Coming Home to Yourself

In a time of infinite opportunities to focus on so much outside of ourselves, it's really easy to get lost. To confuse our own identity with all the noise around us.  

The types of feelings/thoughts that can come up are: is this my life? Where am I going? Am I happy? What's next? Is this it? I've been having some of these feelings lately, feeling a bit like a rudderless boat. I think in many ways when we had less technology, less access to everyone's lives, it was easier to follow our own course. To not worry or assess that we were "behind" or "less than" in some way. That combined with this constant need for "busyness," which I think is something our culture has become addicted to, has led many of us to feeling lost. When we don't know what we're "missing out on," it's easier to live in the moment and focus on ourselves. The irony for so many of us (particularly as women) is that we were told it was selfish to focus on ourselves. I think now we are faced with the complete opposite problem. We're not focusing on ourselves nearly enough. We're looking everywhere but inside of ourselves for the answers.  

I stumbled into a few solutions this week, to help me come back home to myself. I fully admit this wasn't an intentional, thought out plan. Rather, it happened, and I realized after the affect it had on me. One thing came out of pure exhaustion. I found myself trying to control things, to achieve the outcomes I desired. I was getting really REALLY tired of that not working. As a business owner, I find it really difficult to balance working on things, vs. trying to force things- or feeling like I'm not doing enough to make things come to fruition. After weeks of trying to make things happen, I just sort of… stopped. Let the chips fall where they may. I released expectation and the need to control, and rather, responded. Let things come as they did, respond, and released expectation of the result. The result was a greater sense of peace. Of not letting things outside of myself, outside of my control, determine my sense of peace. And I did feel a greater sense of peace as a result. Not spending all this time in my head thinking about all the what if's, what are they thinking of me, why are they not hiring me for xyz- in the absence of all that noise, was greater peace. We try to think our way into solutions for everything, and I just don't believe that's always the way the things we want flow best. Rather, I think being in the energy and vibration of the things we want- being in peace and joy- is a better place to be. Not to mention, it just feels better to live like that.  

The next solution seemed to be revisiting the things that made me happy at different times in my life. I think in every stage of our life, we find things we really enjoy doing. We do them frequently. But with every life stage change, life can take us away from some of those things. Maybe you move, have kids, there was the pandemic- whatever the reason. It's not that you wanted to stop doing those things, but they became more difficult to achieve for some reason. And you find new things to enjoy. But I think revisiting some of those things that made us happy can really help us reconnect to ourselves. The idea of looking backward to move forwards. This week it was my 5 year wedding anniversary. When Jeb and I first met, he lived in Somerville- where we spent a lot of time. So on our anniversary, we went back to Somerville. I hadn't been there in well over 10 years. We went out for dinner at one of our favorite spots. We don't go out to eat that much anymore, and definitely not at the types of places we use to go. So it was special and nostalgic. Then we came back home to where our life is now. The next morning, I was in such a flow and on such a high from our dinner out, I wanted to keep that feeling going. I took just one of our dogs on a beach walk. Something we use to do together a lot, before our other dog came into the picture (he's afraid of other dogs and the beach is always filled with them- so we go other places these days). It was just Reese and I, walking the beach on a gorgeous Saturday morning. She's one of those easy dogs who you don't have to worry about- she gets along with all dogs and humans alike. So rather than our usual walks with both dogs where I feel like I have to be sort of vigilant, the beach walk with Reese was just relaxing. I could sort of check out, and just be. Something I use to do every day, when it was just me and Reese walking the beach before Niles came along. Then I treated myself to coffee and breakfast. The rest of the day just progressed with ease. Reading out in the sun, etc. I just sort of flowed with life.

My every day life may not be able to be like it was before. And that's ok. Because there are pieces of it now that weren't like before, that I love. But it was a good reminder to choose joy, to choose fun, to mix it up. And most of all- to choose peace. To relinquish control a bit, and see if I can get to my destination with more ease. The reality is that regardless of what's going on in our lives- what job we have, who our partner is, where we live, etc- the only thing that's for sure, that we can always rely on, is ourselves. Are we at home with ourselves? Have we created a safe spot in our own little world of one- where we can come back to all the time? Maybe those things that gave me so much joy and peace and flow aren't impressive to anyone else. Maybe it's not what brings joy and peace to anyone else's life. Maybe it's just specific to me. And that's exactly the point. It's my life, and it doesn't matter what it looks like from the outside, or in comparison to anyone else's. It's just about me. And it's all we have control over anyway.

XO