The Peaceful Co-Existence Of The Destination & The Journey

The mind is quite powerful, isn’t it? It can create things outside of reality yet we still willingly embrace them as real.

I can at times find myself standing at the base of mountains only I can see. Mountains of my own fear-based creation in the form of perceived challenges and obstacles I accept to be real standing before me. There are things to attain and achieve, needed outcomes to set me free, yet somehow I have the ability to complicate my own journey forward by painting images of those emotional mountains in my head.

I’m quite experienced at navigating such ascents. In fact I’ve climbed some of these same mountains several times, usually frustrated by the need to climb them yet again. Frustrated with every step forward. Not understanding why I need to retrace my steps yet again.

The present moment sounds like a wonderful place to be, but I’ve spent very little time living there. I’ve always been more about the destination than the journey, a mindset engrained from an early age that there is always more to do and every moment basking in “what is” is one moment that should have been used marching towards some ever-elusive destination.

A destination driven mindset leaves little room to appreciate the present moments of the journey. There is always somewhere else to be other than the here and the now.

Most of my “inner work” of late has been focused on being at peace with “what is”. And when I find I am once again frustratedly standing at the base of one of those mountains I create in my mind, I am reminded that I still have more work to do. As has been said, “the lessons will continue until the lesson is learned”, which is why, despite my “inner work”, I can still at times find myself with a mountain before me.

A mountain of my own creation.

A mountain which need not exist.

It can be a very uncomfortable space, the present moment. Especially if you’ve spent most of your life running away from “what is”. But in my willingness to stay with it, the discomfort has slowly diminished and I’ve gradually experienced the promised peace attributed to the present moment.

In the clarity of the present moment I can see the mountains for what they actually are.

One thing I’ve learned about mountains is that you don’t have to climb them if they don’t exist. Just because I’ve habitually created them doesn’t mean I need to continue to do so.

There are still goals to achieve and outcomes I desire, but the urgency of their completion has been replaced with the consistency of present action. Of not being fearfully overpowered with the vastness and necessity of what’s in front of me and instead showing up fully one moment at a time, embracing the vision without being overwhelmed by it all.

More trust. More flow.

The destination and the journey now peacefully co-exisiting within me.

Photo by Amanda Sandlin on Unsplash

Moving Forward When We Don’t Want To Move At All

Sometimes the heavy days win. The weight of it all eventually buckling your emotional knees and all you want to do is get through it. Recoil. Ride the storm out.

Sometimes the storms within us rage far longer than we expect them to. Survival becomes the priority and in such a mode we often keep our heads down and playing small. In the face of the waves crashing upon us, it feels like the safest option.

But it’s not the only one.

Sometimes I get tired of being resilient, of pushing the same rock up the same hill, of having to rise above situations I did not create but impact me none the less. Sometimes I get tired of clearing such emotional rubble out of the way blocking my path forward. Sometimes I do catch myself with my head down and playing small.

It shows up in my energy and my actions. I notice the things I don’t want to do, the conversations I don’t want to have, my disinterest and indifference and apathetic efforts to do anything Continue reading “Moving Forward When We Don’t Want To Move At All” →

Elevators Or Perpetuators?

8 billion people on this Earth and the vast majority of them fall into one of two groups.

Elevators or Perpetuators.

Those who will lift us up. Those who will keep us stuck.

There are far more people willing to keep us stuck.

Elevators are the rare ones. They’re the ones who know who we are and continuously support where we are going. Perpetuators would rather have us stay exactly where we already are, and if we let them influence us that’s exactly where we’ll stay.

The people we willingly surround ourselves with directly impact the trajectory of our life.

Some will lift us up.

Some will keep us stuck.

Elevators or Perpetuators.

Chose wisely.

Photo by Jason Dent on Unsplash

Moving Past The Old Familiar Sting

On the sidewalk of a small strip mall I noticed a sandwich board sign in front of a liquor store. “Beer doesn’t ask silly questions. Beer understands”. Google “words of wisdom” and it’s highly unlikely that those words printed on that sign would ever come back in the search results.

Perhaps they should.

As someone who endured a rather intense 18 year “relationship” with beer, those words on the sign struck me deeper than I expected them to. Because I know them to be true. Beer was a loyal friend, very predictable, and always took me where I needed to go, unconditionally. Even if where I was going was detrimental to myself. It didn’t question or evaluate what I needed from the relationship. It had a purpose to serve and that’s exactly what it did.

There is something powerfully reaffirming when you feel understood. When you have nothing to justify nor defend. When you’re simply accepted as is. Familiarity provides an intoxicating comfort, even if what’s familiar is undermining your own emotional well being.

Growing beyond the familiar is quite uncomfortable. Alcohol made it easy for me to not have to deal with my own deeper issues, the things on some level I knew I needed to work through but I never had the courage or willingness to do. I decided to stay stuck in the familiar instead of embracing the uncertainty of growth.

Growth asks way too many questions.

In the hauntingly beautiful song “Hurt”, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails speaks of “the old familiar sting”, widely accepted as a reference to substance abuse, though others have interpreted this line Continue reading “Moving Past The Old Familiar Sting” →

Urgency, Clarity, Intention, & Purpose

Her text brought an unexpected smile to my face.

It’s July 4th and my younger sister reached out with a memory of the day we celebrated America’s bicentennial. Our ever-crafty Mom baked a couple dozen cupcakes and us neighborhood kids got to decorate them with the red, white, and blue frosting she made. We all got together by the old fence separating our yard from Dave Wooler’s yard and expressed our patriotic spirit in a very sweet way.

I had forgotten all about that day but her text brought me right back into that moment. The faces, the voices…hard to believe it was 50 years ago.

Revisiting memories is often a double-edged emotional sword for me. Inevitably I will move past the memory itself and find myself fixated on the time separating the memory and the now. As in what have I done with my life in those years in between. As much as I’ve come to accept the path my life has taken, that nagging and quite persistent inquisitive voice within has the tendency to prompt me to revisit my path. The choices I made. The choices I didn’t make. The choices I never allowed myself to make.

Quite often this line of questioning was met with a tenacious hostile reaction from within, sort of the same reaction I experienced when I felt short of the paternal expectations I wasn’t living up to. I should have done better, and not knowing what better actually was didn’t let me off the hook for not doing Continue reading “Urgency, Clarity, Intention, & Purpose” →

Maybe I Am The Problem

I wasn’t aware of the Soup Rule.

Standing in line at Panera and the person in front of me was tormented with indecision trying to decide what to order for lunch. Her painful deadlock was eventually resolved when she determined that it was too hot for soup and ordered the sandwich instead.

Yes, it certainly was hot that day, and apparently the high heat disqualified soup from lunch contention.

I like soup. I just never knew there were parameters limiting its availability for consumption.

I’m not sure how rules like this get started, but at some point she accepted the elevated reading on the outdoor thermometer as a valid reason to limit her dining options. For me, if I want soup I’ll have soup regardless of the weather conditions. But the more I thought about this, I realized for me this was no longer about the soup. This morphed into me starting to examine the limiting parameters I may have placed upon myself.

As I ate my lunch, I thought about my own rules, the guiding parameters and nuances I’ve willingly accepted in my life. The beliefs and ideals that influence the habits and actions which shape my life. Some were my cultural and tribal inheritance, others I created for myself. Taking inventory of your own beliefs and ideals provides you with the opportunity to evaluate them. Which ones serve you? Which ones no longer do? Which ones never did? Which ones are you willing to let go of?

My beliefs and ideals have given me the life I have, a life I am infinitely grateful to have. Life, though, is a never ending work in progress, ever evolving in front of us. As I continue to grow and evolve, am I allowing my beliefs and ideals to grow and evolve with me?

Or is what I accept that I am holding me back from becoming who I was created to be?

Photo by Juan Miranda Ferris on Unsplash

The Color Of Courageous Authenticity

Fourteen.

That’s our personal record. That’s the number of paint samples we evaluated as we looked to refresh the family room. The first five samples weren’t very exciting, neither were the next five, and the last four were one final attempt to find that one elusive color we’d been hoping to find to bring the room alive.

Ultimately we selected one of the first five we looked at.

With infinite color choices readily available, we ended up with more of what we already had. At the sample stage we were bold and adventurous, inspired to create and take chances. But when it came time to commit to something outside of our ordinary we instead chose more of our ordinary. Bold and adventurous gave way to the familiar and safe.

What could have been had we been willing to actually create it.

Life sometimes feels like a room that could use a little refreshing. A chance to recolor our world to better reflect who we really are and who we know we were created to become. To no longer accept the narrow color palate of a life that was expected of us and to instead embrace our own bold and adventurous colors, colors only we can bring into this world.

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with familiar and safe. Unless familiar and safe serve as limiting parameters preventing us from growing, evolving, and expressing our truest colors.

In a world where we can be anything, may we find the courage to express our most authentic self.

Photo by russn_fckr on Unsplash

Which Voice Do You Listen To?

Clarity.

The search for meaning, purpose, direction. Of sorting through the past and the present in hopes of shaping your aligned future. Those willing to dive into the deep end of their own emotional pool will first need to faithfully navigate the murkiness of what is in order to then be able to find the pathway towards the version of themselves they’re looking for.

But clarity has its detractors. Usually those who’ve never chosen to confront their own inner murkiness.

The process of becoming is a lonely one. The voice within often taunted by the voices outside of you, familiar voices, voices you’d expect to give you the space to grow instead working to keep you where they’d rather have you stay.

Which voice do you listen to?

On my meandering path forward I’ve learned to focus more on the expectations I have for myself. I’ve given myself the space to grow. My path is my responsibility and my voice is the one I’ve learned to value and trust to guide me down my path.

Others don’t have to understand nor be supportive.

I’m not waiting around for them to do so.

Photo by Papaioannou Kostas on Unsplash

The View From The Floor

I could bore you with the things that annoy me, that frustrate me, that get deeply under my skin. I could provide you with factual evidence to justify and have you validate the feelings that have knocked me off my emotional center.

But my problems are never your problems to resolve.

That’s for me to do.

Ownership is often uncomfortable and illogical. Especially when there are fingers to point and blame to be cast.

But we never move past that which we are unwilling to own.

No matter how many times life has pushed you down the stairs, it is your responsibility to get back up.

No matter how you got there.

The view from the floor is never pretty. It certainly doesn’t get any prettier the longer you stay there.

Photo by Rainier Ridao on Unsplash

A Safe Space For Emotional Authenticity

I remember her tears when she fell off the swing and broke her forearm many years ago. That was one of my bittersweet recollections as I stood before the swing set on a Friday afternoon, ratchet in hand, as I began to disassemble a part of her life she had simply outgrown.

She outgrew it well before I was ready to accept that she did.

Life is full of transitions, many of which happen well before we are willing to accept them. The impermanent nature of everything can lead us to resist realities we are not yet ready to embrace, clinging ever tightly in hopes of prolonging the inevitable. But the inevitable is called inevitable for a reason.

There is a delicate balance between holding on and letting go, a balance I struggled with as the pile of rusted bolts grew at my feet. Over the years I’ve learned to allow myself to handle life transitions however I need to handle them, giving myself the grace to toggle between the holding on and the letting go. There is no “right” way to measure my response against, as my journey and my process are uniquely mine to experience. No apologies or explanations needed. For others or for myself.

Just a safe space where I am free to be emotionally authentic in any moment, in any situation.

Even on a Friday afternoon with a ratchet in my hand.

Creating such a space was one of the most significant transitions I’ve made in my own life.

A space we all deserve.

Photo by Clay LeConey on Unsplash

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding