Letting go.

People often come to ask me for advice about different things going on in their lives and often times my response is 'just let it go'. I am well aware that this is often easier said than done. We have expectations of ourselves of others or specific situations that we want to unfold in certain ways. We think things should be done a certain way or perhaps we think we are simply being challenged by life again. The reality is it's time to let go, go inward, relax, take care of ourselves and stop worrying about whatever else is going on.

Today I realized that letting go comes in different forms. When you tell someone to let go of a person, it's different than surrendering to what is, or stepping out of the chaos or drama. When situations become crazy or dramatic it's easy to jump to conclusions, create stories and then naturally try to fix it, make it calmer, ease the tension. The best thing to do is just step away. Let the situation work itself out, let the dust settle and go and take care of yourself for a while. This is the Universe's way of saying, 'back off, I've got this' (in a very loving way of course, unless you choose not to listen). And I would have to say that letting go in this kind of scenario is the easiest one to do.

Letting go of people on the other hand...now that's an entirely different story. Or not, maybe I'm wrong, but in my reality and experience, the emotions that are connected to people are far harder to deal with than emotions connected to situations. I think that is because people are like fixtures and physical beings that create connections and experiences whereas situations are fluid and dynamic and more of an idea rather than a physical being.

The reason I am writing this is because I have come to understand that I have three ways of letting go.
1) temporarily walk away, give space, relax and let things work themselves out
2) stick with something long enough and through to the end when it is crystal clear one day that the relationship between you and whatever else is there is done. The energy is neutral and distinctly disconnected.
3) let go abruptly because you have no choice other than to do that.

I detest the 3rd option because, for me, I often get angry, resentful and bitter and to counter that, instead of sitting with those emotions and actually feeling them I tend to get righteous and say, "He'll be sorry one day!" or whatever pertains to the situation. Yesterday, I had that come back to bite me in the ass, not in a bad way, but just enough to get me to understand this, this post, the way I have chosen to let go of things and how it is not serving me to stuff away my anger when it comes up.

So thank you for your email, your apology and I wish you well too.

K

Craving Community

At many points in my life I have been surrounded by friends, out at parties, getting together for dinner or just time to catch up and in many of those points as much as I have felt like I belonged to something, I also felt I didn't quite fit.

Now I work all over North America, in a different city nearly every weekend for the past two years with different crowds, but a consistent group of co-workers who have come to be like family to me. When I come home, I feel at home and yet I am craving something that I have never found here which is my own sense of community. It has always felt like sand running through my fingers. When I was away at school, it was a common community because I went to a school, but when you get out of school they don't tell you that you are free to create a new life, that you will have to find your way and your place in the world, that sometimes it will make you feel extremely alone, especially if you are doing something you detest.

I wonder how much of my craving for community comes from the fact that I am off in different places all the time and lacking a place that is mine. I have a stable place to be, but it's not mine, and I wonder how much of it is that my community resides elsewhere and gets together elsewhere? Where does that community I belong to live? Are they in my area? Are they across the country? Across the continent in a different country? Or is this me feeling discontented with where I am again? I know damn well I can create whatever I want and I have wanted to create a community around me of like-minded individuals, but what has been missing is the group of like-minded individuals within my age range, within my scope of identity and ability to identify with, a group of like-minded individuals who have not walked the simple path, who have taken risks in their life, who have grown out of their old selves, who are looking for new horizons and who are contributing consciously to the world. I want and need to be fed the food I have been feeding other people when I am at home and not just on the road.

While I appreciate the contrast home provides, I am questioning whether it is serving me or if we have simply outgrown each other. Perhaps there is a community here and I am choosing not to see it because it's completely not possible that THIS community here is anywhere near as good as what I get when I'm away from home. (Nice story) I am noticing a vicious circle here...

Maybe it's time to make a change...

Thinking Makes Me Tired

Perhaps it's for school, or a work project or something that you are so immersed in that you just can't seem to pull yourself away. Perhaps it's a way of life you have adopted that you just can't seem to pull back from.

I am talking about the amazing kind of thinking that happens when the wheels start to turn in sync in your brain and ideas flow, actions are effortless and time becomes lost... Anyone ever have one of those moments?

I happen to absolutely be in love with what I do and create for people in my work. I will do as much as I possibly can for our clients when I have the ability to find a solution to their situation. And I do a damn good job. I get extremely frustrated when the information I find for them or the solutions I create do not address 100% what I want to be able to communicate with them and that is when the thinking makes me tired. Trying to go the extra mile on top of the extra mile to be the winner of the "I did that for them" award instead of loving that I get to often times, just be a catalyst that gets people started, that creates a forward momentum.

But I know this kind of tired is the best kind of tired. It's the tired that puts a smile on my face before I fall asleep at night, it's the tired that fills my heart with pride and gratitude that I was able to make a difference in someone's day...sometimes life!

Someone once told me, "All I know to do is give 100% of whatever is possible for me to give, say, do and when my head hits the pillow I go to sleep at peace at night. If there ever is a night where I can honestly say I didn't do that, then it's time to re-evaluate." (I might not have been word for word that, but it was damn close.)

I take pride in knowing that I do give 100% of what I can, if not more sometimes and I also take pride in knowing that when I acknowledge my less than 100% that I can always go back and revisit it. Sometimes the wheels stop turning and the ideas stop flowing for a reason. Sometimes we need to give 100% to ourselves instead of everyone else. Do what makes you feel good about yourself and if what you're doing doesn't make you feel good about yourself, stop doing it for a while, take a breather, create some space for the situation and look at it with fresh, awake eyes and perspective. Give your 100% and let the rest do it's job.

Don't worry, just breathe. If it's meant to be it will find it's way.

Puzzle Pieces

Have you ever done a puzzle, picked up a puzzle piece and toyed around trying to figure out where it goes for what seems like forever only to set it down until later when its place suddenly reveals itself?

Considering I love doing puzzles, this happens all the time. Not just in physical puzzles, but in the puzzle pieces that come together in my life. Sometimes it's people, other times it is things, websites, names, information...

Most recently it has been knowledge learned from the last four years. When I completed my teaching degree I came home and decided to take the opposite path of most of the people I had gone to school with...although I tried to get a teaching position, I was also trying to make a go of something different that involved helping kids without being in a school. I had ideas galore...puzzle pieces in abundance, but no framework in which to put them. I didn't know this then, but looking back I can see clearly I was just trying to fit it into something so I could build a bigger picture!

Once I finally surrendered to the brick wall I kept hitting, I just allowed myself to take in as much information as I could knowing that it would serve me at some point when I needed it. The other thing I did was I kept mental note of the things that resonated most with me, the areas in which I put a lot of attention and the things that seemed simple enough to execute quickly and inexpensively. For 3 of those 4 years I struggled to figure out my place in the world, who I was, what I stood for and how I could be of service, but I failed to acknowledge that those puzzle pieces already existed in my life, but I had chosen not to look at them. I gradually started reintegrating some of those elements of myself, those puzzle pieces and quickly the puzzle began to grow and become clearer, as did my own confidence, clarity and personal power. These were the internal puzzle pieces. The external puzzle pieces were the topics like internet marketing, training, writing that created a framework for my inner puzzle to attach to when the right pieces were in place.

Lately I have been looking back to those framework pieces that I knew I would need at some point and I am realizing just how many resources I have to make my dreams a reality. And I am also realizing that I can take exactly what I feel would work for me, implement it and adjust as I go because I know that some things are going to work swimmingly while others may not...then again, being this patient and conscious of the information I have taken in, maybe it will all work out swimmingly for me :)

Either way I can see that I have rediscovered some puzzle pieces that now have a place in my life and I am super excited about figuring out exactly where they fit and how they might contribute to the bigger picture!