Tag: People

What’s the worst that can happen?

architecture bad weather buildings city
Photo by Raine Nectar on Pexels.com

Humans are exceptional at creating things. We can build unthinkable structures, make things that defy reason, and also, we can create a worst-case-scenario that would never, could never, ever come to pass. These “what-ifs” keep us safe and help us negotiate an uncertain world. But these thoughts and actions also prevent us from taking steps toward an unencumbered, beautiful life. I have found myself giving advice to people close to me recently, and the thoughts that I shared were simple: To change your life, you must take the step, and the net will appear. If you are sitting comfortably (or uncomfortably, as it were) in your rut, you cannot see the net that will inevitably catch you. You have to take the step, so the net will appear in your limited field of view.

Have you ever felt yourself stagnating in a soul-sucking job that you hate? Limiting the energy you have for friends, family, self-care, and all of the other things that make this life worth living? I can tell you I’ve had more than my fair share of these experiences. But the paycheck, or the freedom, or comfort, or something else that I tell myself keeps me there far longer than I’d care to be. Thus draining my will and sapping my motivation. There almost assuredly comes a breaking point in these situations, in which I hit the point of no return. This point has been getting shorter and shorter as I age. Maybe it’s my threshold for bullshit is lower, or simply I recognize that my life is more valuable than this, sooner. I don’t know. But I’ve determined that once I get there, nothing will stop me from changing SOMETHING.

Sometimes, what has to change is my mindset. Perhaps I need to view the situation as temporary and muscle through it. Often times, that’s just not my jam. Rather, I cut the cord and bail the hell out. Not everyone has the fortitude to just cut and run from things that no longer serve them. However, it’s a skill I was not born with either. It’s taken years of therapy, self-help books, and constantly reaffirming that I am the master of my own buffet experience. I’m driving this car, and I’ll be damned if I don’t make it to wherever I’m going. I spent countless years of my life afraid and complacent in situations that I had no business entertaining, let alone neck deep in. I was in relationships that were toxic, jobs that caused massive panic attacks and suicidal ideations. I worked for abusive managers, held on tightly to friendships that were so one-sided, that they were causing me mental anguish. None of these situations served me. In abandoning them, what’s the worst that could happen?

For a very long time, I considered that absolute worst things imaginable in these situations. But, changing my situation caused decidedly ZERO of them to come to fruition. In fact, the exact opposite almost always happened. In many of these cases, the best possible things occurred. I changed my outlook, learned something new about myself and others, and I freed up space in my psyche for good things to enter. The best part? Good things ALWAYS entered in some way. Take the step and the net will appear.

A prime example of this is when I decided to start a business. It took a while to get set up, but eventually, I quit my job (for several reasons not related to the business, and much earlier than anticipated). I was terrified. I spent more than a year building something truly amazing. I had a staff that were unparalleled, customers that became like family, and created a community of other businesses and people that are still thriving today. However, despite best intents and efforts, I had to close my establishment. It was devastating. I felt as though I truly let down my community, and in many ways, I did. I let down people who trusted me, and believed in me. I couldn’t go a day without sobbing uncontrollably. It was a slow-motion train wreck, and many of us saw it coming, but when I had to pull the plug, I felt lost and hopeless. I had already accepted a job that was beneath my needs financially, but I was trying to make everything work. It didn’t. Meanwhile, my personal life was also in shambles. I was taking hits from all angles and I couldn’t find the light. There came a moment when I had a good, hard look at my situation though. I determined that I couldn’t wallow a second longer. I had to walk out of this with my head high for what we accomplished, against all odds. I had to live a life of love and gratitude.

This is when the net appeared. I took a step toward the light, toward gratitude, and there was a safety net. The worst HAD happened. I lost almost everything I had been building for years. But my outlook changed and I was, and still am, more grateful for the lessons than I could have ever been otherwise. Everything that I set out to do I accomplished in short order and then it was over. My panic attacks in the middle of the night were also over. I used to wake up in night terrors over the pressure and responsibility I felt for my employees and community at large. I’m still digging myself out of the financial pit closing a retail business entails. And by no means it is easy or fun. However, I feel amazing. I’m truly grateful for everything that happened and that is still happening.

I’ve moved across the country and started a whole new life, while still paying off old items. I’m in a MUCH better situation mentally, financially, and emotionally. I am better equipped to handle the struggles we face with humor and gratitude. I’m showing my kiddo that it’s ok to fail, and that if you make things right with people, even slowly, it’ll be alright. Progress is sometimes slow, but the effort is what people want to see. Not only that, but I feel better for making things right. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I made life harder for a fellow small business.

Anyway, in times where it looks like everything is falling apart, everything could just be falling into place. You never know what awaits you when you let the universe work it’s magic. I can guarantee that it’s beyond your wildest dreams, if you let it. You have to take the step, for the net to appear.

Thanks for reading.

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Progress

It’s funny how when we make plans and goals, that sometimes we just get distracted. Ok, I get distracted. I’m not going to project that same behavior on anyone else. Life happens, time slips away from us me, and I’m too tired, or unable to focus on what I really want to do, because I’ve spent so much time doing other stuff.

I had a plan last night to write for this blog. I had some extra time and I chose to spend it with my family. I got to lounge around the house with my partner and my kiddo. Hung out with the pets, sat on the couch and watched tv. It was pretty great. I could have stayed at work, despite having nothing going on but noisy construction that was making it hard to think and breathe. Instead, I went home to nurse my migraine and had to justify the wage loss for doing so to myself, for much of the afternoon.

I felt like I was letting my boss down (who was also out sick) and the rest of my team. However, I was not going to be effective given the situation, and I had to come to terms with that. I did all the important stuff, but then I bailed. In my haste, I misread my calendar and was late to a meeting this morning, but that was a separate thing. Coming in early is a challenge when you have a small one, especially when it’s several times a month, and it changes often. Anyway, I digress. The point is that 1) I didn’t do my stuff yesterday because I was distracted and 2) leaving work early was awesome, but also I felt guilty for leaving.

I often feel like a juggler, spinning plates constantly. It’s truly exhausting to keep all the plates moving, while not losing my freaking mind in the process. In the attempt to simplify my life, and improve the quality of it, I feel like I need to revamp my 40 day challenge. The meditation element has to stay, as it’s the catalyst for the whole challenge in and of itself. I’ve been sort of accidentally exercising lately anyway (thanks to tracking it on my watch), because I’ve been doing a lot of stair climbing, chasing after people and animals, and we’ve been going out and doing stuff.

For instance, we walked around the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden on Sunday, and I chased my kiddo around the meadow for a long time, between viewing the beautiful artwork in the park. I easily walked 10 miles that day before, during, and after our outing.

https://walkerart.org/visit/garden

Moreover, this challenge is supposed to be challenging, yes, but it’s meant to be a blessing and a way of drawing in more life and love, while lessening the feelings of burden and obligation. I love writing, and someday I will make a living doing it in some way. But writing everyday has been a difficulty, primarily on weekends. So I’m no longer requiring myself to write every single day.

I will commit to 4 days, and keep the 500 word minimum. I think that will keep me feeling energized about GETTING TO wrote, rather than feeling distracted and HAVING TO. I love my family, but they make it difficult to focus, because I’m so easily distracted. And truthfully, I want to be with them. I’m at work much of my day and I find it hard to spend as much quality time with them as I want to, because it’s very much a get up- go to work- come home- cook dinner- go to bed- start over tomorrow life in this modern world. I am working on simplifying though, and creating a better work/life balance. It just takes time to materialize. I will get there. And it will be marvelous.

Until next time. Thank you for reading.

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Equalizer

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

As I have said many times over the last many years, pain is the great equalizer. Yes, each of us has a pain threshold that differs from the next person. However, when we experience it, it shows us really what we’re made of. Some people live with chronic pain and others experience acute bouts of it. The point is, that everyone will at some point feel pain in their lives. It could be emotional pain, or physical, but nevertheless, it will happen. That is what I mean by “equalizer”.

The Buddha, while he was still Prince Siddhartha, witnessed pain, suffering, old age, and death when he escaped the palace and went into the village. He realized in those moments that we will all experience these difficulties. After this eye opener, he was determined to find the path out of suffering. Without getting too in depth, the path to ending suffering is ending attachment. That doesn’t mean that one doesn’t care. Quite the contrary. Instead, it removes the need to attach yourself to the outcome. It compels us to all be compassionate, but not attach our feelings and mental state to how things turn out.

This is a tall order when we are pack animals, with deep ties to our friends and families. Even more so when we are so distracted by social and traditional media outlets. We are constantly presented with opportunities to be outraged, shamed, heartbroken, saddened, and so many more emotions. And in many cases, we should be those things and try to alleviate the sufferings of others. But, damn. It’s exhausting. It’s really difficult in the modern world to care, or to care without attachment to the things we care about.

When people around me are hurt or upset, it’s my natural instinct to apologize for their suffering and to offer to help in some way. In many cases, that is all we can do. Even if there’s nothing practical that can be “done”, I still put out the offer.

Today has been the great equalizer in our home. There has been a lot of pain in the last 24 hours, both physical and emotional. It’s hard to say what will make it better. Currently, there’s nothing to bring ease to the sufferings. But as my friend said, we will figure it out. We always do. I don’t know that I’m able to find 100 more words for this entry. Tomorrow is another day, I suppose. Now, to remove myself from the outcome.

Thanks for reading.

 

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The art of worry

The art of worrying.

If worrying were an artform, I’d be Picasso, or DaVinci, or some other famous savant in the craft. I combine my worry skillfully with millennia of guilt, thanks to my genetics and harsh upbringing. This 1 x 2 punch of worry and guilt paved the way for extreme bouts of anxiety and panic attacks later in life. From even a very early age, I recall behaving so rigidly, mastering the delicate balance between internal control and external chaos. I had utmost personal control until I was about 17. I had fallen prey to and overcome disordered eating and many more potentially damaging self-control behaviors to have some sort of balance in an unbalanced world. Once the anxiety and panic attacks began, it was significantly harder to control the deluge of emotion that had been bottled. 

However, as an adult, I’ve developed much better coping mechanisms. I focus more on positivity and meditation. I have expanded my consciousness in countless ways, over many years. I do yoga and practice gratitude for the things that I am so blessed with in this life. Stemming from making it this far, when I shouldn’t have, by all accounts. Yet, I still battle my worry/shame/guilt demons regularly.

With the help of more self-help books than I can even recall, some brilliant scholars and experts on these and many more topics of interest, I can mange these character flaws more readily. But I still worry. I worry about the things that have happened, that might happen, that are likely to happen, and that could not happen in a million years. I fret about the health and well-being of everyone I have ever, and never, met. Every animal, every tree, everyone. I worry about every-single-one.

Because I’m such a skilled worrier, I barely even notice that I’m doing it, until I notice I’m doing it. I’ll have 100 thoughts of things cross my brain before I pin point that I am worrying about nothing, or everything, as it were.

More to the point though, I am actively ending this cycle of needless worrying. I am focusing on all the things that I can do, of which worrying, will not accomplish. I am focusing on the immense sense of gratitude that I feel with each breath in my chest, each beat of my heart. I think not only of the worry in the back of my psyche, but also the love that I see all around. I see the helpers, doing great things and changing the world. I am grateful for them. I choose to feel the warmth of life, instead the coldness of heartache. I believe deeply in my soul that worrying accomplishes nothing productive, but rather takes all your forward momentum out of you, leaving you bobbing in the waves without a sail.

A friend asked for advice the other day and was stressing about something that wasn’t genuinely important to really anyone. Instead my friend used the better part of a day, thinking about something that they knew the answer to, but had to have confirmation. They had to “know”, so worrying all day took all their attention away from other things, and I felt sad for them. I recognized that they were fretting about nothing and they largely ended up exactly where they started when all was revealed. Except they and another person were heated, for no good reason. So much wasted energy and emotion over something that didn’t matter. But they needed the anxiety of “not knowing” to end. So, they worried and analyzed and turned it over in their head. I am so guilty of this. I do it constantly. I’ve done it as long as I can remember. Turning over things from the past, far beyond the reaches of anyone else involved. I’m positive that the other people didn’t give these scenarios a second look, and here I am dwelling for over a decade about something that was done or said. How much energy I’ve wasted on trivialities. 

I’m glad that I’ve embarked on this journey of reflection and self-actualization, because without it, I’d have taken a much longer time to recognize these things in myself that I do and feel powerless to change. I recognize my shortcomings and do better with every opportunity possible. I’m an imperfect human, bound to the confines of humanity… but I am striving to get better every single day.

This is not to discount the struggles of anyone else, by any means. I know that my friend does not want these intrusive thoughts, and they battle them often. My heart goes out to them and other like us that are often crippled with things in our heads that we cannot shake. I spent a large part of my evening one day this week rolling it over in my head how I “could have” prevented a tragedy that I witnessed. It still haunts my mind as I type this. However, my rational brain knows that it’s unlikely that there was anything that could have changed things. Possibly prolonged them, but the results were likely to be the same. It breaks my heart either way. I remember to breathe. Focus on the things that I can control in this world, and put simply, I can only control myself.

Thanks for reading. 

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Busy?

Are we really busy? Or are we distracted? Overwhelmed with all of the things that are expected from us? Straight up, burnt out? And more to the point, what can we do about it?

Last night, I had best laid plans to come home, get settled, and get writing for my 500 words and take a moment to meditate and reflect. Yeah, that didn’t happen. I had every intention of sitting down while my kiddo was eating dinner and my partner was otherwise occupied. What my rational brain did not take into account were the plans of other people. The kiddo wanted to play bubbles in the yard and call grandma. The dogs needed attention. Dinner needed cooking. Meltdowns happened when it was time to come back inside after bubbles. Downloading with my partner had to happen. By then, it was bedtime and even that was a challenge with yet another, more massive, meltdown.

It seems with our busy lives that there’s just no break. The days run together and it’s hard to catch your breath. But what if it wasn’t this way? Would we just simply fill our time with more crap to feel like we are productive? I know that I’m often at odds with “free time”. I feel like I’m not “doing” anything and therefore wasting my finite time. However, what are we really doing with a lot of this time? Yesterday, when I could have been writing at work, I was online shopping for some dress clothes and a couple things for the kid. I was also compulsively checking my email for no reason at all. I wasn’t waiting for anything important. Just kept checking, about every 30 minutes. Also, I scrolled facebook like you wouldn’t believe, or would you? Social media, while often a necessary evil to this modern world, is responsible for hours of our lives disappearing in a blink of an eye. How many times have you been mindlessly scrolling to realize that it’s been an hour, or possibly more? I can confess that it happens to me regularly. Looking down at my phone for countless minutes, only to suddenly come back to life with half my day wasted. It’s such a time-suck.

Now, this isn’t to bash on the FB, because that’s certainly easy to do. But rather, it’s to highlight that we need some things to be happy, healthy, truly productive humans. The first being, needing time to decompress. We are so stretched in our daily lives with the pressures from work, home, kids, partners, and much more. There must be a few moments each day (gasp!) where we disconnect with outside forces and focus inward. Next, we need to simplify. If it’s committing to fewer obligations in a day, so be it. We need to accept that we are human beings, and while marvelous creatures, we simply cannot keep going at the pace in which we are. It’s burning everyone out at record speed. This makes us grouchy and short tempered. It makes us unable to make the myriad of decisions we need to, with a clear head. And finally, we need to slow it all down and refocus on what is important. Yes, we all make excuses that if this or that doesn’t get done by whatever time, some consequence is looming. However, I posit this question in all sincerity. What happens to US, to our psyche, our souls, if we no longer take the time to appreciate the world around us and the people, places, animals, etc in it? What kind of life is that? Is it even one worth living?

If we do not have the deep genuine connections with those around us, what is the point? If you read a previous entry of mine, THIS IS YOUR LIFE. This is what we’ve got. We have the chance to make it everything we’ve ever dreamed of, or we can work ourselves into the ground, completely missing the beautiful experiences we could have had. And trust me when I say that I’m not coming at you with this shit from my ivory tower. I’m a working stiff just like everyone else here. I clock my hours and get paid what my employer thinks I’m worth. I’ve got bills and a family that need my attention all the time. I’ve got pets that need feeding and care. I’ve got a car that needs repairs all the freaking time. This is not a judgement. It’s a plea. The collective conscious needs to change from this scarcity mode of operation. We need to find the joy in everyday so that we are not just existing to pay bills. I certainly didn’t come into this life thinking that I was going to work to pay bills and then die. Fuck all that noise. I’m not on this planet to slave away, are you? I’m on this Earth to learn and grow, experience and change. I’m learning this more and more as I get older.

Join the revolution. It’s beautiful here.

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