Urgency, Clarity, Intention, & Purpose

Her text brought an unexpected smile to my face.

It’s July 4th and my younger sister reached out with a memory of the day we celebrated America’s bicentennial. Our ever-crafty Mom baked a couple dozen cupcakes and us neighborhood kids got to decorate them with the red, white, and blue frosting she made. We all got together by the old fence separating our yard from Dave Wooler’s yard and expressed our patriotic spirit in a very sweet way.

I had forgotten all about that day but her text brought me right back into that moment. The faces, the voices…hard to believe it was 50 years ago.

Revisiting memories is often a double-edged emotional sword for me. Inevitably I will move past the memory itself and find myself fixated on the time separating the memory and the now. As in what have I done with my life in those years in between. As much as I’ve come to accept the path my life has taken, that nagging and quite persistent inquisitive voice within has the tendency to prompt me to revisit my path. The choices I made. The choices I didn’t make. The choices I never allowed myself to make.

Quite often this line of questioning was met with a tenacious hostile reaction from within, sort of the same reaction I experienced when I felt short of the paternal expectations I wasn’t living up to. I should have done better, and not knowing what better actually was didn’t let me off the hook for not doing Continue reading “Urgency, Clarity, Intention, & Purpose” →

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.

Photo by russn_fckr on Unsplash

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

A Safe Space For Emotional Authenticity

I remember her tears when she fell off the swing and broke her forearm many years ago. That was one of my bittersweet recollections as I stood before the swing set on a Friday afternoon, ratchet in hand, as I began to disassemble a part of her life she had simply outgrown.

She outgrew it well before I was ready to accept that she did.

Life is full of transitions, many of which happen well before we are willing to accept them. The impermanent nature of everything can lead us to resist realities we are not yet ready to embrace, clinging ever tightly in hopes of prolonging the inevitable. But the inevitable is called inevitable for a reason.

There is a delicate balance between holding on and letting go, a balance I struggled with as the pile of rusted bolts grew at my feet. Over the years I’ve learned to allow myself to handle life transitions however I need to handle them, giving myself the grace to toggle between the holding on and the letting go. There is no “right” way to measure my response against, as my journey and my process are uniquely mine to experience. No apologies or explanations needed. For others or for myself.

Just a safe space where I am free to be emotionally authentic in any moment, in any situation.

Even on a Friday afternoon with a ratchet in my hand.

Creating such a space was one of the most significant transitions I’ve made in my own life.

A space we all deserve.

Photo by Clay LeConey 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

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

Compliance Is Vastly Overrated

I had no intention of complying with the request I knew she was about to make.

Sitting in a large auditorium and it is Awards Night. Many area schools have gathered together to celebrate both individual and ensemble outstanding music theatre performances from this year’s season. As the host began to announce the award recipients she did ask the audience to please old all applause until after all the names have been called.

I’m sorry, but when they call your kids name there is no way I’m gonna keep my mouth shut.

And I didn’t.

I wasn’t being defiant. I was allowing myself to celebrate a moment, a special moment, giving myself the space to instinctively express the joy such a special moment had brought me. Fully present, fully human, raw, authentic, and unfiltered.

I’ve held my applause for most of my life. The special moments weren’t special enough, I guess. Or maybe I didn’t allow myself to be present long enough to notice. My always searching for something else made what was special somehow unexcitedly ordinary, not worthy of celebration. I told myself I’d celebrate when I finally got to wherever it was I felt I needed to go. I never got there because that space never actually existed outside of me.

When I allow myself to be present and simply notice the world around me, I see life is actually full of special moments worthy to be applauded. Some spectacular, some mundane. All for me to define if I chose to. All for me to experience if I allow myself the presence required to do so.

Fully present, fully human, raw, authentic, and unfiltered.

Kinda feels a bit defiant, doesn’t it?

Compliance is vastly overrated.

Working Against Your Own Inner Peace

“The inner emotional battlefield is dramatically different when you’re no longer fighting against yourself.”

If consistency is good, I guess I’ve gotten good at being more mindful. With intention and practice I’ve grown much more self aware of where I am emotionally and energetically. My morning meditation has played an important role in me getting myself reset and grounded as I start my new day.

It’s become a daily ritual whose benefits are often undermined by others longstanding daily rituals.

Feeling a bit tired and lethargic, a little over a month ago I voluntarily entered into my own beverage detox program. No coffee, no tea, no soda, no energy drinks. All I’ve been drinking is water. And it’s not because I don’t like caffeine and sugary drinks.

I just don’t like what they do to me.

Much of my “inner work” has been about me trying to find an emotional equilibrium. Of trying to get to emotionally firm ground and to be better at managing the inevitable peaks and valleys of Continue reading “Working Against Your Own Inner Peace” →

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” →

The Magnetic Pull Of The Mud People

I’m often reminded of the things I need to hear, of the lessons I need to learn again. One such lesson is encapsulated in the phrase “No Mud, No Lotus”, a quote attributed to Vietnamese Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hahn. It is a teaching of the necessity of contrast, of how the beautiful Lotus flower is first nurtured and cultivated in the mud and darkness in which it grows. Without the mud, there would be no Lotus. From the human perspective, the mud represents our pain and suffering, the Lotus represents our having grown through it.

From time to time I find myself cursing the mud I have once again gotten stuck in, frustrated and impatiently waiting for my desired Lotus to finally bloom. It’s only when I remember that being frustrated and impatient only gives me more to be frustrated and impatient about. When I release my tight grip on what I don’t want I am then able to make space to grasp what I do want.

When I release the mud, only then am I ready to receive the Lotus.

I’ve come to see that there are two types of people we tend to surround ourselves with. Mud people and Lotus people. The Mud people are more common, much more prevalent. Their familiar presence almost feels comfortable to some. The Mud people are the ones who keep us stuck. Intentionally or not, their proximity stirs up the murky waters of our lives, thickening the viscosity of the emotional mud we claim we want to escape but on some level have come to Continue reading “The Magnetic Pull Of The Mud People” →

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Lessons From A Life Unfolding

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