Today, I had so much fun. I laughed, I giggled, I listened to good music, I spent time being silly with family….
Tap the play button to listen to today’s podcast. Tap & hold first if necessary, then tap play.FYI I cuss so wait ’til the kids and elders aren’t around. Press play to listen to today’s podcast. Blessings!
Today, I intentionally enjoyed myself.
On today’s podcast I talk about being free and choosing to enjoy ourselves. I had so much fun on this recording. I can’t imagine you listening and not enjoying yourself, too.
Check it out and have a great rest of your day…. on purpose. It really is a choice.
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So today, like literally minutes ago, I sat down to process how I was feeling. This is my actual journal entry. A convo between me and my higher self…. that inner knowing that we all have, but few of us tap into.
Here it goes…
“Based on the world/society’s standard, I don’t feel successful.
Based on the world/society’s standard, I don’t feel like a good parent/mom.
I feel inadequate, slow, behind, not good enough, like I’m failing my daughter, like I’m failing at life… And I have a constant reminder in my home to ensure I never let that go. Why is this my life?
Because you need to teach the people it’s not about out there. It’s not about what they think. It’s about what you think. And the sooner you begin to practice letting that go and remembering, “That’s their standard, not mine,” the sooner you’ll begin to feel successful.
You don’t feel successful by THEIR standards, but if you look at yourself by YOUR standards, you’re doing VERY well.
Take the time and sit with it. What is your standard? What makes a good person? a good parent? a decent human? someone worthy of living a life of abundance? Does it match society’s standard? No. You already know the answer. But the thing is, you don’t have to match society’s standard to be successful. You have to shift in your mind what the standard of success is, from theirs to yours. And until you do that, and consistently remind yourself of that shift, you will continue to feel unsuccessful.”
So, I’m not even gonna edit it. I’m just gonna leave it there. I hope that it’s helpful for you. I need to sit with what my beliefs are about the stuff I beat myself up about. And I need to separate society’s (my family’s, school mates, adults I grew up around) standards from my own and make MY standard the only standard that matters to me. It will take work, but it’s worth it. I’m tired of feeling like I’m failing at life no matter how much I do and accomplish. Just the inner work alone should matter more than it does.
So I’m gonna leave you with this. You can do your own inner work. Sit with a journal or your notes app, or just walk in the woods and talk to the trees. Whose standards are you judging yourself by? Are their standards the same as yours? For example, some people think that you are a better person if you have more than others. Is that your standard? Some feel that you’re successful based on what you can by, not on who you are. Is that your standard, or society’s? Take the time to think about what you value in people. Look at the people you admire. What qualities in them cause you to see them as valuable, inspiring, good, successful…? What do you like about them? Can you make that concept more general? (For example, if you like a baseball player because they’re an amazing pitcher, maybe what you truly like is that they have mastered the skills to excel at what they do. So mastery of skills is what you value, not just great pitching. Get it?)
So do this for yourself. Maybe make a side by side chart of society’s values versus your values. And keep the list of your values somewhere that you can see it every day. This way, when your mind tries to tell you that you’re not winning at life, you can refer to your list and realize that you’re doing better than you thought. This is what I’m going to do today because I need to shift how I see myself. And maybe you do, too.
If you’d like to check out more of my blog posts or podcast episodes, tap the button below and just keep reading, listening, and scrolling. Oh, and subscribe while you’re there so you know when I post a new one.
We lie to ourselves about people we care about, when we don’t want to believe the deeper messages behind their behavior.
Tap the play button to listen to today’s podcast. Tap & hold first if necessary, then tap play.FYI I cuss so wait ’til the kids and elders aren’t around. Press play to listen to today’s podcast. Blessings!
We’ll say, “Oh, he’s just kidding. He doesn’t really mean that,” even though the comment was a bit sexist. Or we’ll ignore the unnecessary details about a character’s race in our friend’s story, because we don’t want to believe that they could possibly be racist. We may ignore red flags in our new love interest’s stories, because we want to believe that how they were with others means nothing. Of course, with us it will be different.
What I realized today is that far too often we ignore what we see. Or better yet, I realize that I far too often ignore what I notice because I want to believe the best about a person. And maybe you do it, too.
On today’s podcast episode I talk about this in regard to some sensitive topics. I express my opinions about some things that can be polarizing, and I get real vulnerable about some things that I’m not proud of. But at this point in my life, I’d rather be honest and address the “elephant in the room.” Trying to go around my truths just makes it harder to tell the story and it’s not worth it to me. I want you to get the point, so sometimes I end up telling more than I planned. (Oh well.) 😂
So anyway, if any of this resonated (or you’re just nosy), please press play above. 🤣
I woke from a dream a little while ago and this question was on my mind…
“What would it be like to live life without shame?”
As I often do when I’m unsure how to tackle a subject, I decided to respond through poetry.
It helps me trim out the fluff… the excess… to write in a structured format like 5-7-5. Mimicking haiku, forcing my thoughts to show in lines of five syllables, followed by seven syllables, then five again works for me to get my thoughts out succinctly and intentionally. So I choose it again today. Here are the results…
To be free from shame? To not question if I’m “good” Good wife? Good mom? Wow!
A whole new life. FREE. No check-ins? Just me living? No comparison?
To enjoy my life. Or simply live it my way Without questioning…
“Was that good enough?” Would she think so? Or would he? To just live my way?
To do life my way Without constantly checking If they would be pleased
I don’t know this life But I am now so eager To know this freedom.
So grateful I chose to work through this. I’ve yet to experience life in this beautiful and blissfully free way. I look forward to it starting now.
I used to believe shame was necessary in order to live a “good” life. I was raised to believe shame is what keeps us in line and ensures we live as “good citizens” and other BS like that. But I now realize that I don’t have to constantly compare my life and behavior to what everyone else is doing to know right from wrong… or better yet, right for me versus wrong for me. I have an internal something… a knowing… that lets me know if I am on target with what makes sense, feels good, is “appropriate” for my life.
I’m going to use my internal knowing more. And use shame less… until I eliminate it altogether. And the great thing about that is the more I do that for myself, the more I will be an example of this freedom to those around me, including my child.
I am so grateful that I didn’t blow this off. You know, we receive these opportunities to process through our thoughts, to sit with an idea and see how we feel about it. And it’s so easy to ignore that urge and just go on with life. I am so grateful, this time, I got up, grabbed my journal and pen, and decided to work through it.
And I’m so grateful that I decided to share it with you. I hope this is helpful for you.
UPDATE: So I’ve been unpacking this idea and it led to me recording a full podcast episode to go with this poem and post. So please check it out to get the full story behind this blog post.
Listen below. FYI I cuss so wait ’til the kids and elders aren’t around.
Tap the play button to listen to today’s podcast. Tap & hold first if necessary, then tap play.
If you’d like to check out more of my blog posts or podcast episodes, tap the button below and just keep reading, listening, and scrolling. Oh, and subscribe while you’re there so you know when I post a new one.
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