Monthly Archives: February 2012

On_Winning

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we are not always meant to win.

we do not always have to try hard.

trying hard is not the only answer, letting go is a good answer too.

sometimes trying hard, winning, fighting, is about ego and not really about winning.

there could be ten other things waiting for you and instead you are in the I MUST WIN THIS mode and you’re missing out on the one thing that could save you. most likely that’s you.

knowing when to surrender is just as important as knowing when to fight.

for me – i’m definitely in the trying hard part, but not FIGHTING part, trying to define myself, to remember who i am at my core, to live my manifesto (more on this in another post), to follow my intuition, to flow with not knowing, to trust that the money will come.

to respect my authentic voice, whatever it happens to be saying in the moment.

Acting and defining things are not always the solution, but you have to be ready to rise whenever the occasion to RISE calls on you. You can’t be lazy. You have to show up, to be ready.  It’s more than wanting that you need, you need to need it in your soul, not in a clinging, I have to win this way. When you are ready – you will know when it has arrived – or see the path to take, and you’ll also – if you are listening – know when to let it go.

This reminds me of the much quoted Mary Oliver poem

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.

So, if saving your life is the one thing you do today. How do you do it? Do you WIN? Do you LET GO? Depends on the time and crossroads, sometimes you have to let go to WIN.

On_Pep

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underneathI’m not feeling IT today – feeling a tiny bit dead inside actually – My mind always says PEP UP, do something to feel better and then I remember and try to retrain my brain, it’s okay to feel down, you won’t stay down forever, feel it this time, really feel it, examine it, GO DOWN in! with whatever it is you are feeling and really DO IT, grieve it, know it, and then it will be easier to leave it behind. You can’t cheat the system, you’ve got to do it or else – it will come right back to you.

And yet…

I’m a new fan of Danielle Laporte and how she’s walking in this world and after typing in On_Pep in the title bar of this post and writing a few lines I jumped to her website and saw something about pep.

Her message which I think is aimed at me and maybe all of us today –

Push. Turn up the volume. Go hard. Go harder.
Re-prioritize your aches and pains.
Infuse your sensitivities with courage.
Tell fear to fuck right the fuck off.
Devote to Done.

There are soul-justified reasons to cancel. There are times to just stop. This isn’t one of them. Keep going. Show up. Full on. Full tilt. Full out. Decide to be one of those people who pull it off.

Do what you say you’re going to do.
Don’t let us down.
Decide to rise.

~

So I’m telling myself to grieve big and let go and Miss Laporte is telling me to tell fear to back the fuck up, hmmm.

Which one do I choose?

I choose both – living in the gray – I’ll grieve a bit and then listen to Miss Laporte’s advice. Thank you Danielle Laporte for kicking my ass today, right when I needed it. I’m not feeling IT, but I’m now feeling THIS.

No one has more power in your world than you. Deep down we all know this, but it’s good to remember and remind ourselves often, if we want something, I mean really want it, we have to do something.

My challenge to myself for this year has been to do one thing everyday that pushes me forward into the future, just one. I might be crying and grieving while I’m doing that one thing, but damn it! – I’m going to show up and keep doing one thing. Every day.

One meeting, one phone call, one blog post, one more page written in the memoir.

One thing feels easy – once you start doing it and seeing the effect. It might even multiply and turn into two or three things, but you only have to commit to one.

Today, my one thing is writing this blog. What’s your one thing that’s going to take you somewhere new? Don’t let us down.

On_Gray

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My favorite color is gray.
Why gray?
Gray is the in between of black and white and in a world where so many things have to be this way or that, I prefer the middle road. The gray.

It’s a reminder to myself that most of the good stuff in life happens in the gray, thinking and not acting, believing and not doubting, faith and hope instead of despair, understanding and empathy instead of judgment.
When things are gray they don’t have to be firm, they don’t have to be focused, they can be in between.

Gray is good in my book.

When in the gray, you don’t have to say yes and you don’t have to say no. You can say yes to both the white and the black.

The black and white world belongs in the early 1970s when everything was black and white on TV. I didn’t have color TV until 1981, so I lived in the black and white world a bit longer than most and got stuck there until I was round about 33, but now I can see the difference between living in black and white and living in gray.

There is a saying  – Barn’s burnt down…Now I can see the moon, it’s a quote from Mizuta Masahide, a seventeenth century Japanese poet and samurai. When I lived more in the black and white world this kind of thing occurred many times in my life. All or nothing. Black or white. Now, I don’t have to burn the whole barn down to see the moon, might have to knock down an old wall or two, but not the whole barn.

Gray is good. What’s your favorite color and why?

On_Fire

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To move your life forward you sometimes need a push, or a shove, or to finally realize the choices you’ve been making don’t serve you anymore.

Four weeks ago, at work, I drew a line in the sand and said what I thought and what I believe to be true, not what someone wanted to hear, but exactly what I thought.  I felt in my gut that if I did this I might be fired. I did it anyway, because it was the right thing.  Anyone I asked said,

“Oh no, you’ll never be fired for that!”

Somewhere deeper than I can explain though, I felt it, I knew this choice might just tip the scales.

The GIFT was knowing it was the right thing and could cause a problem and still doing it.  To speak up after all these years of not really speaking up, not just at work, but in life in general. The consequence of not speaking up this time was too great.  I was losing myself and my voice.  Feeling lost is not enough for me anymore.

I WAS fired just shy of one week ago today.  I feel fortunate that even in the moment when I was being fired I understood that it too was GIFT and a choice.   A push, a challenge – to be true to myself, to say what I mean from the most authentic place inside myself.

I never, ever imagined that there would come a day when I would say that I was fired.  I’ve worked since I was 7 years old and I’ve never once been fired. But, now that I have been, it’s one more thing I don’t have to fear.  I thought this was the worst thing that could ever happen and now I realize it’s not, I’m sure there is something worse.  I get the opportunity to reinvent myself, become a little better than before and to be more authentically me.

I do wish the conversation would have gone a bit differently, more genuine, but that was their choice. Now it’s my choice how I deal with it.  I’m a little angry and bitter and am letting those feelings run their course instead of stuffing them back like I would have years ago.  I know I’ll be fine, everything ALWAYS works out as it should, even if it’s a tough road to get there, or the end is not as you expected.

Here’s to what’s next in the world, what’s now. We can have whatever we want in life, we just need to ask for it, to choose it.

I’m not quite sure what the future holds, but I’m asking that whatever it is, it allows me the time to finish my book – oh and it has to be amazing.  Definitely.

Because of my new found freedom, I’ll have the chance to write more and I’ll be posting here two or three times a week, I promise to keep them shorter than this one and hopefully, they’ll be interesting to you.

What do you want to ask for that you think you can’t have?

What PUSH do you need to move forward?

For_GainingCourage

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When I was 40 pounds heavier,
I always thought,
I need to lose weight.  What I realized after I started losing weight was that I didn’t need to lose weight. I needed to gain COURAGE and the weight would take care of itself, or not.  The weight wasn’t the problem, it was the courage to commit to myself that was the problem.

Courage was lacking when I wanted to go out and run.  The I can’t, I won’t, I’m too fat, I jiggle when I run voice was all over my mind.  Instead – out loud I would say, “I don’t have time”, knowing full well, I lacked the courage to stick with it.

You might choose to use your courage for something other than getting out and exercising, but courage is what it takes to take care of yourself and not feel bad about it.

Courage – the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain…without fear.

WITHOUT FEAR! Imagine that.  What if I ran and nothing happened? What if I ran and didn’t lose weight?  What if?

With courage you don’t worry about such things, you do them! Without fear!

It doesn’t take courage to be who you are, you already are. What takes courage is not being perfect – letting go of fear.  You do not HAVE to lose weight, you do not HAVE to be authentic, you do not HAVE to be true to yourself, but to do these things, you do have to have COURAGE.

Having courage can feel like you are speaking for the first time. Letting your own voice and beliefs out into the world.  It can be scary, but with courage, you won’t fear it.

Once you let it out in the open – courage is contagious. If you can find a little courage everyday, you’ll see in time that courage multiplies and AMPLIFIES.  The root word of courage is cor, latin for heart.  You have heart! Courage is in you! FEAR NOT.

I’m still not at the weight that I want to be, but I have the courage to keep trying, the courage to put fitness as a priority in my life, and the courage to stop berating myself for not being where I want to be.

Be courageous –  be you, be awesome. Take the first step. What do you want to gain the courage to do/say/be?