To say it’s been a while since my own high school graduation would be an understatement. Many decades have passed since the seventeen year old version of me with long hair and no clearly defined path forward crossed the stage and left with a diploma of my own.

I’m still looking for that clearly defined path forward.

Graduation ceremonies celebrate both the effort it took to get this far as well as infinite possibilities ahead for those who wish to seize them. On this day an introspective and reflective significantly older version of me is asking what I did with all those infinite possibilities that had my name on them. What did I do with the time I’d been given? What have I done? More importantly and often painfully, what haven’t I done?

There are two things in life I will never get back. My shoulder-length hair and time. Of the two, time both scares me and motivates me. Life’s infinite possibilities are maniacally juxtaposed with a life that is itself finite. It’s all possible until it isn’t.

I’ve come to understand that many of my infinite possibilities were never seized because I never allowed myself to seize them. Who I told myself I was often conflicted with who it was I was created to be. In that confliction I remained stagnant, fully aware of what was possible yet not willing to believe I was worthy of their attainment.

Perhaps there was some clearly defined path forward and I convinced myself not to take it.

Graduations need not be a formal ceremony clad in caps and gowns and pomp and circumstance. Graduation can be a decision made on any day you choose in the presence of only yourself, when you acknowledge how far you’ve come in your life and decide to embrace your own infinite possibilities. To break free of the self-imposed limitations long accepted as true and graduate to your own next level.

You are your own clearly defined path forward if you choose to decide to move yourself forward.

Decisions have the power to keep us stuck or to set us free.

Every day is graduation day.

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Mountains come in different shapes and sizes. Some are physical in nature, a great many more are the emotional and psychological inner mountains no one else can see. Embracing life-defining decisions can be even more daunting than standing before any physical mountain. 

The process of getting from where you are to where you want to be is the same no matter what kind of mountain you are climbing. It’s the decision to start, it’s the decision to keep going. One decision followed by the decision to keep moving forward and then the next decision to do the same. One next step at a time. One decision at a time.

Will I take one more drink to keep numbing the pain? Will I decide to sleep in instead of get up early to exercise? Will I keep tolerating their behavior because I tell myself it’s just easier? 

Every moment gives us the opportunity to decide if we are willing to move forward or if we are willing to stay where we already are.

We don’t have to climb the entire mountain at once. We just need to be willing to take the first step and then the next one after that. 

Not always an easy process. But that’s the process. No matter the mountain you’ve chosen to climb.

One decision at a time.

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But he showed up. Like he always shows up. Giving the best he could give at that moment on that day.

Often our inner demands and expectations of perfection cause us not to show up. If we can’t give our best, we rationalize, perhaps we should wait until we can. Being willing to show up when you really don’t want to overrides the pride and ego and creates a very sacred space. 

A space where you honor the commitments you’ve made to yourself.

Momentum is an ever-present force in life. Fueled by consistency, it is either working for you or against you. 

Consistently showing up for yourself is one way to make sure it’s working in your favor.

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Peace isn’t something you find. It’s something you claim. 

Peace is a decision gift-wrapped in self awareness and discernment. I don’t have to engage, respond, react, nor participate. I don’t have to defend, deny, explain, nor justify.

I need not allow myself to get sucked up in a vortex of contentious hostility.

Yet I often do until I realize what I have done.

“Is this worth my peace?” I’ve learned to silently ask myself. 

It almost never is.

My peace is my decision. It is an intention. It is always an available option, in every moment, always worthy of me prioritizing and protecting it. 

When I remember it’s not something you find. 

It’s something you claim.

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Sitting in a large auditorium and it is Awards Night. Many area schools have gathered together to celebrate both individual and ensemble outstanding music theatre performances from this year’s season. As the host began to announce the award recipients she did ask the audience to please old all applause until after all the names have been called.

I’m sorry, but when they call your kids name there is no way I’m gonna keep my mouth shut.

And I didn’t.

I wasn’t being defiant. I was allowing myself to celebrate a moment, a special moment, giving myself the space to instinctively express the joy such a special moment had brought me. Fully present, fully human, raw, authentic, and unfiltered.

I’ve held my applause for most of my life. The special moments weren’t special enough, I guess. Or maybe I didn’t allow myself to be present long enough to notice. My always searching for something else made what was special somehow unexcitedly ordinary, not worthy of celebration. I told myself I’d celebrate when I finally got to wherever it was I felt I needed to go. I never got there because that space never actually existed outside of me.

When I allow myself to be present and simply notice the world around me, I see life is actually full of special moments worthy to be applauded. Some spectacular, some mundane. All for me to define if I chose to. All for me to experience if I allow myself the presence required to do so. 

Fully present, fully human, raw, authentic, and unfiltered.

Kinda feels a bit defiant, doesn’t it?

Compliance is vastly overrated.

If consistency is good, I guess I’ve gotten good at being more mindful. With intention and practice I’ve grown much more self aware of where I am emotionally and energetically. My morning meditation has played an important role in me getting myself reset and grounded as I start my new day. 

It’s become a daily ritual whose benefits are often undermined by others longstanding daily rituals.

Feeling a bit tired and lethargic, a little over a month ago I voluntarily entered into my own beverage detox program. No coffee, no tea, no soda, no energy drinks. All I’ve been drinking is water. And it’s not because I don’t like caffeine and sugary drinks. 

I just don’t like what they do to me.

Much of my “inner work” has been about me trying to find an emotional equilibrium. Of trying to get to emotionally firm ground and to be better at managing the inevitable peaks and valleys of my life experience from a more foundational place. 

On my path I’ve consumed a great deal of information and insights through books and workshops and from actually doing “the work”. What I’ve found in the last few weeks is that what I’ve been physically consuming was greatly undermining “the work” I’ve been doing trying to get to my place of peace.

Caffeine and sugar are powerful stimulants proven to jump start any new day. I don’t need to understand the science behind how they do what they do, but at some point during the day I’ll probably need more of what they do to avoid the crash which comes when they stop doing what they do. 

I start my day to ground myself in moments of meditative stillness, yet I willingly embrace the consumption of stimulants throughout my day which keep me anything but still.

The intention of a month of only drinking water was to give my tired mind and body a bit of a break. But what I’ve unexpectedly received is the clarity to see how I was actually working against my own inner peace. How I’ve been activating and empowering two opposing forces to work against the very peace I’ve spent most of my life looking for. I’d obliviously created my own inner emotional battlefield one cup of liquid stimulation at a time.

The stimulant-free month has been uncomfortably peaceful. I’m suddenly more patient, more present. Flowing, not forcing. I’ve experienced higher levels of awareness without experiencing the habitual anxious emotional inner responses to what I see. It takes a lot more to annoy me, and in my grounded space I’ve been able to not reactively respond to situations when I do find myself slightly annoyed. 

I’ve been able to experience the emotional balance and equilibrium that has been ever-elusive.

The inner emotional battlefield is dramatically different when you’re no longer fighting against yourself.

In our search for whatever we are looking for, often we believe the answer involves embracing new habits, new mindsets, new people, or new experiences.

Sometimes, though, it’s what we remove from our lives which gets us closer to where we long to be.

Doing so is anything but.

If life is a book full of lessons I need to learn, I’ve reached the chapter called Detachment. Detachment, as in releasing outcomes and expectations.

How hard could that be, right?

For most of my journey, desired future outcomes served as an aspirational distraction from me being where I told myself I didn’t want to be. The future destination gave me something to look forward to, gave me something to work towards. The journey was always rife with impatience, with me trying to speed up my self imposed time line, trying to force the fruit to ripen long before it ever was ready to. I needed my outcomes and patiently waiting for them to materialize was not something I was particularly good at.

In the previous chapters of my life I did get quite good at noticing when I was trying to force things to happen. More importantly a deeper inner discussion helped me to understand why. 

I’d often struggle with Now. The present moment was uncomfortable, somewhat painful at times. Long-held fears, doubts, and uncertainties always seemed to ruin most of my present moments so arbitrary future outcomes provided me with something else to look forward to. Running away was the only consistent option, and I always needed a place to run to. 

Running away meant never having to deal with those long-held fears, doubts, and uncertainties. 

But you can never outrun yourself. 

I’ve gotten much better at trusting me, trusting my process, trusting my evolution. Of not needing people, situations, or outcomes to be what I need them to be when I need them to be. Working through the reasons I was always running away from Now has allowed me to better embrace the Now exactly as it is. I don’t always like the Now, but I’m no longer compelled to fearfully run away from it. I’ve learned to set my intentions and work toward them, having gained the ability to release my need for them to arrive and to do so on my schedule. Trusting me, trusting my process, trusting my evolution.

Detachment feels somewhat counterintuitive to the habitual ways I’ve long known and accepted. It’s some of the hardest work I’ve done on me, but nothing has brought me as much peaceful groundedness as much as learning to detach myself from outcomes and expectations. 

Detachment isn’t a passive pursuit. It isn’t simply sitting back and taking what comes your way. There are a great many outcomes I intend to experience and enjoy, but my peace and happiness are not contingent upon them happening.

There is a great deal of emotional freedom which comes from no longer forcing your future.

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Spring has sprung, leaving the cold and colorless winter behind.

Nature is a wise teacher, and Spring is one of its favorite lessons. Renewal and rebirth. My favorite lesson, though, is one often overlooked and rarely considered.

Intention.

Nature isn’t random. It doesn’t dabble. It creates with intention. Everything is uniquely purposeful, everything created to express itself fully. Every bud, every bug, every blade of grass fulfilling the intentional promise of its creation, significant and purposeful in their own unique way. 

Nature reminds me that I am not random. I, too, was created with intention, with a unique purpose only I can express, a purpose intended to be fully expressed. Within us is the opportunity to fulfill the intentional promise of our own creation, significant and purposeful in our own unique way. 

Sometimes we forget who we are and what we are here to become.

Nature is here to remind us.

Photo by Anton Darius on Unsplash

But what do you do until it does? 

Growth needs us to be bold. Growth needs us to first own something we might believe we don’t own. An identity, and with it the willingness to accept and embody that identity of who we aspire to be before we have the tangible proof we actually are.

Who we believe we are sets our foundation. Who we believe we are shapes our efforts, energies, and expectations which reinforces our belief in who we believe we are. 

Identity always expresses itself. Good, bad, or indifferent.

Believing we are unworthy will keep us unworthy. We will do and expect the things consistent with our accepted unworthiness. Believing we are unhealthy will keep us unhealthy because we will continue to do unhealthy things. Believing we are unlovable, unlucky, or unable will perpetuate more of the same.

When we definitively see ourselves as being who or what we want to be our behaviors and habits will begin to align with the vision we have for our desired self. When we start there may be no proof we actually are who we say we are. But when we embrace and live from the desired identity we will create the evidence which supports the vision of what we wish to accomplish, create, or become.

Believing that you are is the critical first step in becoming who you are.

Start. 

Persist. 

The evidence will follow.

Photo by Steve A Johnson on Unsplash

From time to time I find myself cursing the mud I have once again gotten stuck in, frustrated and impatiently waiting for my desired Lotus to finally bloom. It’s only when I remember that being frustrated and impatient only gives me more to be frustrated and impatient about. When I release my tight grip on what I don’t want I am then able to make space to grasp what I do want.

When I release the mud, only then am I ready to receive the Lotus.

I’ve come to see that there are two types of people we tend to surround ourselves with. Mud people and Lotus people. The Mud people are more common, much more prevalent. Their familiar presence almost feels comfortable to some. The Mud people are the ones who keep us stuck. Intentionally or not, their proximity stirs up the murky waters of our lives, thickening the viscosity of the emotional mud we claim we want to escape but on some level have come to expect and habitually accept. There is no clarity in the muddy waters they instinctually churn.

The Lotus people? They are the rare ones. They see who we really are, they see who we are here to become, and with loving acceptance and unconditional support they will guide us through our own mud creating an emotionally safe space for us to bloom into the beautiful Lotus that lies within each of us. They ask nothing in return, for they have navigated the path through their own mud on their way to expressing their own beautiful Lotus. They understand the pain of the darkness having journeyed their way to the light. Their insights are invaluable, and when you find yourself a Lotus person it is wise to keep them close.

But those damn Mud people feel so familiar, don’t they? And if we’ve been exposed primarily to Mud people, it’s hard for us to believe we are supposed to ever encounter a Lotus person of our own. So, we settle, holding out hope that maybe in time it will be different, that perhaps a particular Mud person can somehow morph into the Lotus person we’ve always been looking for. Our fears justify our willingness to contort ourselves to fit into what they want us to be, compromising standards if necessary, holding on tight as we hold out hope for a transformation which never comes.

Hoping people grow into what we want them to grow into is a proven lesson in futility, but that tends not to stop people from trying. Mud will always be mud, no matter how badly we want it not to be.

If we doubt our worthiness to receive Lotus people into our lives, we will magnetically attract more Mud people into our lives. Different people, new people, yet we’re somehow surprised when we experience the same result. No matter how we try to convince ourselves otherwise, the pattern will continue. More Mud. No Lotus.

Lessons get repeated until the lessons get learned.

The Lotus people are around us. But if we are radiating energies of self doubt and habitual unworthiness, we will find they will rarely appear in our lives. And if they do arrive, that same doubt and unworthiness will serve as a wedge and instead of us choosing their guidance we will eventually choose to stay stuck in the familiar and comfortably painful world of the Mud people waiting for the Lotus that will never arrive.

When you release your grasp on the Mud people, only then will you be energetically and vibrationally ready to fully receive the Lotus people into your life.

Ultimately we are the only one responsible for our own path, a journey no one can undertake for us. Those we willingly accept into our immediate circle with either perpetuate our stagnation and suffering or will elevate us out of the mud we’ve so longed to break free of.

Choose wisely.