sailing the ship
Find your lighthouse and keep your sights set on it. No good sailor falls prey to wherever the waves may chaotically take her; your ship would be smashed to pieces. The good news is: you can steer.
If we are always letting things happen to us, we will never tap into our true, endowed power or find our dreams, satisfaction, peace, and potential.
We must manage our lives, or our lives will manage us.
This isn’t about controlling every facet. That’s an ineffective, slippery slope.
But equally ineffective is throwing your hands in the air, while repeating over and over — in bewilderment — your musings about the difficulty of life, the confusion and lack of control you have, how unfair it all is, and why you just can’t catch a break. You’ll never wind up anywhere meaningful and important doing this. At some point, we each must take complete responsibility for where we are and where we’re going next. Responsibility for how our life feels and what we can do to change and improve it. Responsibility for our perspective and our actions.
If we are forever finding ourselves bulled over by people around us, or if everything and everyone else’s demands matter more than our own independence, individuality, and our heart’s song, one hundred percent of the time, we’ll be stifled and go crazy with it all. Sometimes without even realizing. Without noticing it’s happening. “This is normal, right? This is just what adulting or responsible citizenship or parenthood or partnership is like, right? This is how everyone feels. This is inevitable. Why is this stuff happening to me??? Just gotta get through it somehow. I have no choice in the matter and no ability to change this, it is what it is.”
And then we continue down the path of least resistance, as our souls get more and more closed off and ignored and things fall out of alignment as we lose touch with our inner power.
Except it isn’t just “what it is.”
Except you DO have a choice in the matter.
This isn’t just “happening to you;” it’s happening AROUND you, and you can show up differently in your response.
We ALWAYS have agency and the ability to make a difference and spark a change.
There is no reason to put yourself last and cut yourself off from your empowerment.
Your life does not have to just happen to you. Your environment, situation, partner, career, children, family, friends… none of these things have to dictate what you make of yourself, how you live, what you invest in, what you build and love with your time, and who you are.
You have choices and strength and power. So don’t let them be taken away. Never give them up willingly, and certainly not over and over again, as you are careened down the path of least resistance, desperate for a respite.
There is no need to make things harder on yourself than they already are. Get in touch with your truest, best imagined version of your life and your most deeply held values. Live from that. Not from whichever way the wind blows and whatever tantrum your kid throws and whatever else gets demanded of you. Don’t you dare live so small!
Take authority in your own life. Build some calm and a sturdy voice of reason, truth, courage, and command. You can do this.
Imagine! Play! Set boundaries! Say no! Build! Dream! Say yes! Follow through! Be your best self, and never, ever forget who you are and who you are becoming.
