A little encouragement in your roughest time

Before we dive in to this week’s post, I wanted to let you know I just released my Ignite Your Love for Your Life: Virtual Visionboard 2.0 Workshop for free to my paid subscribers on Substack! f you’d like to become a paid Substack subscriber and get this workshop for free, make sure to do that here to save $48.50 ($7 for the month on Substack versus $55.50 to buy the program outright)

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Now, onward…

“How many lives have you had?!” my friend exclaimed, after listening to me mention something about the guy I was engaged to out of college. Apparently this was the first time I had shared this information with her, even though we had been friends for years.

That’s the funny thing about me, sometimes I need those moments to pause, reflect and … kind of laugh. She was right. It was that day that I realized I had more iterations of life in my 40 years than a cat. I can count at least 4 different and distinct lifetimes within my life to date. At least 4 different times I was a wildly different iteration of myself, with wildly different circumstances.

And I bet you can too.

How many jobs have you had? Serious relationships? Places you’ve lived? Friend groups? Activities? Hobbies? Travel experiences?

We could look at all these as chapters in our book of life. And yet, for some people, they’ve had the same job, been with the same person, in the same home, roughly had the same life for what seems like eons. And they’re completely happy with that! To that I say, keep it up.

For the rest of us, life seems to change like the wind. Every time we think we have our feet on solid ground, another storm brews. It blows away anything not completely nailed down and sometimes transports us to a delirium of ruby red slippers, great and powerful wizards, friendly companions, munchkins and … evil flying monkeys, seemingly-friendly-trees-turned-apple-throwing-demons and wicked witches lighting bails of hay on fire and throwing them at us, all the while trying to steal the shoes right off our feet.

It offers us lessons in what Tosha Silver teaches about, surrender and detachment. Divine order. Allowing the Divine (or God, or Universe, or whatever/whomever you personally believe in) to lead your life. Trust that everything in your life that is meant to stay, will stay. Everything that is meant to go will go. And everything that is meant to come will come. We don’t need to chase or force, but take a breath. To sit back, observe and discern, and then move from a space of love. Make decisions from the soul, rather than the ego. Ask ourselves the ever important question of “Does this align with the life I want to be living? The one I know is possible?”

I offer this week’s essay as a healing balm that whatever it is you’re facing right now, you’ll get through this. I know this because you always have. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this because you would’ve likely died from whatever it was.

(Sidebar - back in 2017 when I left my jobby-job to venture out into the wild wild west of entrepreneurship, a friend shared this video from Steve Harvey with me - I’ve lost count how many times I go back to listening to it. It always offers me a little slice of peace when I’ve lost my way.)

Somehow, everything has always worked out. Even in the most holy mess of your life, it unraveled over time. Things re-balanced themselves out. You grew, you got better, you learned. The situation somehow, someway resolved itself and you found yourself exactly where you were suppose to be.

Can you trust that this is again at play? The need to trust that somehow, someway things will work themselves out. Can you love yourself this much? This unconditionally?

For now, be with yourself. Take time for quietude by yourself. Go for lots of walks. Leave your devices on silent, or better yet at home. Disconnect from the noise of the world and come back to yourself. You’re far more intuitive and divinely guided than you could ever know. It’s only when we get really quiet with ourselves that our inner guidance system can speak to us. Otherwise, it gets drowned out by all the noise and distractions around us.

Just a soft reminder… at the end of the day the only thing we have control over is ourselves. Our reactions. Our care. What we choose to do, not do, plug our energy into, or not. We have choice what we do next, and sometimes that’s hard in and of itself. I invite you to take time. Do something that will help you to disconnect mentally most of all, because our minds can make Heaven of Hell, or Hell of Heaven.

Either way requires the same amount of energy.

I was sitting in church this past Sunday and the priest talked about this very thing - mental exhaustion. He invited us to remember our childhood and what we loved to do most, the things that turned our brains off while we just dove into something that brought us so much pleasure that we got lost in it. He invited us to go back to those things, especially in these times.

For me, it was creating art. I loved arts and crafts. I can’t draw or paint freehand, but somehow my hands can create art with nature. I can see something in my head and go about creating it. I can get lost in it, and it’s cathartic for me. No one would ever know it, but my pain and my grief and my loss and my tears and my heartache are scattered all around my apartment in the form of some kind of creation.

From someone who has recently chosen to mostly get off all social media, I also invite you to quiet the noise there too. At least take the apps off your phone, even just for a few days. You’d be surprised how much that alone will help your soul breathe.

Any way you choose to nurture and rejuvenate, know that it’s exactly right for you. Anything that brings you back into your body and puts you into a better headspace, take note of it. Maybe even make a post-it note list for tough times when you feel so depleted and frazzled that you can’t think straight. It can be a reminder of how to bring yourself back into balance.

Most of all, we’re here for the human experience and feeling the wide range of emotions and experiences is part of it. Can you stay with yourself through it and become your own best friend while remembering how to live in your full expression?

Love you!!!