Good Enough Seldom Is

With clarity and conviction in her voice I could tell she was a woman who knew what she wanted.

“Margherita pizza, cooked well done, extra basil.”

Yet when the pizza arrived, it wasn’t done exactly the way she wanted it done. After some initial griping to the other guests at the table about what was served to her, she quietly consumed her undercooked, slightly basil’d pizza, accepting less than what she wanted with every bite.

Why is it that we are so willing to accept less than what we know we want for ourselves?

Sometimes we settle because habitually we’ve always settled. We’ve been conditioned to settle because it’s always been easier and safer to accept less instead of fighting for what we know we want and deserve. Sometimes we don’t ask for what we want for fear of losing what we Continue reading “Good Enough Seldom Is” →

Dear Intuition, I’m Sorry

Something told me it was wrong, but I just kept going anyway.

It was a perfect day for a ride through the woods. Crisp but not cold, and the morning sun was filtering through the colorful leaves of the season. It was the annual 10 mile charity trail race taking me and my mountain bike through gravel fire roads and off-road grass and root-covered trails within the confines of a local conservation reserve.

Half way through the course and things were looking good. I was making good time and my legs felt strong. Ahead of me was another rider who had passed me a bit earlier. With the course poorly marked it felt good to have someone in the distance ahead of me to guide me through the remainder of the ride.

Or so I thought.

As we both headed down the only paved section of the course I noticed the open gate of a fire road which looked somewhat familiar. I participated in this event a year ago and I remember the Continue reading “Dear Intuition, I’m Sorry” →

The Gift Of Spiritual Impatience

That was the last of them.

The third box of books was loaded into the car, the next stop was the barn behind the old church, the storage point for donated books for their annual used book sale later in the year.

Perhaps it’s an age thing, but I’ve been downsizing many segments of my life of late. The stuff I’ve collected over a lifetime which I no longer want to hold on to. Stuff. Expectations.

Today, it was the books’ turn to go.

As I loaded the boxes, I realized that the vast majority of them were books I never fully read, as indicated by the number of bookmarks I found lodged into the first third of the pages of many of them. I guess the enthusiasm which motivated me to initially purchase them greatly waned as I actually started to read them. With so many of these books being not fully read, I realized there was one thing each of these unread books had in common.

Me.

I’ve had an interesting relationship with books. My now-almost-empty bookshelf was filled with the books of a seeker; non-fiction, self-help, self-improvement, spiritual, psychological, and growth-oriented themes. I bought each one for a specific reason, yet at some point early in these books I’d become a bit disillusioned and put them down only to then pick up the next book I had also excitedly purchased, only to abandon it early on just like the others before it.

Giving up on a bad book seems logical, but when you give up on all the books the books aren’t the problem.

As someone who has been a lifelong seeker, I was hoping each of these books would bring me closer to that which I really wasn’t sure I was hoping to find. I knew I was looking for something and I would grow increasingly impatient the deeper I got into these books when I felt it was going to be just another dead end on my spiritual journey.

Each book was a tangent of sorts, a tangent wrapped in the elevated expectation that THIS book was the one which would deliver me the wisdom I demanded to learn. No pressure, right?

One thing I learned on my meandering journey of life is my impatience consistently created elevated levels of frustration, especially towards myself. The pressure of not finding what I wasn’t Continue reading “The Gift Of Spiritual Impatience” →

Further Down The Road Of Self-Forgiveness

It had been about 20 years since my last visit, but I remembered this stretch of road quite well.

Interstate 89 is that long and winding road which would take me from Concord, New Hampshire northwest to the Vermont state line. My recent ride was personal, but for many years early in my professional life the curves and contours of this 60 miles of highway became well known to me.

As I meandered silently on this early Sunday morning drive, I felt as if I was getting reacquainted with an old friend as my mind wandered back to a different time in my life. A time when I was very much a different version of me. A time when I wasn’t really a very good friend to myself.

Despite my professional success, these years were not a happy period for me. Corporate pressures were compounded greatly by the internal pressures I placed upon myself. While my successes seemingly masked my silent fears and insecurities, those fears and insecurities were very Continue reading “Further Down The Road Of Self-Forgiveness” →

The Greater Risk Is Not Being Authentically You

Authenticity sounds simple, right? To be yourself, fearlessly. Yet at some point for most of us we learned our authentic self expression was actually something to be feared.

Authenticity comes with great risk, a risk that who we really are won’t be understood or accepted in our most-important relationships. The fear of such isolation often leads us to suppress many of the parts of us which make us so beautifully and authentically unique.

So, to provide a perceived sense of safety, we dim our light for those who can’t handle our brightness, for we fear being left alone in the darkness. Our fear of abandonment leads us to abandon our truest self, an increasingly high price to pay the longer we choose to do so.

Conformity makes everyone comfortable. Except us.

In time we will be pained realizing the greater risk is in not authentically expressing who we are. And Continue reading “The Greater Risk Is Not Being Authentically You” →

What Is Forced In Life Will Ultimately Fail

I remember my brother’s reaction to my work.

He took my hammer and threw it as far as he could into the distance. His way of making sure I wouldn’t inflict any more damage to the wood I was working with.

Who knew there’d be a life lesson in that?

My brother Steve was one of several extremely talented woodworkers we had in the family, and on this day his patience for my lack of such talent had finally worn to the point where removing the hammer from my hand and throwing it was, in his mind, the best course of action.

No words were necessary nor exchanged.

Steve was like my Uncle Bob. A true craftsman who could build anything out of wood. Seemingly effortlessly, while my endless efforts and best intentions could never come close to replicating his results.

Despite my lack of talent, I’ve always been fascinated with woodworking. Especially when it comes to joinery. The ability to join two different pieces of wood together both structurally and aesthetically was an Uncle Bob specialty. Dovetails, mortise and tenons joints pinned with square pegs in round holes…whatever was needed for the application, his results were flawless.

One particular project I was able to observe (and not actively participate in) required the joining two boards of a table top. As their grains ran perpendicular to each other, the preferred method was to create a groove for the two pieces to interlock with, and to then pin the two pieces together at their intersection. As the round holes were drilled, the square pegs were being prepared. Once properly aligned, the square pegs were forcefully driven into the round holes to hold everything in place.

Forcing those square pegs into those round holes created the friction, resistance, and tension which held both boards together.

Friction, resistance, and tension are quite beneficial when it comes to holding wooden things together.

But is it any way to hold a life together?

I have had situations in my life when I’ve forced my square peg self into round holes that I knew really weren’t for me. In forcing myself in, it created a friction, resistance, and tension which painfully held things together, things which were never intended to be held together in the first place. And with that comes the tendency to try and rationalize and justify why forcing the wrong thing is better than waiting alone for the right thing. The mind will attempt to override the wisdom of our intuition, but ultimately what is forced in life will eventually fail under the pressures of the friction, resistance, and tension inherent with any misaligned creation. Continue reading “What Is Forced In Life Will Ultimately Fail” →

Popsicles And The Art Of Reclaiming Possibility

If there was a movie about that rather dark period of my life, the soundtrack would have to be filled with the music from the band Soul Asylum.

It’s the early 1990’s. I’m moving forward in life, fully transitioned into adulthood, taking a few small steps up a corporate ladder I felt compelled to try and climb. The facade of smiles and joviality, lubricated and enhanced with a steady supply of alcohol, diligently disguised the heaviness of doubt and uncertainty swirling within.

Cue Soul Asylum.

There was a relatable rawness in the lyrics of Soul Asylum’s music. Dave Pirner’s songs of emptiness, loss, longing, vulnerability, and frustration so perfectly captured exactly where I was at that time in my life. Eloquently composed, yet painfully accurate.

But it was his popsicles which always saved me.

Like the sun peeking through an ever gloomy and ominously cloudy sky, one lyrical reference always offered a faint source of light in the musical darkness. Each time I hear these words they always bring me back to a more innocent time in my life.

“Standing in the sun with a popsicle, everything is possible…”

I remembered back when life was a clean slate and everything felt possible. As a kid with the sun washing your youthful face and with a popsicle in your hand, life is a wide open highway ready to take you anywhere you want to go. Until life gradually shows up and experience and expectations turn that wide open highway into an unmarked and unpaved backroad endlessly circling back upon itself.

Life does have a way of ripping the popsicle out of your hand and wiping the smile off your now not-so-youthful face, doesn’t it?

Life does get busy. Life does get hard. Practicality often replacing possibility in the process.

Yet possibility always exists. In the light, in the darkness. In the flow, in the struggle. In the peace, and Continue reading “Popsicles And The Art Of Reclaiming Possibility” →

Ending The Inner Battle Against Myself

So here I am. Sitting behind the wheel of my life. The ultimate road trip. There is no final destination entered into the GPS because, well, life simply doesn’t work that way. You know where you started, you know where you are, you may even know where you want to go, yet life has a way of unfolding so you’re just never 100% sure of exactly where you’re going.

Who’s with me on this ride of my life?

Me.

All of the different versions of me.

The different versions of me? Sure. There’s the Optimist Me. The Uncertain Me. The Fearful Me. The highly-caffeinated Excitable Me. The Grateful Me. The Regretful Me. The Deeply Introspective and Spiritual Me. The Overwhelmed Me. The Unworthy Me.

Lots of different parts of Me.

Each of these parts of me has their own unique voice, their own unique perspective shaped by environment and experience. Certain voices, though, were not always welcomed at the table. I worked hard to keep some of them repressed. When certain parts of you are silenced and ignored by you it creates a fertile breeding ground for your own inner civil war.

Life has been a non-linear meandering journey of learning and unlearning, of trying to understand and to be understood. Of trying Continue reading “Ending The Inner Battle Against Myself” →

God Wants You To Drive A Lambroghini

And have a beach house, too.

Actually, God doesn’t really care about what you drive or how you spend your vacations.

He just wants you to embrace the abundance.

Abundance. Some seem to embody it, while others enviously want it, and still others never think they’re supposed to have it.

Abundance isn’t about money and the collection of material things; rather, it’s about living with a “there’s more than enough” mindset. Abundance is a choice, an attitude, an option as to how one decides to see the world. And it’s that choice which forms the Continue reading “God Wants You To Drive A Lambroghini” →

This One Assumption Can Save A Life

Thursday was a big day for Danielle.

11 months sober.

I didn’t even know sobriety was an issue for her.

You could feel both her pride and apprehension in her Facebook post informing her friends of her milestone. Apparently she’s been down this path before, she knows it’s something she is taking one step at a time.

It was great to see the love, support, and encouragement her friends posted in reply. Her replies to their posted comments indicated she, too, was quite happy for the love being sent her way.

Danielle bravely decided to publicly share her struggles with those in her social media world. Bravely, because our world tends to look down on struggle, leaving many of those who do struggle to struggle in silence, battling their own demons alone. Struggle often Continue reading “This One Assumption Can Save A Life” →

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding

Tag: fear