Don't Let Anyone Rain on Your Parade

We have all had people in our lives that feel it is their duty to express their opinions about things that are none of their business. The worst offenders are the ones who "know us" and are emboldened with their "right" to express what they think is wrong about us, why something won't work or how things can't change for the better. Do you know what they say about people like this that have opinions? They say "opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one".

Sorry for the crude vocabulary but to be honest, I think the words are well placed. People that do not have your back should never be allowed into your life. Life is hard enough. We are always learning and presented with opportunities to be our best each day. Why allow someone to rain on your parade and sap your energy? The only reason we would allow this is because we believe that's all we are worth. That is simply not true. Stand up for yourself by first embracing and accepting who you are, with all of our imperfections. This is a beautifully empowering place to be.

The friends and confidants I choose to associate with today may tell me about the potential for rain on my parade, but they do not intentionally bring it. These people challenge me to be better because they are already challenging themselves to be better. They can call me out when I need it and in turn are willing to be called out themselves. They are there with help when I ask for it but don't stew in an imaginary story when I don't include them. They are a fresh set of ears and a different and valuable point of view.

This is life in 180.

The Truth About Truth

Is truth always black and white? Yes, I believe it is. Let me clarify the context in which I ask this question and oh, by the way, I am asking the question of myself: “Am I telling you the truth about how I feel?”

Communicating my truth, being authentic with how I feel, what I want, don’t want and how I see things has been a very difficult thing for me to learn to do. It’s embarrassing to say because that just makes me sound like a liar. I guess I am. I could make all kinds of excuses for why and what the other factors were in all of these instances but I don’t care to. I want to focus on telling you why the truth has been so difficult for me to express, how it’s made my life more complicated and what I have learned in the process.

I’ll get right to it. I lied because I was afraid of being rejected. If I revealed what I really felt or really wanted I would be acknowledging who I was and risked not being accepted. I didn’t understand my value because for so much of my life, I was untangling a mess that had been created by childhood abuse. I lied because I did not love myself and at my core felt ashamed of who I was. Why then, would anyone else accept who I was.

For much of my life, I side stepped my story unaware of how much the abuse affected me mentally. I didn’t try to side step by avoiding the story. It did the opposite. When I was ready, I dug and dug into my past. I spent thousands of hrs. dissecting my experiences through therapy, just to understand what the fuck happened. It’s not an easy subject or the best happy hour conversation but, the time spent in discovery was necessary and important. I honor that space. I learned what loving myself meant and experienced a ton of healing. It really is a wonderful story about the power of love. It’s worthy of discussion but again, that is not my focus right now.

I said that I lied because I feared rejection. I now understand that the fear of rejection is rooted in lost love. Lost love for myself. Fear disconnected me from myself. From loving myself. It is the middle man, the guard between my true self and my story. When I allow the fear of rejection to stop me from expressing my authenticity, I lie. This lying digs a deeper hole and the awareness of love lost increases. How could I love and trust someone who keeps lying to me? I couldn’t. It’s no different when the person I’m lying to is myself.

Have you ever heard a famous person talk about how they still get a bit nervous in the first few moments of stepping on stage, even though they have done it a million times before? It’s the same with telling the truth. There is always a little edge to it. Saying what I feel requires being alive and being in front of a live audience. I hope this makes sense to you. I bring it up because I am learning that truth is an action. It’s not a feeling. It requires practice and exercise. You never get it “perfect. It’s not meant to be perfect. It’s truth. It is what it is. This takes all the mystery out of it for me. I understand this. So I want to feel but the feeling I want is that edge. The butterflies that come with stepping out and being real. If I feel them. If it’s a little vulnerable, I know I am speaking my truth. If I stop exercising my truth, it loses its power and the butterflies disappear. I will never stop.

When you are authentic and speaking your truth, you should not need a person to validate it as being right or wrong. Good or bad. It is yours. You just need to tell it like it is. It’s nice when I feel a person has “heard” me and asks questions to further understand what I have said. This is what a healthy relationship is about. Dialogue is a back and forth exchange of views or feelings, freely expressed with the intent to understand, not judge the other.

You can disagree with another person’s point of view and still respect their feelings. You can decide, based on truth to part ways in a relationship, job or church without judging or disrespecting the other party. Truth is the invitation to understand and explore another point of view. I’m really preaching to myself right now and dangerously close to pegging the bullshit meter because this is an incredibly hard thing for me to practice. I screw up all the time. Especially in relationships where I have “experienced” and “heard” others “truth” in the past and therefore already “know” what they are thinking. I really don’t know yet, I act as judge and jury. I don’t like when it’s done to me and I don’t like that I do it but, sometimes I do. There may be merit to why I do what I do, but that’s not the point. It’s not right. I will keep practicing to respectfully disagree or simply listen and say nothing. After that I can walk away or shut down my email. That’s my truth in action.

So, where does the practice of telling the truth begin? It starts by being honest with yourself. Acknowledge your past. It is what it is. Whether your past holds great memories or great pain, you can do nothing to change it. It is in the past. Then, learn to embrace and accept your present. That’s where you are right now. Wishing or wanting does nothing but hold you back. You can be OK with yourself without settling or giving up. There are thousands of stories of people finding success after everything else failed because at rock bottom, they chose to embrace their moment. This is a powerful space, not the end of the road.

Give yourself some love. Lots of it. Speak your truth. As you practice, you empower your future. You set intention. You build a life that’s perfect for you. A life filled with beautiful imperfections that are rooted in truth and love. A life filled with people that give and receive from that same space. This is Love working through you. This is what I wish for you. You are enough. You got this. This is Lifein180.

Peace

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Divorcing Toxicity: What I Have Learned About My Lifein180.

In September of 2018, after seven years in my 3rd marriage, I left my home and filed for a divorce. Our marriage was toxic. At the time of separation, there was no ability to dialogue. No listening. Even therapy became one sided finger pointing sessions without a resolution in sight. It was all emotionally charged and every piece of baggage we had was in play. I knew the process would be difficult for my two young boys but protecting them from the shrapnel was growing impossible. I made my decision.

Just a few weeks later, on October 1st, I signed a lease on a new house for myself and my two boys that I share custody of. I began the process of building a life the way I envisioned it for myself and my boys. Free of drama. I would use the time previously spent on fighting with their mom to engage with my boys on a much deeper level and create a healthier me.

I never would have imagined how excruciating the next year and a half would be and how many lessons I would have to process in order to get to where I am today. Most of my lessons were centered around the same theme. You would think this would make it easier to get a grasp on what it was all about but, it did just the opposite. It brought me to my knees, stripped me of what I thought I knew and slammed me down to rock bottom. There was nobody but myself to be with. Nobody else in the mirror. Just me, with all of my new responsibilities piled on top of my old habits and excuses. It was an opportunity, more than I realized, to learn something life changing.

I am far from perfect. In fact, some days I feel so imperfect that I don’t recognize myself. I am often unhappy with my “performance” because I act in a way that is opposite to what my goal is. This has been frustrating for me because I know what I know about myself. I have been passionate and honest in my search for the truth all of my life. I have always been “working” on myself. I have experienced my own emotional and spiritual evolution but still get confused. Forgetting where I have come from, I get the feeling that something is not right about me. Like something is still missing. That I have missed the mark and will never be enough.

Thankfully, I am beginning to understand what this has all been about for me. It’s not about missing my X-Spouse(s), houses, money or not accomplishing some task I set out to do. Deep down, I was not truly worried for my kids because I knew what I was leaving was broken and what I could build would be much better. Don’t get me wrong, I often wish I had a re-do button. I spend countless hours and days caught up in the past even though I understand it is the past and I can do nothing to change it.

I was forced to do something completely different than I had been doing. I had been going in circles, doing the same things and expecting different results. Going in circles is easy and habit forming. A circle is 360. It’s safe, requires little thinking and no pressure to move out of my comfort zone into vulnerability. It repeats itself over and over. I realized I had the opportunity to do something different. A 180. This would be completely different. Something new and empowering.

A 360 life beats the hell out of my back again and again. Like a task master with a stick, it reminds me of my failures and encourages me to keep hidden “who I really am” because I fear I will be rejected. I realized this is bullshit. I was running in circles. It could never be different if I continued. Instead, I began to think, what if I can do this? What if I could be happy, give the kind of love I wanted to get and be honest about who I am at the same time? What if each thought were not exclusive and could co-exist?

This past year and a half brought amazing blessings. It also brought excruciatingly painful lessons. I have a hard head and a lot of baggage. I’m embarrassed to say that I still drag a lot of it around. At times, it has been difficult to keep it together. I kept resisting and didn’t realize that Life was extending Its hand to me. I resisted lessons that required vulnerability and opening up to others. I would not step out because I wasn’t sure where my foot would land.

I started to understand and realize now more than ever, that Life is a loving teacher, a Force that It is for me and not against me. This realization has been a major shift in my life. My 180. I am beginning to embrace imperfection as a blessing. I can shout out and exploit my lessons learned to the world and offer understanding and support to others. Sometimes, just knowing we are not alone in our struggle is enough to carry us through. I can shine my light brightly on the truth and declare from my own experience, that my imperfections are beautiful. They add spice and color to my life. They allow me to appreciate, rather than push away my story. Worrying about what others may think has never worked out well for me. If I start with myself and accept and love who I am, this will reflect back to the people I choose to be around. In turn, they can choose if they want to be around me.

This all starts by acknowledging who you are, accepting and embracing where you are on your journey towards your true self. This is love. This is self-love. By acknowledging who we are (our past), we allow the light of day to shine on any areas that were hidden by the night. This is never forced on us. It is nothing to be afraid of. It creates more space and clears out the cob-webs from our past. Accepting and embracing where you are, is about the present. It’s not about settling. It’s about being OK with yourself as you are, right now. This requires empathy, love and patience with yourself. I am learning that Life, (God, Buddha, Elijah) whatever you choose to call Him or Her, is always for you and never against you. It’s not about things happening for a reason and what we must learn. At our core, it is impossible to separate ourselves from Life. When you attempt to separate by not accepting who you are, you hide from and reject yourself. This rejection creates a disconnect between yourself and Life. Because you cannot truly separate the two, this rejection is the ultimate denial of love. As we grow and allow Love into our lives, we are able to give and receive in ways that are deeper and more satisfying than we ever imagined. We become greater than we could ever wish to be because we are greater than we could ever understand on our own. You got this! You are enough and you are never alone! Acknowledge, Accept and Embrace all of who you are on your journey towards becoming who you want to be. This is Lifein180. Peace.

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