our power—and power isn’t dominance, it is ownership of our actions based on who we are.  So when we know our true selves, we see the world in its entirety and suddenly it’s very clear what we are meant to do.  We see all the good our personal power can bring upon the world.  We see all the space there is for people to step up and lead their lives so they can help others lead their lives as well.  We are powerful beyond measure, we just have to tap into that, we have to accept that, we need to honor that, we need to be that.  Allow the full spectrum of who we are delight us.  Experience the raw power of our beauty.  Live how we are meant to live and be amazed.

“I think people are afraid to witness other people being happily themselves because they don’t know who they (themselves) are,” Richard Miller.  Humans operate in fear a lot so when we see something we don’t know or understand, the brain takes over and tries to make as much sense out of what we see as possible—and we can only make sense of things based on our experiences and context.  So the less we understand something, the more we develop emotions around it as a protective mechanism.  Fear makes us label things we may not understand in a way that, again, is based on our context and not necessarily on the truth.  When we see people succeeding in a way contrary or “other” than what we’ve accepted as what needs to be done, we feel resentment.  Al of this is based on comparison and what we can see in other people’s lives.  We are creatures who need to protect our egos so if we see someone doing better than what we are (or what we perceive as better than what we are doing) then we have a tendency to compare and feel weak and even angry.  It’s hard to see someone with what we want. 

Instead of looking at the situation as “they have what we want,” we need to look at the situation and appreciate that we are in proximity to someone who has what we want which means we are able to attract that as well.  That means we are emitting something along the same wavelength.  It isn’t about competition anymore—that’s reptilian brain operating, fighting for survival of the ego—and we are survival based creatures which means we are prone to comparing ourselves to others so we are aware of any potential threats.  The reptilian brain can’t tell the difference between ego and actual threats so it struggles to let go of the drive to prove and win.  Winning meant survival at one point (you either kill the mammoth or are killed by it) and we’ve carried that competition over into other realms.  Sometimes we compete for things we don’t even want just for the sake of winning.  So if we see people doing well but not “better” than us, it’s ok.  But this behavior is a limiter because we never see the expansive side of being around people who may have achieved more than we have.

There really is the point when we have to shift that focus inward and start asking what will make us feel successful, what makes us feel whole, what makes us feel present?  It even starts with something as simple as, “Why does this person’s success bother me?”.  It takes a lot of effort to honestly understand that these behaviors hold us back and to determine what it is that we really want.  It takes an even longer time to stop looking on the outside, to stop that comparing, to stop the fear that other people being themselves somehow impedes us from doing the same.  There are plenty of opportunities in this world to create the vision we see—we are meant to take our gifts and create those visions.  We don’t all have to have the same vision.  We don’t all have to go for the same dream.  We aren’t all meant to operate the same way.  If we learn to be happy for those who are happy being themselves, we are on the right track to finding that happiness ourselves.  Find who we are, focus on the freedom of our own mind, thoughts, dreams, and ambitions, and that energy will develop into something far greater than being jealous and limiting other people’s actions.  We find the joy in creating peacefully, and creating peace within.  What we witnessed in others we now embody ourselves, and we become an example for others as well.  Focus on our own desires and dreams and the rest of the world’s opinions don’t matter and we can happily be ourselves.          

Today I am grateful for spirituality.  I have been through the wringer over the last several months (some of it self-inflicted, some of it a result of outside circumstances that didn’t go as planned…or even as I was blatantly told it would).  So during this time I have learned to direct myself toward a different type of self-development and growth.  I’ve learned to look at my relationship with trust and I have been working on cultivating a deeper understanding of my resonance with the world, of my responsibility to create what I want and what I feel called to do.  It’s a truly difficult thing to accept that we have created everything around us but it’s true.  The good and the bad are all a result of what we have done and even the definition of good and bad are our own decisions.  It was intimidating for me to take on that kind of burden because I’ve spent years cleaning up after others.  Now I see it was the easiest thing to fix.  All I had to do was breathe and look at how I wanted to see the world and how I defined things around me.  I couldn’t have done that without a connection to the universe, the Earth, my heart, my soul, and the environment around me.  Doing so makes the reality of where we are and how we get where we want to be crystal clear.  I am grateful.

Today I am grateful for stepping up.  There are times in our lives when we realize the roles have changed.  One day we are a child and we run to our parents for everything and we are taken care of or we learn to be a bit more independent. Suddenly we are the ones who have to step in and offer them care.  Suddenly we are the parents and we are between our children and our own parents.  My dad has been dealing with some health issues lately and I was recently at a doctor’s visit with him so I could keep as informed as possible with what’s going on and what to expect.  He had a medical emergency while we were in the office and I didn’t hesitate for a second.  I stepped up and help administer support until the ambulance arrived.  So often we are afraid that we won’t know what to do when the time comes but it is the most natural thing in the moment.  There truly is no fear—just clarity.  There aren’t any questions, it’s just action.  It was flattering to hear the APN talk about how I should have gotten into medicine (I’ve been in the medical field for 20 years, just not clinical) but I know that was never my specific calling.  I’m good at it because I don’t want to see people get hurt.  But what I love doing is help people take care of themselves as well.  I struggle with fear and anxiety every day over the tiniest of things—but I am grateful in a true crisis there is no question of what I need to do.  I am grateful I can trust myself.  If I can do it in those situations, I can learn to apply it to all areas of my life.

Today I am grateful for knowing what to do.  The actions I took in the doctor’s office really got me thinking about knowing what to do in general. In my usual ADD way, I have taken on so many projects because I was still waiting for that lightening moment when I would know what to do next, where everything would become so clear that all the extraneous crap would fall away and I’d be living my dream.  Instead I’ve created a mountain for myself under the guise of not knowing what to do next.  I tell myself that I don’t understand what I have to do to make the things I want to do thrive.  The truth is I DO know what to do.  I just haven’t let myself believe that I know the right thing or that I am capable of doing it.  The truth is I know exactly what I am called to do and how to make it happen.  I’ve started and stopped a million times on a million projects and said something was in my way each time.  It was me.  Now I work on changing my vocabulary and my belief that I am able to succeed in whatever I decide on and that deciding on one thing now doesn’t mean I’ve cut off opportunities for other things in the future.  I do know what to do.  I simply have to do it and commit to it. 

Today I am grateful for releasing fears.  It’s always the way of it that when we are committed to letting go of the things that hold us back, the fears in particular, that the universe likes to expose us to that fear in the realest of ways.  My husband spending money.  My father having the emergency while in the office.  My cat being sick.  Bills coming due.  Markets coming up.  A lot of research to do and a lot of steps to take.  No answer on a job (still).  Having to make a decision to move forward and being uncertain about how (or what) choice to make.  We face all of these things because we tell the universe that we are ready to move to the next level.  But we can’t get past where we are at if we don’t let it go.  We need to let it all go.  The things we believed when we first started.  We are not that person anymore.  Those beliefs belonged to someone else entirely.  And if we are going to be a new version of ourselves, why would we carry the fears that belonged to someone else?  How did they serve us?  So.  While I am dealing with very real fears, I know that my previous reactions haven’t done a damn thing to fix them.  I know that I need to face them so I am able to become this next version of me.  And putting those bags down does feel good.  No matter what choice I am about to make, I know the first thing I have to do is let go of all of this.  Once those are down, I know that the rest will be clear and even if I can’t continue with all the things I am doing right now, I know what I am meant to do will take precedence.  Let go of the fear and let the answers become clear.

Today I am grateful for friendship.  I started a mom’s group several months back and I wanted it to be an all inclusive thing for all of the important women and mothers in my life.  Somewhere we could all connect and understand that we are all fighting the same things and we are all dealing with the same concerns.  We have the same challenges and the same successes and the things that make us unique only help us in the long run.  The group was a moderate success in that people really enjoyed themselves, but I noticed that there were simply some personalities that didn’t work well together.  I took the time to start working one on one with some of the women and then it became a group of 3 of us.  Within that group we have found a really nice dynamic and it is so nice to feel genuine support.  No competition, no fear of loss.  Just support and understanding and literally hearing and witnessing that we are going through the same things.  I couldn’t have moved forward in some regards without them.  Some of my closest friends have recently informed me of some things that make our relationship near non-viable and without this other group of women I would not have gotten through.  I am grateful to see how we can rally each other and to feel that we got this.  Because we do.  Imperfect and faltering, but we got this—because we have each other. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead

“All worries and conceptions from others are bullshit and that’s what holds use back,” Richard Miller.  We’ve spoken often about not worrying about what others think of us and how to work on being completely ourselves—and that who we are is enough.  But what of the anxiety behind it?  I’m not sure I realized it was an anxiety about what others thought.  I thought it was just anxiety about what would happen.  The more we try to elicit a reaction out of someone the more we are tied to that person.  The more we allow that person to determine what we do with our lives.  I’ve really taken a look at that over the last few days because I saw how much I let this impact me.  My husband and I were are a graduation party over the last weekend and I really struggled.  I felt so awkward, lost, just not myself. It has been a long time since I’ve been with a large group of people.  I’ve been working on healing a lot of things since the fight with my husband several months ago and I was simply not ready to deal with the outside.  So at this party I found myself overwhelmed because there were people there that were partially the cause of my mini-break down.  I understood in an instant that I had been basing my decisions on how they would react, what they would think of me.  I wasn’t doing the things I wanted to do in spite of being in the situation.

Let me clarify.  So I honestly wasn’t feeling well (digestion) and I was uncomfortable because these people have continually excluded me while accepting my husband and my husband has consistently chosen to be with them.  I admire my husband because I see how giving he is of himself and how generous he can be with people.  I see how easily he communicates and relates and simply is himself.  I don’t begrudge him friends, I begrudge the consistent choosing of friends over the needs of his family.  Regardless, I found myself really uncomfortable because I physically wasn’t feeling well and there were people there who had treated me like crap and I haven’t spoken to them in some time.  I felt like I was expected to put all that aside.  And truthfully that party wouldn’t have been the place to address any of it anyway so I had no plans to address it there.  But as I watched the evening unfold, as drinks were flowing (something I no longer partake in) I noticed that I really wasn’t enjoying it anymore.  It wasn’t fun to watch them devolve and laugh and not be able to function under the guise of “letting go.”  I don’t feel like I was judging them because it was a legitimate observation, but my reaction to it was different.  It hit me that if I didn’t even like the activities, then why was I trying to relate to them?  Why was I ever worried about what they thought of me, thought of my need to heal, my need for respect if they don’t even respect themselves?

Then the cycle of control and ego hit me with my son.  He was having the time of his life and I found myself getting angry because he was hanging out with a kid that I truly have an issue with—him and his parents.  It’s like when we are angry and someone tells us to calm down we get even more pissed; I don’t want people stepping on my toes and determining how I raise my kid, allowing things that I don’t allow while I am expected to respect their boundaries.  I see my son loving on these people and having fun and it stings because I feel he respects them more than me, he has a better time with them than me.  And I don’t know if I have the energy to give him what he wants, to allow him to do the things that terrify me.  I know I can’t be with him all the time and at the end of the day my goal isn’t to make him be a certain way.  I just want him to be safe and not do the things I know he is so brazen about that can hurt him.  I also want the opportunity to raise my own kid without interference from the group. 

With all of that being said, I understood how this was ego and fear related to me, my perception, my control, and my relationship.  I understood how all of my anxiety was caused by my own brain and expecting things to go a certain way and to be treated a certain way.  And simultaneously realizing that I’m allowed to expect to be treated with respect.  I have to get over this idea that because I’m short I need to defer to other people.  I am allowed to voice what my expectations are in regard to my boundaries and I am allowed to hold those boundaries.  I don’t need to choke back those feelings because if people are only friends with me because of what I give into for them, then they aren’t my friends.  If they can’t respect me then I don’t need to be around them.  But I do need to expect my husband to back that up.  We are partners and it isn’t unrealistic to expect my partner to demand that respect for me as well.  He needs the party still, I do not.  But I need the respect and I need to believe that what I contribute is enough.  I need to believe that I am able to share and be enough as I am, that my dreams are enough, and that I am allowed to focus on those things instead of demanding basic decency from others.  I deserve to be around people who appreciate and want me around and who I can reciprocate energy with.  My perception of their energy is irrelevant to my decisions—I need to do what is right for me, to be secure in my decisions for me, just as they are allowed to be.  Anything else is holding back forward momentum.  I choose to release that burden, that pattern, and move forward.       

“The challenge is not to be perfect, it’s to be whole,” Jane Fonda.  While I still believe the little pieces of us can add up to have a big impact, putting them all together makes a far bigger impact.  We have to release the fears of what people think, stop pleasing everyone, and learn to trust our instinct and all of that inner work will bring us to a clearer picture of who we are.  It doesn’t matter if we look perfect or if people think we are perfect—we become perfect when we embrace the entirety of who we are.  Life isn’t meant to be what others consider perfect.  In finding what works for us we learn that the definition of perfect varies from person to person anyway.  Finding wholeness within ourselves is key.  Trusting that what makes us feel whole is enough is key.  We don’t need to be more than what we are, we don’t need to push ourselves to create more than we are capable of, we don’t need the accolades of the entire world to be worthy.  We simply need to embrace the entirety of who we are.  When we choose to show the curated parts of who we are, we hold back from the greatness of what we can be.

I’m not saying to not strive for greater—I believe we settle for mediocrity far too often (myself included).  I am saying that we need to strive to be the greatest version of ourselves rather than being perfect.  When we are secure in our identities and we know the goal, we should constantly seek ways to improve, to develop, and to learn.  But that motivation needs to come from the innate desires we feel, the things that drive us.  It isn’t about looking to be the greatest/most/ best or to attain the greatest/most/best.  It’s about allowing the greatest expression of who we are be enough, understanding that all of those little pieces, all of those splinters, those sparks we carry are perfect as they are.  It’s understanding that each of those little pieces contribute to who we are.  The sum of our parts is greater than anything we can imagine.  Holding that back out of fear of rejection (or any fear) is one of the saddest things we can do—and we all do it.

So see the perfection in who we are and allow all of that to show to the world.  Embrace it, love it, share it.  I understand there are those who think that all of these avenues of acceptance are detrimental because we are working on accepting things that aren’t always healthy.  But the concept of acceptance in itself is one of the greatest steps in our evolution that I can think of.  We really are all perfect and we don’t need someone else to tell us we are in order to express that worth.  It isn’t our job to live up to billions of other’s definitions of perfection or answer to how they think we should live our lives.  It’s our job to become who we are meant to be, fully, and to embrace that, and share that with the world.  It really comes down to being whole in ourselves so that we don’t have to break off the pieces to feel worthy.  We don’t have to break off pieces so others feel whole in themselves.  Stand completely in who we are, help others find themselves so they can stand on their own, and see the perfection in simply being complete just as we are.