authenticity Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Adulting: Second- Half

Let Myself Be Happy

I’ve spent some time the last couple of days going through my daily journals. I wanted to get a sense of the sequence of some events that have happened in my life, mostly in my forties. My forties were tumultuous times for me. I think they are a time of tumult for a lot of people. In your twenties, you are still figuring things out, and that fact is expected, and accepted by you, and by the grace of everyone else. In your thirties, you are in go-go-go/do-do-do mode with very little time for real and honest introspection. It is typically in your forties when the cracks start to show, and the internal questions start banging in your head, such as are you happy with the directions your life is going in? Are you living a genuinely authentic life, true to your own intrinsic values?

It was in my forties, that my husband and I started to take things in a different direction for ourselves and for our family which was truer to what we really wanted in life. In truth, we were sort of forced into it. The dramatic moment of becoming “the poster kids for the Great Recession” (against our strong, and stubborn wills at the time) helped facilitate that movement. And what once seemed like the worst thing that ever happened to us, became the best catalyst to project us towards being more real and conscious about our choices for our family and for ourselves. (The Universe knows what it is doing.) When I read over the journals (I only started consciously journaling on a daily basis in 2013, when I was 42), I am grateful to my younger self. I admire her. She had to make some really hard decisions about where to live, and how to live, and who to remove from her life for the health and the protection of herself and her family. I also feel some pangs for her, because she had a hard time letting stuff go. She did the tough stuff, but she lived in too much fear and worry and doubt and even sometimes sadness, on a daily basis. And the interesting thing is, that everything that my forties-self worried about, has long since resolved itself. In fact, some of the events that were jotted in my journal, I don’t even remember happening.

I think that I decided to look up the sequence of events in my life in the past decade because a couple of weekends ago, my husband and I were sitting in a hospital room with an extended family member who is quite ill. Despite having trouble speaking, she wanted to talk. She talked and talked. And we listened. And what she talked about, were the different experiences that had happened throughout her life. It was like a highlight reel of the truly impactful, proud, emotional, interesting events which had happened in her own life. I think this reminded me that I don’t want to wait until I am facing down my own death, to reflect on my life. I want to do spot checks. I want to end on a high note with very few regrets, and so it is important for me to do the course corrections along the way.

In my Twitter feed this morning, Moral Philosophy, asked their readers, “What are some common regrets people have when they get old?” Interestingly, although there were many people answering the question, most of the answers were repetitive. One reader suggested everyone read the book, Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware. Bronnie Ware is an Australian palliative nurse who has spent a lot of time caring for patients in their dying days. This is what Bronnie Ware says are the biggest regrets of the dying, and most of the many answers from Moral Philosophy’s question of today, fell into these categories:

The 5 Greatest Regrets of the Dying are:

I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
I wish I hadn’t worked so hard
I wish I had the courage to express my feelings
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
I wish that I had let myself be happier

“I wish I had let myself be happier.” From going through my journals of the last decade of my life, it was certainly full of happy moments. But many times, I allowed those moments to be clouded with fear, worry, guilt, rumination and righteous anger. When I am 62, I hope to look back at these next ten years of my journals, and I hope to be as proud as I am of my younger self, for her bravery, and for her honesty and for her authenticity, but I also hope that another thing that stands out to me, from these reflections of my future journals written throughout my fifties decade, is the sense of serenity, peace, faith and surrender. My deepest self inherently knows that the Universe knows what it is doing. It is time to shed all of the fearful parts of myself who want to doubt, and who want to try to control the uncontrollable. When I read my journals of the future, I hope only to read the words of my truest, deepest, eternal, peaceful, loving Self.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Sure Do Love

RIP – Loretta Lynn This loss really got to me yesterday, although I think that a peaceful death, in the homestead that you love, after 90 years of exuberantly loving life, is a lovely, gentle, fitting ending to a beautiful life on Earth.

I have never been a huge country music fan, but I always found Loretta Lynn interesting and intriguing. I watched Coalminer’s Daughter more than a few times. I read two of Lorretta Lynn’s books. I even drove my children by Hurricane Mills ranch in Tennessee when I was doing a nine-state road trip with four little kids. (Don’t ask – these are the things that you do when you are young, and energy-filled, and crazily optimistic.) We stopped at a small country diner down the road from her beloved ranch, and we were told that she often made her way down the road to have dinner there. Even as long as we lingered over biscuits and gravy, sadly, Loretta Lynn didn’t show up that evening.

Years ago, I watched Mike Wallace interview Lorretta Lynn on 60 Minutes. At this point, Loretta was already up there in age, (probably in her late 70s or early 80s), and she was as positive, charming and authentic as ever. I remember Mike asked her one of those annoyingly obvious-answer questions, like sportscasters ask quarterbacks after they lose a huge game, “How do you feel about losing this game?” Mike asked Loretta the “duh question” (although I don’t remember what the actual question was that he asked her), and she answered back in her simple country twang with “Well, of course I felt terrible. Wouldn’t you, Mike?” I could tell, it was at this moment in the interview, that Mike Wallace, a longtime, veteran journalist, appeared to be a little shaken by Loretta Lynn’s frankness. He became a little sheepish, but also utterly charmed. Loretta could say things like this with her down-home, no BS, this is the way of life, common sense, and still be utterly kind and gracious. She didn’t come off like a sarcastic harpy. She came off as innocent, pure and real, looking imploringly at him with her gorgeous, full of fun, sparkly blue eyes. And I remember watching Mike falling a little bit in love with her, as I believe the rest of the audience was doing as well. I know that I did.

As I was reading some of the tributes to Lorretta Lynn yesterday, I ended up on her Instagram. On her personal Instagram, Loretta posted many, many pictures of the obvious loves in her life: her late husband, Doolittle, her children, her family and friends, playing music with her country music friends and colleagues, her ranch, her horses. I noticed without fail, she would post the picture and she would write things like this: “This is Mooney. I sure do love this man. I love you, honey,” or “Ernest brought up my horse to the ranch to cheer me up. I sure do love that horse,” or “This is the woman that helped raise my kids. She is like our family. I sure do love . . . .”

Since the news of her death, there is an obvious outpouring of loss and sadness over a real American treasure, Loretta Lynn. She lived the American dream, but she was also honest about the hardscrabble life of the poorest, working class members of society (particularly women), before it was cool to be honest about anything. She never walked away from the truth ever. She lived her life purely, focused on what she loved. She loved her husband, her family, her friends, her music, her ranch, and her faith throughout her entire life. She lived her life honestly, abundantly, authentically, excitedly and gratefully.

What do you “sure do love” in your life? Focus on what you “sure do love” every single day. Because honestly, that is really what life is all about. A little country girl from Butcher Holler, Kentucky, knew this truth, and Loretta Lynn lived this truth probably better than almost anyone in the world. And that is why it hurts so much for us to let her go.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

The Good, Smart, Strong Ones

Like so many others, I was deeply disheartened to hear the news that Naomi Judd, the famous country music singer and other half of The Judds, had taken her own life over the weekend. Naomi took her own life days before The Judds were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Naomi Judd suffered crippling depression and she brought a lot of attention to mental issues and depression and anxiety, by using her fame as a voice to these issues, in the way of writing books and doing interviews on the subject for many years.

Naomi Judd was the mother of Wynonna Judd, her partner in The Judds singing duo, and of Ashley Judd, a movie star, activist (one of the forerunners to bringing Harvey Weinstein to justice), and a person devoted to humanitarian work. Ashley Judd also has a degree from Harvard University.

All three Judd women suffered awful abuse from their childhoods on, but I remember being really interested about the Judds and their lives, when Ashley Judd wrote her memoir All That Is Bitter and Sweet, about a decade ago. With this book, she brought a rarely heard voice of empathy, of kindness, of being understood, of validation, to “strong women”, those women who are “too good”, “too smart”, “too together” to show their pain, their weaknesses, their flaws, or their needs to the world. See this excerpt:

“I needed help,” the 38-year-old actress tells the magazine in its August issue. “I was in so much pain.”

Judd, the daughter of country music star Naomi Judd, says she entered the Shades of Hope Treatment Center in Buffalo Gap in February for “codependence in my relationships; depression, blaming, raging, numbing, denying and minimizing my feelings.”

“But because my addictions were behavioral, not chemical, I wouldn’t have known to seek treatment. At Shades of Hope, my behaviors were treated like addictions. And those behaviors were killing me spiritually, the same as someone who is sitting on a corner with a bottle in a brown paper bag.”

Judd says she was visiting her sister, singer Wynonna Judd, who was being treated for food addictions.

“When (the counselors) approached me about treatment, they said, `No one ever does an intervention on people like you. You look too good; you’re too smart and together. But you (and Wynonna) come from the same family – so you come from the same wound.‘ No one had ever validated my pain before. It was so profound,” she says.

(from an interview Ashley Judd gave to Glamour magazine in 2011)

I don’t mean to alienate my male readers. I see you, too. I see the “good guys” out there who take it all on the chin and keep on going like Energizer bunnies. To all of my strong, good, smart, “have it all together” female and male readers out there, I see you. I understand you. I empathize with you. It’s admirable how you handle your pain, your life, and your hurts. It’s not easy. You may not emote about them, nor act out on them, as much as some others do. But you have them. Your human, living a human life, in vivid, erratic times. Your hurts, your pains, your needs, are every bit as valid and important, as anyone else’s in this world. You don’t have to be steel all of the time. You can cry. You can let it all out. You can let others know that you need to be held, and to be carried sometimes, too. You are lovable as the whole package of you. You aren’t loved just because you are fierce, and capable, and reliable and giving. You may be admired for those traits, but you are wholly loved for all of you – the whole package. Let yourself be vulnerable. Let yourself be authentic. When you do this, you won’t fall apart. In fact, you will never feel stronger in your life, than when you allow yourself to welcome, and to get to know the whole of you (even the parts that you deem to be “negative” or “bad” or “weak” or “flawed”), as you fall into the loving arms of the Universe. You will be caught by the strength of pure Love, that has never, ever let you go in the first place. You are never alone. I hope that today, if you needed to read this, oh strong, amazing, dependable one, that you hear it as if it were a message from God above, and it reverberates all of the way down to the depths of your soul, and it stays there for eternity. Every part of you is loved. You are whole and you are loved. You are amazing, all the way around.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Collenchyma

“Wanting to be liked can get in the way of the truth.” – Delia Ephron

I really liked this quote when I read it. In today’s “cancel culture”, I think that it applies more than ever. I think what I worry the most about all of this cancelling, is that it will stop fruitful conversation. It will stop people from earnestly trying to get to the core of pure truth, with honest and open conversation. The people whom I trust the most in the world, aren’t always my favorite people. The people whom I trust most in this world, don’t hide their truths. They say things exactly as they see it. They live their truths. They don’t apologize for being themselves. There is nothing sneaky, or manipulative or covert about these types of people. You can trust this “what you see is what you get” quality about them. It’s a solid way to be. It’s a brave way to be.

Now my truly favorite people in the world are the people who I described above, who also have a big heaping spoonful of open-mindedness to go along with their honest suredness. Though they feel comfortable and solid with their own point of views on things, they are curious about others’ views. They start “touchy” conversations, not with an intention of stirring the pot, nor to stuff their own opinions down other people’s throats, but with a real desire to learn and to understand where the other person is coming from. They are open enough to test their own “truths”, by exploring other people’s ideas and perspectives. Seeking truth is a lifetime activity for these people. They aren’t afraid to be “wrong” about something. These people are strong, but pliable. The strongest, most hardy plants in the world have many cells called collenchyma. Collenchyma cells are what allows plants to be flexible and strong, all at the same time, in order to withstand winds and storms. I wonder if my most favorite people in the word, have their own secret store of collenchyma cells, helping them to be strong, rooted, open and pliable, all at the same time.

What worries me most about our current “cancel culture”, is that it will make people “too careful”, and too “under the cuff”. I think that we may end up losing a lot of authenticity and variety in our society, if we make people too afraid to be themselves. We will lose real understanding and progression, because we won’t know exactly what we are really dealing with at the base of anyone, anymore. What anyone thinks about anything will be kept under a cloak of secrecy, in order to be accepted and liked. Crimes and meanness need to have big consequences, of course, but lesser crimes and misunderstandings sometimes just need a gentle nudge in a different direction. These nudges won’t happen if everyone is operating under invisible cloaks. Cloaks need to be opened in order to let the light of wisdom and understanding stream into anyone’s consciousness.

I’d much rather have a wide variety of choice in my own one precious life, as to what to read, what to watch, where to go and what to experience, what to wear, what to hear, what to buy, than to have all of these choices whittled down to some “acceptable”, bland sameness. I trust my own choices. I don’t want my choices to be made for me. I don’t want your choices to be made for you. I want to know YOU, not the surfacey mask and cloak that you wear. I want to grow and learn from YOU, not what has been programmed into you, at any particular stage of your life by polite society. Most importantly, I don’t want to lose ME. I think any individual life’s purpose is to fully explore that deep core beingness, of our own selves. Cloaks off. We are strong enough to handle discernment, tolerance, vulnerability, variety and authenticity. We are strong enough to handle Truth. Maybe the Truth is that we are all just really made of the same stuff – Love. Let’s try to look through the lens of that Love in all of our interactions. Love can’t be destroyed. Love can’t be cancelled.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Selfish

“When they say, “Be yourself,” which self do they mean? Certainly not the self that wants to win every game and use up every resource and think of nobody’s needs except your own.

So when they say, “Be yourself,” which self are they referring to? Here’s what I think: It’s the self that says “Thank you!” to the wild irises and the windy rain and the people who grow your food. It’s the creator who’s working to make the whole universe your home and sanctuary. It’s the lover who longs to express your love of life everywhere you go.” – Rob Brezsny

I love that quote by Rob Brezsny. I guess that when we say “Be yourself”, to ourselves and to others, what we are really meaning is, “Be your Highest Self.” (and I am not referring to any substance use here 😉 ) When Rob talks about someone who “think(s) of nobody’s needs except your own,” it’s so easy to curl up our lips in disgust and think, “selfish, selfish, selfish”, because we are thinking about this in the context of sharing food, and resources, and medicine, and volunteer time, etc. But there are other tricky times when we think that we are being loving and altruistic, when really, what we are more focused on, is our own needs and comforts, and we put that heavy burden on to others. I am talking about emotional selfishness.

I think that most of us would say that our biggest treasures in life are our families and our friends. We can’t bear the idea of losing those whom we love. We want nothing more than their happiness and their peace of mind. Most of us, by middle age, have suffered losses of people whom we love dearly, and we become extremely fearful of having to go through that depressing, painful experience again. So sadly, sometimes we project those fears of loss on to the people whom we love the most, in the guise of needing them to be happy and content and healthy, all of the time, for our own comfort and relief and security. Now these people love us deeply, too, so they want us to be happy and comfortable and fearless, so they feel the need to protect us from our own fears. And so these people pretend that they are always happy and content and fearless, so that we won’t worry about them. You can see what a vicious, ugly cycle this becomes. And when we aren’t being real and authentic with each other, the relationship becomes distant and false. We become isolated from each other, in the very relationships that mean the most to us. In a sense, we lose the real relationship, even with people who are still alive and with us. Our fears become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Worry does not equal love. Putting on a false front does not equal intimacy. It’s okay, not to be okay, all of the time. Unconditional love recognizes that fact. Unconditional love can hold space for anything – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Do you think that our Creator worries about us? Do you think that our Creator needs any of us to be anything different than what we are, right in this moment? I don’t. I believe that we are loved by our Creator in whatever mood we are in. I believe that we are loved by our Creator no matter what we have done, how we have felt, and what we will do and feel, forevermore. Our Creator doesn’t worry about us. Our Creator doesn’t need us to be anything other that what we are right in this moment. Soak that in. Our Creator holds space for us, always. Our Creator is within us. Our Creator is our Highest Self. We have the capability within us, to hold space, and to unconditionally love ourselves and all others. And when we are in that state of pure and unconditional love, we are fearless. Love is fearless. We are loved. We are Love.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

You Be You

“Not altering others’ perception of me was one of the best decisions I had ever made. Be at peace knowing everyone has a different version of you in their heads.” – Inner Practioner (Twitter)

“You’ll always be ‘young’ in someone’s eyes and ‘old’ in someone else’s eyes, ‘talented’ to a friend and ‘terrible’ to another. The world is never gonna agree on a definition of what you are, so you might as well ignore that sh*t and be whatever you wanna be for yourself.”- Think Smarter (Twitter)

I remember a time years ago, a close friend of mine said to me, “You are just like me. We need to have people around us, all of the time.”

And I remember thinking that nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, a lot of the times, I am on an on-going quest to try to find even more time, to be just by myself. But I didn’t say anything. She needed to see me a certain way, and I knew that nothing that I said, was going to change her mind. Maybe she was on to something that I didn’t perceive in myself?

My youngest son called me late last night to tell me details about a test he had just taken, and about other things going on in his life. He likes having me as a sounding board and as a champion. Out of my three sons, he is the one who calls me, out of the blue, most often. My middle son seems to find the question, “How was your day?” to be bordering on intrusive. I have four children, and I am four different “mamas”. I am the same being, yet how I am perceived by each of them, and how I interact with each of them, is completely different.

This is not to say that I am a “chameleon.” I don’t like to be calculating and manipulative. I am too old and I have worked too hard on learning about myself, to settle for fake relationships. My circle is small, but it is authentic. I like to think that I’m genuinely the same person, no matter what I am doing, or where I am going, or who I am with (with different levels of intimacy, of course). However, it is easy to forget, that the people in our lives, bring their whole life’s experiences to the table, wherever we meet. And all of those experiences often get projected on to us. And we subconsciously are doing the same thing to the other people, who we interact with, in our lives. We like to believe that we don’t have preconceived notions and preferences about other people and things, but be honest with yourself about what comes to mind when I say “Irish” or “pitbull” or “lawyer” or “football player” or “shy person.” Whatever came to your mind when you looked at those words, all came from your own conditioning from the people, and the teachings, and the experiences in your own life. Also, whatever came to your mind when you read any of those words, is likely all together different than what came to my mind, or to any of my other readers’ minds. And who’s right?? As they taught us in Marketing 101 in college, “Perception is reality.”

I think what is so freeing about turning fifty, is the earnest letting go of the illusion of control. By fifty, you finally start to understand how fruitless it is to try to control anything outside of yourself. This lesson starts to get understood, usually because you have quite a few failed experiments under your belt, in trying to control everything under the sun (including other people’s perceptions of you). At the same time, understanding that you are now in the second half of your own precious life, you certainly will not allow anybody, nor anything to control you, either. Freedom is the state of being in which you stop trying to control, and yet you also do not allow yourself to be controlled. This is a daunting, but exciting experience. Shackles off!! Freedom feels freeing, doesn’t it?

I once read a book, that unfortunately, I cannot remember the title. (story of my life – I apologize) In the book, the main character was a complete mess, as mother and as a wife. She was not cut out for the homemaker role, at all, which was tough, since the book took place in a conservative Southern town, during the 1950s. However, the same traits that made this character a difficult family woman, also made her a deliciously wild and fun friend. Her friends adored her! And the book was mostly about the daughter coming to terms with that fact. The now grown daughter was learning to see her mother, in a different light, through the eyes of her mother’s loyal and adoring friends.

I like the idea that I am still considered to be “young” by some. I can live with someone perceiving me as “weird.” That seems to be a compliment these days. Some of our best cities in this country, use the slogan, ‘Keep (insert name of whatever amazing, quirky city) weird.’ It would be interesting to hear all of the labels people have for me. Or not. Maybe labels are a waste of time. They certainly are limiting. Once you put a label on something, and you attach all of the conditions that you have for that particular label, you start to lose the essence of the special and unique experience. Are all birds the same? Of course not. Are all cardinals the same? They have a lot of similarities, but those of us pet lovers know, that never have our dogs nor our cats (even of the same breed) ever been entirely the same. I imagine that it is the same for cardinals.

This is a very long post that could just as easily be summed up with “You be you.” What other people think of you, is none of your business. It’s meaningless. “You” is an ever evolving concept anyway, isn’t it? I will tell you that I love “the loyal reader” version of you. In my eyes, you are amazing!

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

It Just Blooms

On my to-do list for today, is to get a birthday card in the mail for my cousin’s little girl who is soon to turn two. Imagine being two these days. Everything is so completely different than when I was two, or even when my children were two years old. Technology is moving at such a rapid rate. It’s only in the last twenty years that inventions like smartphones, Google, Facebook, electric cars and Bluetooth have become part of mainstream society. Who knows what’s next? I have never had a scientific type of mind, but I am eager to see what is coming up for all of us, around the corner, most likely in rapid succession.

It’s when I consider all of these rapid changes in the world, that I get really annoyed at myself, and at others, when we start saying disparaging things about younger generations. Who are we to judge? Who are we to say what we would have been like, if the internet, Facebook, Instagram and digital cameras were part of our growing up experience? When you start comparing generations, you are never doing an apples to apples comparison. A truly scientific experiment would require that all of the outside variables be exactly the same, and that’s not possible with human beings, not even for identical twins in the same family.

Why do we humans have such a need to make comparisons? If we are honest with ourselves, it is either to make up for insecurities in ourselves (feeling better than), or to validate our own poor opinions of ourselves (feeling less than). Neither comparison does anything productive for us, or for anybody else. Comparison is only helpful when it is inspiring and inclusive. That kind of positive comparison is just an act of witnessing and discerning whether you say, “Gee, I want some of that. How do I get something like that for myself?” or “Wow, that’s interesting. It’s not for me, but variety is the spice of life.”

There is such an emphasis today on “likes” and “claps” and “followers”, but in our frenzy for approval, do we ever really stop and ask ourselves why? Is something only good for us, and interesting to us, and exciting for us, if other people say that it is? How much time are we spending talking to others about our lives, posting “stuff” about our lives, always justifying our opinions about things, versus actually just living our lives? If we are making a living from our “likes”, “claps” and “followers” then it follows that the court of public opinion, should sway our choices, I suppose. But then that just turns our own life into a commodity, being shaped by forces that aren’t really authentic to our truest selves. When we are so focused on the “likes”, “claps” and “followers” of any life decision that we make, we are no longer living our true life, but more of an empty image, that changes with the wind. And also, when the people who are making their own lives/selves, their “product”, and are then, exposed to be something different than what they are portraying, everyone feels disappointed and deceived. We see this happen time and time again.

When someone I love asks me to help them with a dilemma they are experiencing, I offer my opinion (sometimes too quickly and boisterously and annoyingly – I own this about myself. Thank you for still loving me, my peeps) but I also like to remind the person that if they put their question “out there”, they are likely to get half the world agreeing with their actions, and half the world disagreeing with their actions. Even if a majority vote leans one way or another, what does that really matter? The only thing that really matters when making a decision about your life, is what deeply resonates with yourself, at your very core. If you put the focus back on what resonates with yourself, versus what generates a bunch of “approval”, you will experience your deepest, most sacred connection to your own self and your own life. Authenticity never requires approval. It just is.

9 Quotes to Help You Stop Comparing Yourself to Others | Comparison quotes, Powerful quotes, Challenge yourself quotes

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday Funday

I love nerds. I’m pretty sure that I am a nerd. I think that we nerds are just oblivious nonconformists. People think that intentional nonconformists don’t care about what people think, but that is not true. Intentional nonconformists are rebels with a cause. These instigating people are often looking to get a lot of attention, and a rise out of people. Often the rebels care about what people think, every bit as much as the strict, careful conformists do. Oblivious nonconformists are just their authentic selves. My eldest son once dated a very confident young lady (I think that she was a physics major), who would sometimes wear a t-shirt that said “NERD” in lovely, fancy lettering. I loved her for that . . . . Nerds rule. We all have a little wee bit of “nerd” in us. Find it and embrace it. You’ll have more fun. Hint: your nerdiness can usually be found in activities that you enjoy so much, that you would do it to the point of abandon, if you allowed yourself to be free. Whatever activity which you like to do, so much, whether it be reading, or dancing, or painting, or singing, or wood carving, or fish keeping, or collecting cow figurines, that you might forget to eat, or to sleep, or forget where you even are, in the midst of doing said activity. When you leave judgment out of the equation (who cares if you are “good” at your favorite activity or not – in other words, who cares what anybody thinks??) and you do whatever activity speaks to the most joyful part of yourself, and you do it to pure abandon, you are experiencing your inner nerdiness and geekdom. Doesn’t it feel great?? Again, nerds rule.

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

The Raw Real

Every morning before I write my blog, I pray. I know that I have daily readers. I have heard through the grapevine, that my blog gives my readers inspiration. In my earliest days of blogging, when I only had a sprinkling of readers, I would question, out loud, what my motivation was to write on a public forum like this. At that time, my husband said that there were a lot of ministers out there with smaller congregations than the amount of daily readers I had. He asked me if a minister would give up on their small, faithful congregation. That statement struck me and stuck with me. Now, I get that I am no minister. I am not nearly qualified enough, nor learned enough, nor pure enough to be a preacher. Truthfully, I’ve never felt called to be in the ministry. I’m not particularly religious. I have a very broad spectrum view of God, and yet I do have a deep, abiding faith in my big, broad God. I have a deeply personal relationship with my faith and a very individualized spirituality that works well for the both of us, me and the Universe. Our relationship is securely intact.

What am I getting at here? Sometimes through this whole coronavirus thing, I want to be a constant source of inspiration. I want to be a positive, powerful, uplifting inspiration to my family, to my friends and to my readers. I want to find just the right words that are going to make everything alright. I want to find the perfect meme that turns this all into one big ridiculous joke that we can all laugh at, and then go on our merry ways, like this pandemic is just one big, giant, aggravating disappointment. But right now, many, many tears are flowing down my face. I’m sad. I’m scared. I’m angry. I’m frustrated. I’m tired. Yesterday, I was just overwhelmed with it all. Yesterday, I walked 6.5 miles, to the point, where even Ralphie, our Labrador retriever, who’s usually in the lead and pulling my arm out of its socket, was being dragged along, behind me, looking completely exasperated and utterly bewildered, tethered to a fast moving, mad woman. I didn’t walk in the many pretty green spaces which we have all around us here. Most of our parks are now closed, but I wouldn’t have gone to a park, or even a leafy neighborhood, anyway. I purposely walked beside one of our uglier, busier highways – a place which I would typically avoid at all costs, especially in spring time, which is when we have our peak level of visitors, here in Florida. I walked along the unsightly, hot, smelly highway for the sheer relief of seeing some cars. I walked there to remind myself that there was still a faint stream of life, flowing through our community. Our town still has a pulse – a weak one, but it is still alive. Where there’s life, there is hope.

Today, I choose to be painfully honest with you all, as to where my mental space is right now. I’m not feeling particularly inspirational, nor cheerful. Everything that is supposed to be funny, just pisses me off. I’m letting the feelings flow, because I know that they will pass. If I bottle the negative feelings up, and pretend that they don’t exist, they will stay inside of me and fester. The festering feelings will turn into rot and I don’t need rot competing with my healthy body and immune system. I can’t let rot sit in my body, allowing my body to become vulnerable to this terrible, insidious virus.

I want to be an inspiration to myself and to you, my readers/friends. But more so, I have always promised to be painfully honest and vulnerable, in my sharing with you. I have sworn to myself that in this second half of my adulting, I would be, if nothing else, as authentic as I can possibly be, in all areas and relationships, in my life.

As I finish up writing this blog post, I feel better already. The release of my feelings, in the most honest of ways, has been very intense, yet very freeing. My load has been lightened. I don’t want to pass that ugly, heavy load on to you. I question whether I should just keep this post in the private archives, and to look for some more inspirational stories or funny memes to share instead, but I don’t think that is the right answer. I hope that by me, hashing up my internal turbulence and spitting it all out, that it gives you permission to do the same with your feelings. Get it all out. However you have to do it, as long as it is not harmful to you or to others, get it all out. Write it out, yell it out, stomp it out, run it out, scream it out, cry it out. Whatever you need to do, to safely release your private storm, it is okay. What we are dealing with here, is a lot. It is A LOT. It will pass. Good changes will come out of it. We’ll be okay and maybe even better for it, but for now, this coronavirus is a lot to deal with. It’s okay to admit that to yourself, and to your loved ones, and to God. God can take it. Just like when we were little kids having horrific temper tantrums and caught in the swirl of all of our emotion, those elders, those loving ones, in charge of our care, even if they were giving us ample physical space, were still surrounding us with love. The Love never stops. God loves us through all of this and understands that sometimes we are going to be on the floor, kicking and screaming, and crying and pounding our fists. Still, the Love never stops. It will sustain us.

This situation is overwhelming. It is scary. It has taken so much from us already and it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Give yourself permission to feel the disappointment, the fear, the fury. Give yourself permission to question angrily “the whos and the whats, the whys, wheres and hows.” And then, when the tantrum is over, settle into some quiet. Catch your breath and if little else, blanket yourself in the warm, secure knowing that the Love never stops loving you. Love never, ever stops.