Let Go

What aren’t you ready to know? 

It’s an interesting question, one we think we can’t answer.

But our mind is magnificent. 

It can take any question given, even those barely whispered towards it, and come back with an answer.

And so we think we can trust it. 

And often we can. 

But what is wild 

Is that over 90% of our thoughts are unconscious. 

We don’t even know that we’re thinking them.

So we don’t really know, do we?

Is the answer our mind comes back with based in truth? 

Or is the brain just trying to do its job? 

To let know inquiry go unanswered? 

Life is such an interesting experiment in the impossible to understand.

But there are times

Nonetheless

That when I ask myself. “What aren’t you ready to know?”

My mind floats back to me with the fears it knows I am now ready to see.

The old thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and perceptions 

That it finally knows

I am ready to let go of.

Striving

I often catch myself 

Expect myself to have made 

better decisions in the past.

As if I should have known better. 

As I knew the future

Saw it coming

Every twist and turn of fate

The far-reaching branches 

Of all my possible choices

Could see it all clearly

And still

Chose the wrong path.

I don’t know what I’m expecting of myself

I say.

But I do know.

Perfection.

As if such a goal is actually achievable.

As if having a less-than-perfect life is a personal fault

Instead of an indicator of my humanity.

I hope it matters

How often I hear 

About the lives of others

I hope someday 

That I can see the beauty 

In my own humanity

As readily as I see it in theirs.

I hope I can accept 

With joy 

The normalcy 

Of a variety of experiences. 

I hope I can embrace uncertainty

Or at least learn to be friends with it.

I hope I can forgive myself for being human.

Instead of always striving 

For something that will never exist. 

It’s Always Darkest Before the Dawn

The sun was shining today, brighter than I expected. And as I turned the last pages of the book I had just finished, I felt something inside of me turn as well. 

A shifting of energy that, as always when going through any kind of challenging time, I assumed would never come again.

It is easy when surrounded by darkness to assume that the light will never come again, just as it is easy when bathed in light to assume the clouds are gone forever. 

I have a tendency to write from a place of challenge, of darkness, of struggle. 

Not because it is the only thing I experience; far from it. 

But because writing has always helped me to organize my thoughts and clear my mind. 

I don’t need to sift through my happiness. 

The energy is clear, whole, and good. 

I am not just content, but exhilarated to just be a part of it. 

Awash in the brightness of the moment. 

It is the rumination, the feelings that something is off that I need to work through and I do so by writing, as I have always done.

This blog is my journal out loud.

But even this is just a tiny fraction of that, just as my journal is but a mere slice of my mind and inner world. 

The good goes assumed but it also goes unrecognized.

I am forever working to live more authentically, more wholly, even while being scores ahead of where I used to be. 

There is always more work to be done.

But it is the work of joy.

I am choosing this life. 

Even when I am tearing it down and remaking it. 

I am working to write more about the joy not to just show the world that I do in fact experience it, but to remind myself of the cyclical nature both of life and of my mind.

I have a tendency to think in extremes and get lost in the moment.

But I get lost outside of it as well.

It’s so weird to be human.

Can we ever fully understand our experience of life?

This is me trying. 

Doubt

So often 

I get caught up in thinking 

That my dreams are wrong.

That they are not meant for me.

That I need to push them away, ignore them.

Let them go. 

“You’ve got the wrong girl.”

“I could never do that.”

Thinking

That the universe is out there making mistakes.

But only with me.

That it makes sense 

That I would be the only one without a purpose. 

That what I think is mine

My dreams

My hopes 

My desperate wish for the future 

Is just that.

Desperate. 

That there is no way

That the universe

The Life

Would allow me to have 

Something beautiful. 

As if everyone deserves it but me.

And when the people around me

Who I trust

Who I love

Tell me

With all sincerity 

The strengths and goodness they see in me

I feel sorry for them

And sad for myself. 

That they believe it so strongly

Whereas I believe it not at all. 

Expansion

It’s so incredibly easy to get caught up in thinking that the world is not made of magic. 

That we have to always push and strive and battle.

Because so often we have had to. 

But it isn’t always the way. 

It isn’t always what’s needed from us. 

And for those of us who have grown up as fighters, the hardest thing in the world is letting go. 

Trusting that both the Universe and the people around you have your back.

That you will still get where you want to go if you take a break and just breathe. 

But I find so much more strength in the surrender than I ever feel I have in the fight. 

It’s just that I have to keep reminding myself of that.

It’s the common problem of outgrowing old patterns and old ways of being, no matter what yours are.

For me it’s the fight. 

It’s the struggle. 

It’s the thinking that the world is my enemy. 

That I constantly have to prove my worth before they prove to me that I have none. 

But for me that is what expansion is about. 

Allowing more in.

And allowing more out.

Allowing for the truth of my inherent worth and allowing for the truth of everyone else’s.

Being open to new ideas, new information, new ways of being and thinking and feeling. 

New ways of relating to myself, to others, to my emotions.

New, deeper ways of feeling alive. 

I find it easier when I travel, when I’m in nature. 

It seems to make more sense to me there. 

It seems easier to believe in my own capacity for expansion when I can see how vast the world is without even trying. 

It makes me feel like I could be the same.

That instead of thinking I have to work so hard to hold in the ‘bad” parts of myself, I could just let go. 

I could learn to love all parts of myself and the good would shine out brighter than it ever has. 

It is not an original thought, but one that seems groundbreaking to me each and every time I come back to it. 

Doing the work is allowing yourself to be wrong, to get off track, and to have the strength and courage to bring yourself home again.

To start anew and to expand even further this time. 

Knowing that the next time your world starts to shrink it can only shrink so far.

That you will wake up sooner each time.

And rebuild and expand anew. 

Acting Small

For most of my life I’ve let the biggest personality in the room dictate who I am. 

How I’m going to show up. What my level of self-worth or lack thereof will be. 

What I will say, how I will act, what I will and won’t share about myself. 

How I can perform, for them, in order to be palatable.

Because there was a time when finding fault with me made those powerful people angry.

When I wasn’t good enough or didn’t fall in line there were very real consequences. 

I was kept on my toes. 

It benefited them for me to never know what they would do next, where they would draw the line. 

The threat of physical violence always on the table, but held back out of their grace and empathy for me. 

I started to forget what empathy meant, but I held on long enough in some small part of me to know that this was not it.

This was abuse, not love. 

Yet still some small part of me questioned, “Is this all that I am worthy of? Is this the best I will ever receive.”

It is hard to articulate how these experiences affect us. 

How a traumatized child becomes an adult who chooses toxic relationships.

Because it doesn’t feel like a choice. 

And seeing myself live these patterns has made me so deeply rageful. 

At others, but mainly at myself. 

And then back again.

It made me feel like they won.

I got out of that house, but they never got out of my head.

Is it me who is keeping them there?