Honoring Those Mountains You’ve Climbed

Perhaps you’ve forgotten how resilient you actually are?

There they were, relics from a different time in my life. Two good sized pieces of crystal with my name engraved in both. I forgot I even had them. These were given to me in recognition of exceeding sales performance expectations from earlier in my professional career. Actually, these weren’t given to me.

I earned them.

While results get the recognition, they never really tell the entire story of what it took to get those results, of what was endured in the process, of what you had to grow through and who you needed to grow into to earn a symbolic piece of crystal with your name on it.

As I unpacked these towel-wrapped pieces from the unmarked cardboard box which had been in the attic for more than 25 years, this older version of me was reminded of who this younger version of me was when I was received these trophies. I remember the challenges of this sales position and the difficult task I had willingly agreed to take on. My focus then shifted toward remembering the challenges I was facing simply being me at that time. The doubts, the fears, the anxiety, the pressure. Yet, somehow that version of me was able to stand at the base of this daunting mountain of a challenge and reach a summit which had never once felt remotely possible for me. It was a brutal climb, bruised and bloodied, but I guess I just kept climbing.

This older version of me cracked a little bit of a smile. I was proud of that younger version of me.

I try not to look back in life. There’s a lot in the rear view mirror that I really don’t wish to re-experience. The losses, the pains, the regrets, the mountains I wasn’t able to climb. Sometimes, though, looking Continue reading “Honoring Those Mountains You’ve Climbed” →

Creating The Space To Receive

I have to admit it was a bit unnerving.

I’d never seen a message like it before. It was from my email provider telling me that my email account was full. I’d need to delete some emails in order to create space to receive any new emails. The message was all text, it’s lack of any visible corporate identity greatly added to my overall sense of skepticism about the authenticity of the message. But when I realized I could no longer download any new messages I knew something had actually happened. Maybe my account was hacked?

Nope.

I had, in fact, reached the maximum capacity of emails in my inbox.

I’ve never been good at managing my email accounts. I get lots of emails from sources both known and unknown, and it’s always been easier to simply ignore these intrusive emails instead of taking the time to delete them and unsubscribe from distribution lists I never even knew I was a part of. I guess my “ignore them” strategy wasn’t perfect. Over the years, this particular account had accumulated over 92,000 unread messages, which, apparently, leaves no room to download anything new.

After spending quite some time deleting several thousand unread messages, I was able to create enough space for new messages to be received.

Being disconnected from my email was quite uncomfortable. What if there were important messages I needed to receive? My discomfort was directly related to my habitually holding on to what didn’t serve me, which, in this case, created no room to receive.

Once I resolved my email issues, I began to wonder. Are there other areas in my life where holding on was inhibiting my ability to receive?

Perhaps the greatest inhibitor to our ability to receive life’s greatest blessings is embracing a mindset Continue reading “Creating The Space To Receive” →

The Gift Which Never Feels Like A Gift

I was hoping I wouldn’t see her.

But there she was.

It’s Sunday grocery shopping and I’m standing in the deli line, ticket number 117 in my hand. I see Janet working the slicer and I’m hoping that she won’t be the one who calls number 117.

Janet and I have issues. Actually, Janet has no idea I have issues with her. Janet, actually, has no idea who I even am.

And then she speaks.

“Number 117?”

Seriously?

My instructions from those at home who eat the freshly sliced deli meat is that the deli meat is to be sliced extremely thin. It sounds like a simple request, but for some reason asking Janet to slice the olive loaf extremely thin doesn’t make her happy. My request is always met with an indignant damning glance, as if I’ve instructed her to violate some sacred law of slicing sandwich meat. After a pronounced pause she say “you know, if you slice olive loaf too thin, all the olives will fall out”, her eyes still tensely locked with mine. “That’s OK…that’s how they like it”, I defiantly reassure her. “That’s OK.” With that, she sets the slicer’s thickness dial as low as she can and begrudgingly slices the meat as I requested it, holding up the first slice awaiting my approval before she continues. I silently nod my head once and the standoff is finally over.

In that same head I hear my indignant lament. “Can’t a man simply have his sandwich meat sliced the way he wants it without his motives being questioned? Do I really have to deal with this on a Sunday morning?”

But this really isn’t about Janet. What this is really about is why would I let such a scenario annoy me as much as it does?

If we are willing to look closely we will notice that within all of us lie triggers, those external occurrences and unmet expectations which habitually set us off emotionally. And no matter how we may choose to Continue reading “The Gift Which Never Feels Like A Gift” →

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” →

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” →

Making Room For The Other Voice In You Head

“I am me.

And that should be enough, it always has been enough.

I was the one who didn’t get that.”

A friend of mine posted these words, the words of Matthew Perry, in the wake of his untimely and unexpected passing.

I’d not heard these words of his previously, yet they did have a familiar feel to them. An almost universally familiar feel to them.

I’m not sure when upon our human paths we start to diverge from our own innate perfection. I’m not sure what serves as the wedge causing microfractures in our sense of worthiness. Each journey is a uniquely personal one, yet so many arrive at the same destination of questioning if they are enough as they already are.

The world at times certainly like to remind us of what we are missing, of what we are lacking…relentlessly setting ever-changing and ever-inflated expectations that can certainly can cause us to not Continue reading “Making Room For The Other Voice In You Head” →

The 6 Universal Truths To Accept About Your Life

You’d think something as important as life would come with an instruction manual. Buy a new toaster and you’ll learn how to toast bread in several different languages. But life? It forces you to figure it out on your own. It’s a process, a meandering non-linear journey through mountains and valleys of joy and pain just to find a base level of understanding of this thing we call life. For those courageous enough to willingly search within, we often don’t fully understand what we’ve signed up for. But it’s a journey we know we simply need to embark upon. In the darkness we often find the light.

If I were to be tasked with creating an instruction manual for life, I’d include the following six foundational ideals I’ve learned the hard way. The hard way, forged in the fires of my own skepticism, doubt, denial, blame, resistance, and fear.

And finally, acceptance.

Perhaps my trials will save you some trials of your own.

YOU MATTER

At times life gets us to a point where we can question our own value. Our own worth. We can often feel unheard and unseen even by those closest to us, creating an emotionally dangerous space perpetuating the questioning of the significance of our existence.

In the ever-distracted world we all share, our focus is seldom placed upon reminding ourself of of our own significance. And how often are we reminded by others? But in this intentional universe, ever purposefully in its creation, the fact that you and I are here is evidence that we matter, even if we perhaps aren’t quite sure why. There are no spare parts in this intentional universe. It simply doesn’t work that way.

Yes, you matter.

YOU’RE NOT BROKEN AND YOU NEVER WERE

A lot has happened to you since the day you were born. Some of those things have greatly impacted your own sense of self. Of who you are. Of what you think is possible for you.

Humans, including some well-meaning humans, in their attempt to love you and keep you safe, often transplant their own fears and limitations and insecurities into the fertile grounds of a young children’s Continue reading “The 6 Universal Truths To Accept About Your Life” →

Constructing A Life Of Possibility and Abundance

What we choose to believe with shape us in any moment.

A major highway reconstruction project was recently shut down not too far from my home. The rumor is the project’s general contractor has filed for bankruptcy and this once thriving work area has become a dust bowl of a ghost town. With six years left on a seven year construction schedule everyone is in the dark as to what will happen next.

The main focal point of the work zone to this point is the half mile long concrete retaining wall being built to support the new expanded road surface. Only half of the wall has been poured. The other half is just exposed reinforcement bars which will remain exposed until the state decides what is next for this project.

Reinforcement bar, know as rebar in the trades, is vitally important in any concrete application. While concrete is solid, it has no tensile strength and lacks structural rigidity. Rebar provides that strength and stability, a skeletal framework of steel bars which are hidden on the inside of any concrete structure.

Seeing all this exposed rebar has gotten me to think about my own emotional strength and structural rigidity, my own internal skeletal framework of habits and beliefs which reinforce me.

My emotional rebar.

Poured reinforced concrete is engineered to withstand the predictable forces which it will be exposed to. It’s strength is calibrated and set. Unlike concrete, I find my strength requires more of an ongoing process of recalibration, of intentional reinforcement to better withstand both the predictable and unpredictable forces I as a human am exposed to.

The greatest source of personal recalibration is mindset. My strength is inevitably determined by how I Continue reading “Constructing A Life Of Possibility and Abundance” →

Sometimes Commitment Hurts

Meloxican.

15 milligrams once per day.

“That’s should help with the inflammation.”

I’d never taken Meloxicam before. But I’d never been in such pain. A perhaps-overly-ambitious 10k run through the streets of my hometown eventually lead to a doctor’s visit. The tightness on the inside of my right knee kept getting tighter, especially when I finally finished my run. Walking had become an unexpected casualty as I hobbled my way back to the car.

Ouch.

I’ve run this particular course several times, although it had been a little while since I’ve done so. I wasn’t as prepared as I had hope to be, but I did commit to running this run and I decided to honor that commitment.

Sometimes commitments hurt.

I’ve got a good relationship with commitments these days. Especially with the commitments I make to myself. Those were the types of commitments I had a hard time keeping. One of the most significant growth milestones I’ve achieved upon my meandering life’s journey was embracing those promises I would make to myself. I was no longer willing to let myself down. I deserved better from me for me.

Commitments are a vital component of growth. Without it there is no growth.

Sometimes commitments do hurt. Growth often comes with a price, and often that price is pain. With my run, the pain was decidedly physical. But growth can come with emotional pain as well. Some may not understand the process you’re willing to put yourself through in order to achieve a goal Continue reading “Sometimes Commitment Hurts” →

An Unexpected Source Of Clarity

Mention their names and you’d swear that they wouldn’t be good together. Polar opposites, most would agree. Yet, it’s that very polarity which can make them important partners.

For most of my life I’ve sought a level of clarity, of trying to understand who I am and what I am here to do with this one life I’ve been given. This inner journey has taken me in many different direction, each path directly or indirectly leading me closer to the clarity I’ve been seeking.

On this long and meandering quest I’ve learned a great deal about life and about myself. Paradoxically one of the key components on my path to clarity has been the introduction of doubt.

Doubt. As in uncertainty. As in compassionately questioning what it is I’ve been willing to accept about myself and what’s possible for me. My beliefs shape my identity, and my identity shapes how it is I allow my life to unfold.

What if what I believe about myself isn’t really true?

What if it actually is?

By introducing doubt into the equation of who it is I tell myself I am – or am not – I create the space for an inner dialog where a Continue reading “An Unexpected Source Of Clarity” →

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding

Tag: mindset