Maybe I Am The Problem

I wasn’t aware of the Soup Rule.

Standing in line at Panera and the person in front of me was tormented with indecision trying to decide what to order for lunch. Her painful deadlock was eventually resolved when she determined that it was too hot for soup and ordered the sandwich instead.

Yes, it certainly was hot that day, and apparently the high heat disqualified soup from lunch contention.

I like soup. I just never knew there were parameters limiting its availability for consumption.

I’m not sure how rules like this get started, but at some point she accepted the elevated reading on the outdoor thermometer as a valid reason to limit her dining options. For me, if I want soup I’ll have soup regardless of the weather conditions. But the more I thought about this, I realized for me this was no longer about the soup. This morphed into me starting to examine the limiting parameters I may have placed upon myself.

As I ate my lunch, I thought about my own rules, the guiding parameters and nuances I’ve willingly accepted in my life. The beliefs and ideals that influence the habits and actions which shape my life. Some were my cultural and tribal inheritance, others I created for myself. Taking inventory of your own beliefs and ideals provides you with the opportunity to evaluate them. Which ones serve you? Which ones no longer do? Which ones never did? Which ones are you willing to let go of?

My beliefs and ideals have given me the life I have, a life I am infinitely grateful to have. Life, though, is a never ending work in progress, ever evolving in front of us. As I continue to grow and evolve, am I allowing my beliefs and ideals to grow and evolve with me?

Or is what I accept that I am holding me back from becoming who I was created to be?

Photo by Juan Miranda Ferris on Unsplash

The Color Of Courageous Authenticity

Fourteen.

That’s our personal record. That’s the number of paint samples we evaluated as we looked to refresh the family room. The first five samples weren’t very exciting, neither were the next five, and the last four were one final attempt to find that one elusive color we’d been hoping to find to bring the room alive.

Ultimately we selected one of the first five we looked at.

With infinite color choices readily available, we ended up with more of what we already had. At the sample stage we were bold and adventurous, inspired to create and take chances. But when it came time to commit to something outside of our ordinary we instead chose more of our ordinary. Bold and adventurous gave way to the familiar and safe.

What could have been had we been willing to actually create it.

Life sometimes feels like a room that could use a little refreshing. A chance to recolor our world to better reflect who we really are and who we know we were created to become. To no longer accept the narrow color palate of a life that was expected of us and to instead embrace our own bold and adventurous colors, colors only we can bring into this world.

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with familiar and safe. Unless familiar and safe serve as limiting parameters preventing us from growing, evolving, and expressing our truest colors.

In a world where we can be anything, may we find the courage to express our most authentic self.

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Which Voice Do You Listen To?

Clarity.

The search for meaning, purpose, direction. Of sorting through the past and the present in hopes of shaping your aligned future. Those willing to dive into the deep end of their own emotional pool will first need to faithfully navigate the murkiness of what is in order to then be able to find the pathway towards the version of themselves they’re looking for.

But clarity has its detractors. Usually those who’ve never chosen to confront their own inner murkiness.

The process of becoming is a lonely one. The voice within often taunted by the voices outside of you, familiar voices, voices you’d expect to give you the space to grow instead working to keep you where they’d rather have you stay.

Which voice do you listen to?

On my meandering path forward I’ve learned to focus more on the expectations I have for myself. I’ve given myself the space to grow. My path is my responsibility and my voice is the one I’ve learned to value and trust to guide me down my path.

Others don’t have to understand nor be supportive.

I’m not waiting around for them to do so.

Photo by Papaioannou Kostas on Unsplash

One Decision At A Time

To the outside world it wasn’t that big of a mountain. But it was my mountain and when you’re standing at the base of a mountain you’ve never climbed looking up towards the peak can feel quite daunting.

Mountains come in different shapes and sizes. Some are physical in nature, a great many more are the emotional and psychological inner mountains no one else can see. Embracing life-defining decisions can be even more daunting than standing before any physical mountain.

The process of getting from where you are to where you want to be is the same no matter what kind of mountain you are climbing. It’s the decision to start, it’s the decision to keep going. One decision followed by the decision to keep moving forward and then the next decision to do the same. One next step at a time. One decision at a time.

Will I take one more drink to keep numbing the pain? Will I decide to sleep in instead of get up early to exercise? Will I keep tolerating their behavior because I tell myself it’s just easier?

Every moment gives us the opportunity to decide if we are willing to move forward or if we are willing to stay where we already are.

We don’t have to climb the entire mountain at once. We just need to be willing to take the first step and then the next one after that.

Not always an easy process. But that’s the process. No matter the mountain you’ve chosen to climb.

One decision at a time.

Photo by Lindsay Henwood on Unsplash

The Evidence Will Follow

Once it actually happens you’ll have proof that it did.

But what do you do until it does?

Growth needs us to be bold. Growth needs us to first own something we might believe we don’t own. An identity, and with it the willingness to accept and embody that identity of who we aspire to be before we have the tangible proof we actually are.

Who we believe we are sets our foundation. Who we believe we are shapes our efforts, energies, and expectations which reinforces our belief in who we believe we are.

Identity always expresses itself. Good, bad, or indifferent.

Believing we are unworthy will keep us unworthy. We will do and expect the things consistent with Continue reading “The Evidence Will Follow” →

The Homes I Can Never Go Home To Again

Ruben’s Atomic Chicken Fingers!

I unexpectedly found myself back in an area I briefly lived in about 30 years ago. A break in the meeting schedule and I was free to roam around for a few hours and I spontaneously decided to retrace some footsteps I had left three decades earlier.

Driving around brought me back mentally and emotionally. I even found a Spotify playlist of 1990’s alt-rock and grunge to bring me back even further. Salem to Nashua via Rte 111. Much was the same. Much was different. I knew I was different, much different than who I was back when I first traveled these roads those many years ago.

And then I remembered Ruben’s Atomic Chicken Fingers.

The more youthful me would find himself many a night belly to the bar at Shorty’s Mexican Roadhouse, never a need to review their rather extensive menu. I knew what I was there for, and the only question was for how many.

Lightly breaded, deep fried chicken fingers served with a sweet-yet-hot thick and sticky dipping sauce, the sweetness lowering your guard making it easy for the heat to find its way down the back of your throat. A cold beer at the ready and at that moment everything was perfect with the world.

I found my way into Shorty’s once again and at the same bar I excitedly ordered the same Atomic Chicken Fingers and I was ready to pick up where I had left off. But one bite in and I realized something had changed.

And it wasn’t the chicken fingers.

I’d always heard you can’t go home again. I understood that to mean time inevitably changes what home had always been. What was simply no longer existed as it was. But at the bar, I realized the only thing that had changed was me. I couldn’t go back to what was because I was no longer who I was. It wasn’t the food. It wasn’t the bar.

It was me.

I outgrew the memories.

I was the reason why I couldn’t go “home” again.

There is a perceived comfort of going home again, even if home wasn’t a very comfortable place to be. But it’s familiar, predictable, and known which tempts us to want to relive and cling to and even slightly revise the narrative to accommodate what we may have wished home actually was.

But you can’t really go back because you’re no longer who you were when you were originally there.

I appreciate all the homes I can never go home to again. The physical and the emotional. They were important parts of who I was, foundational building blocks of who I am. But who I will become? That needs me to allow myself to outgrow myself, to not let the lure of the certainty of the past prevent me from moving forward into the uncertainty of the future.

The past had its place, but it’s no place to live. It served its purpose, it was an important teacher, but holding on to our yesterdays weakens our grip on our tomorrows.

When we create an emotionally clear space to grow, it’s likely we will do so.

Photo by Victor Bouton on Unsplash

The Self-Inflicted Pain Of Self-Discovery

My ego was far more ready than my body was when I joined 1,500 other runners participating in a local half marathon a few years back. An avid and seasoned 5k runner, the jump up to the 13.1 mile distance was going to be a huge challenge. And quite a challenge it was.

I wasn’t in it to win it. I was there to push myself harder than I’ve ever pushed myself before, six month past my 59th birthday. I’d never come close to running a race of this distance, but I signed up for it anyway just to see if I could find my way to the finish line. And eventually I did.

It wasn’t pretty. It’s wasn’t enjoyable.

But it told me something about myself.

In a life which often presents us with hard things, I guess I’ve become quite willing to inflict hard things upon myself. Challenging, uncomfortable, even painful things, things that force me to dig deep and endure and rise above the self-inflicted pain of self-discovery.

It’s in the doing of hard things that I am reminded of my ability to deal with hard things. That the resistance builds my resilience, a resilience which expands my capacity and confidence to better handle the times when life does present us with those unwanted yet inevitable hard things.

The half marathon certainly broke my body. But in that brokenness I learned it would take more than that to break me.

Growth is hard, be it physical, mental, or spiritual. It requires a willingness to become uncomfortable, to push beyond the limitations we have accepted, and in doing so the process will remind us of a self-resiliency we may have long forgotten or doubted we ever had in the first place.

Growth is inconsistency incremental, never linear, often frustrating. Paradoxically, though, it’s our commitment to grow which creates our capacity to grow and the ability to overcome the challenges of becoming more aligned with the person we know we were created to be.

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The Unspoken Energy Of Gratitude

If you give me a moment I can easily provide you with a list of things in my life I wish were better, different, or unwanted. Of expectations unmet, of needs unfulfilled, of frustrations silently churning within.

But I’d rather tell you what’s going right.

Life lets us decide what we will focus on. It lets us decide how we will define the moments of our life. I can see the darkness or I can choose to see the light. I can see what’s missing, or I can see all the good that I already have.

I can be grateful for all I have. I can be equally grateful to be able to see what I feel is wrong and I can be grateful for my ability to change my perceptions accordingly.

There is an unspoken energy of gratitude. It changes me. It centers me. It soothes me. It brings me back to me, the real me who can see the blessings hidden in plain sight, blessings I’d often be too emotionally discombobulated to ever see.

Too busy looking for what’s always been right in front of me.

I’m grateful I’ve gotten to this point in my life.

Photo by Bernd 📷 Dittrich on Unsplash

Great Years Don’t Happen On Their Own

He spoke with Biblical certainty.

“This is my year.”

It’s not uncommon to hear such bold declarations at the beginning of a new year. A brand new start, a clean slate, where anything feels possible and this guy was all in on that.

I hope this is his year.

In my life I’ve had those years that were definitely mine. Big years, significant years where outcomes vastly exceeded expectations leaving me feeling bullet proof and invincible. I’ve also had those years when I was a suck magnet where any optimism and enthusiasm I may have had at the start of the year was quickly beaten out of me.

I always hope each of my years will be good ones. But I’ve also learned to accept my responsibility in making a year a good one.

Experience and introspection tell me every year has been my year. Every year has been filled with opportunities to grow and to evolve and to become. In those big, significant years, I showed up for the opportunities I was presented with. I was intentional and deliberate. I wasn’t willing to Continue reading “Great Years Don’t Happen On Their Own” →

Creating A Safe Space For The Suck

It’s a game I’ve played with myself. Or maybe it was more of a survival mechanism.

I’d always been a big fan of the present moment. Unless I didn’t like the present moment. Then I’d find another moment somewhere in the future to save me from the discomfort of the present one.

I got quite proficient at using desired future outcomes to try and outrun the emotional challenges I could often find myself dealing with. Someday took the pressure off today. Someday allowed me to defer my responsibility of dealing with what is until some time in the distant future. Reaching those desired outcomes would take care of everything, I repeatedly told myself.

And they never did.

I’ve run away enough to know that running away never gets you anywhere else other than where you already are.

Someday is full of those distant utopian promises which we allow to sustain us at the expense of Continue reading “Creating A Safe Space For The Suck” →

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding

Tag: growth