Our Own Sacred Space To Unfold

Growth should come with a warning label. Not to dissuade anyone from starting, but just to let them know what lies ahead.

For some, growth is a luxury, a curiosity-based exploration into the further reaches of human potential. For others, growth is a necessity, driven by the consistent and crushing emotional weight of unresolved trauma and pain, to the point where a journey through the fire becomes the only viable option.

Mine was more of a necessity.

A commitment to growth signs you up for a process of learning and unlearning, of discovering and uncovering, of defining and re-defining, of anxiously diving into the deep end of your emotional pool while questioning your ability to swim.

And knowing nobody is coming to save you once you hit the water.

The journey through my own fires has been a challenging and meandering undertaking, at times Continue reading “Our Own Sacred Space To Unfold” →

When You Focus Upon The Light

The broken pots told the story of why the red leaves and dirt littered the floor in front of me. The local garden center had a large display of Christmas poinsettias and a couple of these vibrant plants apparently had fallen off the table, their plastic pots breaking open as they hit the concrete floor below.

Seeing the plants out of their pots showed a cross section their life story. The dirt, the roots, the stems, and the leaves. The leaves always get the glory, but it all started in the dirt.

Before a flower is celebrated for it’s beauty, the seed begins the journey buried in darkness, covered, watered, and left on its own to find its way instinctively upward and towards an unseen light. From a human perspective, such a journey would be daunting and quite traumatic. But to a flower, it’s simply the process of growing.

As humans, dirt is often a part of our growth process. Dirt, in the form of disappointments, pain, Continue reading “When You Focus Upon The Light” →

When Butterflies Are Afraid To Fly

Caterpillars don’t really have much of a choice, do they?

Whether they like it or not, becoming the butterfly they were created to become is inevitable. A chrysalis is in their future, and on the other side they will be reborn and begin their life anew.

Butterflies have long been used as a metaphor for transformation. Their metamorphosis is spectacular yet relatable. And for those on their own journey of growth and evolution, the presence of a fluttering butterfly can be seen as a spiritual symbol of divine guidance and encouragement.

Unlike caterpillars, we humans do have a choice as to what we will grow into. Or not. We get to decide if we will continue to crawl or learn to fly.

Learning to fly is a messy process. Most human metamorphosis is. Becoming something other than what you’ve always been is a daunting process of unaccepting what you’ve always accepted about yourself as being true, making room for a new empowering story to take its place.

One of the greatest inhibitors to our willingness to fly is who we choose to surround ourselves with. As human caterpillars we are often surrounded by other human caterpillars, those who’ve never grown wings of their own, those who tend to want to keep others wingless as well. Those who’ve never flown can feel threatened by those who decide to do so.

We can easily let the familiarity of what’s always been derail what could be for us, keep us crawling and flightless. After all, if crawling is all we’ve known we can chose to accept that’s all Continue reading “When Butterflies Are Afraid To Fly” →

8,600 Days Of Sobriety

It was like losing an old friend. Consistent. Reliable. Predictable. I recognized the arrangement had grown quite toxic, a toxicity I simply accepted as a fundamental cornerstone of the relationship for far longer than I should have.

Alcohol. A trusted companion which always took me exactly where I thought I wanted to go.

Until I no longer wanted to go there.

This week an important milestone snuck up on me. I had gone 8,600 days without alcohol. A month-long beer binge in December 2000 had pushed me to the point where I knew I needed to stop, at least temporarily. Honestly, the real challenge was seeing if I actually could. Now, over 23 years later, I guess I was able to definitively answer that question.

I never intended to quit drinking. I was simply taking a break, a longer break than usual. For several years prior I had given up beer for Lent, not for any religious purposes, but as a test to see if I could go 40 days without it. My abstinence would start earlier in 2001, six weeks ahead of Lent.

It wasn’t easy. Once my body recovered from what I had done to it in December, it was ready for more. And it wasn’t happy when I told it no. This temporary abstinence was a personal challenge and honestly I was deeply afraid I would fail. Established habits are powerful forces in life, even if those habits don’t serve you.

As I gained some traction with sobriety, I started to wonder how long I could actually keep it up. I’d always taken comfort in knowing Lent would end after 40 days and I’d then be free to go back to my usual intoxicated ways. After all, I never said I was quitting, right?

But this extended Lenten season would be different. The clarity of sobriety created a space of Continue reading “8,600 Days Of Sobriety” →

Square One Is Much Different The Second Time You Start There

I’m sure the heat didn’t help, but the results reminded me of how far I’ve fallen.

Saturday was the day. With my body all stretched out and my running shoes firmly attached to my feet, it was finally time to get back to running. After several sedentary months of working through various ailments I was ready to move again.

I didn’t move very far.

The course was a familiar one, a three mile loop around the neighborhood I’d been running for years. And while I knew running this loop in its entirety for the first time in months would be quite challenging, my months of inactivity were simply no match for my lofty expectations.

Sometimes the body reminds the mind who the boss is.

The run became more of short periods of running between long periods of walking. And I wasn’t happy about it. I’d not run in months, but I am a runner, and I should simply be able to run because that’s what runners do, right? I flashed back to when I first started running eight years ago. I remembered the struggle of simply running the distance between two telephone poles, and now here I am with years of road miles behind me and I’m back to Square One.

When I started running a few years back, I did so embracing a degree of patience. I knew starting Continue reading “Square One Is Much Different The Second Time You Start There” →

The Rest Of Your Life Is Going To Happen With You Or Without You

What am I going to do with all those wasted days of my life?

In my hands I hold the next 90 days of my life.

I wonder how many of them I’m going to waste?

For a few years now I’ve been using a Best Self three month planner. It’s been a great tool for me, an even greater tool for me when I remember to consistently use it. Setting up this planner requires some initial work as it is undated meaning I need to manually write in dates on each of the 90 pages. This process begins my relationship with each one of those dates I write on each pristine page. How I choose to show up for that relationship will impact the quality of my life.

In setting up the new planner I will also go back through the just-completed planner to transfer over any important information I may need going forward. My process also included revisiting each of the previous 90 days, reviewing day by day how I actually spent my time during the last three months.

I hate the blank pages.

Blank pages. Days of my life where intentions were replaced with whatever was going to happen that day. Days full of possibilities and opportunities I never bothered to fully show up for. It’s not as if the planner is very complicated to use. All it asks of me is to set three intentions for the day, three tasks I get to commit to and complete. Yet some blank pages remain at the end of those 90 days. Some days I didn’t show up. Continue reading “The Rest Of Your Life Is Going To Happen With You Or Without You” →

Smashing Through Your Own Glass Ceiling

Instagram reminded me of an experiment I first saw years ago. Researchers had placed fleas into a glass jar and sealed it shut with the glass lid. Instinctively, the fleas attempted to jump out of the jar to their freedom but with each jump were stymied as they hit the glass lid above them. Frustrated, at some point the fleas simply stopped jumping. And when the researchers removed the glass lid, the fleas remained in the jar, now conditioned to accept their captivity even with the barrier to their freedom removed.

I kind of understand the fleas’ take on this. They tried repeatedly to make it out of the jar without success. At some point, when do you simply stop looking for a way out and accept your limitations and learn to live with them?

As part of my journey, I’ve thought a great deal about my own limitations. Specifically, where did they come from and who put them there? Limitations are an extension of a belief system, and my belief system for a good portion of my life was a belief system I inherited. No one ever sat me down and clearly defined the limitations I would eventually accept as my own. Rather, I witnessed them slowly unfold around me in real time, destined to perpetuate a belief system which I knew wouldn’t serve me but accepted none the less.

The glass ceiling on the jar of my life was never actually there. It didn’t matter, though. I never knew I could actually jump.

Until I decided to started jumping.

The things we choose to believe about who we are and what’s possible for us will greatly shape our identity, which will always shape our life. We can accept the limited version of where we are as some sort of fate or destiny, pointing to our life experience as evidence of such, further conditioned to accept our own form of captivity. Or, we can decide to think outside of the jar, out-jumping the limitations we’ve accepted, free to more fully express ourselves as we choose to redefine our self identity as one of possibility and expansion.

Limitations are simply opinions we’ve accepted as truths. But we get to decide what is true for us.

It doesn’t matter how those limitations got there.

What matters now is what we decide to do with them.

You’ll be amazed at how high you can jump…

Photo by Jilbert Ebrahimi on Unsplash

Life Lessons From A Brick Oven Pizza

It was the best pizza I’ve ever had.

And I’ve eaten a lot of pizza.

Pizza has somehow become rather important to me. I’ve baked my fair share of pies and I’m always trying to improve my results, often reverse engineering each bite of my favorite pizzas to try and uncover the secrets hidden inside. Having done my best to befriend my server she eventually revealed the four ingredients used to make the dough which I hoped to replicate at home.

“Flour, water, salt, and yeast” is what she told me.

“And…time.”

Time. An often overlooked ingredient. Time is what’s needed for flour, water, salt, and yeast to come together and fully develop their flavor profile. While some may try to manipulate the process, like most things in life the best results usually can’t ever be rushed.

Ours is a world at odds with patience. It’s a world which rewards the immediate, even if the immediate is inferior to what could instead be more fully developed if given the time to do so.

As I’ve worked to more fully evolve in life, I’ve come to understand that my evolution is a process, a process which takes time. At times I, too, am at odds with patience, trying to force a process which Continue reading “Life Lessons From A Brick Oven Pizza” →

Are You Waiting To Become You?

Commitment without the commitment.

The best of both worlds?

It’s early December and New Year’s Resolution season is just a few weeks away. For me, early December had always been a great time to reflect upon where I was in life and to set the resolutions for what I wanted to accomplish starting on January 1st.

It really was the best of both worlds. Or so that’s what I would tell myself. I made a commitment without the need to yet actually commit. For the next few weeks I could still be the person I was while feeling good about the future commitment I had made. Like, sure, I’m committed to getting myself in better shape, but until the first of the year I’m just going to keep doing the things which got me out of shape.

Sometimes logic isn’t so logical. But I never let that get in my way.

When I knew where I wanted to go, why was I content on waiting until the first of the year to actually start?

Often we know what we want to accomplish in life. We know who it is we want to grow into. Yet, for some reason many of our aspirations remain left undone, leaving us undone in the process. Change and Continue reading “Are You Waiting To Become You?” →

Growth Isn’t Supposed To Be Pretty

There she was, all covered in mud.

It was beautiful.

On a recent run through the neighborhood I saw her parked in her driveway. She being a red Jeep Rubicon fully encrusted with several coats of dried dirt. I smiled just thinking about the fun had during the process of covering this beast with mud.

Jeeps were made to be driven, and this one was doing what it was created to do.

I want to be more like that Jeep.

For a good portion of my life I was anything but a Jeep. I was more like a rental car. I was simply going where I had to go, always living defensively, always worried about life’s scratches and dents. I just wanted to someday return my life in the same condition as it was given to me.

Playing small and living defensively isn’t what any of us were created to do.

The road to living the life we were created to live isn’t always straight, it isn’t always paved, and at times is poorly marked. It is full of ups and downs, starts and stops, unexpected breakdowns and Continue reading “Growth Isn’t Supposed To Be Pretty” →

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding

Category: growth