Man, I’m not ashamed to say I’ve been out of it for what feels like a long minute. Yep, that’s right! I haven’t posted or been engaged in two months for many excuses. Hmmm...let’s see, where do I start. For one, my inspiration left me for that period of time which is a scary and truthful thing. There are plenty of things I could blog about but not many that moved me. The biggest thing for me is not writing just to write when I don’t feel what I’m typing. Every weekend I’d say “I need to [or] I’m going to post a blog this Sunday” but then I wouldn’t do because nothing that felt meaningful was moving me to write. Scary! I have had to think about what has been going on in my personal life that I’ve felt moved to write about AND share and it literally came to me recently as I was driving to take my boys for gelato and to sit outside to just be. I was listening to Gospel music in my car and Thank You For It All by Marvin Sapp came on and all these reflections just flooded my mind and I said to myself “now I know what I want to write and share this and started writing as I sat on the green turf!
Don’t Forget About Gratitude
When I think about how far I’ve come, I’m so grateful of where I am and it gives me joy, peace and happiness. The difficult realization is that I don’t always stop to think about those things because I’m too damn focused on my present and maybe what I’m not doing that will help me with my future. I begin to feel a certain way and if not “checked”, I can spiral out of control with feelings of guilt because I’m not taking consistent actions that are in alignment with my goals or who I am. DAMN! Do you ever have that feeling? When you’re driven, and self aware, aware that you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do in your personal and/or professional life, it’s basically like not being well with your soul. It totally SUCKS. The only way to take that feeling away is to recognize it and DECIDE what you want to do with it. Every moment you don’t decide is a decision in itself. Doing nothing is a decision and it can have natural consequences. My decision of doing nothing these last couple of months has taken its toll and I’m sick and tired of feeling this way so I’m finally deciding to do something. Get back at it and more.
What Gets Us Stuck Doesn’t Have to Keep Us Stuck
So I’m clearly admitting that I’ve been stuck in place and not going anywhere these last two months. You know why? It’s because I’ve been doing the D word. Dating! Oy vey! If you read my book, Battling the Flames, you read the Back on the Market chapter and then the end when I talked about getting a matchmaker. By the way, if you didn’t read my book, I need you to so please click the order button on my website. I digress! Okay so been there, done that, on the matchmaking. I paid for three dates with three men and had one date last October (2020) and one this past February. Both were busts. They couldn’t find my third date based on what I was looking for which wasn’t a freakin' purple unicorn. Can you believe it? So I got my money back on the third date and took a break as I felt I wasn’t really missing anything based on my two dating experiences. Fast forward to April and I got back on the market again. Lol. There is a series and the name of it escapes me but the man says to the woman “you always do this! you start spinning your wheels” and she responds “That’s called dating.” I can so relate to that comment right now. Lol. It’s a tilt-a-whirl ride that just keeps spinning. That has been part of my life’s journey right now but nothing exciting to report. I’m just focused on living in the moment and gaining more personal clarity and experiences through dating. Trust me, when I have some nuggets to share, I will. I will be honest and say that I’ve been distracted and unnecessarily but I’m back but not on the market but in my mindset that causes me to take action; hence I write! And it feels much better than what I was feeling. Guilt is a feeling and I don’t want to feel that way. Yes it’s okay to take breaks but doing them for the right reasons eliminates that feeling of guilt that might creep up.
Listen to Your Body
In reading my book, you learned that I discovered the gift of my compulsions. Well during this “break”, an old gift reared its ugly head. Lol! Gifts and ugly don‘t typically go together now do they? Well mine do. I wasn’t feeling well a few weeks ago but as I got better, the feeling got replaced with tension in my stomach. Now I’ve had double over, curl into a fetal position to try and relax my stomach, tightness and tension, discomfort in the past. This time it isn’t as bad but it’s still all too familiar and I’ve learned to lean into my discomfort because it’s my body’s way of trying to tell me something. The only way to hear it is to slow down and listen. I've told myself that my current stomach tension is coming from a place of fear. Fear of not being aligned with my goals and what that will mean if I don't get back on track. Fear of wanting what I still don't have and will I ever? The ONE...for me. Fear of not constantly growing. Fear, fear, fear...you suck and I'm going to start kicking your butt again or better yet, recognizing what you are and pushing past you. I'm good at that most of the time.
So what has been helping during this time of fear and discomfort? Well, meditating always has helped and I've amped that back up. You know what I'm going to say next, right? Movement! No, I didn't say the E word (exercise..sshhhh!). I have found that I can still run with this bit of stomach tension. By running, I get my mind to quiet and when I do, my stomach muscles relax. Have you ever tried that? Quieting your mind and finding that your body follows by it relaxing and you really feeling your body from within?! Oh, it's so amazing. Try it if you haven't. I've also started doing yoga with my Peloton app which helps with relaxing the muscles. Peloton is my best instructor with never having to step in a studio. I use it to run, stretch, meditate, power walk, and strengthen my body. It's so worth the $12.99 per month. Hint: Give the app a try!
Level Up
Finally, I am spending more time getting better at my coaching profession. I purchased an amazing book called The Wisdom of the Whole: Coaching for Joy, Health and Success" by Linda Bark, PhD, RN, MCC. I'm so excited for my clients and the new tools I'm using with them. It's making a huge difference in their results. One way to level up is to expand your knowledge and skills to get you unstuck and motivated to try something new or just reinvigorate what you're already doing.
Here is a question for you. What are you investing in for yourself? This is something you should ask yourself every month, quarter, and year. With this question to/of yourself, you should expect yourself to return an answer that makes you feel good. Investing is a sacrifice of something that is traded in exchange for reward at the end. The sacrifice is time, money or both. I like both because when you're investing money, and a lot of it, you have more skin in the game to see your self investing through to the end because you really want that reward. You want it so bad that your future self will thank you for saying yes to that investment. Besides leveling up in my skills and knowledge by investing a little money to study and apply what I'm learning from this book, I'm also truly investing... in the stock market. Yes I have a 401k but I'm learning more about investing and different types of funds and "sacrificing" (not really a sacrifice but some risk but not really) more of my money today so that it will have a greater return in the future to pay me even more than what I'm investing today. I started by evaluating an old individual brokerage account I had and I opened up another one with the same company that manages my retirement account. All I can tell you is that I hadn't really been investing in my future in this way and I got a wake up call to start paying attention more to my retirement and I'm really focused and excited because I put my long term retirement goals and plan together and I'm executing against it with no fear. Money can make us fearful. We either fear not having enough of it or if we do have enough, we fear losing it. We want to get to a place where we know how to properly manage it to save and invest it. My advice to you is to level up here (finances) or anywhere else that needs nourishment. I can share more about personal nourishment, just reach out to me.
Wait! Hold up! After reflection and looking back at where I was a couple of months ago to where I am today, I just had an epiphany as I write this because it's not true that I've done nothing. I've done things, it just hasn't been what I normally do with leveling up on top of it. I've been reinvigorated through gaining more clarity, knowledge and hence leveling up which is helping with my inspiration and my ability to help others. Would you look at that! Do you do that to yourself too?! Think you don't but you really do do? It's all about how we look at things right?! Is our cup half full or half empty?
If anything I've shared resonated with you or you have blog topic recommendations, I welcome you to leave a comment below.
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