Where do we fit, the people that don’t fit?
The ones that don’t want to talk about the monotonous, the daily.
The ones that are always curious.
The ones that want to learn about science, the music and the brain.
Where do we fit? With all of you?
Where do we go?
No one ever tells you that there are so many different kinds of losses, that they all hurt equally as much. Experience does not make you immune to pain.
All these losses you have to properly grieve, so you can let them go. Losses you may have to faithfully have to come back to again and again, to grieve and re-grieve, and let go again and again.
“Grieve. So that you can be free to feel something else.” Nayyirah Waheed.
It may be the time you lost a toy you loved.
The time you lost your job.
The time you broke your favorite vase.
The time you lost a friendship.
The time you lost a father.
In all instances, it is your heart that breaks a little or a lot, again, and again.
Our heart is what is vested into these things, people, hobbies, or jobs.
What you learn is that albeit having giving all of your heart, it may not have been enough. Not because you are not enough, or your heart is not enough, but because it wasn’t what was needed. The frequencies of your energies with this thing or person were just not compatible.
Regardless, however, even if you have this realization, that this “thing” was meant to break sooner or later, the pain of loss is no lesser and something you still have to experience, and sit through. The “sitting through” being the hardest part.
I have been concentrating a lot on self-love recently and I think I am beginning to understand the multitudes of this concept. Starting with the heart. So often we put our whole hearts into something or someone, without leaving none of it for ourselves. We “sacrifice” with the excuse, that it’s “for the greater good”, but in the end cheating ourselves and the world out of the most important currency there is, love. In this way, serving no one.
A few months ago, I had “lost” something I held up to the pedestal, that it was not. I held it above my well-being and sanity. I worked it as though it was my own and gave it all of my heart, treasuring it as a mother would love a child, as a person would love something they are creating. From one day to the next, this hypothetical child was ripped out of my hands. It was out of reach and out of my grasp.
The interesting thing, intuitionally before it even happened, I had come to the realization that I was floating in a raft in murky ocean waters, that was only held by a string to the ship that I was attempting to not get ripped apart from, but would have never had the courage to let go on my own.
I have been commended on how I have “risen above” and “handled” the situation.
One can say, that was, the sink or swim scenario. You float off on your flimsy raft but your resilience is what keeps you afloat and fighting to get to shore and not drown. Brene Brown, in her new book, Rising Strong, writes, “We have no sterile business remedy for having fallen. We still need to dig into the grit of issues, like resentment, grief, and forgiveness. As neuroscientist Antonio Damasio reminds us, humans are not either thinking machines or feeling machines, but rather feeling machines that think. Just because you’re standing in your office or your classroom or your studio doesn’t mean that you can take emotion out of this process.”
There is a multitude of topics that can go into this experience, such as trust, vulnerability, courage, betrayal, as well as self worth and even self love, but that is for another day.
When you grip something so strongly, you must allow yourself time to grieve the loss of the thing. You must give yourself time to process it. You must also stand in the discomfort of the feeling of failure. “Embracing failure without acknowledging the real hurt and fear that it can cause, or the complex journey that underlies rising strong, is gold-plating grit.” (Brene Brown)
So I stand here before you, uncomfortably naked, in a literal sense, telling you that failure hurts. It’s painful. It’s the ugly part of the process that no one sees or knows but you. It makes getting out of bed painful some days. Some days, it makes going to sleep hard, because you know you’ll dream some weird, sad scenario, that will leave you feeling sad when you wake up, at best, depressed for the day, at worst.
When the initial courageous moments subside, you are left alone in the dark room to feel your way through it, metaphorically, until you reach the light.
How that is worked through you, only you may and will know. The dreams I’ve had is a way I imagine my mind is working through it. I’m sure that is how my brain is making sense of loss and grief. My heart gets to bleed it out onto the paper, to speak up about it, and I get to be vulnerable in sharing my story by writing about it. This is all not to say that I am depressed most days, I’m not, or for you to feel sorry for me. Please don’t. Countless wonderful opportunities have come into my life, for which I am beyond grateful. This is to say, that I’m still working through it. This is my “ok” to myself for having those dark moments.
Most importantly however it is my reminder, that the light is coming.
May you, in your heart, also know, that the light is coming. May you stay in the arena a moment longer than what is comfortable.
“There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen. From “Light is the New Black”.
It’s easy to put things off.
Until tomorrow.
Until Monday.
Until some other time.
But why?
Begin today.
On a Friday.
Don’t wait on Monday.
Or the beginning of the month
Or some other time
If you want to wake up at the crack of dawn and run into the sunrise,
Do it.
If you want to write love letters to the world,
Do it.
Today.
Don’t wait on anyone.
Do it when you feel like it.
Because tomorrow,
You may not be up for it.
Tomorrow, you may be in a bad mood.
Maybe tomorrow, you’ll be busy.
Maybe something won’t turn out as planned.
Maybe something will throw off your schedule.
But today.
Today is now.
Do it now.
We wait.
We wait all our lives.
To say things we want to say.
To love people.
To pursue something that tugs at our hearts.
To meet the sunrise.
To photograph the sunset.
And we make excuses.
Every day.
Things will always come up.
Don’t let them stop you,
Today.
As my favorite person says, quit something on a Thursday.
And I say, begin something on a Friday.
Begin. Today.
The last year of my twenties was rather eventful, in a somewhat disheveled, slightly lucky and a somewhat unfortunate way.
Within 3 months of my 29th birthday, I had helped my mother find and purchase a home, I was kicked out of the house and up to that point the family that I thought to be my own, although not by blood, at least by association. Any illusion of having an actual father were washed down the toilet, and I locked out, of that illusion, figuratively and literally, whilst all my belongings and any feeling of normalcy of a “home” locked inside, in a place ironically, I called home.
Not even after a week, after my mother boarded the plane back to the country of her residence, after having purchased the home I was to move into the following month, I was told I was no longer welcome in the place my mother made “home” and up until that point where I laid my head down to sleep at night. The place where you are supposed to feel safe and welcome.
I somehow managed to move what little belongings were “allowed” out of the house I was no longer welcomed in, in the middle of the night, in a van I borrowed from work, by myself.
Three weeks later, I moved into the place that was to be my new “home”, be it mine or my mother’s – irrelevant.
At the end of that month, I got a promotion at work and a ton of new responsibility.
And so began a life in my new home, that felt oddly like a place that was being borrowed and somewhat perversely like “home”. It was supposed to feel like home, but I felt oddly uncomfortable thinking that maybe one day soon my other parent, could turn on me just as easily. So I stayed stagnant for a while. Unsure of what to make of my good fortune, and a bit flabbergasted by the bad.
I was physically and emotionally exhausted and having just received a promotion, I poured my energy into what I knew would give me an immediate result, my work.
Whether purposefully or not, I took a hiatus from CrossFit and yoga, and proceeded to get sick 3 times in the span of less than two months over the Christmas holidays well into January and February.
So what all, if anything does have to do with me turning 30 or being 30?
Well maybe nothing and maybe everything.
If my life taught me anything it’s that nothing turns out as you expect.
I didn’t expect to end up in the town I live in, I didn’t “expect” to work here, when I arrived back in the States in 2012 ready to charge at my future.
I certainly didn’t expect to get back with my at the time ex-boyfriend. That just wasn’t “part of the plan”. But. Shit happens. And sometimes shit hits the fan. And I’ve always managed to come out alive and better and all the wiser.
I imagined my 30th birthday to be something grand and absolutely the most exciting thing ever. I expected a huge party and I expected people to be really excited about the fact that I was embarking on this new decade. Having lived though my 20s I certainly felt deserving of it. Didn’t happen. People came, people celebrated, but it wasn’t what I had envisioned or what I was expecting.
If I’m learning anything is that expectations suck. And I can only expect things from myself, because I’m the only person I can control, and even then, that’s not always the case.
So my 30th arrived quietly, and was welcomed in by my mother and my boyfriend in a tucked away quiet place in the south of Georgia. Gosh, “you are old”, you’re probably thinking.
Maybe. I’ve started a joke with my friends that I am 90 at heart. I’m pretty sure it’s true. I sometimes act like I’m 5, but I am most certainly an old soul.
So 30. Here I was 30. None the wiser, none the smarter, none the prettier. Just 30. I was sure an epiphany would hit me soon.
But as often happens with epiphanies they arrive quietly and gradually just as my birthday did. There wasn’t a big boom or a big party, a lightning rod didn’t strike me, and nothing tragic or dramatic happened.
I think even life thought I had enough excitement the year before. My whole 20s decade was exciting. Even that is an understatement. It came close to that of an emu teenager meets girl next door. Full of happy pictures and drowned by sad elephant tears. I don’t remember just being ok. I was either on Cloud 9 or severely sad, (I’m purposefully calling it sad, and not depressed.) My own diagnosis.
I knew all the above mentioned would end up in a written form eventually, I just haven’t felt that it was time.
But now I’m 30 and actually all the wiser. All the wiser to know that I don’t have forever to twiddle my thumbs and wait for the perfect moment. That the time is actually right now. And I have to use the agency I’ve been given with my life. No excuses. That I am not willing to wait for someone else to get excited about my life. Screw ’em , if people aren’t excited about me, I don’t need them in my life. That may be harsh, I know, but some people are fleeting. What you create with your life is not.
Something quite literally stewed, between my heart and my brain, in the last couple of months to inspire me to take charge of my life, and something is telling me that I do not have forever. I have right now. And I can’t wait for everyone to get on board. I may be on the train by myself, maybe for a while, or maybe forever, but I have a journey to live, and I can’t wait.
I’ll quote a piece of the Elle Article from this month, celebrating their 30th anniversary and other women’s take on having turned 30. It’s very apros pos, and is most likely the inspiration I had needed.
“What got me through my 20s were all my girlfriends who’d actually turned 30. They reassured me that 30 was secretly the best, most important birthday a woman could have. Like a reverse Cinderella, my life would magically improve on the dot of midnight. My brain would mysteriously expand, and somehow all the things that didn’t make sense in my twenties -how and why people behaved the way they did, how to play the game – would all be made clear. At 30, I would know How To Do Things, including How to Make Actual Money. I’d be smarter. I wouldn’t get fooled like I did in my twenties. And you know what? All those friends were right.”
How many of us are afraid of something? The lists are countless, I’m sure.
But let’s talk about not the fear of trying or doing something, but the fear of giving up something? Even something bad. The bad that we Know in our heart is bad. Giving up on an empty relationship, giving up a job, giving up smoking, giving up judging, giving up trying to be perfect.
I’ve made up my mind to give up on a dog I’ve recently adopted. Even as I write this, I am somewhat afraid, of what exactly I’m not sure, but have an inkling about – the usual culprits, culprits of judgement, fear of looking like a failure, fear of seeming unkind, not trying hard enough, seeming unloving. All. False. Statements. I know better. I know none of those things are true.
I have set in the quiet, and thought in the quiet, and the wisdom that speaks to me, is that he is not meant for me. I did not pick a dog based on love, I picked a dog based on fear of saying no. I picked a dog, that I let someone else, who knows nothing about me, lead me to believe was good for me.
Perhaps it is not time, perhaps I need a cat, or have not found the right dog. I’m not sure. But I am sure that things are not timed based on my worldly perception of time. The Universe has shown me time and time again how well it’s timing really is. So I will allow the Universe work on it’s own time.
I will let go of this fear.
I will learn to say no, because I am the only person that knows what’s better for me. I will learn to say no, so that I can say yes to things that matter. Say yes to things that are true for me in my heart. I will risk rejection, and I will risk judgement. And I will be ok.
Ralph talks about finding what our core is.
This is a story about how I found my core and what it is.
Why I want to share something so deeply personal to me – because I’d like to give people courage to do the same.
I made a commitment with myself and with God to share my heart so that people could better understand what drives me to dig for love within and without, and so they could do the same.
It is relevant to share what broke me so that I could be made whole again. (Not a corny one liner, I promise, but is the truth).
The concepts that Ralph teaches are not new to me. This is a story that explains how his teachings are relevant and how they help.
This was written last year (in March).
A year ago I dated a man who made me feel and believe as though there was something wrong with me. There were of course others before him, but he was the pinnacle of all the heartbreaks.
I suppose not being/feeling loved is somehow ingrained in my subconscious mind from my early years, but that is another story. The relevance here was that, needing that validation is something I had always needed/wanted. That validation, however, although not the same as was in my younger years manifested into this need for validation in my twenties. What I wanted was to truly share my heart with someone. What it came out to be, because I didn’t know love within myself, was me chasing after people.
“The guy”, who shall remain nameless, for the sake of his anonymity, broke up with me over a text message, with an “I”m sorry you are not the one and I don’t love you and the things that bothered me about you before still bother me now.” Those words “broke” me. Words really do kill, as Buren says.
I heard not the nice things that he said, that I did deserve someone who did love me and gave me what I wanted in a relationship but that I wasn’t loved. This was the third time we would be parting and perhaps why this whole thing was such a pinnacle and a complete devastation for me.
All I heard was that I wasn’t loved.
By the powers that be, whatever powers you wish to believe in, I was brought to a book, called Love Does, and to a conference revolving around that book, a book and a conference that gave me the courage to find the validation within myself that has been there all along, but that I desperately searched for from others.
The validation that I was loved. That I. Was. Love. I was made of it. I. Was. It.
And the love I felt, after I had discovered this, was only amplified as I shared it with the world. I was no longer my heartbreaks. I no longer lacked anything. I was no longer “abandoned”.
I learned that to share my love with the world was human and to be loved was kosher. (We all want that). I learned that the best way to receive it is to give it and to give it freely. I wasn’t weird, or “too much”. This wasn’t an issue and I didn’t need to be “fixed”.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with me. I wanted to make the world a better place and to be loved and be loving to others and that was “normal”, not dellusional.
That love has been changing my life ever since. I am living proof that doing, feeling, and thinking Love attracts goodness into your life. That doesn’t mean every day is rainbows and roses, it just means that most days rather than not, I feel loved, I feel grateful, I see, am attracted to and seek goodness in life, and in people, and in circumstances. But I am human and although all this is wonderful what Ralph has taught me so far is how to fine tune all this.
Want patience? BE patience.
Thinking a bad thought? Pause. Ask yourself: why? Chew it, digest it, and rationalize in your mind that you have absolutely no reason to feel that way.
Negativity usually comes from fear. So what is it that we are so afraid of?
So why am I sharing all this?
Because I want to tell people that this stuff works. It does change your life, but it takes time. It’s gradual, but it happens; and the more you keep your eyes and heart open the more you’ll see how.
God IS love. Why would anyone not want that in their lives?
People have opened up their hearts and their homes to me. I have truly amazing friends and my life continues to grow and be better every single day. But Ralph with the School of Positive Thinking is really driving this home. Because every single day we are faced with situations, that for the last 20, 30, 40 years our minds have been conditioned to react to.
None of you that know me now, knew the crocodile tears I shed every single day when I didn’t feel the love I craved. Perhaps I was a completely different individual, or perhaps the true me was there all along, and I just needed to tap into my true core.
The biggest thing I have learned and am learning is to how control that beautiful thing called our mind. A beautiful thing we need to learn to tame for the better. Learning to recognize when it’s about to go off the deep end. In this way, I am able to be more patient with people, to be more empathetic and to be less reactionary, to be more more aware and “in tune” with my surroundings.
All the love that I have put out into the world and have felt within me returns to me every single day tenfold.
Written March 2014.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here's an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 620 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 10 trips to carry that many people.
I have days that creep in that sound familiar to this. They are not seasons, but the days nonetheless, and they feel like forever. I’m glad they only last days, a couple, or a few.
The Light 