What If Love Actually Is All Around?

I've come to an uncomfortable conclusion about my relationships lately.

It's not them, it's me.

I've lived in a scarcity mindset for so long that I have developed this idea that I'm lacking support and alone in the world. That no one really cares what I say, do, or need. I've told myself it's fine, I prefer being on my own anyway. I don't need anyone. My defense mechanisms are so typical that it's almost laughable. 

Yes, I do enjoy spending time on my own. I flourish in solitude. That being said, I've come to realize that meaningful connection with others is also essential to my well-being.

The truth that's now revealing itself to me is that I'm not alone. I'm just terrible at receiving.

I've always been giving, and I thought that made me a kind and vulnerable person. It is kind, when it comes from an authentic place. But I can admit that sometimes my generosity comes with unspoken strings attached. I want validation, love, and appreciation in return. And I don't always get that, and then I feel I've given part of myself away to those who will never value me.

This is entirely a "me" problem. I can't control how others respond, but I can control where I choose to spread my own energy and kindness. Giving feels good, but it requires no actual vulnerability. 

Once I understood that true vulnerability lies in receiving, my patterns made more sense. I feel uncomfortable when others want to give to me, so I usually avoid it, shut it down, or simply choose to bring people into my life who are rather selfish. Then I can stay in my comfortable victim mentality. I can keep getting exactly what I'm used to instead of what I really want deep down inside.

I don't think I'm alone in this. Maybe you, too, were raised to believe that you had to give all the time. Maybe you never had your needs met as a child and kept perpetuating those same patterns into adulthood. Our parents fuck all of us up somehow - it seems inevitable. So what if instead of believing that everyone lives to take advantage of you, you shifted your beliefs? What if you chose to believe that love is all around? 

I can tell you that I've already seen shifts in my life as I slowly learn to receive support. I've found that my friends are actually eager to support and give to me if I let them (remember - giving feels good!). They are happy to be there for me. I am also calling more like-minded, kind and supportive people into my life now that I value my own energy and time. 

I'm letting myself receive, little by little. It's not as scary as I thought. It might even ... feel good. 

You deserve to get back everything you give out. You are worthy of love, kindness, compassion, and support. In order to actually receive, though, you first need to believe that you deserve it. Then you must start opening up and allowing it. It's time to lower those walls, darling. They aren't doing you any good.

You can do this. It'll feel foreign and daunting at first, but with each little act of receiving, your confidence and self-worth grow. I can attest to that. There are people in this world who want to support you.

You matter. Sending you love. 

What If You Gave Yourself Permission To Rest?

 Do you know how to rest?

I certainly didn't. I'm not sure I've ever really rested in the last decade and a half. My nervous system was so incredibly out of whack that I literally could not simply sit and do ... nothing. The anxious energy stored in my body wouldn't allow it. 

Considering how recently I've begun digging into my healing process, I'm heartened with the progress that I've made. I'm here to give you hope if you think you're incapable of quieting your anxiety long enough to relax. If you really want to get there, you can. I not only couldn't relax, I had no idea that what I felt was so incredibly far from a balanced state. And yet, here I am, learning to let go a little more each day. 

When sitting still is uncomfortable, stay. Breathe. Notice how your body feels. It sounds simple, but if you aren't accustomed to doing this, it might feel excruciating just to be with yourself. Running on the hamster wheel of life keeps most of us from truly inhabiting ourselves. Don't give up on the experience of really dropping into your body when it doesn't feel great in the beginning. If you want to create change, you have to push through everything that feels foreign to you. It doesn't feel that way because it's bad, it feels that way because it's not what you're used to experiencing.

I think that one of the main reasons we resist our own healing and growth is because it makes us uncomfortable, and we don't like feeling discomfort. Change isn't easy. 

If this resonates with you, and you feel like you are incapable of letting yourself rest, I encourage you to do a little research on anxiety and the nervous system. I thought my anxiety ruled me, that I had no control over myself. Turns out that is far from true - I just needed to start the process of taking the control back. There are many ways to do so - taking herbal supplements, eating healthily and mindfully, therapy, breath work, yoga, and cutting back on caffeine, alcohol and sugar. That's what's worked for me. You might find something different. What's most important is that you explore.

If you simply feel that you have no time to commit to actual rest, then my answer to you is this: make it non-negotiable. It has to be a crucial part of your life, not something you push away as a last-ditch effort every day until you realize you've gone months without taking care of yourself. 

I was also guilty of this, and let me tell you something. You aren't doing yourself any favors by running yourself ragged. I can absolutely guarantee you that if you block out rest time - and I mean true rest, not vegging out watching tv and eating junk, but really nourishing and listening to your body and spirit - you will get more done during your productive hours. You cannot build a happy life on an empty, depleted foundation. 

Carve out some rest time. Start small if you need to, but make a promise to yourself and keep it. The more promises you keep, the more confident you will feel in your ability to take care of yourself. 

Start today. Your health is a finite resource. If you continue squandering it, you'll end up with regrets. You got this. Baby steps. Sending you love. 

What If You Started Owning Your Shit?

You know what's easy? Criticizing and blaming others for your problems. You know what's not? Looking objectively at your own role in your interactions with the world.

I should know. I'm relatively intelligent and perceptive - I'm not just saying that, my therapist thinks so too! (Ha!) I've always fancied myself as great at communication with others, but lately I'm realizing that I'm TERRIBLE at it. Okay, perhaps that's a little harsh, but I'm nowhere near where I thought I was. Turns out that simply throwing a lot of words at someone doesn't count as communicating... who knew? 

This, and other truths about the way in which I perceive myself in my relationships, are difficult for me to swallow. Sometimes my therapy sessions feel like a battle of reconciliation between my long-held idea of who I am in my relationships and the uncomfortably spot-on points that my therapist makes as a third-party observer. It literally feels like a war going on inside me as the way I've always perceived my interactions tries desperately to hold its ground against the new knowledge that I'm gaining every day.

I say all this because I don't want you to beat yourself up if you have never owned your shit, if you're just beginning to own your shit, or if you don't have the slightest idea how to begin owning your shit. IT's HARD! Like I said, I am smart, quick to learn, and consider myself relatively self-aware. I'm also very hard on myself. The biggest struggle of all is to accept how much I myself contribute to the dumpster fires in my personal life without totally hating myself in the process. 

That's the trick. Develop a strong sense of self-love and self-worth in order to confront your own issues and the active role you play in your life, or it might tear you up. Accepting responsibility for your decisions is important, but if you find yourself using it to further put yourself down, you're off the mark. Forgiving yourself for not knowing more in that moment is an essential part of your transition to a healthy awareness in the future. 

You can only do your best with what you know at the time. As you gain more knowledge and self-awareness, you'll do better, but it's a journey. We all make mistakes, we all fuck up, and we all wish we'd known more - but we can't change the past. Clinging to regret does you no good. 

Owning your shit comes with the prerequisite of learning how to be gentle with yourself as you grow, change and develop clearer awareness. Don't try to do it all at once. Work on your foundation in yourself so that you can stop blaming and criticizing others, realizing that it accomplishes nothing, and instead look first at where you can shift and change in a situation. You cannot control anyone but you. Instead of throwing your energy all over someone else, use it where it does the most good - right where it lives. 

I know it's a lot. It can be overwhelming. I get overwhelmed too. But we have to start somewhere, and any movement forward is preferable to staying stuck.

You got this. I've got your back. Sending you so much love. 

What If You Put The Same Effort Into Healing That You Put Into Staying Hurt?

We don't want to believe that we prefer to remain in a victim mentality.

We don't want to believe it because we think that if it's true, it means that we are bad or foolish or self-destructive. But it isn't that simple and it isn't that conscious. We don't stay in a victim mentality on purpose. It's simply what we know, it's comfortable, and we understand it. So there we sit and stagnate and wonder why nothing in our lives changes.

You may think, of course I want to heal. Who doesn't want to heal? On the surface that may be true, but in reality, healing is terrifying. It's stepping into the unknown and hoping that you come out on the other side, and maybe you don't believe that you will make it. I've been on an intensive healing journey for several months now and I still spend a lot of time in fear that I will not "make it". And you won't, and I won't, because there's no real end point. It's a continuous journey, for the rest of our lives.

There you have it. That's what's truly scary. Healing is work. Our old, unhealthy patterns feel easy. They are comfortable, familiar, and we know how to operate within their boundaries. Truth be told, most people prefer to stay relatively unhappy in comfort than risk failing at trying for something more. If it weren't true, you and I and everyone else on this path wouldn't have had to reach a tipping point in order to decide that we can no longer settle for our version of normal.

So, you've stayed in these dysfunctional habits because they felt easy to you, but in truth, they take just as much effort as healing. The difference is that you are so accustomed to operating in a place of unhappiness that you don't see the work anymore. The physical and mental discomfort brought on by years of endless stress, dissatisfaction and depression feel like your baseline. 

It takes work to keep yourself stuck when everything in your being is screaming at you to finally sit up and pay attention. It takes work to deny and ignore what your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual selves know beyond any doubt. It not only takes work, it's killing you slowly, but you have chosen it over and over again because the unknown is so incredibly frightening. 

But what if the unknown could also be more fulfilling and meaningful than you'd ever imagined?

It doesn't have to be scary. It can be exciting, full of possibility, and a fresh start for your life. I read somewhere recently that the only difference between fear and excitement is breath. What if when you feel fear towards the idea of healing, you stay in your body, embrace the present moment, and breathe? Trust that you are okay, right here and right now, and that you are safe to feel excitement about healing instead of fear.

The unknown is beautiful. When you think about it, everything is uncertain anyway, so you might as well leap into something new. You gain nothing by staying stuck and unhappy. 

You can begin your journey towards healing. Take the work in small steps, small increments. Stay in the present and don't get caught up in worrying over the future. Breathe. Begin every day with the intent to further your progress just a bit, and the rest will unravel naturally in time.

You got this. I love you. Keep your head up. 

What If We Normalized Openly Feeling All Of Our Emotions?

What a concept, eh?

How lovely it would be if we felt comfortable sharing all of ourselves with the world. The good, the good, and the good - because I don't believe any of it is bad or ugly. 

There is often an overarching emphasis in our society on the idea of healing as sticking staunchly to positivity and avoiding any less ... attractive emotions. And I call bullshit. Emotions are there for a reason. No one floats through this world feeling nothing but happiness, joy and peace. Especially not in the process of healing. 

I don't believe that even the most enlightened among us never feel frustration, sadness, loneliness, or everything else on the gamut. The difference is in how they handle and process this discomfort. 

Healing isn't about pretending that nothing is wrong and forcing yourself into a positive mindset while shoving the truth of your process down and stifling it under a smile. Quite the opposite. Healing is about peering into the wounds and learning their true nature in order to find a way to mend them properly so that they leave as little scarring as possible. 

Invisible wounds are the same as those that physically show on the body. If you do not clean a cut, but instead cover it so that no one can see, what happens? It gets infected. It oozes. Eventually a small scratch becomes a life-threatening problem. 

And so it goes with emotional and mental wounds ... we suppress them out of denial, fear of judgment, lack of self-awareness ... there are endless reasons. The world does not treat mental health fairly, and so we deny our own mental health issues. They are in fact no different than physical issues, but because they are perceived as making us less than, we hide them out of shame. 

Unfortunately, this is unlikely to change unless we do something about it. Perhaps if we begin, one by one, refusing to hide our truths in the shadows, we can make a difference. So many societal issues would be lessened or even solved if everyone was simply freed to feel comfortable expressing true emotion in a healthy, constructive and accepted manner. Then we would not feel obligated or pressured to carry it all inside until it becomes such a heavy burden that we explode, collapse, or crumple inwards.

Let's begin today. It's okay not to feel okay. That's the damn truth. The sooner we find the freedom to release emotion, the sooner we can process it and let it go. That's what leads to the ability to deal with our problems constructively. 

Find the courage today to begin standing, little by little, in the truth of your own emotions. You got this. I got you.

Much love. 

What If You Simply Gave Yourself A Friggin Break Today?

 Like so many things, it sounds simple, and yet I'm willing to bet you almost never do this for yourself.

Do you have a constant, nagging voice in your head telling you what you should and should not be doing? That you're behind? That you're not good enough? Is it so ingrained that you can't differentiate it from yourself anymore? 

You see, that's the thing - the voice isn't you. Maybe you've never quite realized that or it's been a part of your thought process for so long that you've forgotten, but it's not who you are. 

I thought my inner voice was me, too. I've criticized myself in my own thought process constantly for most of my life. Of course I no longer understood that the voice is, in fact, simply a combination of all the voices that judged, criticized and disrespected me when I was a child. When I finally got a new therapist and she pointed out how horribly cruel and relentless my thoughts about myself are, it took me a while to fully integrate what she meant.

"Should" and "I need to" are bullshit guilt trips that we place upon ourselves, and yet if you examine your own thoughts I bet that you think in terms of "should" and "I need to" quite a lot. What if you replaced them with "could" and "I want to"? Just consider it. Think about how that might shift your mental state. If you were not in a constant thought spiral of guilt, shame and denial about who you are, what could you do? What would you want to do? 

I am very proud of the progress that I've made since the day I realized that my thoughts do not, in fact, own me. I let my own brain run me ragged, but that was an unconscious choice I made day in and day out because I knew no other way. You are in charge of your thoughts! They are not in charge of you, and they can be changed. The beauty is that no matter how ingrained the patterns you have currently, thoughts can always be changed, as long as you want that change badly enough.

That voice still tries to chime in and tell me that I should have gone to bed earlier, I should have gotten up earlier, I should have accomplished more today, I should have exercised more. It was my mind's foremost influence for decades - it's not entirely gone, and maybe it never will be. That's okay, because now when it pipes up, I know that I can quiet it and accept exactly who I am, where I am.

Try it today - there's no time like now. What if you start listening for that critical inner voice, and when it tries to interfere with your life, you give yourself a break instead of conceding? What if you allow yourself to be? What if you let go of what's already done and decide regret and guilt are a useless waste of your energy?

You are worthy exactly as you are. There is nothing that you have to do or accomplish in order to deserve your spot in this world. You are enough. That's it. End of story. 

Give yourself a break today and allow yourself to actually believe it.

What If Going Through The Shit Is The Only Way Out Of It?

This topic seems appropriate, considering that most of us feel like the world is a complete and utter shitstorm right now. And we aren't wrong, but for many, the world is always this chaotic and unstable. The difference is that right now we are all experiencing the same shitstorm on a global level. There are always major crises and tragedies occurring all around us. It's just that usually we look away because we can. It doesn't directly concern us. 

This grand splitting-open isn't necessarily a bad thing. It brings to light our intense failure to right social justice issues across the board. It exposes the truth of the fragility of our global economy, the dangerous financial reliance of many low-income groups and developing nations on the tourism boom of the past few decades, and the ridiculousness of giving our life's blood away to meaningless work in the name of constantly chasing the illusion of material happiness. 

What I've noticed most during this mess is that those around me suddenly desire to change the course of their lives. They - and I too - are realizing that we are living a lie, attempting to fit into a formula that simply does not work sustainably any longer. We want to choose a better way. We want to feel like we even HAVE a choice in a world that so increasingly informs us that we do not - unless we want to end up homeless and destitute.

So that brings me to this simple fact: if we were not going through this shitstorm, this intense, communal test, would we be here right now? I do not think so, not in the shift I've seen in people previously committed to their daily grind, unhappy but still unquestioning.

I am not pretending that this is a beautiful and uplifting time of change. It's obviously not. People are dying and suffering and hurting and bearing burdens of every kind of oppression imaginable. I also don't believe that's new. Again, we weren't looking because we didn't have to. Some still turn their eyes away, and some will never acknowledge the interconnectedness of our universe, denying it vehemently even as their every selfish decision negatively impacts the lives of others. 

I am also not implying that once we go through the shit, we will really be "out of it". There's no such thing. Life is literally a journey of constantly going through shit, but wouldn't you rather move through it and on to slightly better-smelling shit than sit in the same old pile your whole life? Stale shit gets old real fast.

My point is that there is no glossy shortcut to healing the world or anything else, and that goes for your personal journey as well. Think of get-well-quick promises as pyramid schemes, because they are. Healing is messy, chaotic, and at many junctures along the way you will feel worse than you did before you began. It is not linear, it is not promised, and it is definitely not all sparkles, sunshine, and magic. When breakthroughs do occur, they are magical in their visceral specificity to your internal turmoil. No one else needs to understand them as long as you do. 

I challenge you to give yourself permission to leap into the middle of that steaming pile of shit that you have spent so much time and energy attempting to avoid. Let me tell you right now, you can't get around it. If you know that beyond any doubt, will you finally do the tough work of muddling through? Or will you spend your entire life force desperately denying that it exists, even as you inhale the putrid familiarity? 

You can do this. Know that even if there are more obstacles beyond it, the more work you do, the easier it becomes to deal with them. Learn to become so strong in your foundation that nothing can shake you. This is what taking charge of your healing does for you, even when it's not pretty and even when it feels so difficult that you can't keep going. You can. You are capable of owning your journey.

I love you. You got this. We got this. We have to heal ourselves so we can help to heal the world.