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” →

The Willingness To Ask

Spending $72.00 on M&M’s was much easier than I thought it would be.

I’m in New York City with the family, Times Square. And in Times Square is a huge retail store dedicated to just one thing.

M&M’s.

On three floor with over 25,000 square feet of space, for me the highlight of visiting is always the Wall Of Chocolate, a 50 foot wide 2-stories tall collection of 74 tubes filled with every M&M imaginable. Grab a plastic bag, place it under the tube, open the chute, and the color of your choice drops into your bag. Then off to the next color. And then the next color.

The fun adds up.

And at $17.00 per pound, so does the cost.

Standing in the checkout line I had no idea how much I had spent, but from the weight of the bag I knew it would be steep. It was a fun experience, the kids were quite happy, and it’s hard to assign a dollar value to that.

The cashier was quite engaging, and we had a nice conversation while she weighed and scanned each of the bags we’d filled. “$71.85 is your total.” As I handed my card over for payment, I jokingly suggested I should have asked for a “friends and family” discount based upon the jovial nature of our conversation. Apparently she thought that was a good idea, and to my surprise, I was given 30% off my total.

I really wasn’t expecting a discount. But in asking, even jokingly, I did receive one.

If you don’t ask the answer is always no.

Asking can be rather uncomfortable at times. Especially when we are asking ourselves some uncomfortable questions. About our life. About what we want for our life. About where we are in life in relation to what we want in our life.

Often it’s just easier to take what’s in front of us and to take what life has given us and be on our way. Avoiding any introspective questions means we don’t need to deal with their potential discomfort. In time, though, such avoidance creates its own inevitable discomfort as you eventually acknowledge the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

Much of our willingness to accept less than we want for ourselves is an underlying mindset that we may believe we are somehow unworthy of receiving all that is ours to receive. And if we don’t feel we are worthy of it, we certainly won’t be asking for it. In accepting this premise, we will perpetuate our existing life experience creating additional evidence we will use to support this premise of unworthiness. Continue reading “The Willingness To Ask” →

Are You Worth The Effort?

Perhaps this is a question you’ve never asked of yourself.

Our ability to grow and evolve is a choice we get to make for ourselves. Odds are there are already blueprints for the steps we’ll need to take to grow and evolve into whatever it is we decide we want to grow and evolve into. With an endless amount of information surrounding us, what is needed is a willingness to actually take action.

That’s where we can get stuck.

I’ve enthusiastically stood on the threshold of growth many times, both personally and professionally. I’ve had the opportunity, the ability, and I knew what needed to be done. Yet, quite often, I never did.

Looking back on several of those moments in my life, I’ve found a common theme for my inaction. It wasn’t laziness. It wasn’t ignorance.

It was a matter of worthiness.

There’s a story we always tell ourselves about ourselves. It’s a story of who it is we believe ourselves to be and what we believe is possible for us in our lives. For me, the greatest killer of Continue reading “Are You Worth The Effort?” →

The Epic Struggle Between Two Conflicting Versions Of Me

It was one of those tough conversations you knew you had to have.

They’re always tougher when you have to have them with yourself.

December is an important month for me. It’s a time of reflection and introspection. Of looking forward and backward at the same time. My best years are the intentional ones and to prepare myself to make the most of the next 12 months I commit a significant amount of time during the last month of the year setting my course forward.

Going through some notes from a year ago, I found a list of well-intended intentions set for this year which I never actually followed through on. Intentions are promises I make to myself, and this list represented a list of promises I failed to keep. Me letting me down.

My intention setting process involves a vetting sequence. Intentions start as wishes and grand ideas, and while they feel exciting in the moment, I’ve got quite good at challenging myself as to whether I would be willing to actually commit myself to them. Are these wishes and grand ideas something I can honestly see myself getting behind 100%? Or are they simply wishes and grand ideas which would be nice to have but I know I’d never do what it takes to make them happen?

After discovering my list, it looks like I need to refine my vetting process a bit more.

As I looked at my list of unrealized intentions I initially felt a habitual degree of anger towards myself. “I let myself down yet again, didn’t I?” “I thought I had grown past doing this to myself.” I quickly pivoted to Continue reading “The Epic Struggle Between Two Conflicting Versions Of Me” →

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” →

Creating Your Unapologetically Authentic Life

“Pain pushes until vision pulls.” – Michael Beckwith

It wasn’t a pleasant birthday. Yeah, I was happy to have been given another one. But this one had something it needed to tell me and it wasn’t going to stay silent.

As I approached this particular birthday, I began to hear some annoying voices I’d thought I had repressed. Annoying in the sense that I just didn’t want to deal with them but they showed up yet again. But I guess when you’re willing to have open and honest conversations with yourself about yourself that creates a safe space for some uncomfortable feedback.

There had always been this feeling of a misalignment of sorts, a long-running inner conflict between who I was and who I knew I was created to be. I’ve always been very grateful for What Is, but there was an unrelenting gnawing that I’d yet to allow myself to fully embrace what was possible for me. With yet another birthday just ahead that repressed voice of inauthenticity began to scream. Loudly.

There are many reasons why we live a life of Less Than. Of settling. Of abandoning our own authenticity, of habitually taking what we are given instead of creating what we know is possible. We Continue reading “Creating Your Unapologetically Authentic Life” →

The Immeasurable Impact Of Teachers

We have what has grown into an annual tradition here in town. As with most things which have grown into traditions, it began quite organically. Some of the graduating high school seniors decided to revisit their elementary school and spend a few moments with some of their favorite teachers, some of which they hadn’t seen in at least eight years. Just to say hello. Just their way of stepping back into their past and with their physical presence saying thank you.

None of these kids went back because their teacher taught them about the order of operations when solving a math problem. Nor did they go back because their teacher drove into them that I comes before E except after C. They went back because these teachers moved them, inspired them, helped them grow through certain challenges. Because their teachers believed in them, encouraged them, and helped them to become more confident as both students and as individuals.

On a day designed for partying and celebrating, they went back and let their teachers know how much they mattered to them.

This is what impact looks like.

When others believe in us it helps us to believe in ourselves as well. What we believe about ourselves determines our sense of identity of who we accept ourselves to be. That accepted identity shapes every aspect of how we will experience life. Of our own sense of worth. Of our own sense of value. Of our own sense of what’s possible – or not – for us.

Identity impacts everything. We will become who it is we accept ourselves to be. Nothing more, nothing Continue reading “The Immeasurable Impact Of Teachers” →

Unmute Yourself

8 billion people in this world, but you are the only one who can do this.

Creation is always intentional. It doesn’t dabble in random. All that has been created has a divine purpose within it, and that purpose was intended to be nurtured and fully expressed. That purpose is a voice, our own voice, and we are the only one who can bring it to the world.

If we chose to.

Sometimes we chose not to.

Sometimes we may feel our voice is unimportant, insignificant. We question our worth and even our worthiness of having been given anything of importance to offer the world, especially if others may have somehow planted any seeds of doubt within us which may have taken root. So we play small, and when we do we silence a voice only we are qualified to express.

Our own.

Your voice? It takes the form of the unique collection of talent, gifts, and abilities only you have been Continue reading “Unmute Yourself” →

The Surprising Benefits Of Staring At The Sun

Cranes from dollar bills. Flowers from straw wrappers. Give my daughter something to fold and she probably will. It’s quite a joy watching her create something beautiful from something ordinary.

My origami skills, I’m afraid, leave a great deal to be desired. Although I do feel like I’ve been the one who has been folded.

Life has a way of doing that to us, it’s own version of origami, often folding us without us even being aware we’re being folded. Folded by the critical comments, unhealthy actions, and toxic opinions of others, especially in the formative years of our own self identity. Such folding impacts our experience and expectations, time often turning those folds into deep creases, continuously pressed even deeper into our psyche, reinforcing who it is we tell ourselves we are.

I’ve been folded and contorted into neither a crane nor a flower. I am just me, my final shape yet to be clearly defined. But folding is always a part of our evolution.

My journey into better understanding life and, in particular, my life has been a meandering maze of diving more deeply into me. Yes, I’ve been folded and molded and shaped into who I am today. But is who I am today who I was actually created to be? Like, are the labels and traditions and limitations I’ve accepted as true not actually the truth inherent with my creation?

Questioning something as significant as your identity involves a process of self awareness and examination. Sort of origami in Continue reading “The Surprising Benefits Of Staring At The Sun” →

The Most Important Valentine Of All

It probably would never work.

My idea for a new holiday.

It would be like Valentine’s Day, but the focus wouldn’t be on expressing our love towards a significant other.

It would be on expressing our love towards our significant self.

It often feels so much easier to extend love outward than it does inward, doesn’t it? To shower others with the cards and the candy and the flowers and the fancy dinners. But to shower our self with such objects of affection?

Probably not.

It’s too bad. Because we are equally worthy to receive from ourself the same love we are far more comfortable giving to others.

Perhaps when asking others to be your Valentine, maybe you could ask yourself as well?

Self love is never optional.

Photo by DESIGNECOLOGIST on Unsplash

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding

Tag: worthiness