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

No One Is Going To Claim Your Peace For You

You’d think with something as important as inner peace would come with instructions as to how to find it. And maybe that’s been the problem. We think we’re supposed to be looking for it as if it’s out there somewhere, elusively eluding our efforts to find it.

Peace isn’t something you find. It’s something you claim.

Peace is a decision gift-wrapped in self awareness and discernment. I don’t have to engage, respond, react, nor participate. I don’t have to defend, deny, explain, nor justify.

I need not allow myself to get sucked up in a vortex of contentious hostility.

Yet I often do until I realize what I have done.

“Is this worth my peace?” I’ve learned to silently ask myself.

It almost never is.

My peace is my decision. It is an intention. It is always an available option, in every moment, always worthy of me prioritizing and protecting it.

When I remember it’s not something you find.

It’s something you claim.

Photo by Nathan Fertig on Unsplash

The Emotional Freedom Of Letting Go

The instructions make it look fairly simple.

Doing so is anything but.

If life is a book full of lessons I need to learn, I’ve reached the chapter called Detachment. Detachment, as in releasing outcomes and expectations.

How hard could that be, right?

For most of my journey, desired future outcomes served as an aspirational distraction from me being where I told myself I didn’t want to be. The future destination gave me something to look forward to, gave me something to work towards. The journey was always rife with impatience, Continue reading “The Emotional Freedom Of Letting Go” →

Embracing The Intentionality Of Nature

The signs are everywhere. The green buds on the barren branches. The yellow daffodils starting their annual bloom. The chirping of the birds greeting the sunrise.

Spring has sprung, leaving the cold and colorless winter behind.

Nature is a wise teacher, and Spring is one of its favorite lessons. Renewal and rebirth. My favorite lesson, though, is one often overlooked and rarely considered.

Intention.

Nature isn’t random. It doesn’t dabble. It creates with intention. Everything is uniquely purposeful, everything created to express itself fully. Every bud, every bug, every blade of grass fulfilling the intentional promise of its creation, significant and purposeful in their own unique way.

Nature reminds me that I am not random. I, too, was created with intention, with a unique purpose only I can express, a purpose intended to be fully expressed. Within us is the opportunity Continue reading “Embracing The Intentionality Of Nature” →

Sometimes You Forget…

That you are beautiful.

That you matter.

That you are irreplaceable.

That you are precious.

That you are loved.

That you are seen.

That there is nothing to prove.

That you’ve never been too much.

That there is only one you, that all you ever have to be is you.

Authentically and unapologetically you.

If you’ve forgotten, let this be your reminder.

Photo by Margo Evardson on Unsplash

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

Finding Time For Nothing

I used to feel kind of guilty.

I mean, I’ve got a long list of things I am responsible for, obligations to keep, commitments to live up to. Yet, almost defiantly, I’d sneak off into a secret space and engage in one of my favorite non-activities.

Nothing.

Sometimes I just need nothing.

To do nothing.

To be nothing.

To feel nothing.

Even if for a few brief moments.

There’s a peace to be found in nothing, where I allow myself to be momentarily detached from my responsibilities, obligations, and commitments. It’s a space with no rules nor expectations. It’s a quiet, timeless space where I just breathe.

Most of my visits to nothing are often measure in seconds, seconds I intentionally create for myself when I know I need to pause and reset my emotional footing.

Nothing never happens by itself. I need to find the time for it. I need to be aware of when I need a break and then willing to actually do so.

Even if it’s just for a few re-centering moments.

Self care comes in many forms.

Sometimes in the form of nothing.

The Peace Is Well Worth The Pain

“Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.” – Joyce Carol Oates

It’s one of my favorite photos.

And it annoys the hell out of me.

I took the photo a couple of years ago at a local park, an overhead view of a snow covered swing seat I noticed in the playground. It’s a black and white image creating a beautiful contrast between the whiteness of the snow and the darkness of the outline of the seat and the chains holding it up. It’s stark, it’s simple, yet each time I look at the photo I wish it was different than it was. The seat is slightly askew, and the two chains rising up from the seat stretching to the edge of the photo are annoyingly asymmetrical.

Even though the photo is beautiful, I instead look beyond its beauty and focus on the flaws only I can see, leaving me provoked and disturbed in the process.

I’ve never had much success arguing with reality, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.

Life gives us plenty of opportunities to argue with it, if we choose to, to be provoked and disturbed wishing people, situations, and circumstances were different and more aligned with Continue reading “The Peace Is Well Worth The Pain” →

Deciding To Smile Anyway

Though he’s never spoken a word to me, his presence is a source of daily inspiration.

He’s been sitting in my garden for a few years now. Indifferent to the rain, snow, heat, or the cold, he just sits there. Smiling and laughing, without a care in the world.

I guess it’s pretty easy to not have a care in the world when you’re six inches tall and made out of concrete. And that’s exactly what he is, my cracked yellow Buddha, a small piece of statuary I found on a dusty shelf at a local closeout store. Cracked, because he’s been exposed to years of wet winter weather. Yellow, because I painted him in a failed attempt to protect his porous surface from the wet winter weather.

There’s something wonderfully imperfect about a cracked, yellow Buddha. Maybe that’s what Continue reading “Deciding To Smile Anyway” →

What If I Wasn’t Anything?

What if I am too much, too extreme, too insecure, too emotional?

What if I am too heavy, too slow, too old, too inconsistent?

Labels. We get them from others, we give them to ourselves. And no matter where we get them, we tend to believe them. We tend to live up to them. We tend to become them.

What if I wasn’t anything?

What if I was just…me?

What if I released the labels and simply gave myself a safe space for me to be me? A space of unconditional self-love and support, the freedom to grow, evolve, and unfold as I do, allowing Continue reading “What If I Wasn’t Anything?” →

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding

Tag: peace