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10 life lessons

1. Life waits for nobody.  Keep getting up everyday and pushing through. No matter what.  2. Make sure you take good care of yourself.  If something happens to you, the world will move on and you will fall behind.  3. If you don’t work to build your dream life, someone will hire you to build theirs.  4. Work in silence.  Celebrate in private. People love to ruin things.  5. Don’t regret your past.  Just learn from it and move on.  6. No one cares.  Work harder to become better each day.  7. Ignore advice from anyone who doesn’t live the life you want to live.  8. Rule over your emotions.  A calm mind can handle any situation.  9. If you find someone better than you that you don’t hate.  Ask them for advice and cooperate with them.  10. You’re truly at peace with yourself when you mind your own business.  Regardless of how I feel today, I will keep pushing through. I have made tremendous growth in the past year and I am determined not to stop.  This week has been incredibly hard…I have
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Walking into the warmth of tomorrow

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“ It’s strange how people look up to the sky like it’s heaven.  It isn’t heaven they see, it’s love.  When you let someone actually see you.  When you let someone into your heart, you will see them forever .” Survive I came for a weekend away to Vancouver BC with one intention: find peace within.     I feel that I found it.     The mountains give me something I can’t describe.    A peace and freedom from my hang ups and hurts.    They see me purely, just as I am.    They challenge me, strengthen me, and overflow me with curiosity and passion.  Hiking Stawamus chief first, second and third peak trail took me back to my adventurous childhood years.    I wasn’t afraid of the technical aspects of the hike.     I seriously felt like Spider-Man as I crawled up the rock surfaces.    It was the epitome of my younger years.    Hiking that trail brought back a surge of fun and adventurous memories from when I was a wee little girl.      Not all of my childhood memories were positive, however. So
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Love

Love is my gift to the world.  I fill myself with love and I send that love out into the world...   Wayne Dyer I fill myself with love. ..this must happen first.   This morning I awaken for my first full day in Vancouver.  No alarms, no clocks, no wake up agenda...wake whenever, and let my body decide the pace of the day.  My room is a chilling 62 degrees, so I turn up the space heater to a ‘shower appropriate’ 74 degrees.   I lay under the warmth of the covers and I take time to think about how I am feeling.  What thoughts am I having?  How is my mood? I initially find myself wishing I had someone here with me to enjoy adventures with.  I visually scroll through the images of my loved ones and I and how we would be living up this adventure together.  I decide not to stay here though.  This trip is for ME, to learn to spend time with myself.  This shifts my focus to a chapter of self healing I am keenly attuned to, being more aware of what's happening internally and learning how to
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Stay open to life

Recently, this concept was shared with me: stay open to everything and closed to nothing.  I’ve been thinking deeply about this concept and what it means to me personally.  I feel that some pain I have felt over the past few years has closed my heart off…I am NOT ok with this state.  I am working to find my way back to my peace.   Yesterday I was inspired by two young men to open up to the possibilities of the day… and I am SO grateful I crossed paths with them!   Most of the week I lacked energy and motivation.  While this is likely the result of my medication in combination with the time change, I was feeling a desire to feel better.  I committed to myself that I would go for a run and let my body decide the pace and distance.  I was excited to finally feel good enough to get out and be active!   After about 1 1/2 miles, I was getting tired.  Running into the wind and the ever-so-slightly uphill was challenging me.   I was determined to keep going and lean into the mental discomfort.
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Freedom

I am preparing for a new chapter in my life.  A chapter in which I will truly have the freedom to choose my own path.  Since as far back as I can remember I built my life around what other people needed from me.  I have served the role of ‘mom’ for 20 years.  Now I will be stepping into Amanda- who honestly, I should have always invested in.   This idea of freedom both excited and terrifies me.  I am at a job that no longer serves me, in fact it robs my joy.  Yet, I am too afraid to leave.   I do not have friends to engage with on the weekends.  My weekends are very isolating and lonely.   My kids are growing up and finding their ways in life: they no longer need their mom to take care of them.   My family is dispersed all over the country…I do not have extended family nearby.  I think about all of these things and I reflect back on what I CAN control.  In each one of these situations there is a me element that I can invest my time and energy into.  The idea of truly being free is new…
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Searching to feel loved

As far back as I can remember, I have been searching for external validation that I’m loved.  I have this memory of when I was like 10-12 years old.  I remember being home in the evenings with my brothers until dark, waiting on mom and dad to arrive from the work day.  My brothers would tease me and tell me I was adopted, and I wasn’t loved.  They would convince me this is why I was the only one in the family who had red hair.  I believed them.  Not knowing how to deal with what I was feeling, I would run away.   Our family dog was kept on a runner out in the woods just past our backyard.  Her doghouse was at the very end of the runner, farthest from the house.  This is where I would go and sit by myself waiting on someone to come looking for me.  Searching for validation that I was loved.  “If they love me they will come find me” I would think.   I would sit out there for hours, waiting.  I don’t remember if anyone ever found me, but I do remember hearing them come outside and call my
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Acceptance is the answer

When I am disturbed,  it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me . I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.    AA   Here it is Monday morning, and I find myself feeling emotionally unregulated, exhausted, needy, wronged, down, and confused.  I want my mountain peace, but since I can’t have that today, I want to crawl under my blankets and stay there.  I need to get my thoughts out.  These feelings feel too heavy to bear and I long to be held.    I was so excited to go see my parents for an overnight.  What I wasn’t expecting was for it to be so difficult emotionally.  The amount of codependent, critical and controlling behaviors felt overwhelming for me to witness.  The more I lean into healing, the harder it is to be around these actions.  I feel like I go right back to desiring my old habits of ‘take care of me’  and ‘take care
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