Recently I was hanging out with a dear friend at the skate park as our children whooped it up on their bikes. Our conversation had roamed to many deep and lovely topics and then landed on her saying "I've kind of judged LIFE COACHES as only for the totally privileged. I mean, c'mon a coach for your life? The only people who get that are totally privileged."
So here I go, my biggest personal takeaway's from 2018. It is my intention that in sharing these, you will recognize your own growth over this last boisterous year. I also hope you find inspiration to chart a course of new growth for the year ahead.
It's funny that I don't use those words that often because really that is so much of what I talk about with you all. I guess those words just don't really quite do it for me. Think about it, self care, taking care of ourselves. Such buzz words these days. And in my opinion for super good reason. I want to talk about some of the myths around self care today and some of what I consider fact instead.
It's SOOOOO easy to avoid our personal practices. Have you noticed?!
We set out with the best of intentions to take better care of ourselves, do our yoga, meditate every day. We know we need it so bad. We know it serves us. We know we feel better, more grounded, more alive, more connected to our best selves when we practice but, we just. don't. do. it. Life is busy and there's no room. We're so exhausted and depleted we just want to numb out when there's any room at all in our schedule. Watch a show, have a glass of wine, scroll Facebook.
It's easy to get lost in the noise and the racing of our minds and all the thoughts and should's and possibilities. It's easy to become unseated in ourselves, racing through life, racing through love. Feeling flighty and headachy and anxious and angsty. At least that's how I feel when I'm ungrounded, untethered.
Frustrated. Blaming myself. Beating myself up. Worried. Sabotaging. Regretting. All the things. That's where I was at this morning. In the mix of it all. Coming down off of a weekend high. Landing in pessimism and the "what's wrong" with it all. Yes, these mornings happen to me too. Yes, I fall victim to my inner critic and my grief. It's what makes me deep. It's what makes me "get it." The rawness and the vulnerability are my growing edge but this morning I was just in a bad mood and wanted someone to complain to.
I'm curious, were you allowed to have your full range of emotions in your home growing up?? Usually when I ask this question a very visceral, very immediate response comes to people. What comes to you?
I generally start with fear. Fear that I'm not good enough to succeed.Fear that I'm fucking up my child.Fear that I'm not lovable and beautiful enough to be worthy of the love I'm shown.I get a compliment and on the outside I'm grateful and inside I either ignore or disagree......immediately. It sucks.
Can you relate?! But I'm done. I'm catching it all. I'm catching it in a new context.
2016 was not easy for me. It pushed me and pulled me in every direction inside myself. It challenged me and made me continue to look with brutal honesty at myself.
So much to celebrate and ponder and give thanks for. So much to navigate, experience, question. Solstice energy, holiday energy, family of origin, chosen family. Isolation, connection. So much depth this time of year.
I should be eating every two hours, be happy being a stay at home mama with time with my little, I should be happy for all the gifts I have and stop worrying so much about the future. I should be growing more food and driving less. I should be connecting with my friends and able to go out at night more easily. I should be hiking and out in the rain because the sun's shining above the clouds.
I can't even tell you how many conversations I've had lately that end with the conclusion that either myself or who I'm talking to is afraid to be vulnerable.
