I let go of anger and shame bit by bit, sometimes it rises up in my day and I have to figure out why and what to do with it.  At least I notice now.  It shows up in my volleyball game when I can’t stop saying “i’m sorry” for my play when it’s less than what I think it should be.  It shows up in my hips which are locked so tight that they prevent fluid movement and hinder my performance and enjoyment of exercise and life. These days though, the deep stuff is coming closer to the surface because I started dealing with the surface level a while back. I’m able to clear it faster because of the time I spend seeking and being blessed by connections that seem to just appear in my path. Like Neda, the energy healer I wrote about in this post,

and my friend Teal, the water PT, that I wrote about here:

Over the last few months, I have been putting together a specific healing path which could be baffling to many who haven’t felt physical and emotional trauma show up in big ways in their body. I consider myself to be pretty tough, I have a high pain tolerance and can grin and bear it, or even laugh through my tears, so I hadn’t realized that I had gotten to a point that the tension I was holding in my nervous system were really taking a toll on me.  My sleep was off, my hormones were out of whack, I was basically feeling like a pretty big mess on the inside and still pushing through my day.  This violates one of my basic tenants of happiness because  my insides were not matching my outsides…and when this is out of whack for too long, it sets me down a less than desirable path.

On top of the body and energy work I have been focusing on, I have been putting the finishing touches on my book, 365 Days of Optimism, and listening to some amazing podcasts that are furthering my growth and blowing my mind, like this one…it’s an absolute must listen!

With seeking and exposure comes wrestling with the big issues, so here are a few of the concepts that have reared their head in the past week or so based on my experiences:

It takes a great deal of self awareness to tackle the problem of unworthiness and the ego at the same time. 

As I walk the path of creating The Optimists Journal and 365 Days of Optimism, I confront some of my biggest insecurities.  So much doubt can creep in when we are vulnerable and put ourselves out there with the stories of our lives.  I realize that I struggle to accept the truth that I am enough on my own, that I don’t need a bigger platform or other people to help define me…I have been out there doing some significant living and I take this student of life thing pretty seriously.   I believe so deeply in generational learning and healing and the stories that have to be told to achieve that level of understanding for relationships and families to heal, that I am willing to go farther on my own than I ever have before.  That doesn’t mean that I’m not scared sometimes, but my core belief is making me braver than I have ever felt and giving me more confidence and a relaxed security comes with that…man, what a great feeling.  Here’s the catch though, I am still trying to figure out the prescription of knowing my value and using that value to help others, while letting go of my ego.  My ego can get offended so easily when it’s met by someone who doesn’t trust my intention or value my time the way I think they should. There’s some more work for my soul in that equation that I haven’t completely figured out the answer to yet.  For now, I will keep working and trust that the big picture, with due diligence, is going to come out right. 

Learning to judge what’s good from the inside out, rather than from the outside in, is hard. 

I am a rule follower and for all of my life have had a very rigid sense of being “good”, something that I realize was a judgment that I would let other people make for me and then apply their assessment to my own life.  Basically, if you watched me and based on the actions that you perceived of how I was living my life, you decided I was “good”, I thought I was winning when really what I was doing was giving up my power and identity. Other people don’t know the circumstances of our lives, how would they know what is innately good for us and by us. As my confidence rises, I am able, more and more, to trust my own instincts on what is “good” in my life rather than let someone else define that for me, and then try to feel satisfied with that approval. 

Letting our goodness shine is what the world needs. isn’t it cool that we each have our own brand of goodness that will attract what we are meant to find in this life? I am more and more ok with other people’s judgment…I trust the goodness that is coming from inside me and the choices that it helps to create. Beyond that, the calm is coming from a deeper place and, for me, calm is the root of real goodness and prosperity will come from that newly found safe and stable place in my heart.