Just this moment…just this breath. Just these rays.  Right here.  Right now.  This was my mantra yesterday as I lay in the sun at Crane’s Beach in Ipswich; a place where peace is everywhere (except when kids are arguing over the pail that is:)  Last week was a week that became a game changer.  It has taken me a full five days to begin to release myself from the stress and two trips to the beach definitely helped get me there.  When life hits you upside the head with a crap load of truth, it’s hard to figure out how to steady yourself within that storm.  It is something I talk to my clients about all the time.  Life is like a storm and often in ways you can’t predict.  Hmmmm some analogy to New England weather here I would say…. The key to living sanely within the storm is to steady your breath and learn how to be at peace with whatever happens.

Situations occur, like what happened for me last week, on the spin of a dime and they take you in a different direction.  Initially this can spin you out of control.  But then as it clears, you begin to see things with a sense of clarity that you never knew before.  This is why I have found it imperative to always thank the people and situations that appear to be obstacles in your way.  They are not there to block your way but simply like your GPS lady (mine is British of course) they are pointing you in a different direction.  I have the opportunity to havee several of those people in one certain area of my life.  On first glance it felt miserable, abusive even, and now I thank them with my whole heart.  They represent a place within me that needs healing.  It is the place where I have continuously over time allowed myself to be the caged bird that really wants to sing.  I have seen this pattern for a while but have been unclear how to actually fully open the cage so I can fly.  It took this situation to help me to begin to see that I had the key to let myself out of the insane asylum.   I could almost hear the British lady from my GPS telling me “you are heading in the wrong direction AGAIN…RECALCULATING!”  (I often like to imagine her swearing in the most polite of ways:)  So recalculate I have.  When the storm that is life kicks up, whether it is an acute stressor or just everyday stressful bs, your internal GPS gets lost; often times following fearful thought after fearful thought.  “How would I be able to support myself?  How would  I ever be able to take the vacation I so despretely need?  How would I be able to do this, that and the other if I don’t tolerate the bs that is being dished out?”  And so on.  You get it, I am sure.  I bet you sometimes have your own mean mommy in your head too.  We can all suffer from that from time to time.

SO HOW DO YOU TURN YOUR INTERNAL GPS AROUND AND HEAD IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION?

HOW DO YOU FIND THE YOU UNDERNEATH IT ALL?

JUST LIKE THIS…..

Yesterday it occurred to me that I hadn’t stared at the clouds in FOREVER!  I used to love to lay on the grass in the spring/summer and stare up at the clouds.  So yesterday I did a little cloud gazing and realized a few things…

1.   I will never fully actualize my dreams if I allow myself to be in a place that doesn’t let me sing

2.  I can’t fully help others fly if I can’t allow myself to fly.

and

3.  It is time to fly and sing and dance and breathe freely and enjoy life.

I made a decision on my 40th birthday that I was done with being underneath the bs.  I decided that it was time to be free and live the second half of my life with more joy and happiness.  While I stepped forward off a cliff, I did allow myself to step onto another cliff.  It was my next step.  The one that was close in.  It worked for a while but it is definitely time to step off this cliff and sky dive.  Life has a way of teaching us a lot about ourselves if we allow ourselves to learn.  I have learned many things along the way and now feel it is time that I move into light summer reading.  Time to be free to move organically and authentically without restriction.

So as I sit here on Memorial Day listening to the birds chirp in the tree house, I say to myself “it’s time to fly.”  It is time to excavate the me underneath it all so that I can do the work in the world that I feel I was meant to do.  As I move forward with this new found initiative, I do so from a place of excitement.  What’s next can be a scary question but it also comes with much excitement.

It’s time to fly.  Allow yourself freedom to find the you underneath it all.  I am sure you will not be sorry.  I’m not.

Be well:)

Cheers!

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