Ingredients
Presence
Enoughness
Letting Go - of shame, guilt, expectation
I’ve spent my life as an over thinker, which are just other words for anxiety prone. I have learned though, that while anxiety lies in the future, and depression with an over focused eye on the past, joy lies in the present moment. In the present moment I am free. Free to lift my gaze and connect with the people around me, free to move and breathe and make decisions based on my own intentions for my days. In the present, nothing is too hard or too scary and nothing needs to be controlled. The present moment holds no shame, guilt, or burden of the past. In the present I get to be me, and it feels good. It’s the space that taught me that I was tough enough to endure heartbreak and disappointment and still see so much beauty in every day. The present moment is where flow is possible, when my brain and my body have the most seamless connection and my ability to move keeps the perfect pace for what I want to achieve. The present merely unfolds in front of my eyes and teaches me to separate action from emotion. I don’t always nail it, but I am grateful that I am so much better at it than I used to be.
I never knew the term “emotional regulation” until I started working my way down this path of questionaires and surveys that raising Matthew has lead me. Before him, developmental milestone questions at the pediatrician were automatic answers…yes she babbles, yes, she rolls over, crawls, and walks. When Matthew came along, I fought a gut feeling from day one that something was different and his responses to everyday life situations like whistles at the soccer game (he would practically flip his stroller over) or the sobbing child that couldn’t handle people singing happy birthday to him on his 1st birthday broke my heart confirmed my gut instinct. How we take in, interpret, and react to information and stimulus in this world is directly related to our ability to learn and form relationships. Our ability to appropriately react to situations or sometimes not react at all, is paramount to the ease we find in our days.
Matthew’s nervous system is on high alert all the time, I can literally see him struggle to sit still, not fidget, and slow his mind to be able to tune out certain stimuli and be able to focus on what matters for him to learn. It’s also impossible to find presence in this state. I try and model it for him. I show him how to breathe to activate his parasympathetic nervous system and try and find longer moments of calm, but often he fights it like his body just wants to feel what it knows. Truly the only place I have seen calm presence for any length of time with him is when he’s in the water alone, boogie boarding, body surfing, or surfing. I have always had a special relationship with the water. I understand intimately the sensory deprivation it provides and have no doubt that is what draws him to it. What I see when he finds calm in the ocean only deepens my belief in the water’s healing power.
On land these days, he is seeking a deep pocket of self awareness for a 12 year old that I am proud of, but is also difficult. He is desperately trying to figure out why he struggles and put a name on it. How do I teach him that none of us can be summed up by a label, and that certainly isn’t the place to let a story end?
For anyone who has any experience with the autism spectrum, it’s very broad! Just like no two neurotypical people are the same, the same can be said for the autism spectrum. The quote that explains Matthew’s struggles best was coined by his amazing kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Bateman. She was the kind of teacher who saw her job as a vocation and she was so good at it.
“My best advice is to talk to parents who have had kids like Matthew and see what they are doing.”
But then she laughed…
“Good luck finding another kid like him.”
She said this in the most endearing way, and I understood exactly what she meant. The truth about Matthew is that not a day goes by that I don’t think how lucky we are to have him here with us, that he is here to teach big things. In my mind, on my best day, when we are connecting at the highest level, he is the quintessential example of being, not doing. His EQ is off the charts and he has a connection to the spiritual world that I swear is mystic. He takes to some people like he has known them for a lifetime and will trust them with the deepest conversations, but others he wants nothing to do with. His intuition is almost always right. He picks up on everyone’s vibration and can feel the tension or ease in a room. Knowing this, I put a lot of pressure on myself to make him feel safe so that he can focus and learn. I have failed in many respects over the years since I pulled him from the bottom of the pool though, because my anxiety over never being in a similar situation with him for any reason rears its ugly head way too often. Until him, I was not a hovering parent, maybe that contributed to his terrible accident. My favorite quote whenever I had a disagreement or a frustration with Ryan, a therapist, or one of his siblings though is
“If I knew what to do, I would just do it.”
There are no easy answers, no silver bullets, and no quick fixes. The answer lies deep in the unraveling of a very tight nervous system and from the time I came to understand this, I have sought information tirelessly for what would help him achieve this level of inner peace. It’s what mom’s do for their kids, it’s impossible for us not to. What I didn’t know when I started down this path was the tension it would cause in my life…this mom thing can be an overzealous path.
“A soil separate consisting of particles <0.002 mm in equivalent diameter. See also soil separates. (ii) A textural class. See also soil texture. (iii) (In reference to clay mineralogy) A naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained minerals, which is generally plastic at appropriate water contents and will harden when dried or fired. Although clay usually contains phyllosilicates, it may contain other materials that impart plasticity and harden when dried or fired. Associated phases in clay may include materials that do not impart plasticity and organic matter.” - Soil Science Society of America
One of the characteristics of a heavy clay soil, the kind of ground where the ranch house sits, is that it holds very little organic material on its own. Farmers have to add organic matter and amendments to the ground to make it fertile enough to grow crops and my family has been doing that for almost 70 years. As I see it, life gives us our own organic material to work with. Our organic matter are the things that add depth and meaning to our lives…babies born, hearts broken, the big fights and the better make ups. Learning to sit with these moments and see them for what they are, without getting caught up in the fear they can instill, helps us to see the journey clearly and take the next step forward without asking questions of why or what if. We were meant to be strengthened to bear more fruit by the challenging moments, and then experience the joy when our choices carry good things it our way. But the heavy clay can make our roots feel stuck and seems to come with an overburdened sense of duty, or even worse, shame and then the human spirit can’t move freely under this weight. If we don’t feel free, our feet are stuck like the tractors when it rains and we find ourselves entrenched in experiences that are not part of our most productive story. As it is with this life, there are no perfect answers, we are a population of humans doing the best we can with what we know, but the stories of this place have added to the fabric of my life in a way that could never be replaced or forgotten with the passing of years and the incredible people who have come through them.
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I can still hear the hushed whooshing sound of the pressurized door. No matter how hard you threw it open, it would close slowly and quiet as a whisper. It was as if no matter what was going on outside, the chaos would turn to calm and quiet when you walked through the door. Some of my earliest memories were watching her six foot tall willowy silhouette move with quiet purpose from room to room. She played the piano, collected leaves and flowers and pressed them into art, and when Tiger Woods sprang on the scene in 1996 she was taken by his game. She seemed to enjoy the solitary life in the most peaceful way. There were hard back books lining her bookshelves on the living room walls and the staircase to the basement, so many that she created her own library by putting up a notepad at the top the basement stairs. We were allowed to check out two by writing down a title and a date and could only get more after we had brought those titles back. She would read to us from the same book every time - The Tall Book of Make Believe - so much that I had the poem “The Swing” memorized before I was three. For my sister, she would read the story of “Bad Mousy” over and over again without ever once asking her if she would please pick something different.
Her kitchen was always warm, with its copper hooded stove, double oven, a fireplace and two sturdy green leather chairs. It always felt orderly and inviting at the same time. It’s where I learned the beauty of routine and the creativity that can be found in simplicity. Everyday breakfast, lunch, and dinner were served at the same time. For my entire life, my grandpa napped after lunch everyday. Not a long nap, but a siesta for sure. To me, the ranch kitchen was the calmest place on earth and was filled with the most beautiful celebrations over my lifetime. Thanksgiving turkeys with perfect gravy and stuffing, always a vegetable tray and homemade apple sauce (a nod to her Placerville, Apple Hill roots) were staples at every gathering. The way I saw it, she did it all and expected little in return. She was always the most gracious hostess, whether for 3 or 30 and nothing ever seemed to rattle her. I always wanted to be just like her. She was probably the biggest reason I got my degree in Agribusiness, so that I could step into her shoes and have the knowledge that she learned by doing every day. This was my grandma, the epitome of grace under fire.
May 2017
Sand generally refers to the coarse-textured (less than 2-millimeter) mineral fraction of soil. ... The large pore space found in sandy soil is also poor at holding water. This makes for good drainage, but can also make for sad-looking, nutrient- and water-starved plants in the garden. - Soil Science Society of America *(yes, this exists)
The springtime California sun was shining, my muscles were tight and tired from my adventure, and George Strait’s Amarillo by Morning was blaring from my speakers as I made my way slowly through the Friday traffic. Waze had detoured me on my way back from Malibu, off the always nasty 405 freeway, but especially so Friday’s, and I found myself in Venice Beach, home of the trendy and offbeat, and pretty much everything that I am not. As I headed back toward Hermosa Beach, I was feeling strong and revived from three days of activity at XPT Malibu where I exercised in my favorite element, water, ate the most delicious and healthy food, heard from thought provoking speakers on longevity and living the good life, and was inspired, strengthened, and educated on the benefits of breath work and recovery by legendary big wave surfer Laird Hamilton and his wife, the stunningly strong mom, athlete, and powerhouse in her own right Gabby Reece.
Hermosa Beach was the place we had called home for the past four years, even though we had been spending summers there since 2006. Now it was 2017 and I was divorced, and headed home to a quieter house without a husband, to get ready for my oldest daughter’s Confirmation that evening at St. James Church. Oh, the irony in that statement. How did my rule following, country music loving, Catholic, married for almost 20 years with four kid self end up here with my feet in the sand? I remember saying in college that I wouldn’t date anyone from south of the grapevine because I hated LA. But here I was, with this sense of absolute dread for the mistakes I had made, but also with a burgeoning sense of purpose that was fighting it’s way through - movement by movement and with each growth mindset podcast and writing session. Thanks to Soho Yoga, Finding Mastery, beach volleyball, weekly trips to church and daily dips in the Pacific, I was seeing a light that I hadn’t ever seen before. My saving grace at this point was that I knew I had four kids who were exactly who they are supposed to be and I could never receive a greater gift in this lifetime.
My mind drifted back to another springtime, 1996, sitting on the Good Stuff patio at 21 with Ryan, people skating by on the Strand, volleyball just beyond that, chatting with his friend that had just made an extreme sports movie, if I remember correctly it was about skiing. I had never been around this type of energy - free flowing and intoxicating - and I wanted to be a part of it. To look at the Pacific Ocean, or better yet swim in it, and feel your feet in the sand everyday… was this real life? But I remember even then, as a six foot tall, tan and strong girl in her early twenties, I looked the part, but didn’t feel any sense that I belonged. There was that inadequacy that always seemed to rear its ugly head. That feeling that I had to prove myself and yet simultaneously told me to let whoever I was attached to at the time step in front to shine, while I played second fiddle and observed and organized from behind them. Why didn’t I even take up the space that was physically mine back then, youth on my side and a world full of infinite possibility? Short answer, because my insides didn’t match my outsides and 21 years later I had finally identified that crippling problem.
Do you know your character strengths? It took me a long way into my life to appreciate mine. But once I had my own kids and they started to walk and talk, my mind seemed to naturally focus on training character, building their individual strengths, and helping them improve traits that would add up to a good life. In the exhilarating moments from temper tantrums to accolades, and I have plenty of stories on both ends, I always zeroed in on two things:
What was the character trait I wanted to cultivate in them?
2. What was the character trait that they were displaying in the moment?
Sometimes it was a matter of shifting things, others a time to build on what seemed to come naturally to them. How could I steer stubbornness towards tenacity, or timidity towards confidence or encourage him to build leadership skills without being heavy handed, which isn’t my style at all. One of my earliest and most fundamental decisions was holding Lauren back in preschool because, observing some timidity, I thought if I pushed her forward to kindergarten she may have been inclined to follow instead of lead. Although her whole senior year of high school I sensed she was ready for college, all those years in between, I saw her more sure of herself and able to hold her own space in relationships, academics, and team positions.
As the years went on and I coached young athletes and continued raising my kids, my decisions centered around building their own awareness of their character strengths and although I’m not close to finished, I have watched them grow in confidence and emotional strength through difficult situations. I realized that it wasn’t shielding kids from challenges as much as supporting them through any obstacles that they face that turns them into mature versions of the kids I knew, ready to leave for college and equipped and excited to face the unknown.
I’ve been influenced all my life by great coaches, teachers, and my own parents and am extremely grateful for the years that I was able to spend at home with my kids. I’m inspired to take the things I’ve learned and help people apply them to their own game of life. Do you want to experience more fulfillment & flow state in your life - with your family, in your parenting moments, with your team?
There are 24 Positive Psychology character strengths that every human possesses in differing degrees. Do you know your personal mix? Whether we are on the job, at home, in a moment with our kids, or with our team, in order to experience flow state, our top 5 character strengths must be in play.
Knowing our kids and what they need from us emotionally, physically, and psychologically is a game changer and although we need to trust our own gut, we also need to train it.
The VIA Character assessment is the tool I use to help people get a tangible understanding of their kids or players. The cool thing about Positive Psychology is that it is grounded in growth mindset, so these traits are flexible and there are specific things we can do if we have areas we want to build. I have taken the VIA three times over the past five years and watched as my character strengths that were near the lower half, especially bravery, rose as I conquered things like coaching and public speaking that I was afraid of. They also helped me form my own personal philosophy,
“To create calm and connection with every breath and movement.”
I have been amazed how having a personal philosophy at the front of my mind helps me make decisions and adds more purpose and awareness to my day.
Purpose, clarity, meaning…all of these qualities help us create flow state and the moments that become the highlights of our life. These moments help motivate us when times are tough and teach us infinitely more about our strength and the unique qualities we each possess that give us the ability to be great…if we believe in ourselves and are willing to put in the work.
If you are looking to shift, transition and create more flow in your life, I would be happy to help. We only get one go around, we aren’t here just to battle and survive. We all go through hard times, it’s when we use them to learn and motivate ourselves that we break through to another level of our potential. It’s in you, your kids, your players…it’s everywhere you look. The backbone of good choices in our lives centers around our own self awareness, and single choices made over and over again are the building blocks of generations. Give your life and the people you love the gift of your own journey to self awareness.
Although I’ve come a long way in the just over ten years when I pulled Matthew from the bottom of our backyard swimming pool, it will forever be the day that my perspective on this journey began to change. Because we were afforded the miracle of his survival, I haven’t experienced the bottomless heartbreak of someone who has lost a child, but I have been to the very edge and can still feel the sense of dread that was there as I contemplated that kind of loss. I don’t go there too often anymore, because the anxiety it creates clouds my decisions and my ability to live in the present. It took me years of faith, therapy, and him getting older and wiser to let go of the frantic feeling I would have when he wasn’t in my sight. But in a ironic way, that was the day that I began to get it:
slow down and appreciate what I had been given.
It shouldn’t take a near death experience to appreciate the simple joy we can find in the mundane, but it was after Matthew’s accident that I found myself grateful that I had his laundry to fold or that the dinner bill is more expensive because he eats so much meat. It taught me to slow down and appreciate the moments I have with each one of them because you never know when life is going to change with one misstep or conversation…I’ve learned that one many times over by this point.
The thing about parenting is that it is a live experiment. We don’t get to study every move and take our time to make each decision. Things come flying at us and we have to learn to trust our guts and respond instead of react. Matthew’s near drowning left a mark on all of us. I know I babied him, his siblings did too. It was as if in some way we saw that he needed an extra layer of protection. On that devastating day in 2009, he did, no question about it. But since then, some of the protections I leaned on to protect my own heart created some learned helplessness in him that I now have to guide him out of. He is so capable, so emotionally intelligent, and works hard. But many times in his life he has been given the out instead of being taught to dig a little deeper. That’s where my gut comes in…knowing just how hard to push, finding that line where the challenge is hard enough, but not above his pay grade.
This is one of the characteristics of flow…finding the sweet spot between challenge and skill.
The good news is that the opposite of learned helplessness is learned optimism…something that I feel like I was born to train. In order to be able to really teach something in a way that it sticks, we have to be able to break it down into small pieces so it take take root and grow into a full mindset.
As an optimist, I teach three P’s:
Permanence: Challenges come in life to teach us, we move through them, they don’t last, but we are stronger and wiser for having had them cross our path. With an optimists point of view and determination, bad events are much more temporary than permanent, it’s all about acquiring the skills to move through them.
Pervasiveness: We are not our mistakes. Yes, bad things happen in life, every day will not come up roses. But how we learn to separate an event in our life from who we are at our core is what sets an optimist apart.
Personalization: Optimists believe that we can make good situations great and bad situations better. Optimists love a reason to celebrate the good and know how to apply their grit and wisdom when hard times fall upon us. Understanding that we have the skills and training and the confidence to use them is what makes us game changers in this life. Optimists may have temporary set backs but know how to come back stronger because of a life test they were given.
One of my goals of 2020 is to achieve more flow state experiences within my home with my kids. As I said last week, I’ve felt them, they are right there under the surface waiting for a perfect set of conditions to be realized and, with focus, I understand how to make this goal and reality.
I’ve felt it in sports, I’ve felt it writing, but for the past few years I have been stirring with the thought of whether it exists in parenting? I’m convinced that it does.
Flow state is characterized by being fully immersed in the moment, where time and space fade away and our self conscious nature that is usually present takes a break…we are present, free and high functioning. In flow state we are not thinking about the result, what could happen, or what someone else might think. It’s a transcended feeling and I know I have felt it in moments with my kids, it’s the coolest gift of parenting. It’s those times when the words and the understanding back and forth are so clear. We are locked in a moment and the bond between us is tangible, like the best hug without even needing to touch. It comes with deep knowledge of ourselves and our children, which leads me back to the gift that true self awareness brings to ourselves and the world.
A week or two ago one of my readers commented on the concept of self awareness and how it should be taught from the youngest ages and it got me thinking. Helping a child discover her gifts and interests and then figuring out how to honor them and teach her to use them to their fullest expression, is an integral and fulfilling part of parenting. When we start out, we teach from what we know. Without our own journey to know our values, our patterns, and to expose our subconscious tendencies that are there from our earliest days, we run the risk of repeating patterns that we would be better off to correct and learn from before we pass them on to our children. Learning generational patterns that come from the stories of our families that happened long before we were present is not about blaming, shaming, or creating a reason to say “we are who we are”. The double edge sword of self awareness is our ability to know ourselves intimately and understand that people do the best they can with what they know. In short, the work we do on us comes with a healthy dose of compassion, understanding, and forgiveness for those that are part of our story.
For those of us who have been there, you know that there are a lot of times in parenting when we ask ourselves,
“Am I doing this right?”
The idea of unintentionally hurting our children based on a bias or lack of understanding can be anxiety inducing. Sometimes we can even push in the wrong directions trying to have control over an outcome instead of staying present and letting our intuition guide us rather than our fear. But control as it relates to flow state is defined as a state of security and relaxation with the complete absence of worry. This is the paradox a Zen Buddhist calls ‘control without controlling and more and more I realize this is where my best words of advice and conversations come from with my kids…no expectation of end result, just put your phone down and listen to what they have to say.
When my marriage ended, I thought that I had lost all I had worked so hard to create in, at that time, almost 17 years of parenting. Let’s just say I wasn’t feeling the flow and learning to operate independently. But what I have realized is that flow doesn’t orient itself with shame, only self awareness. With this in mind, I find myself focusing on what I hope to achieve in a moment with one of my kids…whether it’s an experience like going to a play, or watching them play a sport that they have so much hard work sunk into. it’s a feeling between us and let the action, and hopefully the flow, comes from there.
As Lauren goes back to school, I’m thankful that this past holiday season included so many flow states with my kids. These moments, whether sitting in the kitchen over dinner, attending a great play, or walking the dog in the neighborhood, produced amazing conversation and clarity about how we are connected to each other and the bond that we share. The great paradox of parenting is that if we do our jobs right, we teach the ones with the deepest bonds to us to separate from us and learn to flow on their own and that’s the generational pattern that I can get behind.
My oldest friend in the world checked in on me for my birthday. We were neighbors when we were born in the tiny farm town of Mendota, CA and she’s four months younger than me. We have laugh until you cry memories together that created the happiest times of my childhood and no matter the time that passes or the miles between us my heart swells at the thought of those days. At the end of our exchange she asked, how did we get to be 45? …even though she’s not quite there yet. That simple question made the movie run in my head…jumping into backyard swimming pools, not telling my mom my ear hurt so I could keep swimming, and then dying of the worst ear ache at 2am, feeling scared to death of fireworks on the 4th of July (told you I was timid), pulling onto the freeway after my high school graduation and feeling the freedom that I knew was mine to have. But since these years that seemed to pass so slowly at the time, time seems to have a fast forward button and the last 20 years feel like five minutes. Kids went from diapers to college in the blink of an eye. Time is universal, but as the years go on, it seems to pass infinitely faster. The good thing about this realization is that there are ways to use this precious commodity to find alignment in our days, make the most of these incredibly fast minutes that pass, and make the time we spend more reflective of the people we that we are always becoming.
Get clear on how you want to spend your time. It may seem that the older we get there are rules and parameters on how we are “supposed to” spend our time, but those rules are self imposed. Sometimes it takes courage and sacrifice, but we are the designer of our days and how we live is up to us. It may feel like someone is trying to tell you what it should look like or how it’s supposed to be for you, but it’s not your job to listen to all of that. Self awareness is the gift that gives us clarity and confidence in our choices and is the key to making ourselves happy. Are you happiest when you are around people or do you crave quiet time away from the crowd? How do you like to create? Is it through a pen, words, movement, or connection with others? If time is going to pass this quickly, age has taught me that I don’t want to waste one minute living outside my purpose. When we are clear on that, we don’t have to feel guilty for saying no to things that don’t fall within that vision because living “on purpose” is not just for ourselves. When we live in alignment, we are contributing to the world with our highest calling and everyone is better off for that choice.
Every choice matters. Choices are the stepping stones on our path and we choose where that path will lead. Our choices either build or chip away at the confidence we have in ourselves. If there is something you want to do, make sure that the small choices you make each day are aligned with that bigger goal. If they aren’t, you will be left feeling aimless and frustrated. Without self awareness, choices feel arbitrary, but they never are. Over time, if we mindlessly wander, or make choices based solely on conformity to a path that doesn’t honor our uniqueness, we wake up one day wondering how our life got “off track”or how we “lost ourselves”. The optimist in me says we are never off track, but just being given the opportunity to know ourselves a little better and get smarter as we start to make the choices that put us on the meaningful path that was meant for our feet.
Know that the only thing you have control over is yourself. Over the years, we can take some wrong turns, that’s just life, that put us in some precarious situations that we have to find our way through. Even with our own resilience and grace, sometimes it takes another hand and wise words to pull us through (that’s where that connection comes in). Know yourself well enough to know when you need to take that hand, and who’s hand to take. Relationships can drift away from a healthy path, the circumstances of the job that we worked so hard to learn can change, children grow up and don’t need us in the capacity that we built a life around for so many years. Without keeping an eagle eye on our own path, It’s easy to spend time and energy thinking about and trying to control how other people and situations affect us, how their choices could make our life different, or even better. But that isn’t how we are connected. We are all free to make our own choices, our job is to surround ourselves with the community whose choices vibe with our own, and not let one ounce of our energy go into taking away another human’s free will. Their choices are how they learn too. It takes courage to live freely and let others do the same, but it trains our minds and bodies to seek what is unique to ourselves and not expect other people to create our happiness for us. When we are young, we are begging for that autonomy that is ours as adults. How will you honor the gift you have been given?
What I have felt this week, as I celebrated another year on this earth, is that this phenomenon of time passing quickly is meant to create clarity and purpose. We have all been blessed with gifts and talents. Figuring out how to use them to their fullest, and who to share them with, is the prescription for a happy life. If you are feeling stuck for any reason, don’t be hard on yourself, look for that helping hand and take it. I’m grateful this week for the love and connection that another year around the sun brought me and the reminder that there is always a hand too hold, if we aren’t afraid to reach for it.
The Optimists Journal was born out of a particularly difficult time in my life, as my marriage was unraveling and I wanted to deeply understand the reasons for the patterns that I had created in my days. I am a feeler, and an above average processor, which is why I have been able to make a good dent on my healing process in a relatively short amount of time, but that has required some heavy internal work. To find this healing and make a mindful turn both for myself and my kids, I’ve had to get really comfortable with what scares me, my motivation in this life, and how to paint a new picture that is satisfying, productive, and healthy. Writing has been the key to letting go for me, and, until we let go, we don’t see what we gain on the other side. (hint: this is the subject for my next book).
Besides the healing and learning that my blog has provided, nothing beats the feeling when real people share their stories with me. Say the word connection and my whole face lights up (thanks Nicole Davis for that observation). With the courage I have found to heal myself and sink into the space that is mine, I feel it with every smile and opportunity I have to share and listen. Life is too short and precious for small talk, and I love getting to the meat of a good conversation quickly. Although social media these days is geared toward mega watt impact (I’ve been inspired by so many putting their amazing vibes out there…Yung Pueblo, Create the Love, The Holistic Pyschologist, Dr. Will Cole, Brianna Wiest, The Angry Therapist, to name a few) and I would like my words to reach as many humans as possible, I know that we are here to share our stories and learn from each other with each daily choice, conversation, and kindness that we extend.
Purpose is never about the audience, always about the intention.
I love this thought because it diffuses the pressures that I begin to feel from the outside world, and gives me space to feel and connect through my true self. The challenge for me, a girl who used to rush through a room without lifting her head, scared of the attention she could possibly receive, is feeling that connection that I have one on one with real stories and people, and translate that to a wider audience. But in any good life, there is always something to work on, and the trick is riding that razors edge between commitment to potential and contentment in the moment.
My blog, along with the hours I’ve spent listening to Finding Mastery, literally the most efficient path I have found to cut out the noise and seek the mindful life daily, after I shifted my focus from the 24 hour news cycle that was bringing me down, to expanding my own growth mindset, has helped me create a beautiful philosophy for my life.
To create calm and connection with every breath and movement.
Having a personal philosophy is a gift, because it gives us a simple filter to run our choices through. So, with every choice I make, and man there are a lot of them, I focus on these italicized words above. Since I learned to do this, life has become a deeply meaningful journey, where purpose is stronger than fear (most of the time) and if it’s not, I know how to reset and challenge my way through, with a little grace and time.
Create: I never thought I was creative. In grade school, I always cut on the wrong line and could have cared less how my project came out. My picture of an artist was someone who owned an easel and paints or who could wander the aisles of Michael’s craft store for hours on end. Definitely NOT ME! But what I have found through writing and meeting other people on their paths, is that we all have the capacity to create, we just have to discover the source of our joy, and the art comes from there. Our interests are not random, they are unique and leading us to our purpose, if we take the time to nurture them. The process of that discovery is our life’s work. I’ve learned not to ignore that which I thought was weird about myself (like what I have dubbed my “granola conservative” ways that find me adding country music to my yoga playlist and seeking out healing through acupuncture, energy healers and mediation). I embrace my uniqueness, and my creativity pours from there.
Calm: I was born with a pretty activated nervous system, I guess what the studies these days are calling “the anxious child”, so learning to calm that has been a work in progress my entire life. As it goes with genetics, God gave me children, with some of those same tendencies. But as the science has developed, we now know that our genes actually react differently based on the environment where we spend our days. Today, I always have the intention of creating calm for myself, my kids, and the people around me. I know how to observe my feelings without reaction, slow down my thoughts, and always remember that our feelings are like the waves of the ocean, they ebb and flow, even crash hard and then level out. I don’t let anything that is passing define me…and I’ve learned that everything is passing.
Connection: I’m convinced that it’s why we are here. Human beings are social creatures, and we crave connection and the support that it creates. It’s not an excuse to expect others to do the heavy lifting for us, self awareness is the key to our growth and response to our lives. But if we put less into relationships and take the path alone, we are missing out on the greatest gift of the human experience…deep and loving connection with people that we are brave enough to share our stories with. There is nothing like sharing your story with someone who deserves to hear it.
Breath: The breath circles back to the calm. It’s our stabilizer, our deactivator and our lifeline. It’s the most basic way to introduce calm to our system. Let your exhale be longer than your inhale and you will literally feel your parasympathetic nervous system (rest & digest) come online. I had no idea when I started my yoga practice to heal the physical injury in my body the connection I would find with my breath and the skills it would give me to calm myself and translate calm in this chaotic world.
Movement: Sports and physical movement have always been an avenue of inspiration and healing for me. If I’m addicted to anything, it’s endorphins. More that anything the lessons I have learned from a lifetime of volleyball and swimming have taught me about my own internal strength and ability to push through discomfort…even learning to compensate at times based on circumstances and injuries. There is technique and then there is our own way, and learning when to use each one is a life skill.
It’s no coincidence that I had conversations on all of these topics with like minded people in all of the arenas where I sold my book these last few weeks. From Dave’s Bookshop in Redondo Beach, to Pages - A Bookstore in Manhattan Beach, to Top Drawer in Fresno, I met energy healers, physical therapists, wine makers, writers, coaches, and therapists that have turned into meet ups and more conversation about how to expand the optimistic side of life. I know that my philosophy led me to this place…and it’s going to lead me on to many more moments, connecting, coaching, and telling stories. To the people who have trusted me with your stories, thank you. I carry them, they inspire me, and keep the running dialogue in my head that flows through my writing fresh and energized. They led me to my latest quote that I shared on my way out of Top Drawer on Thursday afternoon.
“Know your worth, speak your words, and you will be
good with any answer.”
What’s your life philosophy? Take a stab at it, share it with me. And thanks as always for the connection.
I’m really trying to nail down my own story these days, because it is so intimately related to the message that I want to deliver. But when I see the picture like the one above, I know I’m exactly where I am supposed to be, following the path that is mine to walk. Every week I am reminded about how interconnected we are by text messages filled with real stories of vulnerability and strength that don’t show up on social media that inspire me to keep writing, talking, and coaching the optimists outlook in life. I often ask people the question:
“Optimist or pessimist?”
And although it’s not one of the choices, one of the popular answers is ‘realist’. Sometimes I think that’s because claiming to be an optimist has a naive quality to it, or seems too exposed, because when you are expecting the best, it’s easy to be taken advantage of. Although I believe that we are all born with different outlooks, I also know that our lens on life is a process of both nature and nurture.
The more I work to define what creates optimism in my life, the more I am convinced that a self professed realist is actually an optimist with a work ethic and some life experience to back it up.
So lately I’ve been analyzing my practice of how I have grown my optimism, especially through difficult life experiences. It’s in the little habits and brain games that I play with myself everyday. It’s knowing how to recognize feelings without sinking all the way into them and letting them rule the day, and the mood, and mastering the art of reframing the problem at hand into an opportunity. In short, we have to do the work to be able to keep our ‘rose colored glasses’ and this is what it looks like for me, pretty much every day.
O - Optimists OBSERVE what works. It’s not about following the path of least resistance or grinding inefficiently against the grain. Optimists create energy for positive outcomes by observing what works and what doesn’t and then following their instincts that stem from that. Deep connection, first with ourselves, and then in other relationships, are grounded in consistency and trust, and a real optimist will shoot to create a space like this in their life. When we are able to sit in this place, we find both an ease and an excitement that everything is possible.
P - Optimists find their PURPOSE. Without a purpose in this life, our actions feel aimless or floundering, and that certainly isn’t going to leave you feeling optimistic about your path. Take the time and give energy to what excites you…your interests are never random, they are what make you uniquely you and lead you to your purpose that brings more light to the world.
I - Optimists aim to INSPIRE. Smile, share your story, and take time to listen to someone else’s. When we do this, we both inspire other people with our real life humanness and gain insight and learn from others. Optimists are openminded and can inspire with both words and actions, strengths and struggles. I focus on real connection with real people and when it happens it’s the greatest feeling of flow.
M - Optimists are MINDFUL about their own lives and their surroundings. It’s not possible to stay optimistic if we don’t take the time to slow down, quiet the noise, and give ourselves the time to clear our minds. The demands of life can be high and the impact of decisions that we make are great. Meditation and solitude buoys my optimistic spirit and holds the anxiety and overwhelm at bay. This is a new and life changing habit that has brought focus to my path that I never knew was possible.
I - Optimists are INCLUSIVE. Optimists know there is something to learn from everyone and every experience regardless of strength, ability, challenge, or worldly status. This mindset makes the world an exciting and inviting place to lay out our own story and connect with the people that resonate with it. That doesn’t mean that everyone will, and we do have to be mindful about setting our boundaries, but it I try hard to connect and not shut anyone out.
S - Optimists know their own STRENGTH. This is a big one for me because self confidence and doubt are areas that I have worked on a lot over the past few years. We have to be able to harness and utilize our inner strength to be able to create healthy environments and relationships that keep life on an optimistic path. Yes, we can learn from the challenges and grow stronger but more than anything, when I make decisions based on my belief in myself, the people who surround me help me live out my story in the best and most supportive way. Which leads me to my next and, I believe, very important point.
T - Optimists have TRIBES that further support their mindset. The habits and beliefs of the people we are around most are contagious. Our tribes will celebrate with us when things are humming along, and be a source of support and encouragement when life gets difficult. When we have the confidence to be ourselves, and shed the tendencies that cause us to struggle, like people pleasing, being avoidant for fear of getting hurt, or other crutches and addictions that keep us from our best life, we live in alignment and connect with the people who are meant for us.
The gift of self awareness is always worth the work put in, even if the process is scary at first. I see it in the simples moments, like when I’m locked in a battle with my twelve year old over going to practice, or how much video game time he should get that day, and the best thing he can throw back at me is
“Well, that’s just because you are optimistic.”
Yes, I am. Even if it seems unrelated and off topic in that moment, my message is getting through. And it’s real optimism that has taken a lot of work to solidify to make it my go to platform. We only get to do this life once, so why not make it great…no matter what challenges get thrown in the path, I believe in my ability to adapt, find gratitude, and the silver lining. The world needs real optimists, may we be them, find them, raise them, and connect with them every chance we get.
P.S. - Next Sunday, December 8, just in time for my birthday on December 10, I will publish my 100th blog at The Optimists Journal. Will you help me share that blog 100 times? Comment below and let me know you will help me by sharing my blog on your social media platforms and by forwarding the TOJ email to someone who doesn’t already receive it. If you would include a little story of our connection, big or small, that would make it really special. Thank you for reading and sharing your stories, these connections mean the world to me.
Matthew asked me for ear plugs the other day before heading into school. The strange thing is I actually had a whole package of them in my car, my sensitive ears like to be prepared, but it was full because I haven’t needed them in quite some time. I passed my noise sensitivity on to at least a couple of my children, and he is most definitely one of them. It’s turning out that this overly conscious sense of hearing reaches to other areas of my life. Maybe it comes with age, or getting more clear on our own goals, but I have an overwhelming urge to cut out the noise and keep things simple these days. Noise that used to create so much friction in my mind passes through quickly now. There is peace of mind and a braver response to my life when I choose to reflect, respond, or walk away from a thought or situation. The difference in being able to do that, or react too quickly, comes from a steady state of calm. Calm is clarifying. It’s taken me the better part of 40 years to learn how to chill out and access that zen feeling, my nervous system was on high alert for a long time. But it may have happened just in time to be able to teach my kids a few of the things I’ve learned about what does, and doesn’t matter in this life.
Being the creature of habit that I am, I find some concentrated wisdom in the Finding Mastery podcast that I listen to every week. This week’s was with Mick Fanning, a World Champion surfer who has survived a shark attack, on camera nonetheless, during a competition in South Africa. My favorite question in a great interview came at the end, when Dr. Mike went through a list of World Champion surfers, including Mick, and his friends like Kelly Slater and the late Andy Irons, and asked what made them the best. Mick’s answers to what made each of them rise to the peak of their sport ware different for each one of them, from more steady states of flow, competing at all costs, and accessing his inner underdog, each of these greats had a different mentality that equated championship skills. The answer was fascinating to me. .
We connect with others through our common experiences but it is our ability to recognize and hone our uniqueness that allows us to reach the greatest heights in whatever our pursuits are in this life. There isn’t one way to win or achieve success, but self awareness is always a cornerstone.
The biggest piece of the success puzzle for me is finding calm. The more often my mind can find stillness, the quicker it can reset from one of the crazy twists that life throws at me. There are a few rules of thumb that help keep life on the quieter, more peaceful track, even when one of the spokes on my wheel is out of whack.
Don’t give too much thought to what other people may think. The key word here is “may” because really we have no idea. Our own minds can get away from us, cooking up ideas, when really people are much more concerned with their own circumstances. But let’s say we are right, and someone is thinking the worst thing about us, stop and consider if an outside opinion, from someone that doesn’t have the benefit of knowing you or your story, should change your trajectory? Again, the better we understand ourselves, our motivations, and our goals, the easier it is to silence the noise and go with our own instincts. Judgment usually has far more to do the personal circumstances of the person judging, not the one being judged.
Don’t criticize other people. I work hard on this one because judgment seems to be a natural state for us as humans. But this rule is the flip side of the coin for not internalizing what other people think or say. Looking for, and pointing out the flaws in other people, takes energy away from our own journey so why spend time there? If I notice I’m hanging out in that place, I know now to ask myself if what I’m observing is trying to tell me something about my own life. It’s often an area of my own insecurity that I need to get a handle on.
Work on myself instead of trying to fix someone else. There is so much in this life that is outside of our control but if we don’t stop to identify that, it creates a lot of unnecessary noise. The filter I use for this also comes from Finding Mastery - there are only three things we can train - our mind, our body, and our craft- so these days I try to keep my efforts focused there and let other people make their own way. Real connection is never gained through controlling means, so this process has actually strengthened my relationships and cut out the noise created when we try to handle other peoples business for them.
Make sure my priorities and my actions match up. Getting clear about what we want out of our days is a very empowering process. Once we know that, looking at the way we spend our minutes is what makes our goals become reality. Besides parenting, writing, and exercise are my first two priorities in order to move my life forward and fulfill my potential…so I do them first. This also helps me see what to say yes and no too, a very valuable lesson in owning your own life story. There is so much noise that can distract us from our priorities if we let it…mindlessly scrolling social media, binge watching your favorite TV series, saying yes to things out of guilt rather than purpose, you know the drill. Prioritize your progress and then schedule your recovery time and things start falling into place.
Solitude and self awareness are uniquely connected and If we can string together moments of quiet, intuition has a chance to speak and the path becomes clear. When I feel the calm that comes from that experience, it’s as if time slows down and my mind and body are in tune to respond to any situation. These are the skills that have allowed me to stop using the ear plugs that Matthew still thinks he needs…so I guess I better keep teaching.
Life slowed down a bit for me this week, like when my kids were little and someone woule get a fever and you had to stay home. I remember secretly enjoying the excuse to stay in and cuddle whoever was sick, as long as I didn’t have other healthy toddlers that had to be kept alive at the same time. At this point I don’t have that problem, I just had to recruit my own mom to move in and do the driving for the ones I left behind when I went to Texas. This time, it was my college freshman, Lauren, who, after being diagnosed with mono almost two weeks ago, called on Sunday and needed some extra care to get this nasty virus turned around...so off I went. Regardless of circumstances, good things and experiences always come out of the time we spend together and once some of the meds they gave her started to give her some relief, this time was no different. Besides a great Monday night game between the Seahawks and 49ers (Lauren has been able to talk football with any group of dad’s since she was 12), we binged on a little Modern Love, Gray’s Anatomy, and Big Little Lies. I’m still way behind the rest of the world on these shows, but TV drama, like a good novel, always illustrates some human truths that make for good conversation for us and keep me thinking afterward.
One of these thoughts came when we were watching Big Little Lies and Lauren, observing the relationship between Ed (Adam Scott) and Madeline (Reese Witherspoon) said
“There is a low maintenance person out there for for every high maintenance one.”
I knew what she meant, she was talking about “opposites attract” or the “yin and yang” theories where partners balance each other and create a harmonious relationship. In Big Little Lies, Ed is such a chill guy to have chosen Madeline to be “the one”, it’s hard to imagine the relationship could actually be a fit, but I see the romantic beauty in her thought. The couple of decades of life experience I have on her had me answering back quick though.
“It doesn’t necessarily work that way. I don’t want to be the low maintenance one, chasing high maintenance or the high maintenance one expecting to be balanced out by the low maintenance, I want to be one of two low maintenance people who support each other.”
She got what I was saying, her comment wasn’t meant to be a deep one, just some banter back as forth as we watched this overly dramatic show. But of course, my mind kept breaking it down further as I thought about the nature of my experience with human relationships and the life that surrounds them.
These days, I’m thankful for my low maintenance ways even more because of life’s often high maintenance circumstances, because although life is full of simple pleasures, a lot of days it doesn’t feel so simple and the people that we choose to spend our days with need to add more connection and less complication to the flow.
Despite what Jerry McGuire had to say back in 1996, connection, not completion, is what the best relationships are about. Connection isn’t either complicated or simple, it’s just conscious. Consciousness allows us to think of the other person without obsessing, and helps us understand that expecting all of our needs to be met by someone else is bound to create some drama, and robs us of our own freedom. Interdependence over codependence.. Expecting someone else to make us happy or fulfilled, or having them try and fail to create that place for us is not how trust, longevity, and stability is built. Healthy relationships are only available to us when we first have a strong sense of our own worth and the ability to soothe ourselves. From this place, we can build and have fun together, knowing that we always have our own autonomy as the source of our strength. This keeps us from falling into controlling patterns and allowing us, and our partner, to move freely through the world. Love is a choice, when we learn to love ourselves, we give others the choice to love us without strings attached.
With the right person, mundane and calm feel like a gift in this crazy life. But if we have been used to too much chaos in our life, or are trying to numb some unresolved feelings or trauma, calm doesn’t feel right to our system. We have to be able to sit quietly with ourselves and sort out our feelings and thoughts, or we will always look for the big events to sweep those uncomfortable feelings under the mat. Don’t get me wrong, trips and tickets to great events are fun, but the best relationships enjoy the simple things, anywhere, anytime, because simple is never boring together.
The best writing, even fictional, like Liane Moriarty’s, who wrote the book Big Little Lies, which I loved long before it was turned into a TV series (although good for her), is grounded in universal human truth. I’m realizing the reason I don’t watch much TV is because life’s drama is enough for me on most days, so a lot of the time I am just seeking quiet. Today, I aim to be the low maintenance to life’s high maintenance, and although that partnership is working out pretty well, it’s a partnership that I’m not looking to replicate.
P.S. - I’m happy to report that Lauren is doing so much better. Thank you to all of the people who reached out with good vibes and prayers for her. She’s hit the not so miserable stage of mono where she just needs to sleep it off:)
Sh#t happens. It was an explanation given to my youngest son (not by me) when he asked an adult in his life about divorce one time. The words hurt me pretty bad at the time because I didn’t like the ending of a 20 year relationship being summed up that way, it of course sounded insensitive and made our marriage sound so insignificant to me at the time. Healing happens though, and today I would say and maybe there is an ounce of truth to the crass and simplistic statement. What I would add to it though is
“Sh#t happens…but that isn’t the end of the story.”
Sh#t happens for a reason, and it’s up to us if we want to follow the trail and figure out why, or if we want to keep stepping in our mess over and over again. I haven’t met anyone who’s family has been spared some generational trauma, so why do we feel so ashamed, or like no one else will understand and then end up trying to hide behind a facade of perfection? I had to figure this out through divorce, but there are so many areas of life that can teach us if we let our struggles, and overcoming them, make us more self aware.
I was lucky enough to spend last weekend with a group of high school friends who illustrate this point beautifully in thought and action. There isn’t one of us that hasn’t been challenged by the serious issues this world can throw our way. Relationship struggles, addiction, parenting through difficult circumstances, bonus kids, finding the courage to be who we were born to be - whether that has made us struggle with the expectations of others, how we show up and love in this world or being able to free ourselves from the judgment of others enough to find that beautiful space where we can find our own alignment. It’s always good to get together and reminisce because had we known in high school what life was going to bring, it would have scared us to death, and its always good to travel back and remember the more carefree days we were afforded back then. Even the minor rebellion at that age had the advantage of strengthening us and today, we have all done the work, weathered the storms, set the boundaries, and asked the tough questions. Although we are all still works in progress, the conversations are real and offer the support that encourages living the authentic life. When I get on this side of those talks, I am filled up, even when the surrounding circumstances are difficult and I wonder why we as humans fight against ourselves so much when the freedom on the other side is so blissful. My best conversations are with people who will open up…better out than in I always tell my kids. So daily, I pay attention to the reasons that keep me seeking higher levels of self awareness and they give me inspiration to keep doing the work to fight off more sh#t happening, even on the down days. If you need some practical reasons to stop hiding and adopt this transparent lifestyle, where we get to talk about what really irks us, hurts us, and also makes us jump for joy, I have some ideas.
End the shadow talk (i.e. gossip). When we haven’t answered the questions for ourselves about what we are about, where we are headed and what makes us happy, we turn our emptiness on others. We throw shade at anyone we perceive is ahead of us, happier than us, or possesses something we want, and try to take them down a notch with our words. These conversations never lead us to our higher self. We have forgotten that our journey is not a race, and our perception of what others are experiencing in life is oversimplified. It’s rare that we know the whole story and we are better off spending time figuring out our purpose and charting our course than worrying about what anyone else is doing. When we hide behind the image of perfection we are scared to death of anything else being the case. We lose our capacity to be empathic to the situations around us that would benefit from our care, and end up building more superficial and small minded relationships that are stifling and lonely. Learning to show up for other people in a supportive way can teach us a lot about ourselves, and our strengths, and allow us to build off our those but validation of our own path is an inside job. No amount of trying to knock others paths will make your own path straight so build yourself up by working on you instead of trying to bring others down…it never works anyway.
Raise Your Vibration. Have you ever felt the difference in how you respond to the world and how the world responds to you when you are joyful instead of burdened? When our vibration is high, opportunities show up in the form of relationships and experiences that make life a genuinely happy and productive place. When we are living in the shadows of fear, guilt, and shame, we have a lower vibration and cannot access our highest self. We can raise our vibration when we find purpose, things that make us laugh, and spend the time and effort to take care of ourselves through exercise, diet & a mindfulness practice. Vibrations can’t be faked, it’s only through doing the work of self awareness that we can find the free feeling of showing up in the world as ourselves and keep working towards our personal best. Once we get started, the small victories build on themselves and motivate us to move down that path.
The script repeats itself over and over again. Maybe the best reason to figure out why sh#t happens is that if we don’t, patterns continue to repeat themselves. They are part of our subconscious and so much of our activity stems from that place that place below the surface. We have to do the work to move from a fear based thought process to one that embraces optimism and potential. If we are willing to be honest and look at the patterns that have brought us to today and then identify what we want to change, one small change begins the shift. It doesn’t have to be done overnight, but it does have to be done…or guess what, the same sh#t will just happen, over and over again.
Everyday, I challenge myself to wrestle with my old patterns and flip the script. Sometimes the fear still creeps in or the unworthiness surfaces but I recognize it for what it is, send it to the backseat and keep driving. So today, even if sh#t happens, I’m confident that it’s going to be different sh#t and I’m going to learn from that too.
